a day late, but a lb short. yup, i’m down a lb to 239.5. sick. the exercizing is going well. i reluctantly but finally moved my routine over to the exercize room at work. i started it on wed and boy does it suck going into work at 6am to work out. but maybe this is for the best. it gets me to my desk at a decent time, so i can leave a little earlier without worrying that i didn’t put in some extra time.
enough about that boringness! this week i have to work on the eating habits. last week i really didn’t change my eating, and i really have to. i need to cut out the donut in the morning at work and the junk at night at home. i am going to focus on moderation this time, not some diet, although i am so tempted to go no sugar. the hard part will be supplementing the diet pepsi. this time round i gotta stay away from the soda, cause it’s rotting my teeth out!!
oh, and btw, i switched to 100% whole wheat bread. boy is it yummy with peanut butter on top.
catch ya next week!!
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I realize everybody’s different, but here’s what’s worked for me:
* As a rule, only drink water and (unsweetened) tea. Occasionally orange juice, to boost immunity when traveling. No soda, not even the diet kind!! Too many bad chemicals.
* Minimize white foods. Buy whole wheat pasta instead of regular. Brown rice instead of white. Whole grain breads. (All these are much tastier, anyway… and nowadays don’t have to cost any more than the alternatives.)
* When you go out for lunch, skip the chips and get a salad with your sandwich instead. Have mustard on the sandwich instead of mayo, and skip the cheese. (But it’s better to bring your lunch, as you then have control of exactly what you’re eating and how much. Plus, it’s cheaper!!)
* Eat smaller portions of everything. Don’t think of yourself as “on a diet”, you’ll psych yourself out totally. Just think of it as eating smarter, and go on with your day.
* Allow yourself one “bad thing” a day. Want a cookie at lunch? Fine, have a cookie. But that’s your quota until tomorrow.
* Probably most important: ELIMINATE HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FROM THE DIET. This is very difficult to do in North America, but it’s getting easier. Lots of supermarket chains (including Wegman’s
now have their own brands of natural foods that are priced very competitively, and are sometimes even cheaper than their regular counterparts. Cane juice or sugar are vastly preferable to corn syrup in anything. Plus, if you can’t pronounce all of the ingredients on a package of something, don’t buy it! 
The more stuff you ingest that’s not found in nature, the harder it is going to be for your body to deal with it. (I also extend this to always having butter over margarine. Margarine, which is created from a chemical reaction cannot possibly be good for anyone, whereas butter is 100% natural. “Everything in moderation…”)
This isn’t to say I’m good all the time, but these basic guidelines combined with going for regular walks have worked very well for me over the past 3.5 years.
Have you ever checked out the Weight Watchers “points” system? It’s based on portion control and eating sensibly, and not getting stuck into that head space of “I’m on a diet”. If you know anybody who’s ever done it and can loan you the book that runs down the points and how they work, you might want to look into that. That was really the first thing that ever worked well for my mom, who has been “on a diet” (whether she needed to be or not) since well before I was born. :}
Shutting up now …
wow! tnx for the comment! wonderful advice. i have achieved several of these targets, but i do have to work harder at all of them.
1. i am exercising every day now, 2 - 3 miles!
2. for every 10 days of work, i go get lunch once, bring lunch (salad) the rest. i eat salad every day. yes, i do. i love it! when i go out, i get salad.
3. i drink enough water. 3 20oz bottles of water in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. i used to have a diet pepsi during lunch, to add some sweet to my lunch, but now i will have fruit instead.
4. wife and i have switched to 100% whole wheat bread and we’re loving it. but whoever says it costs the same is lying. i can’t find 100% wheat as cheap as white.
5. the family has switched to wheat pasta! brown rice… not yet. we’ve tried it for a month or 2 but can not get past the real different taste.
what i need to work on is the one treat per day. yeah. i’m bad at that one. and i need to work on the portions, but i am getting there. i think, and hope, there will be a different me by the end of the year. i don’t care to be thin, i just don’t want to be fat anymore!
Brown rice does taste a lot different than white, that’s true. I happen to like it much better, but YMMV.
I hear ya about the bread. I grew up in a household where at least one person was always on a special diet (my dad’s diabetic diet) or dieting in some way, so I guess I just have the mindset that if it costs a little more to eat right, that’s just a cost of living and make it up elsewhere. I know that’s easier said than done, though.
It sounds like you’re definitely on the right track. Have you talked to your doctor about all this? I know you’re fighting DNA as well as calories :}, but sometimes there’s other factors involved, too. One of our good friends had a hell of a time losing weight until he went to the doctor and found out he had some thyroid issues. He started taking medication and the weight fell right off and has stayed off, it’s incredible.