The most important thing to do when dieting is to eat when you are hungry. Carry food with you - high fibre, low calorie food, not cheese doodles! What happens if you don’t is you get really hungry and then you eat - alot - and often the first thing you can grab at the mini mart - which I’ve noticed is not home to high fibre low calorie foods.
If necessary, eat four to six small meals a day. At the least, eat three meals plus snacks. Once again, not cheese doodles.
Know your weaknesses and compensate. Mine is sweet - particularly chocolate. So I don’t go nuts on cheap chocolate, I make sure to allow myself a small amount of satisfying GOOD chocolate (as in those little Dove squares barely qualify). The better the chocolate, the smaller the amount I need to satisfy. If I’m both hungry and craving chocolate, a tablespoon of Hershey’s syrup has only a few calories and I use that to dip a banana - or something else sweet, filling and lower in calories than a Snickers bar. The first weight loss (I lose the same ten pounds every other year) experience introduced me to Cherry Garcia yogurt, tastes nearly the same as Cherry Garcia ice cream, half the calories. So half as much and I’m down to a quarter of the calories.
Brainiac4 has great luck eating exactly what he would if he weren’t dieting, but cutting everything in half and throwing half of it away.
And actually watch the hippie food. My coop has a really tempting and overwhelming selection of chocolate bars, organic cookies, and bulk organic candy.
As to exercise, buy a cheap pedometer and try to get in 10,000 steps - it shouldn’t be hard in NYC - probably easier than in the Minnesota winter - its 39 steps from my bedroom to my car, another 100 from my parking spot to my desk.
Yes, dear, but I can’t afford to pay for it, and at my age, that’s the only way I’m going to get it. Can I deduct it as a “personal trainer?”
By “hippie food,” I mean all that naaaaatural stuff. Fruits and (gag) vegetables. I’ll stop off at the Whole Foods on my way to work and get tomatoes, grapes, strawberries to munch on through the day so I don’t get so ravenous I succumb to actual good food, like Chinese or pizza. (Goodbye, Chinese! Goodbye, pizza! I will remember you fondly).
It’s all a matter of getting used to it, I guess. After the first few hellish months of not eating, one adjusts. “You can get used to hanging if you hang long enough,” my mother used to say.
Don’t think of it as ‘exercise’. Think of it as ‘transportation’. All you need to do is walk. At first it seems a drag, but it gets to be a habit very quickly. I walk 12 miles a week just because I walk to work and back. I just go on autopilot and before I know it, I’m at work (or home). Walking a mile burns 100 calories so that’s 1200 calories a week gone and I don’t even notice.
I promise you that if you try, you will find even yogurt and salad that you love. But you have to make a bit of effort to locate good foods that you enjoy. If you love eating, though, why suffer? Why not go on a hunt for tasty healthy food?
People here can make recommendations for you. Really, ‘health’ food has come a long way since the days when it all tasted like cardboard and grass.
Perhaps you’re going about this all wrong. Having lost 25 pounds since September purely for the sake of vanity, I can tell you that if you give up the food, there’s a very good chance you’ll be rewarded with sex!
I have to lose about 25 pounds, too. Not because the doctor told me but because my clothes keep getting tighter and I only have a couple pairs of pants that fit.
I once managed to lose a few pounds just by doing what many have already suggested here. I cut waaay back on breads, pasta and junk foods. I also stopped drinking sodas. Unfortunately, I went back on all those things again but I do plan to start there again. I also know there’s no way I can lose without exercising. I am going to go for walks in the evenings and take my fat dog with me. I also plan to do yoga and eventually get back into belly dancing and maybe tai chi. Exercise doesn’t have to be something you hate to do. Find something that you like to do, like dancing or swimming, and take a class or join a health club with a pool. Or you could just walk more as suggested. If you take a bus or subway to work, get off a block earlier than usual and walk the rest of the way. Clench your buttocks as you walk, it will work those muscles and give people behind you something to look at.
Good luck. I will be joining you in the effort to lose but I’m going to be realistic and not try to start until after New Years and once all the cookies at work are gone.
