portion control

Parent Cafe
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<p>In 2004, when I got my first standard poodle, an energetic uncontrollable beautiful girl, I weighed 55-60 pounds more than I do now. I started walking her a mile every day just so she would have a brain. From 2004-2007, I lost 25 pounds, and then I got stuck at that weight. 2008-2012 was a stressful period, and while I acquired the two wonderful poodles in my photo (and the first one died of her myriad genetic diseases), I didn’t lose any more weight.</p>

<p>In the summer of 2012, I decided to get serious about losing weight, and I started doing a LOT of research on what actually works vs. theory of what should work or what works for other people. I wrote a series of statements about my behavior that all start with “I will lose weight because” … Some examples are: I am walking a mile twice a day, I am eating more vegetables and less white flour, I am enjoying every single bite (and stopping when I don’t). I tried to focus on positive behavioral steps that could be measured and rewarded. There’s a lot of research on training that indicates that behaviors that get rewarded get repeated. That’s why we get fat: eating is highly pleasurable. I have tried to substitute alternate rewards for the behaviors I want to reward. For a while I stuck a $1 bill in a jar for every mile I walked and used that to go out for sushi and other such things, but I got bored with that. At this point, I buy interesting earrings on Etsy ;-)</p>

<p>I consulted a nutritionist, who advised me that weight loss should be gradual–“you want to sneak up on it”. It’s frustrating to go slowly, but it’s been much more successful for me, because it has become about changing my behavior long-term, not going hungry short-term.</p>

<p>I use a FitBit and aim for 30 to 60 “active minutes” a day and 12000 steps (which means I run one dog most days and walk both of them twice or three times a day). I bicycle 10-15 miles two or three times a week. (Since we live on a hill, that’s got its own challenges.) I do not count calories at this point, but I only eat refined foods (flours, sugars) if I’ve run that morning, and I don’t eat any carbohydrates after lunch. If I’m going to indulge (and I adore waffles with maple syrup), it’s going to be at breakfast or lunch. </p>

<p>New research is showing that the most effective long-term method of losing weight is to alternate low calorie and high calories days–the research was based on 500 cal one day unlimited cal the next but I can’t do the 500 cal. I have found 800 cal days alternating with 1800 cal days work very well for me, giving me a weight loss of 1/4 to 1/2 pound a week without it being a huge strain mentally. </p>

<p>I am coming up on two years of steady weight loss and nearing a total of 60 pounds since 2004 (or 35 since 2012). </p>

<p>I will also note that I have found it much easier to lose weight since going through menopause. Losing the mood swings that I self-medicated with sugar and caffeine made a huge difference. </p>

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<p>“My advice - very petite, teeny tiny shouldn’t be your goal. Rethink what you consider attractive. People come in all shapes and sizes, so first accept and embrace your body type whatever that is. Then eat healthily and exercise to get your body in the best possible shape.”</p>

<p>I agree with that and want to add something. Most of my life I was a 105 pound weakling. I ran but I had arms like toothpicks. I had my first bone density scan in my forties. When my parents first started to fail, breaking hips, needing walkers, now my mom in a wheelchair, I decided I will do everything I can to avoid that sort of frailty. Everything I’ve read says you need strength training, in addition to cardio and flexibility, for healthy aging. Last fall I started working a lot harder in the gym. The results have been pretty amazing. I am back to my old weight but carry it differently. The first time I saw my arms in the mirror in a sleeveless top (after the long, cold winter) I couldn’t believe it. I’ll be wearing a sleeveless sheath to my son’s wedding and it looks pretty darn good.</p>

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<p>“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” Y’know, this is the kind of sententious claptrap that gives weight fanatics a bad name. If you like food, plenty of things taste as good as thin feels. I can walk into a good bakery and find twenty things that taste as good as thin feels, especially if I’m hungry. Go to a two-star Michelin restaurant for the tasting menu, and everything they put in front of you damn well better taste better than thin feels, at those prices.</p>

<p>Pretending that food does not taste good is not going to be a successful strategy for people who like food. Food does taste good!</p>

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<p>I’ve been noticing more women working with weights, which is terrific though only a few push themselves to add weight. (I’ve always found that odd, if it’s an appearance worry, because men add muscle much more easily than women.)</p>

<p>A small suggestion: add protein. I added protein powder - vanilla, which I mix with coffee - and found that it really helped control my hunger. </p>

