Diet Advice and Motivation

I am a Triathlete and have been for years, but it is always hard to get back into training mode every spring. I can never remember anything that I ate before and it takes several weeks to break trend of eating poorly. My diet would be very different and extreme for you and I don't ever recommend it to people unless they are already in an established, high calorie burning, excersise routene.

But, I'll suggest Weight watchers. It is proven to work and everyone who I know that WENT TO MEETINGS has been successful. It is so worth it. My step mother and Cousin who have always struggled with being overweight are WW poster people... losing 60 and 120 pounds respectively.

Excersise is just like doing anything else - it becomes a habit that is just part of your day. I work full time and am a mom of 2 and at the height of my season, I'm still training 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week. You CAN do it.

C.

If you can find some form of exercise that you enjoy, or at least can tolerate to start, then I think that you'll find that it starts to become a great source of stress relief. Easy for me to say because I'm one of those exercise nuts who works out 6-7 days a week, but now that I'm in that place, I don't do well without it. If I miss a couple of days in a row, I feel physically and emotionally off. You don't have to fun far enough to get a "runners high" or anything, but just a good hard 30 minute walk could be a start, or a gym w/ childcare if you can pull of the membership. (The Y is about $70 for a family membership that includes child care - what a wonderful excuse to get some time away from the kids! They also do scholarships if needed.) I know it's hard to get started, but I think that if you can get into a regular routine of 3-4 days a week of doing something really active for 30 minutes or longer, you'll find that you feel a lot better.

Hi L.,

Diet is not always the soloution, I work with a Nutritional Supplement Company that has helped thousands and they have kept off the wt, have a lots energy and passionate about life. Let me know if interested and I will tell you more.

About Me: A mom of two, work from home with a great Nutritional food supplement Company and love what I do which is helping people with their healthy and finances.

A.

Hi L.,

Good for you for caring about your health and wanting to get in shape. I recommended this same program to another Mom last week. It's called Body for Life. There is no special food (though they do have their own line of protein bars and shakes that they promote but just disregard those!). It's really about changing your lifestyle to healthy eating and consistent workouts. You can buy the book (Body for Life), or just go to there website at bodyforlife.com. I would suggest first going to their before and after photo galleries online to get some inspiration! People of all ages and body types can do it if you just stick with it. If you are truly committed and do this program for 12 weeks you will literally transform your body and look better than ever. I have personally done this workout and have had many friends do it as well all with amazing results. If you have any questions about it let me know and good luck!

Here's what worked for me in 2007 and continues to work to this day (to date, I've now lost almost 60 pounds and am just 10 pounds away from my high school weight...) Figure out how many calories you need to eat per day to reach your weightloss goals (I recommend the calculators on this website - http://caloriecount.about.com/) Then, divide them up among your 3-4 meals of the day and stick to it. For example, I allow myself 1300 calories a day - 250 breakfast; 400 lunch; 650 dinner. In reality, I probably eat closer to 1350 or 1400 because unless you weigh everything you eat with a food scale, we all overestimate portions. No matter what happens or how stressed I am... that's what I allow myself to eat. When I meet my meal goal, I stop eating for that meal. Buy yourself a food scale and extra measuring cups and start reading the nutrition labels.

Other diets will tell you to look at fat grams or sodium or carbs, but none of that really matters (I won't bore you with the scientific explanation). The only key to weightloss is counting calories - i.e. consuming less than your body needs so that it uses the fat stores it has.

I like www.sparkpeople.com. It is a free diet/exercise motivational plan. I gear it toward what works for me.

I highly recommend the book Fit For Life, by the Diamonds-it teaches you how to properly food combine-you lose weight and feel energized and it's really good for you. I lost 12 pounds in three weeks and felt great, I never gained it back. A friend lost 40 lbs. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself AND IT'S EASY READING!

I know many of us have been in the same situation. I've gained about 50 lbs and was so exhausted I couldn't bear to think of exercising. But, I thought about how I need to be healthy and live a long life so that I can be around for my daughter and how much of that was in my control through diet and exercise. Also, I thought, as she grows she will need me to be more physically active as she is more physically active. I knew that as difficult as it was to get started, that I had to for the sake of my daughter and myself. So, long long story shorter - I found a gym with childcare and I now work out 5 days a week for 1 hour each day. I have not dropped a lot of weight BUT I have changed my body composition (I've been tested) and dropped a dress size so far. Now I'm doing 1000 calories between breakfast and midafternoon and only 500 calories between midafternoon and bedtime. I can say now that when I miss a day or two working out I can tell and I WANT to do it. The message to you is, you can get over the hump, its awful starting out and I remember being half asleep on the treadmill or the elliptical - but, keep going and eventually it will become like a habit and you WILL feel better. Give it at least a month to six weeks. I really feel for you. You can do it. Good luck!!