I eat less and move more. Sadly, no one has found an easier yet equally effective way. (Also, I think it’s really since early August, but the actual *effort * only started in September.)
Honestly, it started with a breakup. Constant nagging nausea and rage-fuelled exercise can do wonders for your girlish figure. But once I started losing weight, I was motivated to lose more. I started working out five nights a week (and I’m the Laziest Bitch known to man, but the thing is, once you get into the groove, it feels damned good!) 30 - 45 minutes of cardio, some light weights, and then finish up with 20 or so minutes of yoga. I really can’t recommend the yoga enough. Screw the whole crunchy connect-to-the-earth mantra thing, and just do the damned postures. They feel good. When I’m done, I’m all relaxed and limber and catlike. So very much more than worth the time and effort.
I’m not really dieting, I eat what I want, I just make damned sure I want it.
Really, getting started is the hardest part, because visible results are the best motivation, and it does take some time to get there. But if you can get started (and again, if I can, *anyone * can) you’ll be so pleased with the shiny new you (did I mention what a mood elevator exercise is? Especially when combined with suddenly noticing muscles you didn’t even know you had?), that it becomes something you look forward to. Never underestimate the motivational power of a sense of accomplishment combined with satisfied vanity!
Well, exercise is simply not going to happen. Living in NJ without a car and working in NY, I already walk much more than the average Fat Lazy American does, and that is all. I don’t have the time or money to join a gym, and do not have the time to exercise at home (I also have a landlord downstairs who gets hysterical if I so much as tiptoe around with shoes on).
So, it’s the usual amount of walking, and eating nothing but sticks and twigs the rest of my miserable life. I’m seeing the doctor Friday for him to tell me how many minutes I have left to live.
Like almost every other American, I grew accustomed to driving everywhere, until I spent 2 years without a car, in Southern California no less! But, walking, I found, made me into such a lean panther-like adonis (or so it seemed to me) that I still find it the easiest and cheapest form of exercise. Plus, it helped me strengthen up my leg from a motocycle accident. I started out with a cane struggling to make 1 block but after 2 years a 5 mile jaunt was nothin’. It’s a good time to think and you notice little things that you miss while driving past them at 35 mile per hour.
Think you’re kdding? My Patsy Stone-like fashion-mag friend Lois told me, “You have to take up smoking if you want to lose weight: try American Spirit, it’s what all the runway models smoke, 'cause it has the highest nictoine.”
Looks like it’s walking, walking, walking (and occasionally falling and breaking a wrist or an elbow) for Baby. That, and sticks ‘n’ twigs. We’ll see what Dr. Terror has to say. At least the news is coming in late December, I can pretend it’s a New Year’s resolution rather than doctor’s orders.
I lost two sizes on Weight Watchers starting in September or so. Haven’t been counting points lately but mean to get back on that wagon. I didn’t go to meetings, though - I’m not a meeting kind of person. I did the At Home kit. I know it’s just sensible eating and portion control, but having the points to count made it a lot easier for me not to just, you know, forget about those nibbles I had all day at work.
A tip somebody gave here once, that has really stood me in good stead, is this - start out with a “sensible portion” - one piece of pizza, half a candy bar, etc. You can have seconds, but you have to wait ten minutes. If you still want it ten minutes later you can have it. You can’t cheat yourself and NOT eat it, though, you have to be honest with yourself. Most of the time you won’t even want it. That works for me with pizza really well, personally.
Nah, if I let myself get sucked into the gravitational force of pizza or candy, I am lost. I remember a conversation I had with my mother years ago:
Mom: “Why can’t you just take a few spoonfuls of ice cream and put it back?”
Me: “Nope. You take the lid off the ice cream and throw it away. The lid’s job is done. It is no longer needed.”
Tonight I’ll swing by the Shop Rite (a good healthy walk, right there) and get some fish (to bake, not fry) and some soup. I shall go mad within a week, I predict.
