Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I'm trying to lose weight, but I feel like I can't eat any less!

There seem to be lots of diet articles out there about "just cut this one thing out of your diet (soda, egg yolks, butter on your popcorn, etc)" but what advice do you have for diet pros who've (for example) gone through weight watchers and the like and have already integrated low fat/low cal subsitutions for everything they can think of? You know, where they've streamlined their diets so much that it seems like there's nothing left to substitute, yet no more weight is coming off. Kind of like the person who's trying to save money, but they already make coffee at home and use bagged lunches, yet the "most useful" advice they're finding is "Don't buy coffee at starbucks! And stop getting take-out!"

One of my WW friends and I were talking about this last night, how we feel like we've gotten to the point of no wiggle room because we've substituted everything we can think of and already think a 1pt brownine and a 0 point pickle is a good snack.

Rebecca S.

Well, Rebecca, speaking from personal experience, I think for those of us who are always watching our diet and eating everything low fat and low cal . . . we sneak treats in because we deserve it because we've been so careful watching our diets!

I know this was the case with me ...I was sooo careful, but the weight just kept going up, and then I realized I was rationalizing those high calorie foods: "I can have a donut since this is a special meeting (unusual circumstance) and I never eat donuts"; "I can have this pizza since it's a social event and not normally something I would do at home"; "I can drive through the fast food restaurant window for a burger and fries since I'm in a hurry and I heardly ever do this," etc., etc, on vacations and at parties, and just because I felt like I hadn't had a candy bar in forever! I "once-in-a-while"d myself up 20 pounds in less than a year!

How do you get it to stop? Write down everything you eat... you'll realize when you are allowing yourself these little treats and see how often you've been eating more points! Keeping a food diary works to help people lose weight almost 100% of the time, so give it a shot for 10 days and see what happens :)

Don't forget the other side of the balance equation either: exercise. We also fool ourselves into thinking we get plenty of exercise walking up and down the office hallways or the very large parking lots to get from our car to buildings where we work or shop. Try clipping on a pedometer and count the number of steps you take in an average day. The recommended goal is 10,000 steps a day. If yours is much lower, try adding another 1000 (about 1/2 mile) every few days.




1 comment:

  1. I read and always appreciate your straightforward answers. :)

    I gave you a blog award. :)

    http://www.frugalweightloss.com/2009/03/love-ya-blog-award.html

    ReplyDelete