Thinking About Losing Weight » Healthy Eating

Eating Right While Away From Home

Susan — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:04:40 +0000

This week Chuck and I are on the road and hoping from one house to another visiting friends and family. We brought along our weights and exercise guide and have been pretty faithful to our routine but I do find it more difficult to eat well when we are visiting with others. There is a lot of tendency to grab something quick and easy and other folks don’t necessarily cook what we would.

Yesterday we had lunch from Giant Burger in Oroville. I ordered a chicken sandwich and it was humongous and quiet hummy but I found it best eaten with a folk and focused on eating the fresh avacado, tomatoes and some chicken breast. It was just a shame to waste all that food though better waste than my waist.

I ended up purchasing one of Dr. Carol Solomon’s CDs. I want to compare it with my McKenna recordings. Will let you know what I think after a week or so. I have never really given the tapping method a fair trial. It’s proably time I do so.

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Switching From Diet Soft Drinks to the Best Sugar Free Drink

Susan — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:54:55 +0000

Twice in my life I’ve have quit drinking Diet Pepsi. Both times I quit cold turkey, just stopped entirely from one day to the next. In fact, the last time I quit was 3 or 4 years ago and I have not gone back diet sodas since then.

photo credit: jacreative

Why I Quit Drinking Diet Sodas

My reason for quitting is simple. I came to believe that the chemicals composition of diet drinks was bad for my health. I was having lunch with an old friend. I order lunch and a Diet Pepsi and she starting telling me about all the reports on aspartame side effects. I gave up the drink I had ordered and went home and did some research on the topic.

She was right. The overall consensus is that artificial sweeteners not only have no nutritional values, contain toxic chemicals (that means poisons folks) but they also play tricks on our body and may lead to weight gain instead of loss. One study reports:

The present review updates the previous EEA opinions in the light of new reports on the consumption of aspartame in relation to the onset of brain tumours and seizures, headaches, allergies, and changes in behaviour and cognitive function

1. What is aspartame?

The thing that caught my attention was the reference to changes in cognitive function. I think the thing I fear most about growing old is the possibility of my mind failing before my body. I have already experienced this to some degree. As I entered my sixth decade I have found that I lose track of projects I have started. I have to take more notes and I still forget where I put those notes. The idea that my diet drinks may be adding to this aging process was enough to bring me to full stop.

Drinking Diet Soft Drinks Can Lead to Weight Gain

The second reason I was convinced to quit drinking artificially sweetened soft drinks was that they are said to lead people to crave sweets, eat more and therefore gain weight instead of losing weight. Most folks drink diet drinks because they believe that by replacing their regular soft drink which contains about 200 calories with a zero calorie drink with will cut the total calorie intake and therefore lose weight.

Studies however show that drinking diet soda, makes the body crave more calories so we usually eating more and gaining weight instead. One study completed by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH reported

For each can of diet soft drink consumed each day, a person’s risk of obesity went up 41%.

So why would anyone want to drink diet sodas then?

How to quit drinking diet soft drinks?

The best way to quit is to switch to the one calorie free drink that has not been shown to have adverse side affects: water. Our bodies need water, lots of water, about a gallon a day. Drinking sodas (with or without sugar or sweeteners) doesn’t provide us with the water our body needs I am told because they often act as a diuretic and dehydrate instead of hydrate our body.

Now I am not a great fan of drinking plain water but I also have an advertion to paying soda prices for a bottle of “flavored” water. Besides who know what side affects they will discover those flavoring have. So what I do to trick myself into getting enough water is to add an ounce or two of my favorite fruit juice to my water bottle. This adds just enough sweetness to make it palatable but not enough to heap on the calories. By using my eco-friendly and washable water bottle I also cut down on my landfill contribution so I am being kind to both my body and the environment.

On the occasion when I just have to have a Pepsi (there is no other soda in my book), I have the real thing, not diet.

If you haven’t figured it out for yourself yet, WATER is the best sugar free drink. My version isn’t completely sugar free because I add a couple of ounzes of fruit juice but these contain natural fructose, no artificial sweeteners. Try it for yourself and let me know how it works for you?

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What If I’m Addicted to Ice Cream?

Susan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:24:18 +0000

This blog is a labor of love, self-love that is. I write it because I am learning the the lessons I write about as I write them and LABOR is definitely the right word. Writing about this topic is hard work. I would prefer to ignor this subject most of the time and pretend that everything is under control and in order. It isn’t. I find myself daily eating my breakfast or lunch with the laptop open before or a at least a book. I really have trouble with the practice of just eating, not doing something else at the same time. As a result, I forget to chew my food thoroughly and slowly and eat more than I need because I am not paying attention to the ‘full’ signals when they come.
photo credit: WTL photos

Paul McKenna said eat what you want when you are hungry. What if what you want is ice cream? It is impossible to ‘chew’ ice cream, I tried. The best I come up with is letting it melt slowly in my mouth. I am also sure I don’t eat ice cream because I am hungry, physically that is. I think it fills one of those emotional voids I don’t want ot look at too close.

There is no such thing as moderation either when it comes to ice cream. If it is in the house I will eat it, even it is a flavor I am not crazy about. So is ice cream an addiction that I have give up entirely? I tried McKenna’s aversion tricks with it. I pictured it full of hair off the floor or worse yet, raw onions. Hasn’t helped. I still can’t pass the ice cream isle without bringing home a half-gallon.

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Slipping Back Into Old Habits – Weight Loss Recap

Susan — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:39:01 +0000

As I write, I am sitting here munching a bowl of popcorn. Granted it’s “healthy” popcorn, not heavily buttered or sweetened but that’s not the problem. The problem is I am eating unconsciously and by habit, not because I am hungry and need fuel to function. The problem is I am doing something else (reading email and browsing the internet) and not focusing in the taste of the food or the signals my body is trying to send me, saying I’m full and don’t need to eat more.

Fortunately one of those emails was my Dailybread365 reminder. Now I have been known to on occasion skip these daily reminders, maybe even delete them withont reading them but every now and then I open it up and read Lucy-Ann Prideaux’s healthy nutritional guidelines and I am redirected back on track.

photo credit: Nick Saltmarsh
They remind me the the autopilot systems on an airplane. The pilot puts in the location that he wants to go to and the plane’s GPS system detects when the plane is off track and corrects it’s heading. Lucy-Ann’s email a day does that for me, helps me see when I am off course and gets me headed back into the right direction.

Good Ideas From Other Folks – July 4, 2009

Susan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:49:47 +0000

What's the best type of FAT to eat?

July 4, 2009 – Some really interesting food facts here. Some people forget that our bodies need some fats.

Food is More than Just a Bunch of Calories

Susan — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:40:03 +0000

The lesson I received today from Lucy-Ann Prideaux demonstrates why I so like DailyBread. The title of today’s article is Key Nutrients involved in health and energy production. In Day 113, like so many others, Lucy-Ann gives a great in depth explanation of the vital role good foods play in our health and well-being. For so many years of bad diets I have looked at food as numbers: calories, carbohydrates, ounces. Lucy-Ann brings the picture back in focus and reminds us of the complex make-up of the food on our plates and explains how these components work together to fuel our daily activities. All my life I was told “you need to take your vitamins.”
photo credit: ellievanhoutte

In our house vitamins and minerals were something that came in pill form and were kept in a bottle on the kitchen counter, which incidentally we rarely opened.

These mysterious elements were never directly associated with the food we ate. This lack of association was I am sure unintentional but probably very accurate in reality for my mother came from a generation that first off overcooked every vegetable in the house and second was the first generation to serve her family packaged, preprocessed foods like hamburger helper and TV dinners.

