Diet and exercise.
These words have been said to me or by me more times that I can remember. All you have to do is diet and exercise! That's what we all know to be true and so begins the rat race to see who finds the easiest way to achieve weight loss with as little effort as possible.
I've tried:
I imagined one day getting my stomach stapled, lap band, or some kind of surgery. Honestly, I think I would have chickened out anyway. I prefer not going through surgery as it increases my risk of then having other health complications. Just didn't seem worth the risk yet. I hadn't tried "everything" yet, like I sometimes claimed.
Trying everything means I have to know everything, and I sure didn't. I still don't, but I know a lot more than I used to and that's a start.
One thing I also remember people telling me was that losing weight was 80% focus on your diet and 20% on your exercise. I've always felt like I was a one-at-a-time kind of person so I started by focusing 100% of my attention on my diet to get that under control. Again, a lot of that started after I gave up on soda. I'd learned through counting calories that soda was taking up a lot of them, and diet sodas contain sweeteners that are believed to be dangerous to consume, potentially causing cancer. It's been remarkably easy to pretend like I am impervious to death as I've managed to avoid it thus far, but cancer doesn't sound like anything found on my bucket list. That was enough motivation to get me to stop. I replaced it with other harmful beverages like lemonades, frappucinos and flavored lattes, and chocolate almond milk. Okay, chocolate almond milk isn't going to give me cancer, I realize this, but Almond Breeze chocolate almond milk still contains 5 teaspoons of sugar per serving. Even if I want to believe it's healthy, it's not. Believing something does not make it true, Alicia.
I probably sound like a broken record to everyone, but sugar is a serious problem with our diet in this country (and several others who have adopted our junk food culture). It's like every day is the State Fair when you have McDonalds and Burger King and Taco Bell. You can get anything fried up and ready to eat in minutes and every meal can end with dessert.
I learned through personal research and watching several food-related documentaries that junk food seems to all be linked to the addition of sugar. Sure, we love our chips and crackers, but those usually contain other addictive chemicals that our taste buds find irresistible. Sugar is in many things that aren't considered sweets. Check out the ketchup bottles. Go look how many grams per serving are in a salad dressing bottle. I found it fun to go through my cabinets and see how many things had sugar in it. Most of them were a complete shock to me. Fresh fruit is great. I eat a piece of fruit every day, sometimes many. But most dried fruit is not great because they add more sugar to it.
Diet.
Can't be a temporary thing like I've treated my past diets. For me, diets only lasted for a pre-determined amount of time. Like a 30-day cleanse or a diet-until-I-lose-the-weight kind of deal. Those didn't seem to work for me. In fact, most of the time I'd gain more weight than I had originally been pre-diet. Which sucked. It seemed that every time I went on a diet that restricted me from things I wanted, I would retaliate afterwards and reward myself too much once the diet was officially over in my mind. I remember at one point I was even inspired to change the way I talk to myself about food. I stopped saying "I can't have that" and instead told myself "I don't want that". My conversations in my head were about reinforcing the idea that this could be a better way of life and it's not about punishing myself.
Old Thinking: I want that donut so badly... but I CAN'T have it because of my stupid diet. I can't wait until cheat-day. I'm going to eat like 4 donuts. It's not like I'll start drinking pop again. It's just a couple of donuts.
New Thinking: Ooh, that donut looks tasty. I bet it's not though, look at how cheap it looks. If I'm going to eat a donut it better be from a really good bakery, otherwise it's just going to taste lame and make me regret eating it.
*
Old Thinking: This pie is delicious and I never want to stop tasting this thing. I hope there's a whole pan of it left in the fridge because I could probably eat the whole thing. I consider it my dinner, too. I won't eat anything else tonight, so it's not as bad as it could be.
New Thinking: This pie is delicious upon the first few bites and then it becomes unreasonably sweet and I don't want any more. It's super good and I would keep eating it, but I'm also pretty full from the blast of sugary calories I just threw in my belly. I can always put something away for later.
*
Old Thinking: Some of my fondest memories from childhood are being alone or with friends in my house, playing video games and eating. Junk food is a staple of my childhood and I enjoy living with it in my life as an adult. I can buy anything I want now, and this fast food is super cheap so I can buy a ton of it!!
New Thinking: Some of my fondest memories from childhood are also playing the piano and singing, writing music, playing with friends on the boulevard grass, and following my brother around, trying to be as cool as him. It's not all about the food. I think I was wrong when I thought junk food wasn't hurting me. I think it was the only thing holding me back from being a healthy weight.
