The Two Letter Word That Is Hard to Say

April 27, 2012 By 25 Comments

Let’s face it. Saying no to yourself isn’t really popular, or a lot of fun.

It’s not fun to tell yourself “no” when you want to buy a new pair of shoes, a new laptop, or a new outfit. But, if you are working on reducing how much money you spend, you have to learn how to tell yourself “no” and mean it.

Likewise, if you are trying to lose weight, there are times when you have to tell yourself a big “no.”

Not surprisingly, telling myself “no” was a major failing of mine as I tried to lose weight during my obese years. I didn’t want to say “no” to fast food meals, chocolate milkshakes or chocolate chip cookies. Instead, I wanted to have all those things and still lose weight.

As I rejoined Weight Watchers, or tried a new diet book, I found it very difficult to resist the foods I loved. Believe me – I tried the “moderation” approach, but in the beginning stages of my diets, I wasn’t so great at moderating anything. That came with time and practice.

The lure of sugar-filled doughnuts, or the yellow package of M&M’s seemed to call my name more strongly than the salad or brown rice did. And I heeded the unhealthy call, and hence passed up the opportunity to make the right choice.

Telling myself “no” was part of the process of self-regulating myself in order to succeed at losing weight. Other facets of the weight loss process involved developing strategies to combat bad habits, committing to an exercise routine, controlling emotional eating and retraining my cooking skills.

When I started to lose weight that last time, I found it easy to say “no” to myself for the first few weeks of my dieting experience. But even though I saw pretty heft weight loss totals those first few weeks, after about three weeks, I began to feel sorry for myself. I still had the desire to eat a lot of junky foods, and telling myself “no” when it came to cakes, cookies, etc. was tiresome.

Instead of succumbing like I always had in the past, I gave myself a lot of pep talks about how miserable I was as a 300 pound woman, how tired I was of being constantly tired, and how much better I’d feel (and look) if I weighed less. In addition to pep talks, I also refused to buy those foods, walked away from dessert tables at social functions and chewed a lot of gum.

Over time, I didn’t mind saying no to most of those unnecessary foods, but instead relished in the fact that I could now say yes to smaller clothes, more energy and compliments from my husband.

As my weight loss progressed, I learned to say “yes” to the occasional treat that rated a “10″ in my book, but still said a lot of “nos” along the way.

How are you at saying no to yourself? Or do you believe that you shouldn’t have to say “no?” Diane

Filed Under: Choices, Weight Loss

If You Fudge, Only You Really Know

April 23, 2012 By 40 Comments

I’m all about portion control. Seriously. Even today, if I’m eating something measurable that I am not familiar with such as couscous or quinoa, you may just see me open my cabinet and bring out my measuring cups or counting the right number of whatever I’m eating. It’s that important to me. It’s also a strategy that I believe has helped me maintain my weight loss this long.

It’s really easy to fudge on portion sizes. Really easy.

It is important to remember that there is a difference between serving sizes and portion sizes. Sheah Rarback, a spokesperson for the ADA explains the difference:

“A serving is the amount recommended in consumer education materials such as the Food Guide Pyramid, while a portion is the amount of food you choose to eat at any one time–and that may be more or less than a serving.

I love the last part of that quote. “That may be more or less than a serving.”   I realized during my final weight loss odyssey that if I fudged on my portions, and ate more than one proper serving at a time, I was really hurting myself.  (Not so much with vegetables of course, but with other foods.)

The Little Decisions

One serving of whole crackers may officially be 5 crackers, but who knew if I ate six or seven. What difference does just a few extra make?

One serving of a banana is a medium sized banana, not two gigantic ones. Who knew? What differences does one more make?

One serving of frozen yogurt is a half a cup. Who knew if I had two servings? What difference did it make?

Taken separately, it may not have made much of a difference at all. After all, 50 calories here or 70 calories there does not a diet plan ruin. But 50 calories four or five times a day can do some damage. It can do damage if you are maintaining like I am, or if you are losing.

The Consequences

Those extra 200 calories a day add up to 1,400 calories for the week. Unless you are exercising or moving a little bit more to compensate for those extra bites here and there, your weight loss may stall or you may start to gain.

I’ve seen it happen to myself, and that’s exactly why I have a 3 to 5-pound weight range that I allow myself to float in. If the number on the scale hits my high mark, I immediately evaluate what I’ve been doing and determine what needs to change. Nine times out of ten it isn’t the exercise that’s the problem, but the little bites of food I eat while cooking, or the extra piece of bread as a snack.

As you are following your weight loss or weight maintenance eating plan, I’d really encourage you to look carefully at the serving sizes on the side of the box or with an online calculator. Often times weight loss stalling or regaining is about food quantity. I know it’s a pain to measure or count your food – but it really can make a difference in your long-term success.

How are you with eating the right serving size? Ever cheat like I do?  Diane

Filed Under: Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance

What I Gave Up To Lose 150 Pounds

April 20, 2012 By

My kids would tell you that I hate to lose things. If I misplace my keys or notebook I will enlist (coerce) the whole family to help me find my lost item. It weighs on my mind until I find it.

Losing 150 pounds was different though. I did not hate to lose those pounds, but instead was thrilled to see them go away and even more thrilled that they have not returned after 14 years. Sometimes people ask me if I feel like I had to give up too much to lose that much weight. I always tell them “No, I don’t feel like I had to give anything of value up at all. Instead I opened the doors of my life to new adventures and more positive feelings.”

However, there were some things that I did have to give up in order to lose 150 pounds.

♦ I gave up dieting forever.

♦ I gave up lugging around an extra person on my 5’10″ frame.

♦ I gave up not fitting in chairs with arms.

♦ I gave up seat belt extenders.

♦ I said goodbye to plus-sized clothes like these.

♦ I gave up feeling winded after walking for a short time.

♦ I gave up brownies for breakfast.

♦ I gave up the psychological distress of being morbidly obese.

♦ I gave up high blood pressure and joint pain.

I could honestly go on and on and on, but I’ll just stop right here before we all get bored! My point of this Friday’s post is the things I gave up to lose all that weight were things I gladly gave up. I did not give up anything I wish I had back.

The things I gained were far more important than the things I lost.

What are you happy to give up? Do you think you will miss anything?  Diane

Filed Under: Weight Loss

Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Exercise?

April 18, 2012 By

This is one of those posts that I hesitated to write, because I don’t want to step on any toes.

But step by step, I’m going forward. And the reason I wanted to write this post, was to get your opinions and thoughts on exercise. Not if you think it’s a good thing, because probably most of us are in agreement on that fact. My question is: Can people sustain the level of exercise they are doing to lose weight?

Here’s an example: I read at least 10 blogs recently, where the men and women were super motivated to lose weight. Good for them!!!! But, in reading through their blogs, I was astonished at how much exercise they were doing. I’m not talking about just taking a long walk every day, or spending an hour in the gym a few days a week. I’m talking hard-core, training for the Olympics type of exercise. Doing two workouts a day, two hours at the gym, and then walking for an hour later. Riding bikes for hours at a time, then working at the gym. And these aren’t people who are training for a triathlon or anything. They are just working their behinds off to lose weight.

I admire that in a lot of ways. But it scares me for them. Unless you are training for a specific event, then can you really sustain that type of intense exercise forever? Or do you need to? Here’s my thoughts, and I’d love to hear yours. Exercising that much burns a lot of calories, and most of the people I saw, were losing weight, but not rapidly. Which makes me think they are eating to compensate for the calories burned. Understandable, and good in some ways. But are they eating so much, that when they reach their goal weight, and cut back on that crazy amount of exercise, will their eating habits be able to maintain their weight, or will they start to regain?

Do you see what I’m saying? Exercise is great, but the point of weight loss for me wasn’t just about losing weight, but changing my lifestyle from an unhealthy, sedentary life, to an active life that was both realistic and sustainable. So for me, that included exercise six days a week, but generally for 45 minutes at the most. I strength train a couple times a week (most weeks), and am working to increase that a little bit.

How much exercise is too much? Or is there such a thing?  For athletes this answer will be different. But for your average person, how much can you keep up? Sure, you may be able to spend hours and hours a week at the gym while you are super focused on your weight, but can you do that much exercise to maintain your weight loss? Or do you want to?

This may vary by person. But I wonder, if that person wasn’t an athlete to begin with, do they really want to spend that much time just to maintain a loss?

I’m not sure about this one. I just know, that when I read these people’s stories, and see the amount of time they are spending exercising, I worry for them. I worry about sustainability.

What do you think? What are your goals once you get to where you want to be? Or if you are already there – what does your exercise routine look like?  Diane

Filed Under: Weight Loss

Decisions That Change Your Life

April 16, 2012 By

I had someone email me the other day who asked this question. (I asked permission to use it in this post.)

