How did I loose weight and why was it so easy to stay on track?
After trying many “diets” I finally learnt that diets DON’T WORK and that is because in some way, my mind was feeling deprived and NEVER should you think that you ARE NOT ALLOWED any type of food.
You are ALLOWED ANY food.
It is your choice.
It doesn’t matter how many carbs are in it or how much fat or sugar.
If you LOVE it than you can have it, but the secret is, how much of it you can have.
But it is better to be able to have a little than not at all.
Mostly the reason people are overweight is because the input is greater than the output or because there are meals being skipped and the body is going into starvation mode.
I do believe you have to track EVERYTHING you put in your mouth,
because all those picks here and there and spoon licks add up to a whole meal that you aren’t allowing for,
so you can still pick and lick, but you need to track it.
Finding out how much of the foods you can have is easy when you have a set of kitchen scales and either count calories or points and remembering
when you are first starting out to loose weight to EAT ALL YOUR POINTS or CALORIES.
You have to eat to loose weight.
I am going to be totally honest with you about the foods that I ate and I know very well that they were not always the healthy choice or the additive free choice at all,
but now that I am at goal, I can now start focusing on the nutritional side of things.
For the past 6 months, my focus was on loosing weight and eating what I LOVED, even though I knew that some of the foods I would NEVER feed to my children.
A lot of these food that I LOVED at first, I don’t like so much anymore.
My tastes and preferences have changed and I am now eating more real foods.
I also lost this weight with very little exercise.
I have walked only about 10 times in 6 months, however I did start working at the local supermarket casually which gives me a workout,
the rest comes from housework (and I am not at all obsessed about that).
Exercise is a fantastic tool if you LOVE to do it, but if you don’t LOVE it, then don’t do it.
You will however have to eat less to compensate for the lack of exercise, so if you want more food, then go hard and make sure you do eat more food as you earned it.
I ate very little fruit and some weeks NO fruit. I don’t like it. Bananas and Mandarins are the only 2 that I really enjoy.
At first I would very rarely eat salad, because I didn’t like it, now I love it, but not plain.
It has to be in a wrap with some meat or dressing. Vegies I would force myself to eat, but would eat them only if I could have mash potato and gravy.
Now I LOVE vegies. How was I going to give up chocolate? I didn’t give it up.
I bought choc crisps from Weight watchers or a bag on fun size mars bars and would allow myself my daily chocolate treat.
Now I rarely want chocolate as it doesn’t hold the same appeal as before.
Meat pies. There are light alternatives.
I would take my Weight watchers calculator the supermarket and find the lowest pie and enjoy it with my mashed potato peas and gravy,
much better alternative to the 2 cheese and bacon ones I used to by from the bakery that I would follow with a vanilla slice.
There really is an alternative to ALL foods and you will enjoy them every bit as much.
Food is there to be enjoyed. You can’t say you love food and love eating shit, if you find yourself sitting at the computer or in front of the TV shoveling it in and not even enjoying the texture or the taste.
If you are just eating it to eat it, the how can you be loving it. If you sit down at the table and give your food your time, it will give you it’s time to do the right thing inside your body.
Look at it, smell it, eat it slowly and enjoy the taste and texture. Make is last for as long as you can.
Remember it takes 20 minutes for the stomach to send the message to the brain that says. Thanks I am now full.
I can’t tell anyone what to eat and what not to eat, because what I LOVE others hate. It has to be what you LOVE.
Why did I choose Weight Watchers?
I had tried the milkshake diets, zenical, duromine, starving, no fat, no sugar, vegetarian etc etc etc.
They were all diets. Sure they worked for a while, but in the end I was addicted to pills, nutritionally starved and very unwell. It never taught me how to eat or maintain, so the weight went back on with interest.
Weight watchers is a support group and a program. They do not restrict you from any foods.
The only restriction is your quantity and on the days that you were hungry and needed to eat more points, you could, because you could always eat lighter the next day or exercise a little more.
You only need to get from the first weekly weigh in meeting to the next.
I did not need to loose 25kg.
I needed to loose 1 kg and I only needed to get to the next week where I would re- charge my battery and be given my enthusiasm to get through the next week.
Walking in to the meeting was about me deciding that I had had enough. I was wanted to change.
It didn’t matter what the scales said, because this was the last time they would say it.
From this moment, I am going to change my life.
I was given my program and was on my way. I looked at my weight written down and I accepted it and admitted it.
I sat down and looked around the room at all the different sizes and listened to these people that were the same as me at some point in their journey.
I was in a room full of support and I looked forward to going every week. Even if I didn’t loose much for the week or even if I had a small gain, I still went along for my weekly energy boost.
It really is impossible to be “perfect” along your journey as there will be temptations and you will occasionally over indulge,
but the idea is to forgive yourself and realise that everyone does the same thing from time to time.
It is what you do the next day that counts. Waking up having forgiven yourself and willing to get back on track straight away.
Each week, the scales dropped and I was amazed at how easy it was. I was eating all this yummy food and loosing weight.
At first I ate frozen weight watchers meals and desserts until I learnt my portion control and learnt to cook alternatively.