I have learned so much from this experience already and the my biggest discovery was that I have control over my weight. I knew from a visit to the doctor that I didn't have any problems with my thyroid, so I had to figure out what I was doing wrong. This was it for me. If I could really cut out all of the junk completely, would I see or feel any significant change? It wasn't an easy thing to test, as I had to really commit to it if it was going to be accurately done.
At first, I still ate plenty of sugar. I threw out everything in my house that contained added sugars like sauces, dressings, crackers, cookies, candy and baking sweets, and replaced them with honey, maple syrup, dried fruit, juice and dark chocolate.
So, once I kind of felt better about not eating all of that extra hidden sugar and felt that in order to further commit to the test, I'd have to cut out even more. For about a month, the only sweetener I ate in a day was the tablespoon of maple syrup in my morning oatmeal. It was tough though, because sometimes I wanted to have something else that was sweet, but I had already eaten it for breakfast. I followed this suggested amount:
These words have been said to me or by me more times that I can remember. All you have to do is diet and exercise! That's what we all know to be true and so begins the rat race to see who finds the easiest way to achieve weight loss with as little effort as possible.
I've tried:
- Jenny Craig
- Weight Watchers (3x)
- Diet supplements at drug stores or online
- Juice cleanses
- Portion control
- Counting calories
- Using a pedometer
- Joining Anytime Fitness, Northwestern Athletic Club, college facilities, L.A. Fitness, etc.
- Workout videos
- Wii Fit, Biggest Loser video game
- Fasting
I imagined one day getting my stomach stapled, lap band, or some kind of surgery. Honestly, I think I would have chickened out anyway. I prefer not going through surgery as it increases my risk of then having other health complications. Just didn't seem worth the risk yet. I hadn't tried "everything" yet, like I sometimes claimed.
Trying everything means I have to know everything, and I sure didn't. I still don't, but I know a lot more than I used to and that's a start.
One thing I also remember people telling me was that losing weight was 80% focus on your diet and 20% on your exercise. I've always felt like I was a one-at-a-time kind of person so I started by focusing 100% of my attention on my diet to get that under control. Again, a lot of that started after I gave up on soda. I'd learned through counting calories that soda was taking up a lot of them, and diet sodas contain sweeteners that are believed to be dangerous to consume, potentially causing cancer. It's been remarkably easy to pretend like I am impervious to death as I've managed to avoid it thus far, but cancer doesn't sound like anything found on my bucket list. That was enough motivation to get me to stop. I replaced it with other harmful beverages like lemonades, frappucinos and flavored lattes, and chocolate almond milk. Okay, chocolate almond milk isn't going to give me cancer, I realize this, but Almond Breeze chocolate almond milk still contains 5 teaspoons of sugar per serving. Even if I want to believe it's healthy, it's not. Believing something does not make it true, Alicia.
I probably sound like a broken record to everyone, but sugar is a serious problem with our diet in this country (and several others who have adopted our junk food culture). It's like every day is the State Fair when you have McDonalds and Burger King and Taco Bell. You can get anything fried up and ready to eat in minutes and every meal can end with dessert.
I learned through personal research and watching several food-related documentaries that junk food seems to all be linked to the addition of sugar. Sure, we love our chips and crackers, but those usually contain other addictive chemicals that our taste buds find irresistible. Sugar is in many things that aren't considered sweets. Check out the ketchup bottles. Go look how many grams per serving are in a salad dressing bottle. I found it fun to go through my cabinets and see how many things had sugar in it. Most of them were a complete shock to me. Fresh fruit is great. I eat a piece of fruit every day, sometimes many. But most dried fruit is not great because they add more sugar to it.
Diet.
Can't be a temporary thing like I've treated my past diets. For me, diets only lasted for a pre-determined amount of time. Like a 30-day cleanse or a diet-until-I-lose-the-weight kind of deal. Those didn't seem to work for me. In fact, most of the time I'd gain more weight than I had originally been pre-diet. Which sucked. It seemed that every time I went on a diet that restricted me from things I wanted, I would retaliate afterwards and reward myself too much once the diet was officially over in my mind. I remember at one point I was even inspired to change the way I talk to myself about food. I stopped saying "I can't have that" and instead told myself "I don't want that". My conversations in my head were about reinforcing the idea that this could be a better way of life and it's not about punishing myself.