Why is this so hard? I really admire people like you who make a commitment, focus on their goal and stay on track ’til they reach their target. I don’t know what its going to take for me to reach that level of commitment.

I emailed her back that  the weight loss journey is one of decisions. I shared some other bloggers who have maintained a large weight loss such as Jane and Lisa. Any person who has lost weight and maintained  it for any length of time had a point where they said, “I’m making a decision to change my life forever. The time is now.”

I can’t speak for Jane or Lisa, but for me, the desire to change had been in my heart and soul for a long, long time. The years I struggled with obesity were filled with desires to lose weight, decisions to join WW or try another program, and deep disappointment when I once again failed. So how did I manage to go from failing over and over again to finally succeeding in meeting my goals and staying there?

Making one decision wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to just say, “I’ve decided to lose weight,” because I had said those words thousands of times before to no avail. No amount of health risks, appearance flaws, or personal dissatisfaction had been enough to move me from “I’ve decided,” to “I do.”

But on that fateful day after my doctor’s appointment I made the same decision I had made before. “I’m going to lose weight.” And I did.

But what I did differently from before is probably one of the most important decisions I ever made for myself.

 I decided:

  • I wasn’t going to quit no matter how many bad decisions I made along the way.
  • I was going to press forward irregardless of how I was feeling that day.
  • I was not going to allow the fear of failure to stop me this time.
  • I was going to get healthy and fit because I wanted to, not because other people were telling me to.

The decision to start again was accompanied by the decision to not quit. And because I’m human like everyone else, there were days when I fell apart. Days I didn’t want to eat only one serving of a food. Days I didn’t want to exercise. Days I hated life. And on those days I didn’t always make the “right” decision. But instead of quitting like I would have in the past, I made a new decision right then. I decided to keep going in spite of my setbacks. I decided not to quit.

Our lives are filled with decisions all day long. What to wear, what car to drive, when to get up, who to call, where to eat, what to eat, when to brush our teeth, etc. So as I continued on the weight loss portion of my journey I learned that I just needed to keep making better and better decisions with regards to my food and exercise choices. I decided long ago to brush my teeth daily. Why couldn’t I learn to decide to make as healthy choices as I could? I realized that I could learn to do that, and I did.

And the more good decisions I made the easier it all became. Not “easy as pie” but not impossible either.

One good decision beget another until the good decisions far outweighed the bad ones. The weight loss was steady and I reached my goal.

And then the fun part began. The good decisions I had trained myself to make became good decisions I continued to make into maintenance. Not always perfectly of course – but right enough of the time to maintain for all these years.

So what’s your decision today? Diane

 

Filed Under: Choices, Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance

Is the Work of Weight Loss Worth The Effort?

April 13, 2012 By

When I was overweight, I knew I was headed down a dangerous path. I was old enough to realize that weighing twice what I should weigh wasn’t healthy, emotionally or physically. As my weight crept up, I noticed drastic changes in my appearance, and subtle changes in my health. Weight gain does not happen overnight.  If you think about weight gain, you will realize that it doesn’t happen overnight.  Generally speaking, if you are substantially overweight, it took years to get to the point where you are now.  Because of this, often times your overall health status changes slowly as well.  That was true for me.

During the years I put on weight I began noticing little health problems that weren’t there previously.  Whereas I had always been able to walk without difficulty, I sometimes found myself unable to walk for even short periods of time without feeling winded and exhausted.  I remember one time when John and I took the children to the park to walk the nature trail.  We set off happily on the narrow trail, and it wasn’t long before I realized that I was kinda big for the trail, but I kept going.  As the trail drifted upward, I started to fall behind.  John and the kids ended up quite a bit ahead of me as I struggled to keep up with them.  I couldn’t believe how tired I was when we finally reached the end of the long trail.  As we left the trail, and walked past the marker for the beginning of the trail again, I glanced at the signage.  The long trail had only been .5 miles.  That was the first time I realized that I was seeing some real physical effects of the extra weight I was carrying.  As I grew bigger, this type of exhaustion and tiredness happened over and over.  My family became accustomed to me saying, “I just need to rest for a minute.”

Some other side effects of my weight that I personally noticed in addition to difficulty breathing and becoming easily tired were: sweating more,  pain in my knees and back, harder to keep skin my clear, and at one point the doctor suspected I was suffering from gallstones, but fortunately that turned out to be a false alarm.  Other things that researchers have found are more common in overweight individuals than in those of normal weight are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diseases related to hardening of the arteries, such as heart attack and stroke (cardiovascular disease), type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer.

