Acadia opened this issue on Oct 24, 2007 · 38 posts
Acadia posted Thu, 25 October 2007 at 4:14 PM
Quote - Staying with a calorie controlled diet is tough but if you keep track of every little snack you soon see that your 1600 calorie meals is actually like 3,000 calories with snacks . Walking is an excellent exercise , no strain on hips and knees like jogging and its enough to keep your metabolism high. Just stick to public areas where if you do have a problem there are other people to help .
I don't count calories. I count food groups and do portion control.
Plus I'm a chocaholic! I have to have my chocolate fix so in order to get that I decided to have one Slim Fast shake per day which is usually my lunch.
Of course it's not just any Slim Fast shake! It's my type of Slim Fast shake:
1 1/4 cup skim milk (supposed to use 2% milk but I prefer to use skim. Plus less calories and fat)
1 scoop Slim Fast powder (chocolate)
1 heaping teaspoon decaf instant coffee
1 heaping teaspoon Splenda
1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
1 tray of ice cubes
Chop it in the blender then use "liquify" until the ice and berry seeds are finely ground. Makes about the size of a venti Moca Frapaccino from Star Bucks! hehe
So far as meals go, I eat like Royalty!
I purchased Jenny Craig's "What Have you Got to Lose" about 4 or so years ago and have been on and off of it. My health issues prevented me from spending too much time with food preparation so I haven't been following it again until just a few months ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Craigs-What-Have-Weight-Management/dp/0761507868
It's weight loss for dummies! It gives you a grocery list of what to buy for week 1. And another list of what to buy for week 2.
Plus it gives you a meal plan for those same weeks based on the grocery list for that week.
It also gives you the recipes for the foods to make. And tells you what to prepare in advance.
It tells you what to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks!
I'm not a picky eater and I love all of the foods. In fact there is so much food that I can't even eat it all most days if I'm following the plan it strictly.
The foods I listed above are actually foods from her program and are found in the book. There are lots of others in the book as well as on her website. But those are the ones that I tend to cycle through because I really like them!
I live alone and the recipes are for 4 or more portions. I cook the recipe, have one portion and freeze the others in individual plastic containers for future meals. I do that with everything I have to spend time cooking. It makes life so much simpler when you have a stock of foods that you can just take out and heat and serve.
I've been up and down in my weight all of my life. Back when I was 16 I was 199 pounds! Before I hit that 200 pound mark I went on a low carbohydrate diet and with the help of the gym teacher in school who spent some of his time help to guide/coach me using the school's "mini gym" I managed to drop 70 pounds in 4 months and was a svelt 122 pounds for my grade 12 graduation!
Unfortunately a diet such as that where you eat lots of protein and fat and stay off the carbs doesn't teach you about healthy eating, so if you stop "diet" or discontinue the level of exercise, the pounds come back really quickly. Then life happened and getting involved with the wrong guys who knocked my self esteem right into the ground so I didn't really care what I looked like. And then health issues.... well, let's just say that I'm heavier than I have ever been and I don't feel very good about myself at all, at least not physically.
I finally reached a point in my life after a number of serious health scares where I just have to take control of the situation. My brother has been pressing me to get gastric bypass surgery. He's even offered to take his holidays and take me to Alberta wait for me and bring me home 3 weeks later. But I know I have lost weight before and I can do it again, and besides gastric bypass (our health care won't pay for the lap band reversable procedure) is a very serious surgery especially when it's permanent. You literally can't eat! You live on a liquid supplement and vitamins or you get really sick and throw up lots. And there is loads of nausea and vomitting because your stomach has been stapled to the size of your thumbnail So while i haven't ruled that out, I am doing the "sensible eating" and exercise way, which is the healthy way. And if in time I find that it's not working, then I may consider the drastic measure of gastric bypass. Maybe by then our health care will pay for the less invasive reversible lap band procedure which is basically a day surgery procedure instead of a week hospital stay and 2 week post op recovery time.
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi