Nu, And How's The Diet Going?

It's certainly no secret that I have been struggling with my weight for a very log time. A number of years ago, I made it a very public diet which you can find by using the search engine of this blog by asking for "public diet," "diet saga," "low carbohydrate" and other labels.

I did manage to rid myself of about fifteen 15 kilo or thirty plus 30+ pounds, most of which has stayed off ever since, but about a third, five kilo found their way back about a year ago. When that unwanted weight had reached three kilo, I went to war, but lost the battle and gained another two kilo. But about six months ago, after the pool closed, I tried a few different tricks, about some of which I have blogged.

Over 12,000 steps is pretty rare for me.
12,000 is now very common.

The first thing I did was to make more time to walk, since the pool had closed. Three months of water exercise hadn't reduced much, except that my body looked and felt better. And even the experts say that walking is better for weight reduction than swimming. I increased my daily steps, as I could see on the pedometer.

The second thing I did to lose weight was to change my breakfast. For years I had been eating a large vegetable omelet, but not that long ago I felt terrible sugar/fruit cravings as soon as I finished it. I took that as a hint. Maybe I need to eat fruit for breakfast, since the omelets and vegetables weren't satisfying my hunger.

Now, for the past few months, I have fruit, fresh ginger and goat yogurt for breakfast. I must admit that there are days when I crave cashews afterwards, so I eat a few. It's clear that I need more protein early in the day in addition to the sugar/fructose.

Another thing I've noticed, and I do weigh myself almost daily on the same scale, is that the fewer restaurant or catered meals I eat, the lower my weight is. It goes up a bit when I've eaten out. And it's lowest when all the food I've eaten has been my own home cooking.

My weight seems to have stabilized close to where it was post-big diet, bli eyin haraa, let's not tempt the "evil eye." I do have days when I eat things I "shouldn't," but there are diet mavins who actually  say that once a week or two it is good to go off the restrictions. It stimulates the metabolism to work harder and burn calories more quickly. Also, it makes the "diet" easier to live with, and that is a major trick/technique. If you adopt a diet you find impossible to live with, you won't be able to stick to it very long.

And how is your diet going?

Fighting to Get Off Every Ounce, Gram

Just under ten years ago, I found myself going on a diet, helped by Start Fresh, for two reasons:

1. I was obese
2. I was offered the program for free in exchange for blogging about it.

One of the biggest reasons I continued dieting, my own version of course,  was that the weight just fell off. Really, it was easy. I was out of work that year for the first time in over a decade, so I was able to devote the energy to myself and take walks with friends. The switch from high carbohydrate vegetarian eating to carnivorous low carbohydrates was just what my body needed to shed about thirty 30 pounds, fifteen kilograms. In six months my body changed enormously. I hadn't looked that good for years.

In the past year a few kilo snuck back on. Maybe I'm not as careful as I was in the heyday of my big weight loss. But I am still very active, exercise and rarely eat carbs, except Shabbat. 

If only there was a simple magic formula... an abracadabra that could make our bodies become what we dream.

In the meantime, I just do my best and try to fight to get the weight back off.

Fighting Those Creeping Kilos/Pounds

my scale and my clothes don't lie

photo credit

Here I am about seven years after my big weight loss of thirty plus pounds, fifteen kilo, and I must admit that about a third of the weight has found me. One of the problems is that I've lost the motivation, the self-disciple.

Weight Gain During Menopause

And even worse is that my body shape is changing, more "apple" than "pear." That can happen even if weight stays stable after a certain age.  I've noticed it with some of my friends.

It's not that I've gone back to the diet/way of eating that facilitated all that weight that had over-padded/packed my relatively small frame, but I now eat things I shouldn't and enjoy dessert when it's offered. That wouldn't be a problem if it only happened once a month or less frequently, or even bi-weekly, but it seems that there are occasions weekly or even more often when I'm offered an irresistible dessert, or something of similar calorie danger.

I guess motivation has taken a nosedive... I probably need more sleep, too. All the studies say lack of sleep makes us hungrier, and even worse, reduces our self-control aka impulsivity problems.

Just to keep you in the loop....