So all this brings us to the initial question.  Are the health benefits of losing weight worth the effort?  Well, before we can answer that question, let’s see what research has found the health benefits to be.  Here are some commonly accepted benefits to losing even small amounts of weight:

  • Lower your cholesterol levels
  • Reduce your blood pressure
  • Reduced aches and pains
  • Improved mobility
  • Improve your breathing
  • Help you sleep better and wake more rested
  • Prevention of angina, chest pain caused by decreased oxygen to the heart
  • Decreases your risk of sudden death from heart disease or stroke
  • Prevention of Type 2 diabetes
  • Improved blood sugar levels
  • May aid in the prevention of some cancers

That’s a pretty impressive list.  I personally experienced several of those benefits as I lost weight, and the health benefits increased even more once I reached my goal weight.  My blood pressure dropped significantly, my energy level increased, my aches and pains disappeared, I no longer was exhausted at the end of the evening and I slept better.  I know too, that by losing weight and getting fit, I have increased the chance that I will live longer.

As you go about your day today, examine how you feel physically.  Are your joints tired?  Do you get easily winded?  What does your doctor say about your weight?  How’s your blood pressure and cholesterol levels?

If you are ever tempted to take a break from your quest to improve your health, I’d encourage you to think about how every good choice you make gives you one more opportunity to make your quality of life fuller and those day to day tasks easier.

Is there a specific health benefit that you are working towards? Is there one you’ve already achieved that you’d be willing to share?  Diane

 

Filed Under: Weight Loss

Although Tempting, It Is Best To Just Pass These By

April 11, 2012 By

As part of my Brand Ambassadorship (is that a term?) over at Attune Foods, I’m writing there about one of the downsides of fad diets. Please join us over there for a discussion!

Comments are closed here for today, but open at Attune!  Diane

Filed Under: obesity, Weight Loss

NOW I Am Good Enough To Talk To

April 9, 2012 By

I often get asked about how people I knew reacted to my extreme weight loss.

The reactions varied greatly, but there was one reaction that I often think about because it still annoys me, even after all these years.

This story involves the husband of a friend of mine. I met her when I was already a size 28, so she had never known me as a “regular” sized person.  Whenever I visited her or saw her in the halls at church she was extremely nice and friendly. But her husband? Never spoke to me. Never looked at me. Barely acknowledged I was standing there. And that must have been hard to do since I weighed more than he and his wife put together! But somehow he managed it.

I tried to chalk it up to his inept social abilities, but secretly I wondered if his lack of friendliness was because of my weight. After all, I saw him talking to other people all the time, and his business as a professional required him to interact with people both on the phone and in person.. And he was good at business, as they were relatively affluent.

In my heart I really did think his attitude was about my weight.

As I lost more and more weight I experienced many great reactions to my success. Exclamations of surprise, questions that wore me out, and congratulations from every corner. But one reaction I’d rather not have received was from this guy.

An elderly gentlemen in our had recently church passed away and John and I agreed to meet at the church for the funeral. (At this point I had lost about 90% of my weight, and weighed about 165.) I got out of the car and started walking up to the main entrance of the church. Disembarking from his car was this guy. Our paths crossed and the following happened:

He took some quick steps over to me, threw his arm around my shoulder, and said, “Diane – so great to see you. Where’s John? How are the kids? So sad about Mr. “X” passing away isn’t it?” I remember stepping away from his unwanted “hug” and automatically answering his questions.

All the while my mind was whirring. “DON’T TALK TO ME NOW.” He and I walked into the church together – he rattling words out of his mouth a mile a minute and me fuming., “Who did he think he was? Why was I now worthy of his attention?”

I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t in a “funeral” frame of mind during the service. Instead all I could think about was his reaction. And I got madder and madder. I wanted to jump out of my seat and go ask him why he barely spoke to me when I was fat, but now that I was an average sized woman he was willing to grace me with his presence? But I didn’t. I sat there and tried to focus on the pastor’s words.

Has this ever happened to you? Are there people in your life who you feel judge you for your appearance, or avoid you? If so, I’m sorry. I know how that feels and it’s not fun.

It’s as if that guy, and others like him, ignore the overweight people of the world in favor of the “pretties.” And that’s wrong.