<p>Other suggestions are all from Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. (Look him up. Visit his Cornell site and read.) </p>

<p>For example:</p>

<ol>
<li>Use a smaller plate. Their research shows how much you eat is directly tied to the size of your plate. My whole family has converted to this and they used to think it was ridiculous.</li>
<li>Put temptations literally out of sight. Make it harder to reach them and you can more easily not eat them.</li>
<li>Keep sweets out of the house. Research shows we eat sweets when we’re tired, possibly seeking quick bursts of energy.</li>
</ol>

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<p>3a. If there’s something (cookies, chips, ice cream) that you can’t eat just one of, just don’t have it in the house. Make it something you only eat on holidays or at parties. I can eat one chocolate a day, so having chocolate hanging around my house isn’t a problem. I never want ice cream except on apple pie. But I cannot eat one cookie. So I don’t have cookies in my house most of the time.</p>

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<p>Sorry, my post should have said, “Well, I’m definitely not a gazelle and I do NOT pretend to be one. Cows can run, too.”</p>

<p>One of my friends is convinced that BC pills, especially the old kind that were heavily loaded with hormones, are responsible for at least some overall weight increase in women. </p>

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<p>Well… How about this? Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. Excess weight puts unneeded strain on our joints and bones and leads to all sorts of problems. Most would probably think of a 150-lb, 5-6 woman as not being overweight, but said woman saw drastic results of her 25-lb weight loss - the heartburn that she used to experience weekly was gone despite the fact that said woman added more acidic foods to her diet. This really keeps me motivated to not add pounds (that, and the fact that it takes a lot of energy to carry extra pounds for 26 miles).</p>

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<p>I am still waiting for menopause at 56.
Since H can eat anything without gaining weight he keeps the house stocked with all kinds of of cookies, chips & ice cream.
I usually don’t have too much trouble staying away from it…except before my period. Then I crave chocolate & sugar.</p>

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<p>+1 on a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter to satiate hunger.</p>

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<p>@‌ bunsen-
Excess weight puts a strain on our bodies, there is no doubt about it, but the issue is also about fitness. Things like BMI may not mean much, according to the BMI table Lebron James is Obese. According to the BMI, I should way no more than 170 pounds or so at 5’ 11, yet at 17 when I was in incredible shape (by body fat <<20%), I weighed at 190…I think the real answer is in fitness. I know of a young woman who is 5’5 and weighs about 150, and according to BMI she is obese. Yet her body fat is just under 20 (which is pretty good for a woman) and she can squat almost 400 pounds and is in amazing shape. Not to mention that studies have shown that stick thin people may not be so healthy otherwise. Health and fitness are a low more than a number on a scale, human beings are not homogeneous, one person at 5’ 11 can weight 160 pounds and look good, another person might look like they had a wasting disease, someone at 200 pounds can be extremely lean, but technically overweight, another person might be really out of shape at that weight. Among other things, muscle weighs more than fat, and things like bone structure plays a role, too, BMI doesn’t even account for sex, which is idiotic, to say the least (for example, a man can safely have body fat %<15%, a woman cannot, and that would reflect in relative weights that are healthy). </p>

<p>In terms of food, the one mistake people make is assuming food is like gasoline, a fuel, it isn’t. Food also contains nutrients, a plethora of them, and also contains compounds that do help our emotional state, and it is an important thing to us socially and emotionally, there is pleasure to eating (and usually in my experience a lot of the people who see food as being something to gag down, often grew up with families with weird dynamics; a woman who lived in my old neighborhood had serious eating problems, she was way underweight, thought food was this thing you suffered to eat, and from what I heard from her sister, it was because their father was off the deep end with them, had negative attitudes towards food (except of course what he ate)…). It isn’t healthy to indulge all the team or eat unhealthily most of the time, or not be aware of what you are eating, but it is also self defeating to forget or try to ignore that food has a lot of varying roles, and accept that. If you have a cheat meal or two each week, it can allow you to be careful the rest of the time, and if you work at finding foods that you enjoy but fit the health regimen you are doing, even better:). </p>

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<p>BMI is an adequate refernce index for an AVERAGE person -it assumes that the person is an average person. Lebron or Michael are not your average bodies. :slight_smile: An athlete may have a higher BMI, but that “excess weight” is muscle which, unlike the deadweight fat, propels and supports the bones. OTOH, bodybuilders can carry too much muscle - I bet their joints are not happy. </p>