I totally understand what you're saying and I'm going through the same thing right now. I had gotten down a few years ago to where I wanted to be, but then our house went on the market and selling it, buying a new one, and moving kind of broke the momentum. I did a little better for a while until this past year when I had 3 miscarriages in 7 months. I gained everything I'd lost before and them some due to depression. Right now, I'm trying to get myself motivated to do it again. A book that helped me before was Dr. Phil's The Ultimate Weight Solution. I need to give it a reread, but it really motivated me in the past. Also, as you get back into exercising, take it small. Don't decide right away to devote half an hour or whatever you had done before. Start with maybe 10 minutes. Who doesn't have 10 spare minutes in a day. As that starts to make you feel good, slowly increase it as you go. The more you get into it, the better you'll feel about everything. When you feel stressed, take a walk instead of hitting the pantry. Find one small bad habit you have right now and tackle just it. Like just cutting out eating after dinner or replacing soda with water. Something small for now. As that step becomes second nature, tackle another one like getting a salad instead of french fries. It's taken your whole life to develop bad patterns, so don't expect it to change over night. The smaller you set your goals, the more successful you'll feel and the easier it will be to stick to it. I'm preaching to myself here :), but these were the strategies that worked for me. The better shape you get in, the less you'll feel stressed (or depressed as in my case).

Hey L.,

I am sorry that you are so unhappy and stressed out right now. I know how you feel about the extra weight as I have always struggled with my weight. After I had my son I just couldn't get rid of that extra weight but then I tried the South Beach Diet (never thought I could do it) and it really worked for me. It really is more a change in eating than dieting since you can eat pretty much as much as you like. After the first couple of weeks you can even have chocolate and wine! I highly recommend the book "South Beach Diet - Supercharged". It explains the diet well and more importantly for me it has a 20 minute a day workout in it that is pretty easy to follow and not too hard to squeeze in to a busy schedule. I saw that you got advice about joining Sparkpeople and I can say that that site made it a lot easier for me since you can track all your food which keeps you focused. Also, the groups that you can join as part of the site(there is a south beach group as well) are very helpful for questions and support.
I wish you and your family all the best,
D.

We've all been there, L., so don't feel alone. The best thing I've done is to focus on myself. In the past, I've spent so much time worrying about everyone else and situations I really can do nothing about, that I've neglected myself up to 100lbs overweight. It sucks. Now, I'll be honest with ya, I've just started my journey to my "Fine-ness", but so far so good. I'm using a website called sparkpeople.com. It's free. Do I need to say that again? I don't know about you, but one of my biggest stressers is our financial situation, so I don't have a lot of money to spend on programs that MIGHT work. Either I'm gonna do it - or not. It's all a mindset. But this site will provide you with a daily meal plan and daily fitness plan. Now it's up to you to actually DO the plan, but again - do you wanna be FAT and fine or HEALTHY and fine? In two weeks, I've lost 9 pounds. Sometimes it doesn't seem like enough, but I gotta start somewhere. Good luck to you! And email me if you need more info or support.

Forget about the diet and deal with the stress! I have MS and many many food allergies that make dieting impossible. But learning how to deal with stress combined with better portion control is working for me. I've been steadily losing weight and sizes for a couple of years...it's slow but slow is healthy and my skin has been able to shrink along with the rest of me. If you can exercise and work on that stress then any effort to eat healthier will be so much more effective.

What I have found in all my research: don't cut any particular food type or drastically cut calories...you need fuel for your muscles and it's your muscles that burn fat. Just choose the healthiest versions...whole grains, unsaturated oils like olive oil, a good balance of protein, carbs, and fats...fruit instead of refined sugar desserts...that sort of change.

I've gone from a size 24 to size 18 in about 18 months without counting any calories or cutting any particular foods. I just stop eating now as soon as I'm not hungry anymore when before I would eat until I was full.