Eat a lot of carrots and apples. They will fill you up. Apple Cinnamon rice cakes aren’t awful and only 50 calories if you want something sweet.
And switch from beer to hard liquor. You can’t gain weight if you’re downing Diet Coke and Wild Turkey all the time - the vomiting from the hangovers are just a bonus!
Oh, by the way, Jolly Time makes single servings of light kettle corn that are really good, only one WW point, and don’t taste light. And they feel like eating a real snack.
Whole Foods may have started out as a health food-hippie kind of place, but nowadays it’s a gourmet’s paradise. Be careful in there - you may have to walk past French cheese, Italian gelato, oily olives, fresh-baked almond horns, and any amount of pre-prepared high cal foods to get to the healthy stuff.
I’m a northern California foodie. Bet I could prepare some low-cholesterol stuff that would tempt you! Of course it may not be low calorie, you understand. But I can make a salad taste like a treat rather than a chore, and grill sea bass with the best of them.
You left out the free sample bites of cheese which the cheese pushers put out in those little plastic globes. The OP will have to be careful here; I recommend she pinch off the olfactories with a clothespin to lessen the chance of succumbing.
That thought right there helped me. I decided I was going to lose some weight and there was no way I was going to give up beer. So to compromise I decided I would walk to the nearest bar which is about 20 minutes away. At first it sucked because it was a new bar and I was a stranger but now a few months later I have a couple of bar buddies. I haven’t lost as much weight as I was hoping for but at least now I can walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and take a break half-way up.
If you’re not gaining weight with how you’re eating and exercising now, you only need to make small changes to lose weight. Losing weight should be looked at like a marathon, not a sprint - the changes have to be sustainable to be effective. That’s why dieting almost never works - people go overboard with unsustainable changes.
I think the best Lazy Bitch way to diet would be looking at your current diet, and figuring out some small changes that you would be willing to keep up longterm. They say you can lose up to two pounds a week safely, but if you lose a pound a month, you’ll still get there. If it takes longer, that doesn’t matter if you keep it off.
I think a hacker is very similar to a lazy bitch, so you could try the hacker’s diet.
It sounds like you get a good amount of walking in, but Pilates is something you could do without getting your landlord upset.
Or you could try this:
DON’T DIET! Diets are artificial. They are something that ends, and you need to make habits that you can live with, not stuff you’re looking forward to ending.
Make a daily eating diary. Note when you eat what, and were you eating because you were hungry, stressed, tired, bored…
Same as number 1 - don’t eat diet foods, unless you just flat out enjoy them more. Then it’s just a food you like, not something you are doing because you “can’t” eat what you want.
Try to concentrate on really enjoying what you eat EVERYTIME you eat something. Not only will you feel more satisfied by the things you enjoy, you will find that you don’t really enjoy some of the foods you thought you did.
Think of eating in terms of a budget. You have food points that you should spend on nutritious food and food points that you should spend on enjoyable food. And then you can realize that if you get nutritious food that you also really enjoy, you’ve saved some of your “fun points” for other things. I just saw recently where they pointed out that people should have a 80/20 ratio of nutrition to fun.
And along that line, think of exercising as earning more points. Sort of like getting a second income.
Each week, review your food diary for a change that you might make to improve your nutrition or reduce your calories. Make changes gradually, don’t try to change your entire life. Our psyche rebels against making drastic changes.
Not necessarily. While I believe that it takes longer to eat complex carbohydrates normally, a great deal of complex carb breakdown occurs in the mouth, as saliva has enzymes to do this. Thus, by the time the food reaches the intestines, the majority of digestion has already occurred. I believe that it is the act of eating complex carbs that usually makes it take longer to get into the bloodstream than say, eating a candy bar. However bananas are somewhere in between the candy and the canneloni in terms of how fast one can consume it.
Bananas also have much more fiber than regular pasta does: 6 grams for two medium sized bananas (about 200 calories worth), vs 2 grams in a two ounce (dry weight) serving of pasta (also about 200 calories). Fiber can not only help with feeling “full”, but can also help with a lot of health issues.
