Dieting
... is really not that hard.
IF, and that's a big IF, you are serious about it, and plan to succeed.
I'm now convinced it's all about planning.
Lisa and I have both done the Atkins diet in the past, with good success. Due to a lack of a gall bladder, Lisa can't really do Atkins anymore, which is why she's doing Weight Watchers now. Planning meals, counting points, etc.
BTW - I didn't know this before, so probably at least some of the 5-10 people who read this blog didn't either - WW counts points, not calories. Points are determined (best I can tell) by the overall content of the food - calories, fat content, nutrition, etc. I'm not sure of the formula, but I can work with the points ok to take care of Lisa's meals.
Now, to illustrate that a diet isn't hard, if you do something reasonable: We had Hamburger Helper for dinner tonight. Yeah, not real healthy, but we'd been busy all day, and were both too tired and too hungry to spend a LOT of time making a "diet" dinner. So, HH made with 92/08 ground beef, some vegetables, and some bread with low-fat margarine, FILLED LISA UP - to the point where she didn't finish what she'd put on her plate. And only cost a fraction of her allotted points for today.
With a little forethought (mainly having vegetables on hand to eat, and having 92% lean/ 08% fat ground beef in the freezer), we made what's normally considered to be an unhealthy, fattening meal into something healthy, and that fit into a weight-loss framework. Not to mention very easy, and quite tasty!
Tonight, Lisa's diet took ZERO willpower - she ate until she was FULL. NO deprivation at all.
Instead of using willpower to eat less than what she wanted, we used a little advance planning, to make sure we had plenty of GOOD food for her to eat, so she ate all she wanted, and still ate less points (WW-wise) than she was allowed. She finished dinner full and satisfied, but it was GOOD food that she filled up on.
Then, after dinner had settled, she did 50 crunches and I did 50 sit-ups. Ugh, on both our parts. But they're good for us.
Anyway, the point of this post is, we didn't do anything extraordinary tonight. We spent a little bit more for a pound of lean ground beef instead of the cheapest stuff, and spent a little bit of money for some fresh vegetables. Then we both ate until we were FULL. Not a bit of limiting our portions; in fact, like I said, Lisa wound up putting some back because she couldn't finish what was on her plate. I'll be taking some of that for lunch this week as leftovers.
Then a little bit of light excercise, nothing major.
This won't result in 20 pounds loss in two weeks, or any other miracle claim. But this kind of eating and activity, over time, WILL get the results we want (hell, I may even drop the few extra pounds I'm carrying around also).
Not through deprivation or starvation, or Herculean effort of will, but just by some common sense and planning ahead. With a little bit of help from Weight Watchers quantifying nutritional information into a points system.
IF, and that's a big IF, you are serious about it, and plan to succeed.
I'm now convinced it's all about planning.
Lisa and I have both done the Atkins diet in the past, with good success. Due to a lack of a gall bladder, Lisa can't really do Atkins anymore, which is why she's doing Weight Watchers now. Planning meals, counting points, etc.
BTW - I didn't know this before, so probably at least some of the 5-10 people who read this blog didn't either - WW counts points, not calories. Points are determined (best I can tell) by the overall content of the food - calories, fat content, nutrition, etc. I'm not sure of the formula, but I can work with the points ok to take care of Lisa's meals.
Now, to illustrate that a diet isn't hard, if you do something reasonable: We had Hamburger Helper for dinner tonight. Yeah, not real healthy, but we'd been busy all day, and were both too tired and too hungry to spend a LOT of time making a "diet" dinner. So, HH made with 92/08 ground beef, some vegetables, and some bread with low-fat margarine, FILLED LISA UP - to the point where she didn't finish what she'd put on her plate. And only cost a fraction of her allotted points for today.
With a little forethought (mainly having vegetables on hand to eat, and having 92% lean/ 08% fat ground beef in the freezer), we made what's normally considered to be an unhealthy, fattening meal into something healthy, and that fit into a weight-loss framework. Not to mention very easy, and quite tasty!
Tonight, Lisa's diet took ZERO willpower - she ate until she was FULL. NO deprivation at all.
Instead of using willpower to eat less than what she wanted, we used a little advance planning, to make sure we had plenty of GOOD food for her to eat, so she ate all she wanted, and still ate less points (WW-wise) than she was allowed. She finished dinner full and satisfied, but it was GOOD food that she filled up on.
Then, after dinner had settled, she did 50 crunches and I did 50 sit-ups. Ugh, on both our parts. But they're good for us.
Anyway, the point of this post is, we didn't do anything extraordinary tonight. We spent a little bit more for a pound of lean ground beef instead of the cheapest stuff, and spent a little bit of money for some fresh vegetables. Then we both ate until we were FULL. Not a bit of limiting our portions; in fact, like I said, Lisa wound up putting some back because she couldn't finish what was on her plate. I'll be taking some of that for lunch this week as leftovers.
Then a little bit of light excercise, nothing major.
This won't result in 20 pounds loss in two weeks, or any other miracle claim. But this kind of eating and activity, over time, WILL get the results we want (hell, I may even drop the few extra pounds I'm carrying around also).
Not through deprivation or starvation, or Herculean effort of will, but just by some common sense and planning ahead. With a little bit of help from Weight Watchers quantifying nutritional information into a points system.
posted by Aaron Neal at 9:05 PM
4 Comments:
Dieting is easy as hell.
Sticking to the diet for extended periods is what's hard. Believe me. been there, done that. I can follow any diet to the letter, and get great results, but everyone has their breaking point, and apparently, mine is around six weeks.
That's one of the cool things about Weight Watchers - they know everybody has a breaking point, and they give you "extras" each week so you can "break". Just can't stay broken. But like last week, Lisa used some of her extra points so we could go out for Valentines and have a nice steak dinner... didn't blow her diet, just used up the "go nuts" points that are allocated each week.
With WW, you are still counting calories, only they do the work for you.
Calories are not always equal, just as carbs are not.
The bottom line is what metabolizes and what doesn't. You eat what metabolizes quickly so you can burn it up, and you avoid what stores as fat easily and doesn't burn up.
Also, and WW isn't too clear on this, it makes a huge difference WHEN you eat WHAT. The key to losing weight is discovery of all the ins and outs of your metabolic cycle. The more you know about it, the better you can tailor your food intake around it.
WW has a good plan but as with any good plan you have to be able to adjust and adapt to get to the goal. Every battleplan is a good one until the bullets start to fly, then its up to the frontline officers and NCO's to pull off the mission. That's another good thing about the WW plan, they anticipate and understand that if losing wiehgt were easy, people wouldn't have wieght problems.
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