I often felt overlooked as an obese woman. I felt as though there were people, like him, who judged me based on my outward appearance, found me lacking, and moved on. I want to encourage you to not let those kinds of people get you down or make you angry. Why not?

Because they are just not worth your emotional energy.

Focus instead on those people in your life who you can help, who love you, and who appreciate you and others for who you are inside, not what you look like on the outside. To me, it is all about respect.

How do you handle these types of situations?  Diane

Filed Under: Appearance, Weight Loss

Your New Normal

April 6, 2012 By

Change is something I often resisted in my life. When we contemplated moving from Florida to Virginia several years ago I was pretty resistant. (Although I was glad to move back to Florida after fighting DC traffic for two years.)

I think that my tendency to be resistant to change made it a bit more difficult for me to embrace a total lifestyle change when it came to exercise and healthy eating. Every time I tried a new program or just decided to “go it alone” when I was morbidly obese, I did not want to think that the healthy eating choices I was trying to make were going to be my new normal. Instead I really wanted to believe that I could lose some weight and then go back to my old normal.

The truth was that my old normal was not a healthy way to live. However, a new normal meant that I had to make major changes and that was scary and difficult.

My fear of change almost kept me from discovering that a new normal was going to be a better normal. Sure it was different to look at food from the perspective of weight maintenance and health, but the differences in my life at a new normal were almost all positive.

The new normal for me included changes like eating a real breakfast instead of cookies, exercising every day, breaking bad food habits such as grazing uncontrollably after dinner, learning how to cook healthy meals, and putting the brakes on all day snacking.

Another aspect of my new normal involved getting rid of all the plus size clothes in my closet, having more energy than I had since I was in college, feeling strong and positive, and sharing my new normal with other people.

Part of your weight loss journey really does involve learning to embrace your new normal and not fear the change. Additionally, facing the fact that if you go back to your old normal you will also go back to your unhealthy weight is a reality that we all have to confront. Even though your old normal was comfortable, it was not the healthiest lifestyle for you or for your family. That realization can be a hard one to embrace and accept, but accepting it helps you move forward into your new normal.

Because I had over 100 pounds to lose, I had a long time to learn to embrace the new normal. By the time I got to a healthy weight I had gone a long way toward being excited about my new lifestyle and being able to put aside the old habits that had caused me to becoming morbidly obese in the first place. I’m glad that I was finally able to embrace a new, healthy normal.

Do you ever think about a new normal? What impact does that have on your decisions? Diane

Filed Under: Weight Loss

Are Food Journals Worth the Effort?

April 2, 2012 By

I probably wouldn’t be too far off I if I assumed that most of you have tried more than one diet plan before embarking on your current weight loss journey.

I know I did.

I had tried more diets than I’d care to confess to before I finally lost weight using percentage of fat, portion control, and exercise.

I frequently get emails from people asking my opinion on a wide variety of topics. One of the common questions I get is that involving journaling of food. When I teach my weight loss class, not surprisingly called, Fit to the Finish, I offer the participants a food diary sheet they can use if they’d like, but I don’t “require” it. Some people use it, and some don’t.

But perhaps more of them should. A study by Kaiser Permanente found that the people who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as those people that did not. And the study size was relatively large – 1,700 people. I think it is pretty impressive that the food diary participants lost twice as much weight as the non-food diary participants.

People often ask me whether I kept a food diary as I was losing weight.  The answer is no, I didn’t keep a food diary on a regular basis. BUT, I did occasionally track what I was eating for a few days to make certain that I wasn’t

1) Eating too much of a good thing,

2) Missing out on certain nutrients.

The occasional food diary was a good compromise for me, because although I am pretty disciplined, I didn’t think that writing down my food for the rest of my life would be something I could stick with.

However, food journaling doesn’t have to be an all or nothing affair. For me, the occasional food journaling worked beautifully, but for other people, even that small amount of journaling would be restrictive and difficult. For still others, keeping track of every bit of food that goes into their mouth is their number one best way to success. And I admire that because it’s a time-honored, proven strategy.

There are a lot of online diet tools available, but one that I admire greatly is SparkPeople. That’s a free site which offers calorie tracking, an abundance of weight loss articles, exercise routines, message boards and more. Their primary recommendation for weight loss centers around food journaling (through their site), calorie counting, and exercise.

What are your thoughts on food journaling? Yes it’s worth your time, or not for you. I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Diane

photocredit

Filed Under: Weight Loss, Weight Maintenance
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