Healthy Weight Loss

[Bella~Vita]

I'm doing the happy dance over here 1 week 1 day total weight lose is 5lbs. ........ yayyyyyyyyyyyy good luck everyone

[Zimmeh]

Good Afternoon Scorp,

You aren't weak. We all are here to help you and I can tell you, it is hard to maintain and lose weight. The first two years of my diet was awesome and then last year after breaking up with my ex and losing my job, I fell off the band wagon and didn't give a shit as to what I ate. One year later, I am trying to get back on my horse and lose the last 30lbs that I need to lose. You can do it and I will help you as much as I can.

I found that having dried fruit at work was a good snack or I kept the Kind bars around also. While working at Godiva for the first eighteen months of my diet, I ate the 72% to 85% dark chocolate. I would also allow myself one dark chocolate dipped macaroon as a treat once a week. They make a dark chocolate demitasse square and sell them in a demitasse box. See if you can pick up some of those and keep them in your desk.

Good luck and yes you can do this!

Zimmy

Originally Posted by Scorp

Ok folks,

Well, I'm really have a wicked bad time with wanting to eat bad stuff. I'm craving something sweet like chocolate and minutes away to going to the store across the street.

It's bad...I can't get out of this fucking slumpppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!

Why oh why am I having such a hard damn time with this!!!

I can't get out of this rut...and I don't care...That's the hard part, why don't I care anymore...??? My mood changes from day-to-day....

Ok...I'm back and just raided a co-worker's desk. She had private stock of those ferro roche things and carmel turtle patties....I sucked down 3 of these delicious treats....It was heaven...OMG yummm....

I think I scared my friend Lisa when I just gnawed on all three things with choclate hanging out of my mouth and trying to hide while doing so.....And yes, I feel guilty now and savoring the leftover bits in my teeth.

I'm weak...Weaaaaaaaaaak!!!

[Medusa]

OMG. I am SO excited!!!

My favorite Gayboy at work has been so supportive and rooting me on with my weight loss. He truly is the sweetest boy ever and informed me today that he was going to sell me his Nordictrack Elliptical for $100! This is the same machine he paid almost $1000 for!

I am BEYOND excited and can't believe I'm about to get my wish - Have been looking all over for the last year for an elliptical and have been disappointed several times because I want a quality machine that will support my weight. I have been looking all over the paper and craigslist and just couldnt pay what people were asking and so my delightful friend is helping me out so wonderfully.

ELLIPTICAL LOVE!

[Daywalker]

My Wizards weighed me in at 199 today.

For 7 years I have not seen a number below 200.


I attribute this to our changed eating habits via what I put in the cart at
the grocers. And difficulty with the face ~ feels like it ran a marathon after
a minute or so of chewing. That's another deal all together, but still.

I stepped on that stoopid scale today and I always let them know to
start at 200. They did, and I saw the thingy not move. She drops it
down to 150 n slides that thing over...it evened out at 199.
Wow. Just Wow.


Encouragement goes a long way.
There's a lot of it in this thread.
So thank you everyone!

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by ZimmygLrL

Good Morning Everyone,

I talked to a friend yesterday who is a nutritionist and I told him that I am trying to cut back on how much sugar I consume. He told me about adding honey to plain Greek yogurt instead of buying the pre-sweetened version. I am having a 6oz bowl of plain Greek yogurt with one teaspoon of honey and it tastes better than the other stuff.

Hi, Zimmy.

Consider trying the natural sweetner agave nectar. It is excellent and completely natural. It is the only sweetner I now use. I would recommend this brand. You should be able to find it in natural food stores if you can't find it in your grocery store.

http://www.madhavasweeteners.com/agave/Default.aspx

Originally Posted by Medusa

OMG. I am SO excited!!!

My favorite Gayboy at work has been so supportive and rooting me on with my weight loss. He truly is the sweetest boy ever and informed me today that he was going to sell me his Nordictrack Elliptical for $100! This is the same machine he paid almost $1000 for!

ELLIPTICAL LOVE!

Congratulations, Medusa! I just got mine put up the end of last week (finally). I am planning on taking the Thinker 30 day challenge and checking in here for the group to hold me accountable (well, in my own mind).

So far I am 2 for 2! I am forcing myself to do it early in the mornings b/c otherwise I won't do it. So odd to get up when it is still dark out!

<-- night owl trying to change hys spots

[Hack]

Getting to be that time of year, when you haul the crockpot out for some easy cooking. Here's something I experimented with this weekend that turned out pretty good.

