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Helpful Tips for Permanent Healthy Eating?
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When it all comes down and said, it has to be something that you will stick with. I follow an 80-90% clean diet but I do not deprive myself of things like chocolate or ice cream or even alcohol. Every night I have a cup of coffee with vanilla creamer and irish cream liquor. I splurge on high end ice cream and have small portions. I keep chocolate bars in the fridge. I used to follow a high protein low carb diet but that no longer works for me. I have to have a balance of carbs and protein and fats and sugars or I start having issues with getting sick or not having energy. All things in moderation is what I try to stick to, along with minimizing highly processed foods. It is what works for me and I have about an 8 pound seasonal weight shift (typically 152-155 during the winter and 145-148 during the summer).
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I keep a stash of fruit on my counter at all times for snacking. When I'm craving cheese I microwave two light string cheeses for about 30 seconds. They come out melty and good and only 120 calories. Those two things alone will usually keep me covered. Another thing I like to do: whenever I make treats like cookies or lemon bars I put most of them in the freezer as soon as their cooled off. That way I don't feel like I have to finish them off before they get old. When I get a hankering for something sweet I know I have something I can microwave that will hit the spot, instead of snacking on packaged cookies for hours and never really satisfying the craving. I think having a plan allows me to enjoy it more too, instead of loathing myself as I'm eating it. One last thing I like to do when I feel like my self-restraint is failing me, I take psyllium husk fiber as a supplement because it expands and helps give me the "full" feeling. If you take it just be sure to drink water with it!
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A little more about THE SCALE:
Not trying to argue with anyone's opinions, just sharing MY perspective, experience, and a New thing I learned Just This week.
Weighing yourself UPON rising, after eliminating (urine) not only gives you a firm TIME of day (habit) it also will give you a TRUE weight daily. As I said before, it is Easier to CONTROL if you KNOW what's going on with your body. I have done this for 3+ years. The scale is MY FRIEND, not my enemy! (By the time my clothes are too tight it's easier to Deny and .. it's too late! )
LAST WEEK was my first full strength training week. I gained about 3 lbs. over my '2- that I try and maintain. I was freaking out a bit.. BUT I decided to stay with it, keep weighing, exercising, and HOPING that it was the extra water gained to repair my heretofore UNUSED muscles. (Knowlege gained as massage therapist in days or yore. 🙂 SO…
THE last two mornings my weigh in recovered back down to my Usual Weight. Yay! I was right! (Thank goodness!!)
All that to say: I think it really IS important to have a 'ritual weigh in'. It has made all the difference in maintaining my previous weight loss of 55 lbs. (See pics of Fat me/Thin me on my profile! "Random" pics w/3 in one shot.) It REALLY DOES matter… at least to me.
I sincerely want to help anyone that wants to hear it. 🙂 THANKS FOR LISTENING.
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MizVix – Why would you think someone would tell you that it's bad? I would love it if I could do better meal plans. I love to cook and I'm getting quite good at it – but looking at the ingredients, I always feel like I am making so much… and then we eat, it and it's all gone!! LOL
I totally second MizVix's advice – even though I find it hard to do myself! Making a ton of something fresh / from scratch and eating it for 3 – 4 days is a great way to go.
I completely agree with ChemmieG – you have to find something you can stick with in the long run. Most clean (or clean-ish – we all need cheats now and then!) diets have an adjustment period as you get the bad stuff out of your system. But if you're finding whatever you're doing hard to sustain, or you feel badly, you might have to re-examine what you're doing.
If you have access to a CSA (community sponsored agriculture) group or a farmer's market, it's a really good way to get local, healthy, tasty fresh food. Some even deliver!
Also, I'm totally addicted to coconut water (not coconut milk) It's light and sweet and a small package is only 60 calories. So refreshing after a workout. I have subbed out coco water, squares of dark chocolate, and dessert teas for actual dessert on most night.
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What coconut water are you drinking?? I have yet to find one that did not make me want to gag. It is too thick and salty for me.
As for the people telling her it is bad….don't you know that everything is bad for you?
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Oh, and LoneStar, only aspartame (equal) is suspected to be an excitoxin, not all sugar substitutes. And this is not even a proven fact, only theorized by one doctor and quoted by many. I have not seen any research done to prove this nor do I know if his research was ever peer reviewed before he published his book.