I LOVED the meals. I now LOVE my home made stir-frys and know how much I can have. When you think about your stomach, it is no bigger than your fist.
That is the amount of food it needs to be full without stretching it.
What would I do if I went out? I would take my own food, because I followed the program so strictly with weighing and counting the foods I ate, I would not be happy to guess points of any foods.
If I ate a food that I wasn’t sure about the point value off, this would send me into a binge.
I would prepare my snacks and take them with me and ate them knowing I was ALLOWED them.
Preparation is the key. Always have snacks ready to go, so that you are not tempted to grab the alternative because you are so hungry.
There would be times when my Husband would bring home lollies of chocolate and I would weigh out a serve and work out the points.
Look at it and say “OK, so I can have 6 of those for 3 points.
Not bad, but I could also have a mountain bread salad wrap for the same points and quite often I would put the sweets back and have a wrap instead.
Other times I would eat the sweets and enjoy every moment of them because I allowed myself to have them.
It was always my choice. I could have had 4 cheeseburgers if I wanted, but that is all I could for the day and that was not worth it.
I still love food.
I love to cook and I love the smell the texture the whole thing, but it no longer rules my life.
I am no longer constantly thinking about my next meal and my cravings are very few.
I am now the boss of food and we are now friends.
The food I give my body is the food that I have accepted for my body.
I don’t hate my body anymore and it doesn’t hate me back anymore.
It no longer gives my headaches or tummy aches. My blood pressure is no longer high, I am no longer short of breath. My heart no longer palpitates and my pimples have run away.
My feet and hands no longer swell and I am not an emotional rollercoaster any more because instead of what I thought was rewarding myself with poor food choices,
instead I was hurting my body and making it scream and cry.
I am now treating my body with the foods that it needs and it is smiling and thanking me for it everyday.
It will allow me to give it the occasional poor choice now, but if I abuse it, we will become enemies again.
It is all about the balance between the mind and body and learning to work in as a team, not a war.
I also found positive attitude helped a lot. Instead of saying stuff like “But I have tried and I can’t do it” I would say “I can do it and I am doing it”
I would visualise my body at goal. I would imagine standing in the mirror and seeing a small me and looking at the smile on my face.
Loosing weight does not have to be hard. If it is hard, then you are letting it be hard.
Change the thinking.
The only reason you crave the wrong foods is because you are not giving your body what it needs.
Your friendship and acceptance. Treat it as your friend.
Take the pressure off yourself. Enjoy your food as no food should leave you feeling guilty.
If it does, than it is like eating poison.
After trying many “diets” I finally learnt that diets DON’T WORK and that is because in some way, my mind was feeling deprived and NEVER should you think that you ARE NOT ALLOWED any type of food.
You are ALLOWED ANY food.
It is your choice.
It doesn’t matter how many carbs are in it or how much fat or sugar.
If you LOVE it than you can have it, but the secret is, how much of it you can have.
But it is better to be able to have a little than not at all.
Mostly the reason people are overweight is because the input is greater than the output or because there are meals being skipped and the body is going into starvation mode.
I do believe you have to track EVERYTHING you put in your mouth,
because all those picks here and there and spoon licks add up to a whole meal that you aren’t allowing for,
so you can still pick and lick, but you need to track it.
Finding out how much of the foods you can have is easy when you have a set of kitchen scales and either count calories or points and remembering
when you are first starting out to loose weight to EAT ALL YOUR POINTS or CALORIES.
You have to eat to loose weight.
I am going to be totally honest with you about the foods that I ate and I know very well that they were not always the healthy choice or the additive free choice at all,
but now that I am at goal, I can now start focusing on the nutritional side of things.
For the past 6 months, my focus was on loosing weight and eating what I LOVED, even though I knew that some of the foods I would NEVER feed to my children.
A lot of these food that I LOVED at first, I don’t like so much anymore.
My tastes and preferences have changed and I am now eating more real foods.
I also lost this weight with very little exercise.
I have walked only about 10 times in 6 months, however I did start working at the local supermarket casually which gives me a workout,
the rest comes from housework (and I am not at all obsessed about that).
Exercise is a fantastic tool if you LOVE to do it, but if you don’t LOVE it, then don’t do it.
You will however have to eat less to compensate for the lack of exercise, so if you want more food, then go hard and make sure you do eat more food as you earned it.
I ate very little fruit and some weeks NO fruit. I don’t like it. Bananas and Mandarins are the only 2 that I really enjoy.
At first I would very rarely eat salad, because I didn’t like it, now I love it, but not plain.
It has to be in a wrap with some meat or dressing. Vegies I would force myself to eat, but would eat them only if I could have mash potato and gravy.
Now I LOVE vegies. How was I going to give up chocolate? I didn’t give it up.
I bought choc crisps from Weight watchers or a bag on fun size mars bars and would allow myself my daily chocolate treat.
Now I rarely want chocolate as it doesn’t hold the same appeal as before.
Meat pies. There are light alternatives.