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (frozen is ok)
1 sweet red pepper, diced
half of one sweet onion, chopped
2 jars salsa (your choice)
1 can black beans
1 can corn (drained)
half to a full packet of taco seasoning (I used half a packet of the low sodium kind)

Put the chicken on the bottom and dump the rest of the stuff on top. Cook on low for 7 hours. I served this over some brown rice and it turned out great. Lots of room for variations with the recipe. This was me just clearing out some stuff in the freezer and fridge, really. In all, pretty healthy dish.

Jake

[Medusa]

HACK - We LOVE the crock pot in this house and I'll definitely be trying that! Might be a good chicken mush to put in a wrap!

[Hack]

Originally Posted by Medusa

HACK - We LOVE the crock pot in this house and I'll definitely be trying that! Might be a good chicken mush to put in a wrap!

The chicken was definitely shred-able after 7 hours in the pot. With a slotted spoon, you could easily drain the rest and put it in a wrap. In fact, that's what my roommate did.

[Hack]

Here's another easy and good crockpot recipe. This one is actually from WW. I think it was 6 points per serving.

4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (frozen ok)
half of a sweet onion, chopped
1 carton of sliced fresh mushrooms
1 can of cream of mushroom soup (I use the Healthy Request Campbell's)
1 envelope of Lipton's onion soup
1 container of no-fat or low-fat sour cream
A dash of sea salt

Place chicken in the bottom of the pot and in a separate mixing bowl, mix the soup, sour cream and dry soup mix. Place chopped onion over chicken, pour soup-sour cream mixture over it. Then place mushrooms on top.

Check on this occasionally to put in a little water now and then if it appears it is becoming dried out.

I serve this over whole wheat egg noodles. It is a good, filling dish. You don't even need a knife to cut up the chicken.

[DapperButch]

Nothing I love more than salsa and chips. I have been trying to do the "healthier" blue corn chips. Well, the ones I have tried up until now have left much to be desired, including being almost stale tasting.

Until the recent one my gf brought home. It is simply called "Blue Corn", which is actually a multigrain recipe made with, organic blue corn, quinoa, flax, sunflower, sesame seed, and brown rice. All good stuff. It creates a light and crispy chip. Speaking of people being extra hungry yesterday...I ate almost the entire bag last night along with almost the entire jar of salsa! I hadn't even noticed they were so good!

Anyway, it is made by "Food Should Taste Good". Check it out.

[Hack]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Nothing I love more than salsa and chips. I have been trying to do the "healthier" blue corn chips. Well, the ones I have tried up until now have left much to be desired, including being almost stale tasting.

Until the recent one my gf brought home. It is simply called "Blue Corn", which is actually a multigrain recipe made with, organic blue corn, quinoa, flax, sunflower, sesame seed, and brown rice. All good stuff. It creates a light and crispy chip. Speaking of people being extra hungry yesterday...I ate almost the entire bag last night along with almost the entire jar of salsa! I hadn't even noticed they were so good!

Anyway, it is made by "Food Should Taste Good". Check it out.

I recently had some Tostitos Multigrain Scoops at a friends' house. They were pretty tasty, I have to say.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Hack

I recently had some Tostitos Multigrain Scoops at a friends' house. They were pretty tasty, I have to say.

Ahhhh...I will have to check those b/c I can eat multigrain (and they are no doubt cheaper than the ones I mentioned). Thanks for the tip!

[Kelt]

Originally Posted by Thinker

I'm also going to see how it goes for me to cut off my eating at 4:30. I was intentionally eating later there for a while, primarily because of the weight training. Since I'm not on weights right now, I thought I'd give this a try and see how it goes.

Hi all,

This and the “eat everything not nailed down” syndrome is something that I have struggled with a lot. Just plain eating too much.

I also tried not eating in the evening, or not after 6pm or some other kind of number I would think would help. I know there is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there suggesting that this will help with weight loss. It simply did not work for me in real life.

I was hungry damnit!

No matter what I do, once I start eating for the day, it’s like opening a valve and I’m hungry about every 3-4 hours until I go to bed. I really don’t do well with that. So, in the spirit of finding what would actually work for me, I did the opposite. Have dinner at 8, and go to bed around 11 before I get seriously hungry again.

A while back I posted about eating fewer meals per day (and have no idea how to link to it; it was on 8/13); so how does this work? I commit the cardinal sin of not eating breakfast per se.

I do actually “break the fast” everyday, I just do it later in the day: say around lunch time . This accomplishes a couple of things for me. All of my blood sugar gyration, hunger pang producing type of activities happen when I am asleep; after that later dinner. When I wake up it is all over with, leveled out, and I don’t get truly hungry until later in the day. This is of course after the habit portion of “must eat in the morning” has been broken. Also a high quality of food when eating is assumed.