Take care of yourself so you can take care of your family!

K.

Lose It For Life
by Stephen Arterburn and Dr. Linda Mintle

No big secret. No speacial foods to buy. All you have to do is read the package or check the internet. Limit yourself to 400 calories per meal, it is not a cell phone so you do not have roll over calories. No diet soda, the artificial sweetners cause the body to crave sweets and retain sugars they also cause bloating. I purchased shapely secrets and for all the skeptics it does work if you follow the calorie intake. The system tightens all your muscles and stresses them causing them to require more calories for energy to work. Email me and I will talk you trough it. You will have more energy and more results if you get up same time every morning and make yourself weather hungry or not eat breakfast, try very hard to eat lunch at same time everyday and dinner. You can cook normal for the family just reduce your portion to fit the 400 calorie. I eat 2 english muffins and a glass of milk for breakfast or 1/2 cup egg beaters (not just egg whites)with lowfat cheese and mushrooms with wheat toast and 2 slices of bacon with milk. Don't eat potatos eat sweet potatos but not canned yams. I say drink your water not because they say it is good for you but it helps to thin out the food in our body so it can pull just the good stuff out and not have to save it all. Think out it this way, if you were trying to strain the stringy fiber out of sweet potatos which would make it easier mashed or runny. It also helps to flush all that stuff they are selling the pills to flush out of your intestinal tract which cause you to weigh more. My daughter followed this and she has been a size 12 to 14 since junior high because of a pitutary tumor. i gave her a juicer and instead of tea or soda she makes her own juice. In two weeks she lost 21 pounds and wears a 10 now. She will never be a 7 but she wants to try for an 8. She is married to a junk food junkie and has a 1 year old but manages to stick to the 400 and usually only hits about 320 per meal. She sets an alarm to have a snack between meals of fresh fruit and veggys. Good Luck you can do it and be happy at the same time.

I'm in your boat as well. I lost 50lbs. last year and was 14 lbs. away from being at my high school weight. Since then, I have gained about 35 of it back! I met my big goal of wanting to meet my birthfamily at a half way decent size and so I lost motivation after that and then I lost my job in Decemeber and it just kept piling back on. I even have stuff to look forward to-vacations this summer, weddings and future weddings...you'd think that would be motivation to look better then I do!

The way I lost the weight and the only thing that has ever worked for me was Weight watchers. You can do the program without going to the meetings but if you do have extra-I have found it's worth it to make the meetings. Something about weighing in front of somebody really works!

Also, I found this new thing I'm ordering next week. It's meal planning. They give you the food list for the grocery store and new recipes for every night of the week. It's $5 a month which I figured was really worth it to take the time and stress from me on trying to get something healthy on the table. Anyways, they have several plans to choose from and they even have a weight watchers plan with the points. I like that they take the ease out of that and also you don't eat the same thing over and over. I think I get bored sometimes on 'diets' and think I can only have certain things and I don't go out of my comfort zone you know. Anyways, that website is http://e-mealz.com/.

Hope this helps!

K.

First if you were that real slim type in high school, I think it is unrealistic to try and be the same body, as our body changes, and even if we are slim, our body just changes, and may even look better. Having said that, all research says that (diets) make our metabulism change, and then we can eat less and still gain, and our body yo-yo's. You just need to eat a little smaller portions ( nnot drastic) eat healthy veggies, and fruit and protein, I'm a beef eater, some people aren't , and walk or do some sort of exercise, you don't have to go crazy on that, and the pounds will come off, slower, but they will stay off. Sometimes we lose inches instead of as many pounds, and isn't that what we like better anyway? Stay off the scales, just go by how your good you feel, and how clothes fit, and maybe you (bought too small of size ). Some people may be a great 10 and try to get into an 8 because they like the sound of that. a person in a size 10 is sleek and slim, unless you may be a 4 foot person. At one time I walked a mile a day, and didn't change my eating, and lost 20 pounds, if you walked simular, they say you would lose 2 lb. a month without doing anything else, and that would be 24 pounds in a year. I know it sounds like you want the 20 lb.'s off yesterday, but if it goes off too fast it come right back on. And of course if you don't fry foods much, and uses olive oil when you do, and try to keep away from sweets, and espically pop, I think you'd be surprised how the weight goes off faily soon. Good luck, I bet you don't look as over weight as you think.