FINALLY!!!! I got the Hungry Girl Diet book yesterday!! YAY!!! Of course it's no real miracle---part of me is always hoping it will be. In fact part of me is rather annoyed that her meal plan is 1300 cal. Let's see.....overweight person likes to eat 4000 cal per day---lets drop her suddenly to 1300 and see how that goes!! grrrrrrrrrr. Also for reasons she doesn't explain, the choices for week 1 are rather limited, week two there is more and so on. Calorie counts don't change. She does say that I shouldn't grab other HG receipes to substitute for meals because the four weeks that she specifically maps out are really well balanced with just the right carbs/fiber etc.
On the bright side--she does graciously allow that if you are more than 75 pounds overweight OR if 1300 cal is too aggressive (YES! Thankyou!!), we can have another 100 to 200 cal of fruit or whatever. Good grief. Obviously, I'm still rebelling on the amount I have to cut down and how hard I have to work to lose weight---but I just can't get thrilled over being "allowed" 1/2 apple. Oh well. On the even brighter side--this is HUNGRY GIRL--not my savior--but a genuinely terrific cook with great ideas and receipes--in this book alone she has two stuffed strawberry receipes that sound fantastic (one stuffed with feta the other with cream cheese and chocolate chips). She trying to make 1300 endurable--but I'm not willing to "endure" anything of the sort. 1500 cal is about as bone starving as I'm willing to go--and that not very often.
I'm going to incorporate her plan into mine. On HG days I'll definitely be adding 200 cal PLUS whatever I earn in exercise. If I were really going to jump into her 4 week plan I'd be loving the variety of choices each day---but I'm partly using her plan as an escape from thinking (just tell me what to eat), so I think I'll pencil in exactly what each day will entail for me. And I will go in order. I'll just put 28 generic HG days in the envelope and eat day 1 through 28 in that order. I'm going to write up the slips right now which is fun--I love planning for new things. Executing the plan not so much. I also need to figure the calorie and other days. I want Flavor Point and Hungry Girl to cover about 1/3 of the total plan. The other days are mostly calorie counted with a few other types of days thrown in. Another plus from the book---she specifies which are high fiber or high protein snacks--helpful on those days!!!
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!
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!
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