So this creates for me what I think of as a window of eating opportunity, usually about 12-2pm until 7-8pm. This way I have the ability to eat two hearty satisfying meals and a good snack at about 3 1/2 hr intervals. It also allows my digestive system to catch a break from aways focusing on dealing with whatever I just put in there and divert attention towards other restorative processes.

At least that’s how it seems to work for me. I’ve been doing this for the last 6 months straight and have not had any problems with energy or sleep patterns; and yes, that means on days when the tide sends me out in the morning I walk 10 miles in the sand before eating. I seem to have plenty of gas in tank from my evening meal, it’s just a non-issue, go figure. Everyone is different, but if something doesn’t work, maybe stand it on its head to see what will.

Thinker makes me think, so I found an interesting article about evening eating. It is here.


There are also some related links in the references at the end of the article.

[Rockinonahigh]

I just figured out on the calorie burn index that my curent weight and calorie intake and burn it will take me 8 months and 5 days to lose the rest of the weight I want to lose.Dam that a long time,then it said at my hights and weight I should weigh not more than 165...im not even thinking of doing that my goal is 200 pounds so if I lose anymore that that good,if not is good to.
Over the weekend I went to the dragon boat races on the red river,I ate a fue things I shouldnt have but not a lot as I did keep it as close to my food plan as possable,I figure my morning test would be way outta wack but I was surprised it was 95..I took it within 10 minits of getting up.When im on the food plan it test anywhere from 85 to 111 mostly about 104 or 5...crazy makes no sence to me.

[T4Texas]

Let me begin by saying I am overweight and have been for about half my life. I have ballooned up over 300 pounds and dropped down to 150 at various times, been on more diets than you can shake a stick at and failed miserably at keeping the weight off. I eat very little compared to some but manage to maintain the weight somehow.
So after struggling with all this, I became diabetic about ten years ago and earlier this year was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Many of my health issues stem from being overweight which I recognize. My cardiologist told me I must make drastic reductions in my salt intake and so this prompted me to really sit down and think about how I needed to modify my diet.
The biggest problem was always the diet itself and the urge to cheat. I would last about a week and then go back to eating whatever I wanted to eat. I really had to change my mindset about eating and about cheating. So the first thing I did was to not look at it as a "diet", but more as the desire to eat healthy. Telling yourself you're on a diet is sometimes setting yourself up for failure if you lack willpower. The next thing I did was to cut out 99% of processed food out of my intake. I even stopped buying lean cuisine as they have more sodium than I wanted. Every freakin thing under the sun has salt in it I found out so it was a matter of choosing things with less salt. I try to stay under 1000mg salt a day which isnt all that easy considering one fast food burger might have that much in it. The way around that for me was to buy fresh. Fresh has no salt or very minimal in most cases. I dont cook with salt so it put me in control of how much sodium was going into my body. I have changed my basic diet to fresh fruit and vegetables, some meat and if I want something sweet its either yogurt or something sugar free. I cut out sodas other than an occasional coke zero and drink tea or water. Also, no more eating out, although I still have mexican food once a month as a treat. I found this eating regime much easier to stick to and have learned to be creative with the menu. I roast a lot of veggies in the oven like yellow squash, onion, bell pepper and zuccini or whatever combination sounds good at the time. I steer away from frying things in oil and oven bake chops or boneless skinless chicken breast to satisfy the meat need. I use a lot of spices like garlic or the no salt spice blends which really jazz up everything. Since february I have lost about 40 pounds just by modifying my diet. The best thing is I dont feel hungry or deprived, dont feel the need to cheat and when I go grocery shopping its more an adventure now to create something new that fits my demand. About 3 months into this, I returned to the cardiologist for a stress test and found out that my heart function which had been down around 20% had risen to nearly 50%. I feel better than I have felt in a long time and feel Im on a good road as long as I stay on the medications and watch the diet. My biggest problem has been lunch. I drive all day on the road and have to take my lunch since I cant run thru the burger places anymore except for salads without dressing so am always on the lookout for portable low sodium ideas.

[PinkieLee]

Originally Posted by Hack

I recently had some Tostitos Multigrain Scoops at a friends' house. They were pretty tasty, I have to say.

Another good option is the BAKED Tostitos Scoops. YUMMY... and they pretty much taste just like the regular Tostitos!

