A big part of my current diet life change has been being honest with myself about how I'm living my life and what steps need to be taken to improve. If you start from a place where you know that's a difficult thing to do you'll be fine. You'll make mistakes and you'll try to justify some of the unhealthy things you do, but overall you'll be fine.
Unfortunately not everyone gets that. I currently live with my cousin and his fiancee. They are both very overweight. Both of them saw the progress I've made in the last year and decided that they want to lose weight get healthy too. So I've tried to help them with that by telling them what I've learned over the last year, both in theory from articles I've read and in practice from what I've experienced.
The problem is the fiancee. She does the cooking in the house and she's great at it. The first three months I lived with them I gained 10 pounds, which was what inspired me to lose the weight to begin with. She loves to bake, which sucks for me because I love to eat. I'll give you an example of what I'm dealing with.
On Monday she opened her recipe book and baked a pan of some sort of cinnamon bar. They're delicious. They're also heavy. We each had two bars. We use MyFitnessPal, so she found a recipe close to what she used and entered it in and I copied it. I weighed my bars, 7 oz. The recipe said a serving was 3.5 oz at 400 calories. That makes 800 calories for 2 bars. Ouch. She only put one bar in her diary, claiming "Yeah, but the recipes aren't exactly the same. They can't be that much." Well, I bet they're pretty close. And it isn't fewer calories just because you want it to be. But she's stubborn and won't listen to me despite my calmest efforts. Oh well.
Anybody else deal with this sort of thing? Especially from yourself?
Oh, yeah, honesty is a tough thing. It's exactly why the calorie counting is important - it can help force some honesty. I probably face it most when I consider how much soda I drink. Giving up pop entirely was very good for my honesty. I haven't been following through on my plan to cut way back yet, and I've been tempted to lie to myself about it. But there it is... I haven't cut back on pop despite my plan to do so. My backup plan is to just not buy it again after the current stock runs out.
My past week was pretty much a lost week - lots of stress. Sometimes that's great for getting me to the gym, but when it becomes overwhelming, like it did this past week, it totally derails me. I managed to run a little over a mile yesterday, though, and I'm hoping to put in at least 2 today. Just picking myself up and dusting myself off.
Stress is a big deal. I attribute a lot of my success to the fact that I finally have a job that doesn't constantly stress me out.
Yeah. Stress pretty much killed my entire 2012, and when I've had less stress this year I've been more successful. So yeah... it's huge.
stress burns a lot of calories
This past week was the kind of stress where I was physically aware of it - sick to my stomach, tension in my shoulders, etc. so it was a special kind of high-level stress. I'm sure it did burn calories. My weight fluctuated a ton the last week, but I'm pretty much back where I was pre-catostrophe-level-stress.
I gave up pop completely in January, but allowed it to creep back in the last few months. Still, I haven't had any at home, so if I limit it only to when I'm in a restaurant, I'm doing better. Not buying it will be very helpful, Philo.
I also happen to live with a baker. It's very very tough when there are cookies everywhere. Thankfully, Sheenie cuts back considerably when the weather turns warmer.
I love to bake. I often put a good portion of whatever I make (e.g. cookies, quick breads) in the freezer so that it's out of sight and can be enjoyed later. I also try to channel some of my bakerly* urges into things like whole grain breads, though the lure of cookies is usually pretty hard to resist.
*if Mags can make up words, so can I
I went to the grocery store tonight. I did not buy pop!
...
I did buy a doughnut.
Can't win 'em all.
wait, you gave up soda AND pop?
It was a very challenging Lent.
There's nothing like seeing what eating four slices of pizza does to your calorie count. Being honest about the amounts you consume and/or what you consume will be the difference between losing a healthy amount of weight and just kind of treading water. I am guessing your cousin-in-law will not lose much weight until she is honest with her self.
Oy. Pizza is my weak spot. If there is pizza around I will not be losing any weight that day.
I know that it's been a couple of months since she's dropped any weight. Further aggravating things was a recent trip to the doctor telling her 1400 calories a day isn't enough and she should eat more. "I'm not eating enough, that's why I'm not losing weight". Sorry doc, that's not how it works. Sure, there's a delicate balance regarding metabolism and nutrition, but if you eat less you lose weight. Then again, she's a manipulator so I'm sure that's not exactly what the doctor said.
I'm extremely fat, but when I saw the nutritionist to get on a plan to get my body more healthy I was put on a 2600 calorie diet. My doctor suggested not going under that rate because it would not be helpful. I definitely noticed this. When I was eating under that rate I felt like garbage and didn't lose weight. Once I got to that level I was doing a lot better. Going 1000 calories below your maintenance caloric intake is about as low as you should go. If 1400 is under that for her, then I could see it having a very negative impact on her attempts to lose weight.
Oh yeah, I'm not suggesting going way under is healthy. Quite the contrary. I just don't think that's what's happening in this case.
Yeah, I noticed the last sentence after I posted, haha. Sorry about that.
I bet DWill has cost Rubio 30 assist by missing dunks
That is one form of denial