7 pounds Jettisoned in June!

tara747

You are doing so well crapwithmoney!!!!!!!!! Swimming 30 lengths, walking the dog and all your food is healthy! Well done on a perfect day. And you haven't got a lardy !!!!

As for not giving into the chocolate craving, I salute you. I wish I could do the same. I am eating fruit and veg all day today (till dinner anyway). I have a lovely salad with me for lunch (toms, rocket, roasted peppers, chickpeas and pine nuts) and am having an apple, a banana and an orange for breakfast. So far so good. I'm visiting friends this weekend so there will be plenty of walking as they live in lovely countryside. And I am going to be good.

I really do need to control my cravings and not let them control me. I am an adult, I should have the wisdom to recognise 'mouth hunger' and the mental strength to say no to it. I can do it on holiday, why not at home? Work days are the worst, I get so bored and just graze all day. I am going to consider the pros and cons of the protein shakes, if it gives me the kick start I need it will be worth it.

Crap_with_money.com

Ha ha - "mouth hunger" - I like that! :rotfl:

Sounds like a good plan for today from you Tara - you can do it girl!! (to move from oprah to Jerry Springer!) I can sense that will-power of steel you've got lurking beneath!!

That's one "perfect" food day down from me - only a gazillion more to go!

So far today:

B: 1/2 bowl of porridge (running late so hadn't time to finish it!) 1 small banana
S: 1 cup of green tea (I've run out of peppermint! :rolleyes:)

As for the rest of the day - who knows......

Don't think I'll make it to the gym today, I've to hand the car back tonight since it's my last day in the job (the cheek of 'em - not letting me keep it just since I don't work here any more! ), but I've sent OH off with the Wii Fit under his arm yesterday so I can at least have a go on that tonight when I get to his!

xx

tara747

OK, I am actually hungry after only eating fruit all morning, It isn't very filling, is it? I have a packet of Polos in my drawer, might suck on one or two to take my mind off it. 139 calories per tube, I wonder how many there are in a tube. Gotta be at least 20 so that's about 7 calories each. I'll go for a walk at lunchtime and then come back to my lovely salad.

crapwithmoney, keep up the good work! Good on you getting so organised with the Wii Fit as well. You should be so proud of yourself. Do bananas fill you up better than other fruit? I had one this morning (can't remember the last time I had a banana!) and it probably filled me better than an extra apple/orange/kiwi would have.

I think there may be some drinking this evening, oh dear!!!!!!

Crap_with_money.com

yeah I do find they fill me up a bit better than other fruit. Usually if I'm having fruit, I have it with some low fat yoghurt (I find the shape ones are really good since they're quite thick and creamy) - since I find it fills me up a bit better, plus it feels almost like you're having a dessert!

Or a glass of milk often the trick as well - but then I am a complete Milk fiend! It kills me that they only buy the long-life nonsense in my work!

och it's Friday night - it'd make for a very boring life if you didn't let your hair down now and again! What's your favourite tipple? Maybe you could switch to something lower in calories to minimise the damage? I actually found that I like the taste of Gin and Tonic much better than Vodka - so I've gotten over the fact that I feel like a granny asking for it at the bar! (Mostly by making OH do the honours and order for me! )

xx

binkyboo_2

Crap_with_money.com wrote: »

och it's Friday night - it'd make for a very boring life if you didn't let your hair down now and again! What's your favourite tipple? Maybe you could switch to something lower in calories to minimise the damage? I actually found that I like the taste of Gin and Tonic much better than Vodka - so I've gotten over the fact that I feel like a granny asking for it at the bar! (Mostly by making OH do the honours and order for me! )

xx

Ooh i love gin and tonic too and i've been drinking it since i was 18 on and off so i must be a very young granny!
it's white wine that's my downfall, i love pinot grigiot, cava, prosecco, champagne (can't afford that often though!) i think that there is around 600 calories in a bottle of wine so that is a lot of exercising to burn that off the next day!

Crap_with_money.com

binkyboo wrote: »

Ooh i love gin and tonic too and i've been drinking it since i was 18 on and off so i must be a very young granny!

.

:rotfl:Sorry binky!! No offence meant - just always seemed like something older people drank to me! obviously not

xx

tara747

Oooh, good idea to have the fruit with yogurt. I forgot to bring my Greek yog this morning. I love milk and dairy stuff as well.

Lunch was superb, yummy salad!

tara747

LOL at the gin and tonic! I love it too!