[Thinker]

I'm starting to ween myself off of the Weight Watchers online tracking. Tracking and figuring points everyday for the last 4+ months have given me the information I need to carry on without it; I am *very* clear what "overeating" is for me. I do a significant amount of cardio every morning and work my core 3-4 times per week. With all of that, I have faith these last 5 pounds will eventually come off.

[PinkieLee]

I am loving the crockpot receipes y'all! I'm always looking for new receipes. As we speak, I've got a small, very lean roast in the crockpot with low sodium mushroom gravy for dinner tonight. By the time I get home 8 hours later today, that sucker is gonna be falling apart... that's my favorite way! I take a fork & shred it ~ and let all the yummy juices soak in. I'm making brown rice for me, and wheat egg noodles for D. I'm either gonna steam some green beans or make a garden salad.

D's only complaint... is that we aren't having croissants or Grands biscuits to soak up the gravy with.

We are hitting the gym tonight. Things have been really stressful at work for quite awhile... luckily working out helps me burn off some of that frustration! Booty shakin' music has been downloaded... bring it on!

Breakfast today:
Raisin bran cereal with fat free milk
a banana
and 1 cup of coffee with a splash of sweet cream creamer

Lunch:
tuna salad on honey wheat sandwich thin
a handful of baby carrots for the crunch factor
strawberries & green grapes

[Zimmeh]

Congratulations on your weight loss and your ability to keep away from the fast food places. I love buying fresh baked bread at the grocery store and I usually pick up the one that has at least five grains in it. The one that I bought the other day, is called the Italian five grain bread. It has poppy seeds, sunflower seeds and three other grains in that I cannot remember right now. It is very light tasting and has 54 calories for two slices. I like taking a peanut butter sandwich and Special K crackers for dinner at work.

Have a great day,

Zimmy

Originally Posted by T4Texas

Let me begin by saying I am overweight and have been for about half my life. I have ballooned up over 300 pounds and dropped down to 150 at various times, been on more diets than you can shake a stick at and failed miserably at keeping the weight off. I eat very little compared to some but manage to maintain the weight somehow.
So after struggling with all this, I became diabetic about ten years ago and earlier this year was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Many of my health issues stem from being overweight which I recognize. My cardiologist told me I must make drastic reductions in my salt intake and so this prompted me to really sit down and think about how I needed to modify my diet.
The biggest problem was always the diet itself and the urge to cheat. I would last about a week and then go back to eating whatever I wanted to eat. I really had to change my mindset about eating and about cheating. So the first thing I did was to not look at it as a "diet", but more as the desire to eat healthy. Telling yourself you're on a diet is sometimes setting yourself up for failure if you lack willpower. The next thing I did was to cut out 99% of processed food out of my intake. I even stopped buying lean cuisine as they have more sodium than I wanted. Every freakin thing under the sun has salt in it I found out so it was a matter of choosing things with less salt. I try to stay under 1000mg salt a day which isnt all that easy considering one fast food burger might have that much in it. The way around that for me was to buy fresh. Fresh has no salt or very minimal in most cases. I dont cook with salt so it put me in control of how much sodium was going into my body. I have changed my basic diet to fresh fruit and vegetables, some meat and if I want something sweet its either yogurt or something sugar free. I cut out sodas other than an occasional coke zero and drink tea or water. Also, no more eating out, although I still have mexican food once a month as a treat. I found this eating regime much easier to stick to and have learned to be creative with the menu. I roast a lot of veggies in the oven like yellow squash, onion, bell pepper and zuccini or whatever combination sounds good at the time. I steer away from frying things in oil and oven bake chops or boneless skinless chicken breast to satisfy the meat need. I use a lot of spices like garlic or the no salt spice blends which really jazz up everything. Since february I have lost about 40 pounds just by modifying my diet. The best thing is I dont feel hungry or deprived, dont feel the need to cheat and when I go grocery shopping its more an adventure now to create something new that fits my demand. About 3 months into this, I returned to the cardiologist for a stress test and found out that my heart function which had been down around 20% had risen to nearly 50%. I feel better than I have felt in a long time and feel Im on a good road as long as I stay on the medications and watch the diet. My biggest problem has been lunch. I drive all day on the road and have to take my lunch since I cant run thru the burger places anymore except for salads without dressing so am always on the lookout for portable low sodium ideas.

[Zimmeh]

Good Morning Everyone,

I had a small pancake for breakfast this morning with one and a half cups of coffee flavored with the Original Coffee Mate creamer and a drop of honey.

I am going to have a peanut butter sandwich on the Italian five grain bread with Special K crackers and string cheese for dinner tonight.

I am not sure what my lunch will be today..I am not hungry at the moment since the Fiber Choice supplements take your appetite away..

Zimmy