How does your morning start? A cup of coffee at home or grabbed from a coffee shop on your way to work? Are you a cereal eater, bagel with cream cheese, yogurt with fruit? Do you skip breakfast? Have you given it any thought at all, or are you a creature of habit? OK, here's a good one... do you look at the box, cup or bag that you took that cereal, yogurt, bagel out of for nutritional information? Now THAT'S an eye opener.
Suddenly, the pounds start creeping up and you are wondering why. You've always eaten like this and never had to cut back to lose weight. The older you get, the less active you get for the most part, and the more those pounds creep in.
Then there's the hormonal changes, the crazy hectic lifestyle that comes along with kids and teenagers. And before you know it, it's more than just 10 pounds you have to lose. It's more like 20 to 40 pounds!
Today I'm going to give you a few more dieting ideas to mull around in your head and maybe try.
- PORTION CONTROL I had coffee with a friend this morning and the words, "portion control" popped into my head. First you have to know what a portion size is for what it is that you are eating. You can look on the bag or box and see. You can also use several phone apps that will look up the information for you. Check it out. You just might be overeating the portion size. My husband likes cereal for breakfast and pours a huge bowl to overflowing. His cereal portion size is 3/4 cup of cereal. His portion size is probably 3 times that. That means 3 times all the figures on the side of that box! So know your portion size and limit yourself to having A PORTION of the item you are eating.
- IS IT A WANT OR A NEED Let's say you have made up your plan for the day for meals. You have calculated out the calories and have taken them right up to the daily limit. Along comes a craving for something. Is it a need or a want? In most cases, its a want. If you are getting sufficient and balanced calories throughout the day, you really don't need the food you are craving, you are wanting it. Too many fulfilled "wants" and you will not lose weight. You can work some of the wants into your daily diet and allotted calories if you want, but not on top of what you've already decided to eat for the day. Instead trying drinking some lemon or no calorie no carb flavored water. I make up sugar free Jello gummy bears that are FREE to eat. When I'm feeling like I need a little something sweet, I'll have a few of those. If you really want candy, cookies or sweets, put them in your diet and move other parts of the daily calories around. What you will find out is that you won't have enough HEALTHY food for the day and that thing you THOUGHT you needed was just a craving that could have been ignored.
- FIND WAYS TO PUT IN A LITTLE EXTRA EFFORT, MONEY OR TIME Dieting can be expensive. You may find yourself having to buy things you wouldn't ordinarily buy. Maybe you even want to get a good set of measuring cups, spoons and a food scale. You could also find it efficient to have sectioned lunch containers to put in pre-made items for the upcoming week. They make great quick "grab and go" packages. With a little extra effort you could get all the fresh items and meat from the store and on a Sunday afternoon plan your menu for the week and do some cooking to fill those containers, all weighed and measured and ready to go. You can divvy out those 1 oz. size packages of jerky, nuts, veggies, etc. and keep them in the refrigerator all nice and cleaned. Knowing what you are having will make it less possible to make dieting errors during the week. With the time you save doing it in advance, you can now go for a nice long walk, hit the gym or do a little home workout section. To save money when you're dieting, use coupons and money saving apps on your phone. Buy things in season and on sale in bulk and freeze in personal sizes to be thawed at a later date. Try finding containers at Goodwill, church bazaars or garage sales. Ask around to your friends to see if anyone has special equipment like a juicer or blender they might not be using right now that you could make use of. Have a garage sale yourself and sell items you don't need, turn around and buy things you do.
- LEARN WHILE YOU GO, EDUCATE YOURSELF There are so many diets out there. Each of them says it is the end all diet but you will have to discover what works for you and keep at it. Some people go vegetarian or plant based. Some people find great success with a KETO diet. Others count calories... well the list goes on and on. There are programs that you have to pay for such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig to name a couple. Take some time and make that plan as to what you are going to do. For myself, a type 2 diabetic, I decided to do the Ketogenic diet. You eat a very small amount of carbs because they are mostly sugar, a decent amount of protein and believe it or not, the largest category you eat is fat. Doesn't that sound contrary to everything you ever heard? But its working and the best thing about it is my blood sugar numbers. I did a LOT of research before I tried it ad listened to both the positives and the negatives right from the mouths of others trying and Doctors who were suggesting it to their patients. So decide what works for you and stick to it. I also like to think of the "learn as you go" category as relearning how to eat, make healthy satisfying meals and low cal or carb treats and desserts that fit into your program rather than denying yourself. And allowing time for the emotional side of ourselves to catch up to the physical side. The fat we put on while we are dealing with life can have emotional "triggers" attached and you will need to discover what those are in your life and begin working on them while you lose.
It's important to take a look at our lives and acknowledge those areas that aren't working and strive to understand, take steps to fix and then live a less complicated and crazy life. Living on less, less weight that is, is going to be so freeing. I'll share with you that I have given myself 3 years to lose the weight. I hope it doesn't take that long but then I have a plan. 33 lbs. a year, a little under a pound a week. If it get there faster, YAHOO! And hopefully it won't take longer. I've made it a little spread out because I know I may have stalls and plateau's along the way and I wanted to be realistic. It gives me a good long time to learn some new ways to eat, cope with feelings, get used to exercising regularly, preparing healthy snacks and meals in advance and more.
I still have a few more tips that I will share in one last post and then I'll choose a different focus for a few weeks. Once a week or so, probably on Fridays, I will share my progress with you here. So keep your eyes out for KETO Fridays. I'll try and post different things like what I eat in a day, what kind of exercises I'm doing and how to pre-plan and pre-cook some items for weekly lunches and meals. Hope you'll come back again.
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