Old Thinking: I want that donut so badly... but I CAN'T have it because of my stupid diet. I can't wait until cheat-day. I'm going to eat like 4 donuts. It's not like I'll start drinking pop again. It's just a couple of donuts.
New Thinking: Ooh, that donut looks tasty. I bet it's not though, look at how cheap it looks. If I'm going to eat a donut it better be from a really good bakery, otherwise it's just going to taste lame and make me regret eating it.
*
Old Thinking: This pie is delicious and I never want to stop tasting this thing. I hope there's a whole pan of it left in the fridge because I could probably eat the whole thing. I consider it my dinner, too. I won't eat anything else tonight, so it's not as bad as it could be.
New Thinking: This pie is delicious upon the first few bites and then it becomes unreasonably sweet and I don't want any more. It's super good and I would keep eating it, but I'm also pretty full from the blast of sugary calories I just threw in my belly. I can always put something away for later.
*
Old Thinking: Some of my fondest memories from childhood are being alone or with friends in my house, playing video games and eating. Junk food is a staple of my childhood and I enjoy living with it in my life as an adult. I can buy anything I want now, and this fast food is super cheap so I can buy a ton of it!!
New Thinking: Some of my fondest memories from childhood are also playing the piano and singing, writing music, playing with friends on the boulevard grass, and following my brother around, trying to be as cool as him. It's not all about the food. I think I was wrong when I thought junk food wasn't hurting me. I think it was the only thing holding me back from being a healthy weight.
I have learned so much from this experience already and the my biggest discovery was that I have control over my weight. I knew from a visit to the doctor that I didn't have any problems with my thyroid, so I had to figure out what I was doing wrong. This was it for me. If I could really cut out all of the junk completely, would I see or feel any significant change? It wasn't an easy thing to test, as I had to really commit to it if it was going to be accurately done.
At first, I still ate plenty of sugar. I threw out everything in my house that contained added sugars like sauces, dressings, crackers, cookies, candy and baking sweets, and replaced them with honey, maple syrup, dried fruit, juice and dark chocolate.
So, once I kind of felt better about not eating all of that extra hidden sugar and felt that in order to further commit to the test, I'd have to cut out even more. For about a month, the only sweetener I ate in a day was the tablespoon of maple syrup in my morning oatmeal. It was tough though, because sometimes I wanted to have something else that was sweet, but I had already eaten it for breakfast. I followed this suggested amount:
I went even further with it and stopped eating oatmeal for breakfast (I did try it other ways but didn't like them, so I just switched to eating eggs instead). Now I had a little bit of sugar to play with. like a couple of cubes of dark chocolate throughout the day, or maybe someone made cookies and they look really well done. I don't feel guilty about eating a cookie. I gained the ability to read my body signals and can tell when I've had enough of something. If it was so good that I want another - the second one will never be as good as that first one, so why even bother? I'll just have another treat at some other point. I'll be fine until then.
It seems to be getting easier to resist temptation as I am really starting to piece together how much worse I felt physically and emotionally before. It's hard to describe, but I like it and I ain't gonna stop!
I am not yet as small as I would like to see, but I am super excited about myself now. I like the way I look a great deal and my confidence is bigger in many areas of my life because of it.
This is better than a piece of cake. It's a walk in the park. The perfect diet for me. One that I can do indefinitely and reap so many benefits from. I lost 35lbs in 4 months from kicking my dependency on sugar. I didn't count calories. I didn't work out other than walking and occasionally playing on the pull-up bar (jump holding, swinging, etc).
Today's Thinking:
I eat whatever I want, I just have a much shorter list of things I want now.
It seems to be getting easier to resist temptation as I am really starting to piece together how much worse I felt physically and emotionally before. It's hard to describe, but I like it and I ain't gonna stop!
I am not yet as small as I would like to see, but I am super excited about myself now. I like the way I look a great deal and my confidence is bigger in many areas of my life because of it.
This is better than a piece of cake. It's a walk in the park. The perfect diet for me. One that I can do indefinitely and reap so many benefits from. I lost 35lbs in 4 months from kicking my dependency on sugar. I didn't count calories. I didn't work out other than walking and occasionally playing on the pull-up bar (jump holding, swinging, etc).
Today's Thinking:
I eat whatever I want, I just have a much shorter list of things I want now.