<p>Edited to add: a reference number is exactly what it is. It is not meant to be the bible. Re: waist circumference. I have seen some overweight ladies with wasp-thin waistlines. Of course, those are also outliers. </p>

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<p>I haven’t been wasp waisted since I had kids.
Then again, I didn’t realize how popular corsets have become.</p>

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<p>You can’t use fitness at all as a measure of health. I see too many fit people walk in to the hospital with cardiomyopathy (crazy to think), sleep apnea, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. I took care of an olympic weightlifter who was a “train wreck” due to his severe sleep apnea. He would probably be cured if he lost weight. I cared for an obese patient who completed a marathon. BMI is very helpful because bodyfat percentage is very difficult to measure accurately at home. Also, BMI are what the actuarial data are based on. I would love for a better mechanism but we don’t have one. IMO, BMI, bodyfat as well as the ability to climp 3 flights of stairs within a designated time are the best measures when you are considering losing weight.</p>

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<p>Since my exercising has fallen off the radar ( ok I walk but not much else at present) I have to be more careful with what I eat. But as others have said over and over, it shoul be a lifestyle thing, not a matter of being “on” or “off” a diet. I tip my hat to those who have lost a lot of weight and maintained, and those who have made exercise a huge part of their lives. </p>

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<p>BMI may be used by actuaries, but it doesn’t mean it is an accurate reflection of anything either. Actuaries base their ideas of risk on what doctors tell them, and BMI above a certain level are considered risky by doctors…but what if someone is very muscular, do you ding them on health insurance? There was something recently on the BMI, it is another thing that doctors loved to use that serious studies are questioning (like the now blown out of the water idea that blood cholesterol has anything to do with diet, or that taking Niacin to bring the LDL/HDL ratio to some magic number actually helps reduce heart disease (spoiler, it doesn’t), the whole thing with saturated fats and heart disease has been blown out as well…</p>

<p>Sure, there are other factors, but the problem with the BMI is that very few people are average, and the numbers in the BMI table represent a statistical average that for many people doesn’t exist, which is the point, that what is ‘normal’ for one person may not be for another, that’s all, and single numbers like the BMI suffer like many such rules do, they don’t work for most people, kind of like one size fits all. Sure, there are obese people who run marathons, but there are also skinny people who die of heart attacks, it is why fitness is important and general healthiness. On top of everything else, the obsession with weight and BMI has led to a lot of yo yo dieting, then people put the weight back on, in part because it may not have been realistic, and that everyone agrees is problematic, it is better to stay at a weight that may be a bit overweight, while trying to eat healthily, then it is to do the yo yo dieting most people do. </p>

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<p>That’s the point with BMI. It DOES work for most people. It doesn’t work for Olympic weightlifters and NBA athletes, but most people are not Olympic weightlifters or NBA athletes.</p>

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<p>BMI is my yardstick. I feel and look best when I am on the lower end of my range. </p>

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<p>How fast should a person be able to climb 3 flights? </p>

<p>I saw plenty of people last summer on the John Muir trail chugging along just fine although their BMI would have been high. More important to be fit than thin. But thin looks better.</p>

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<p>“First of all, the whole ‘low fat’ craze that the idiot doctors still push (not a big surprise, doctors and nutrition information are some of the worse sources in my experience, they generally are 30 years out of date at least)…among other things, the whole mania about saturated fat and heart disease has almost been entirely blown out of the water.”</p>

<p>musicprnt, I think you are being unfair to many if not most doctors. Most are not idiots ( although I still don’t use the quote feature). I like to think most I know do a decent job of including research on nutrition as part of their CME. </p>

<p>Still, I know it is not always a priority. I tend to focus on managing weight gain as a side effect of medication, so I am not sure if there is something new regarding “vegetables”. So here is my question to you. </p>

<p>You are saying “veggies” should be the center of the diet, but not “starchy foods like potatoes” , which should be eaten in moderation. I was under the impression that there are several vegetables (carrots and corn come to mind), that need to be limited as well. Is that not true? </p>

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<p>Corn usually goes in the starchy vegetables category along with potatoes. Too many carrots will turn you orange but that takes a whole lot of carrots. It used to happen during the 80’s and 90’s when people were drinking vats of carrot juice for some reason.</p>