The Highs and Lows of Dieting

[pikachu]

I had my first fast food meal since starting my diet last night. I got a Daily Double and side salad at McDonalds, and used salad dressing I brought from home (Bolthouse Farms chunky blue cheese). I had a Jello Temptations French silk pie for dessert.

Tomorrow I'm going out for Mexican food to celebrate a joint birthday--mine and another lady on the council of the blind. My birthday is already past and her's is coming up. I'm planning on getting a crispy beef taco, a chicken flauta, and one order of chiles toreados.

I'm continuing to exercise and count calories so I hope these two eating out adventures don't adversely affect my diet too much. I'd love to still lose a pound or two.

I can't count on always eating at home to stay in control. I have to learn how to make good choices when I go out to eat as well.

[tbamom]

Good work! I am also a yoyo dieter. I'd like to lose 60 but would be happy with 40. I am currently in a war with my mother and sister who also have weight issues because they are doing another fad diet that sees results but they can't stick with it in the long run so they regain and then some. I am trying to get them to do a proper- eat smaller portions of good food plan instead of omitting every sugar, grain etc from their world so that when they slip it is a big one.

I will follow what you are doing here, instead for support

[ClosetRTWatcher]

Congratulations on your progress so far pikachu!!!


I saw this thread and just thought I would throw in my 2 cents...

I have had a hard time bouncing back to my preferred weight after having my 4th child. I was in great shape before she was born, which just made me feel worse that I had a hard time getting back to where I wanted to be. She is 8 years old now, so I was far from being able to use the "I just had a baby" excuse!

I had been working out and running over the past couple of years. Although I was feeling better about the exercise, I just wasn't losing any weight. This past June I had kind of an epiphany about my eating habits. I realized the following:
(1) Pretty much every night at dinner I was eating until I was stuffed.
(2) Every time I was the slightest bit hungry I was grabbing a snack, and usually not something healthy.
(3) With 4 kids in the house it is really easy to think stuff like "wow, those leftovers in the fridge look really good, and if I don't eat them someone else will..." which would lead me to eat when I wasn't even really hungry.

Formal dieting really doesn't work very well for me. I don't like to count calories and I get frustrated with putting restrictions on what I can eat. I know I won't stick with it. So instead I have been paying very close attention to how I feel. I have been eating much less at meal times. If I use a small plate and get smaller portions, I can always go back for more if I'm still hungry. However, I'm usually full after even a smaller plate of food! I try not to snack between meals. There's nothing wrong with being a little bit hungry if dinner is coming soon. I try hard to avoid the pitfall of eating just because food is there. If I'm not hungry I don't eat, period. Eating can wait until I'm hungry and if someone else has eaten the food I had my eye on, I can cook more!

My good news is that this portion control combined with the exercise I was already doing is working very well for me! I am a little over 5'8" and I weighed around 176 lbs last June when I started down this path and I'm down to 141 right now. Even more importantly, IMO, is that I feel really good. I had a routine doctors appointment recently. About a year ago they were concerned about my blood pressure, but now it is completely back to normal!

I know it sounds cliched, but it really has been more of a "lifestyle change" in the sense that it involved a shift in my own thinking. These things also seem like common sense in retrospect, but I didn't "see" it for a long time. I'm hoping that maybe my experience will be helpful to someone else.

[pikachu]

You're doing great, ClosetRTWatcher!

You're right that dieting is a lifestyle change and a state of mind. Every time I diet, I come across obstacles I have to overcome--bad habits, unhealthy food associations, pressure from tv commercials, magazines, family, friends, etc. Every diet I've been on that has failed has failed because I couldn't overcome the obstacles in my way. The good thing is I learn from the experience and the next time I'm better prepared to take on previous obstacles that have held me back and take on new obstacles.

The last obstacle that tripped me up was extreme hunger and thirst from a medication I was taking that broke my willpower and veered me off-course. I'm no longer taking that medicine so it won't be a problem this time.

I'm currently learning that exercise doesn't have to be a chore. I can rake leaves, walk around a park to take pictures with my digital camera, go bowling, or do many other things besides walking alone or doing exercise tapes. The important thing is to get away from food and be on the move to get a workout in. I'm trying to tie exercise in to my hobbies so that I actually enjoy it instead of seeing it as something I'm forcing myself to do.

[Gutmutter]

It is sooooo cold, it is hard to do any of the extra exercise I want to do, but I'm sticking to my routine of weights and swim 3 days a week and will try again when it warms up a little. I love the idea of taking a camera on a walk. I'm such a visual person, but that never occured to me. Thanks!

[pikachu]

I was telling a co-worker about my walking and plans to go bowling to lose weight and it ends up that he and a new guy that just joined us used to bowl on a league together. We're going to try to re-organize their league and start going bowling. I'm not sure how often. They said they tried once every two weeks and that got to be too much so I think it might be once a month. We're trying to decide if we should go on a weekday or on the weekend. It ends up none of them were very good, which is good for me because I haven't gone often enough to be any good. I'm lucky if I go bowling once every five years. I asked if my blind friends could be included, since some of them might need to use bumpers and they said that was fine. They were mostly going bowling to drink beer and have fun.

I hope this works out because I'd really love to start bowling more regularly!

Boy, the prices sure have gone up since the last time I went. It was about $20 per person per game at the lanes near our work. The guy who used to manage their league told me he worked out a deal with the manager when they were going where everyone paid $14.99. I hope he can get that deal again. Although if it's only once a month, I suppose I could do $20.

[Lizard]

Good job!

[pikachu]

Lately, I've been getting up a little earlier than I used to so I have time to eat breakfast before going to work. So now, I get tired earlier in the evening. I used to stay up until 11 to watch Chelsea Lately but the last few nights, I've decided to skip it and take my bath and go to bed. I can't really say I'm sleeping better. I go to bed early but I also tend to wake up during the night. I didn't use to do that. Usually, once I fell asleep, I didn't wake up until morning unless, 1) I got to hot or too cold, 2) the cats got in a fight, 3) the upstairs neighbor decided to work with power tools during the night, or 4) nature called.

[Gutmutter]

If you find you're still having trouble adjusting to an earlier bedtime, try a cup of Sleepytime tea before bed. If I wake up in the middle of the night I sometimes make myself a cup of warm milk in the microwave with just a little bit of honey. It really does the trick. I do a couple of Sudoku puzzles to keep my mind off other things and next thing you know the eyelids are drooping.
I'm glad to hear you're making time for breakfast. We were just talking about that at lunch. The gym teacher said it's like stoking your furnace for the day... it really boosts your metabolism.

[Lucynda]

My husband has been having stomach pains and bloating for some time he had been to the doctor a few times and even had an ultrasound and and blood tests they found nothing
Sick of his winging I put him on a brown rice detox for 5 days so I had to do it too
Its just Brown rice fruit and vegetables but no pumpkin corn or bananas for 5 days
He lost 4kg his bloatedness has gone and so has the pain in his tummy but he was so happy he has decided to actually stick to a low Kj diet for a few more weeks hoping to lose a couple more kilos
I have been trying to get him to be more aware of what he eats for years as heart disease runs in his family but every diet I tried him the results were not fast enough for him and he gave up
He has now downloaded a calorie counter on his phone so he can log in what he eats each day for breakfast and lunch and know what he can eat for dinner that wont take him over his allowable Kjs
Oh and how many beers he can have on a friday night
Neither of us want to see brown rice ever again and just for the record I only lost .8 of a kilo so annoying but so happy his stomach aches have gone and he is happy to try and get rid of the rest of his gut