Losing weight in spite of myself.

I began this blog in February 2011 as a way to help me not quit trying to lose weight, and to learn a few things. It's been an interesting and powerful experience. It certainly confirms what I've long suspected--that although I am a genuinely happy cheery person in the main, I am NOT a happy cheery dieter. I DETEST losing weight. I resent being overweight in the first place and I am a virtuoso in the art of self-sabotage. And YET--I'm doing it! I'm fighting and kicking and EATING all the way down, but the weight is finally going down. The plan I was following in February was a half-baked one largely based on wishful thinking. I gained a little weight and decided to get real. I knew I couldn't just join weightwatchers or count calories or do any one plan and expect to be successful. I decided if I was going to bother to make the effort to lose weight I was going to throw everything I could think of at the problem. And so I do. My real "Day One" for this blog is April 1, 2011. I joined weight watchers, I joined caloriecount.com (awesome website), I read the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com religiously, I keep this blog faithfully, I joined the health programs sponsored by my insurance, I use the principles from overeater's anonymous, I use my church's 12 step program as well, I subscribe--and use--Healthy Cooking Magazine.



The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.

The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.

There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.

Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!







Saturday, February 7, 2015

Re-writing Hungry Girl

A good day! Weird weather--it's Feb 7 and 70 degrees in Provo. So we went up and did a little apartment hunting with C and her roomies. She mentioned that she'd like to go to Zupas, which was perfect! I scouted out the calories in advance (Ouch!), but luckily my favorite mushroom soup wasn't bad (150 cal per cup), so I had a big bowl of that, plus the bread and strawberry. Later we went to Sodalicious which has all kinds of fun soda concoctions, but since my soda was diet, that wasn't a big deal. I had enough calories tonight to have a whole big sausage along with my sausage pasta dish ( a cooking light dish--not bad). I couldn't finish the main dish. There was still room for some dessert and C had given us some really good choc chip cookies (I know, because I had two). But I really wasn't in the least hungry and I'd already had plenty of sweets. For once I listened to my intuitive self and didn't bother. That's a major success!!

Later, as we were watching TV, I re-did my Hungry Girl days. Sorry Lisa, I'm just not loving that diet book. There is some evidence that if you eat the same thing a lot supposedly you eat less. I don't know if that's what she was going for, but there is a lot of repetition and although there is some good stuff, I think it's a far cry from the really delicious recipes that made her famous. I still want to do Hungry Girl days though. So I got out 28 index cards, and between the diet book, another of her cookbooks and a folder of HG recipes that I've printed out, I put together my own 28 days of an HG plan. Three meals, three snacks, and not a lot of repeats. I'm really looking forward to those days now, and although they probably aren't as perfectly nutritionally calibrated as the real diet book, they're still pretty darn healthy and low in cal, so I'm not too worried.

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