I was an adult living away from home before I ever tasted fresh picked peas. We ate canned peas, green beans and corn. I never saw anything but iceberg lettuce in our house. On the rare occasions that fresh vegetables did grace our tables they were boiled until they had no color or nutritional value left in them.

So like I said, I was told “take your vitamins” not eat them.

DailyBread365 not only explains the micro-components at work in our meals but also provides menus and recipe suggestions to help us make the transition to a more wholesome lifestyle.

Eating Healthy on the Run – Top Five Healthy Food Choices

Susan — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:24:59 +0000

By Allan Jeffrey If you frequently find yourself away from home at mealtimes, then you most likely find yourself in situations where you have limited options for food choices. It is possible to achieve a goal of eating healthy on the run as long as you know what to choose if you are in airports or other places where fast food is your only option. Even when you think there is no possible way that you can make a healthy food choice, with a little thought, it is possible. Many restaurants are notorious for their high calorie, high fat fare. You can either choose to carry your own food with you, or you can take your chances with available restaurants and fast food eateries. The main thing to remember is to keep to your resolve of eating healthy on the run: 1. Pack your own light or fat free snacks to go. You can carry fruit, crackers, whole wheat bagels and even some cut up veggies with you to munch on when you need to eat. 2. Order a salad. Opt for grilled meat or no meat. Order a light or fat free dressing if available. If not, skip the dressing. Avoid extra condiments unless you know them to be low fat, low calorie options. 3. Choose lean meat subs with low fat cheese and mustard instead of mayo. To make it particularly satisfying, add extra veggies. 4. Order a grilled chicken sandwich sans the mayonnaise and cheese. Both mayo and cheese add tons of fat as well as more calories than you want to intake. Skip the fries also. 5. Look for choices such as fruit cups, side salads or plain veggies to supplement a low fat meal, or as substitute for high fat, high calorie options. Allan has struggled with weight his whole life and has lost 90 pounds in the last 15 months. How you ask yourself? It is a consistent plan that gets the best results You can review his latest consistent plan For Eating Healthy on the Run. For more great articles for eating healthy visit http://www.best-loseweight-fast.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allan_Jeffrey http://EzineArticles.com/?Eating-Healthy-on-the-Run—Top-Five-Healthy-Food-Choices&id=2291216

Cutting Calories Without Counting Calories

Susan — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:28:59 +0000

Cutting Calories Without County Calories By Susan Young The one rule I set for myself at the beginning of this journey was NO MORE DIETS! Here I am starting week three with the gals at DailyBread365 and the topic of today’s thought (Day 22) is cutting calories! I almost skipped it entirely but knowing Lucy’s dedication a healthy lifestyle, I jumped in and gave the article a closer look. Sure enough, Lucy is not advocating getting on the merry-go-round scale or measuring and weighing each bite of food. She is merely reaffirming common tenants that some types of food contain higher caloric content and are more easily converted to fat storage. Today’s “lesson” touches briefly on the difference between essential and non-essential fats, refined or processed foods, and the dangers of filling up on empty calories. Good information to recall, even when you are NOT dieting, like me. If you have read my previous posts you will know that I am working on changing my whole life experience. I am using self-hypnosis books, tapes and videos to reprogram myself to see food and exercise in a different light. I have spent a lifetime using food as a substitute for other things I thought were missing in my life. Food was love. Food was affirmation. Food was comfort. Food was entertainment. Now, I have come to realize that food is fuel. Fuel to accomplish the tasks I need and choose to do each day. Another pattern of thinking that I am working on changing is my attitude about exercise. As a child, young adult, and middle age women, I saw exercise as work, punishment, torture, the enemy, or something other people did. Now, I am learning to find health and well-being as rewarding incentives to exercise. I am learning to appreciate the improved mobility and strength that are the results of a few hours a week of activity. I’m not all the way there, where ever there might be but I am progressing nicely along the path to a healthier, stronger and fitter body and lifestyle.