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You guys are all so totally awesome!! I love all the ideas and suggetions.
Cooking ahead IS wonderful. Being newly 'single' (yay) was eye opening in the cooking department. My tendancy was to eat out, because I was used to cooking for a family at one time; but I just make it anyway and freeze what's too much and then don't have to cook later! There's always something 'ready'. Fortunately the BF eats with me pretty regularly. 😉
Anyway… I just LOVE this place! (SV)
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That's okay 'chemgoddess'! (I never trust anything with ingredients I can't pronounce!) https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif
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thank you again, ladies 🙂
LoneStarDiva, I do weight myself after using the bathroom everymorning…think I found that piece of info in Runners World magazine one day and it stuck with…I can tell that it's more of a stable measurement.
As far as those suggesting the Paleo diet (never heard of it until now…have to read up a little more w/ the links later tonight when I'm done with my run/pole workout!), I have a few concerns…see, I have pretty low blood pressure in general, and after I exercise if I don't have quite a bit of salt (usually I much on three servings of pretzels or some kind of a boxed soup with tons of sodium), my blood pressure drops so rapidly that I get a migrane that doesn't go away until the next day, as well as feeling weak and dehydrated (although I assure you I have more than enough water, and too much water during a workout was actually making this problem worse at one point). Is there enough sodium built into the paleo diet? Also, does the protein take the place of carbs completely? Because I eat much more of the complex carbs when I get to mile 5 in training, and without them I don't have enough sustainable energy. And call me weird, but I have terrible dreams if I eat a little extra protein before bed. Do you eat less protein at night or more? I will obviously read up on it more, as I'm always interested in trying something that may work as a lifestyle, but I'd just be afraid of these few concerns.
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OH and by the way LoneStarDiva, I looked at your before/after photos! Congradulations on the increadible accomplishment! https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif
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Can't help w/most of those questions but i do know this:
Don't eat anything late! (3-4 hours before bedtime) 😉 It too has made a huge difference in maintaining.
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yeah that is one I wish I could follow (not eating before bedtime) but on nights I don't work overnight it is pretty impossible we don't eat until the horses are taken care of which puts dinner between 8 and 8:30. We get up to work out at 5:45 so bed is usually 10.
my weight goes in cycles. working out hard I put on a few pounds until the addtional muscle starts calorie burn, then I drop. Then I tend to increase my workouts and go back up a bit. My tape measure and body chart are my friends. When my scale tells me I put on a few pounds and the weight tape says I lost inches we can all be a happy family. But i don't obsess over my weight. I'm pretty sure I could now fit in my wedding dress from 10 years and 2 kids ago.
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LoneStar….being a chemist that used to work in pharmaceutical and drug discovery there isn’t much I can’t pronounce…..lol!!
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What a great thread. I've struggled with my weight my whole life and need to take heed of some of this advice. I would say that the thing that's helped me the most is registering on the livestrong.com website and using their calorie and fitness tracker. Most of the weight loss tools on the site are free. I've failed in the past with keeping a written food diary, but using the website is easy and takes only a few minutes of my time each day. Almost any food you can think of is in their database and you can enter in recipe ingredients and it will tell you the nutritional value of each serving. You can save information for an entire meal, so that you don't have to enter in each item every time you eat the same meal. While I like the idea of just eating healthier and not being calorie obsessed, it just doesn't work for me personally. I lose control if I just "freestyle" with my diet and try to eyeball portions instead of measuring. I'm really good at deceiving myself and telling myself I'm "on track," even when the results are clearly showing that I'm not.
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I have a very unique viewpoint on this topic.
Eating healthy is a political and ethical stance for me- which keeps my diet almost permanently healthy. I have very little interest in "being healthy"- yet my diet can be healthy because I choose not to support certain companies and industries. My standards are high when it comes to food- I boycott companies that I feel are substandard and profitting from the sale of inferiour, unhealthy, or cruel products. I believe if more people learned about where their food comes from, and all the other aspects of modern day food production and it's impact on people, animals, and the Earth, there would be alot more people eating healthier. (note: i do, of course, indulge occasionally in junk food- it's just usually an organic company, which imo is the lesser of the evils)
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