For someone wanting to lose weight I have started the year off all wrong. I was doing pretty good yesterday when my daughter in law brought over pasta and then later i had a hamburger. Today, coming home from Walmart my wife remarked she had not had a donut all this holiday season. We stopped and she bought a dozen and we carried them over to my son's place where he has two hungary teenagers. So with the crew gathered around, I did eat one chocolate covered cake donut. I suppose I have sinned mightily but I will try to make up for it in the coming days. I plan to do it this way. Eat a good breakfast, a ham sandwich or a ham and cheese, for lunch, then fruit for dinner. I may even fast one evening. Anyway i'm sure I can get back on track in short order and thinking solely about losing weight and writing. God luck to all of you who decide to lose a few pounds. I will say this, since I have lost the forty some odd pounds my nurse practitioner has reduced my diabetes medication by one third and had my blood pressure has gone down so that I'm no longer taking medication for blood pressure. All due to losing weight. Cheers.
Yes, losing weight does wonders for diabetes and blood pressure. Slow weight loss is also the best, otherwise you will gain it back.
@Bill Boggs , you are a wily devil. You have already done the hard work, and have just tricked us into admitting we are too tubby. Shame on you. No friend, it is truly great to hear that you are doing better. After growing up around diabetes I know how hard you must have worked to get to where you are. And, on top of that, lowering your BP has to make you proud of yourself. I bet the wife had something to do with it as well. Now do I get hear more of your stories?
On that first part, I'm sure I was out of town when it happened so must have been some other devil. On that second part, I'm thinking on it.
I'm still losing a little weight. I have been eating low fat stuff and on several evenings had only fruit for the evening meal. However, this morning I'm going to eat a sausage busicuit because that's easier for my wife to fix. I know they contain a lot of fat calories but I'll just have to compensate somewhere else. I will weigh-in here Saturday morning. Ina, my doctor used to asked me if I ever forgot to eat with my COPD but with me that's just not possible or has never happened; I'm a hungry puppy.
I have gotten quite an education about this topic from an abundance of reading, actually losing weight, and getting healthier in general over the past two years. There are some things that have become important for me to remember. First, it's often not wise to go extreme. If you do some kind of odd diet that removes all of a certain thing from a diet, the weight *is* going to come back when you start eating normally again. Second is that although I count calories, and it's been instrumental in the success I've had, I don't obsess over it, and I don't know exactly (or care!) the number of calories in any given food. If I have a small plateful of spaghetti, I count it at 400 and know that I'm hitting it pretty close. Fad diets are never good... lose it too fast and it's going to find you again, a LOT faster than you lost it. Draw your own conclusions... there are so many "diet books" available that are total nonsense and sometimes even dangerous. Make your own food plan. Basically nothing is taboo unless it's a trigger food for you. And especially important... don't touch diet pills.
What the title of this thread suggested to me is, I think, one of the most important concepts, which is getting rid of the idea that uneaten food is wasted food. We learned that, as children, when we were admonished to finish our plates before leaving the table, and it's a hard one to unlearn. I try very hard to remember that I don't have to do that. When I no longer feel hungry, I try to remember to quit, and to ensure myself that excess food is healthier to me if it's in the compost than unnecessarily in my stomach. I don't always do a good job of that, often eating enough to stuff myself rather than simply satisfy the feeling of hunger. One of the most common diet killers for me is potato chips. That seems odd to me because, when I am not dieting, I rarely eat potato chips. However, after I have been successfully dieting for a couple of months, I get a craving for potato chips and dip. Eventually, I give into it, and it's not a matter of eating one of those small, individual serving, bags of potato chips. I'm talking a family sized bag, and I'll eat the whole thing in one sitting, and it tastes good. Again, I rarely crave potato chips unless I'm dieting.
Oh yeah... that's my downfall, too. Well that and chocolate in no particular order. I've fought it for the most part by buying the teeny tiny little bags (my one store actually still sells 25 cent bags of chips... probably one of the cheapest things they sell!) and surprisingly it satisfies me. I think it has to because I know there aren't any more chips in the house. It's not a new issue for me. My parents always bought boxes of chips from what was a local potato chip company at the time. Inside of the box was a HUGE plastic bag with them, right from the factory. I waited until my Mama was outside doing something in the garden or hanging laundry and dug into that bag. I mean like a madwoman. I never told her... knowing what I know now about being a mother, I'm pretty sure she somehow knew. I'd ask her now, but I'd still be too humiliated after all these years. About 5 years ago (talk about a love-hate gift!) a friend told me that my birthday gift would be arriving all throughout the year and "keep on giving." Sounded so exciting. "It's a potato chip of the month club membership! Isn't that great?!" Uh... yeah, thanks, pal! Well for anyone who believes in divine retribution, I'll have you know that... they weren't that good. Serves me right, huh? But there were some flavors that were just ghastly and the bags... I think it was 5 or 6 per month, were very small for what I know this "club" costs.
Lol, chips are my downfall also! On the very rare occasion that I do buy them I will eat a 6 serving bag in one day. I do buy the lowest calorie and sodium ones though, lol. Then I do the math and figure oh well the whole bag was about 900 calories, not too bad if I don't eat much else.
I am still mindful of the calories I eat although I am no longer counting. Counting calories is how I lost weight and I don't have anyone's diet but my own and that is cutting back on portions and quitting when I'm full. You're right, Ken. It's hard for me to not want to to clean my plate, not to waste food. I'm getting better at it. I have as a rule of thumb, quite eating potato chips. Once in a great while I'll have a couple or three with a ham sandwich, just to show the powers that be out there in the universe, that I am master of my own fate, but that's as much tempting as I want to do. Dieting has to be a sensible affair. To Terry: I have entered body weight and BMI goals to my signature. I'm wondering do we need a sub forum for a weekly or periodic weigh-in and comments related to their to?
I also have that don't waste food mentality, I'll even bring home things from my daughter's that she's getting ready to throw out and there's nothing wrong with them...it's hard to get over that thinking.
I have been dieting for 4 days now and I haven't lost a stinkin' pound. Very hard to lose just 3-4 lbs.
Put the chips into a basket or bowl lined with paper towels. It's amazing how much grease comes out of the chips and into the paper towels. I don't know if it's enough to count, but it sure looks like a lot!
Good for you, Crissy. One pound a week is good is good weight loss. You're more likely to keep it off. Keep it up.