I would take my Weight watchers calculator the supermarket and find the lowest pie and enjoy it with my mashed potato peas and gravy,
much better alternative to the 2 cheese and bacon ones I used to by from the bakery that I would follow with a vanilla slice.
There really is an alternative to ALL foods and you will enjoy them every bit as much.
Food is there to be enjoyed. You can’t say you love food and love eating shit, if you find yourself sitting at the computer or in front of the TV shoveling it in and not even enjoying the texture or the taste.
If you are just eating it to eat it, the how can you be loving it. If you sit down at the table and give your food your time, it will give you it’s time to do the right thing inside your body.
Look at it, smell it, eat it slowly and enjoy the taste and texture. Make is last for as long as you can.
Remember it takes 20 minutes for the stomach to send the message to the brain that says. Thanks I am now full.
I can’t tell anyone what to eat and what not to eat, because what I LOVE others hate. It has to be what you LOVE.
Why did I choose Weight Watchers?
I had tried the milkshake diets, zenical, duromine, starving, no fat, no sugar, vegetarian etc etc etc.
They were all diets. Sure they worked for a while, but in the end I was addicted to pills, nutritionally starved and very unwell. It never taught me how to eat or maintain, so the weight went back on with interest.
Weight watchers is a support group and a program. They do not restrict you from any foods.
The only restriction is your quantity and on the days that you were hungry and needed to eat more points, you could, because you could always eat lighter the next day or exercise a little more.
You only need to get from the first weekly weigh in meeting to the next.
I did not need to loose 25kg.
I needed to loose 1 kg and I only needed to get to the next week where I would re- charge my battery and be given my enthusiasm to get through the next week.
Walking in to the meeting was about me deciding that I had had enough. I was wanted to change.
It didn’t matter what the scales said, because this was the last time they would say it.
From this moment, I am going to change my life.
I was given my program and was on my way. I looked at my weight written down and I accepted it and admitted it.
I sat down and looked around the room at all the different sizes and listened to these people that were the same as me at some point in their journey.
I was in a room full of support and I looked forward to going every week. Even if I didn’t loose much for the week or even if I had a small gain, I still went along for my weekly energy boost.
It really is impossible to be “perfect” along your journey as there will be temptations and you will occasionally over indulge,
but the idea is to forgive yourself and realise that everyone does the same thing from time to time.
It is what you do the next day that counts. Waking up having forgiven yourself and willing to get back on track straight away.
Each week, the scales dropped and I was amazed at how easy it was. I was eating all this yummy food and loosing weight.
At first I ate frozen weight watchers meals and desserts until I learnt my portion control and learnt to cook alternatively.
I LOVED the meals. I now LOVE my home made stir-frys and know how much I can have. When you think about your stomach, it is no bigger than your fist.
That is the amount of food it needs to be full without stretching it.
What would I do if I went out? I would take my own food, because I followed the program so strictly with weighing and counting the foods I ate, I would not be happy to guess points of any foods.
If I ate a food that I wasn’t sure about the point value off, this would send me into a binge.
I would prepare my snacks and take them with me and ate them knowing I was ALLOWED them.
Preparation is the key. Always have snacks ready to go, so that you are not tempted to grab the alternative because you are so hungry.
There would be times when my Husband would bring home lollies of chocolate and I would weigh out a serve and work out the points.
Look at it and say “OK, so I can have 6 of those for 3 points.
Not bad, but I could also have a mountain bread salad wrap for the same points and quite often I would put the sweets back and have a wrap instead.
Other times I would eat the sweets and enjoy every moment of them because I allowed myself to have them.
It was always my choice. I could have had 4 cheeseburgers if I wanted, but that is all I could for the day and that was not worth it.
I still love food.
I love to cook and I love the smell the texture the whole thing, but it no longer rules my life.
I am no longer constantly thinking about my next meal and my cravings are very few.
I am now the boss of food and we are now friends.
The food I give my body is the food that I have accepted for my body.
I don’t hate my body anymore and it doesn’t hate me back anymore.
It no longer gives my headaches or tummy aches. My blood pressure is no longer high, I am no longer short of breath. My heart no longer palpitates and my pimples have run away.
My feet and hands no longer swell and I am not an emotional rollercoaster any more because instead of what I thought was rewarding myself with poor food choices,
instead I was hurting my body and making it scream and cry.
I am now treating my body with the foods that it needs and it is smiling and thanking me for it everyday.
It will allow me to give it the occasional poor choice now, but if I abuse it, we will become enemies again.
It is all about the balance between the mind and body and learning to work in as a team, not a war.
I also found positive attitude helped a lot. Instead of saying stuff like “But I have tried and I can’t do it” I would say “I can do it and I am doing it”
I would visualise my body at goal. I would imagine standing in the mirror and seeing a small me and looking at the smile on my face.
Loosing weight does not have to be hard. If it is hard, then you are letting it be hard.
Change the thinking.
The only reason you crave the wrong foods is because you are not giving your body what it needs.
Your friendship and acceptance. Treat it as your friend.
Take the pressure off yourself. Enjoy your food as no food should leave you feeling guilty.
If it does, than it is like eating poison.