Crap_with_money.com

Well - lunch has been and gone for me! Managed to stay good!

A chicken salad sandwich, brown bread, no mayo! :T Then 12 cherries! (even walked the 20 mins to the sandwich shop and back rather than driving! )

Hopefully that'll see me through, I'm in the office myself for the rest of the day, so there won't really be the opportunity to cheat!

xx

AdrianHi

Crap_with_money.com wrote: »

Tara - I do agree with everything Adrianhi has said, but IMHO, if you are trying to overhaul your lifestyle for the better and for the longer term, the changes you make have to be sustainable, and sometimes you can put just a little bit too much science into your diet. "babysteps" is pretty much my motto - you're doing the right thing by starting to document what you're eating, because you're then able to look back over it and make gradual changes. From what I've seen of your posts, you're an intelligent girl, and I think you already have a very good idea of what you do and don't need to be doing to get back in shape.

I've never been much of a calorie counter, I've played with the idea of it a few times, but I find it starts to give me quite an unhealthy attitude towards what I'm eating because I start to become a bit obsessed and feel like i'm depriving myself. Obviously everyone's different, so maybe counting the calories will work for you, but if I had to write a bible of how i've lost weight, it'd be based on the following:

- Trying where possible to make the healthier choice (Ie - brown bread instead of white, extra light flora instead of butter, tomato sauce instead of creamy ones, boiled rice instead of fried, fruit instead of chocolate etc etc)
- Stop eating when I'm full (Sounds ridiculously obvious - but my mum has a very bad habit of being very over generous with her portions, and in the past if it was on my plate, I ate it, I now try to be conscious of only eating when I'm actually hungry)
- Don't deprive myself of the things I really enjoy, and don't beat myself up too much when I do slip
- Trying to get as much activity into my life as possible (even just the simple things like taking the stairs instead of the lift etc)
- If I'm going to eat something which is bad for me - I make sure it's something I'll really enjoy

I wouldn't say I've changed my diet in the sense that I still eat all of the food I really enjoy, I've just found ways of modifying it so that the things that were bad for me, are slightly healthier than they maybe were before.

Whilst you're not the weight you want to be, you're not exactly overweight either - which does mean it'll be a slow gradual process to get the weight shifted - but on the flipside of that, if you manage to achieve it by gradually changing your lifestyle for the better, then hopefully the weight'll stay off?

Adrianhi's approach will probably give you much quicker results - but for me anyway, it wouldn't work in the long-term. I don't want to lose the weight I need to shift, and still be counting calories to try keep it off.

-- gradually changing your lifestyle

Agree with pretty much all of the above. Calorie counting (and activity counting) does get a bit obsessive but it's the only way. Calorie intake less than calorie use is the only way you will get rid of fat, you have to acheive it somehow and counting calories gave me a way to measure what was going on so it worked for me.

I will qualify this by giving you a quick bit of history about my situation.
I started calorie counting on my "normal" habits using caloriecount.about.com, identified calorie intake items that didn't satisfy appetite (I don't go around hungry all the time, so it is sustainable) and cut a few things out every couple of days until I got down to the daily calories recommended by caloriecount to get the weight loss I wanted. It is too hard to make the cut all in one go. You should never loose more than 2lbs a week otherwise it's too fast for your health. What your meant to do when reaching your target weight is increase calorie intake again to maintain weight.
I do still enjoy a beer or wine at least once a week and a Chinese takeway occasionally (lots of calories!) because I like them the the whole experience would be miserable and so unsustainable without them.
I only actually recorded calorie intake in this level of detail for 2 weeks by which time I had learned what I needed to know to keep a sustainable pattern of eating and drinking and weight loss without it and without finding it a struggle.
I've lost 1.5 stone since February. Not much this month as I've been a bit less strict while on holiday.

Fruit is a tricky one as it gives you a blood sugar high, then a low when the insulin kicks in and this make you feel hungry again. Keeping blood sugar steady with slow energy release foods (good carbohydrates like break, pasta, potatoe, rice in the right quantity) and try to avoid the sugary stuff unless with other food helps a great deal with keeping the feeling of hunger away.

1500-1700 calories in a day (my target, other peoples will be different) can equal quite of lot of appetite satisfying food if you choose right. I think I eat at least as much and maybe more than Tara does, but I do it in less calories and/or with slower energy realease foods - veg. instead of fruit for example.

I honestly don't feel hungry that often which makes it easy to sustain which is why I get so enthusistaic about this approach.