<p>NYMomof2, Olive oil is great, very healthy, just not good for high heat cooking. So if I need to sear something for a Western recipe, I use ghee. If I am stirfrying with Asian flavors, I use coconut oil.</p>
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<p>I’ve heard that olive oil is good for you from idad. That’s the main oil that we use.</p>
<p>Peanut oil is good for cooking asian foods too.</p>
<p>Olive oil seems good to eat raw but the goodness is destroying when cooking in high heat. But I’m not sure it’s bad. Hence I just won’t pay tons of money for very good quality of olive oil and use it for cooking.</p>
<p>I have heard that you should stick with the extra virgin olive oil if you are eating it for the health benefits. Apparently, the extra light olive oil is subject to a lot of processing including heat and may have vegetable oil added to it.</p>
<p>ya stick with another oil like canola or corn based oil for cooking. The richness and texture of olive oil gets destroyed in high heat, so it’s just a waste to use it to cook, given the price and provides no additional benefits.</p>
<p>I use olive oil as a base for salad dressing with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil. One of my favorites. </p>
<p>Atkin+ South beach and other low carb diets are intense during the first 2 weeks as it cuts out all carbs. However as mentioned it gets very liberal after the first two weeks. Mainly for the fact that it actually helps to guide you to change your lifestyle. If you follow the plan it moves you away from bad carbs and into good carb and a healthy eating style.</p>
<p>Honestly i can’t even have a pizza or pasta now without feeling a sense of guilt so i guess it worked for me.</p>
<p>Well, sign me up for this thread! I need to lose a lot of weight for both health and looks; it just kept climbing after the baby was born (that’s the one who’s working in San Jose now). I am totally educated as to what I should be eating and how much I should be exercising. But knowing and doing are worlds apart.</p>
<p>Vis-a-vis the Wii Fit - I’ve had one for a couple of years and was doing pretty good when I joined the “new habit in 30 days” thread. I was more interested in getting some light aerobics done than in losing weight, “light” being better than the “none” I was doing. But it kind of dropped off a couple of months ago. For the person who asked what people do, I did “advanced” step - it’s a 5 minute routine so I repeated it 4 or 5 times. I also sometimes did the medium run (I have the Wii Fit Plus so my avatar cat runs with me), or the “biking”. I’ve tried the Yoga and get told I have excellent balance. But mainly the step.</p>
<p>But my main question is: how do you change what you like to eat? I like most everything bad for me and really don’t like most everything good for me. I read the suggestions to eat hummas and greek yogurt and laugh to myself. I used to try and try to like fish and never could; then a couple of years ago I discovered I’m allergic to fish oil in pill form so figured my body always knew.</p>
<p>Today in honor of this thread I went for a 20 minute walk, and had three glasses of water mid-day. I tried peanut butter on celery and liked it. But if I cut out butter and cheese and bread and pasta and crackers et al, I will be left with almost nothing to eat! How do you keep from being hungry all the time? Can you really change from a lifetime of preferences?</p>
<p>No need to cut out butter and cheese.</p>
<p>Suggestions:</p>
<p>Nuts, berries, seeds.
Fruit.
Vegetables.
Cottage cheese.
Perhaps tuna in water.
Beans.
Unsweetened chocolate.
Flaxseed meal baked goods.
Wheat germ.</p>
<p>Before anyone gets too carried away drenching everything in “healthful” oils, just remember to use them wisely (i.e. sparingly) if your goal is to lose weight. Dieters sometimes get so enamored with the “healthy” label that they forget that they still need to limit calories to lose weight. And a gram of olive oil has exactly the same number of calories as a gram of pure lard. Fats, including healthful one, are the most calorie-dense of all the foods. </p>
<p>So by all means use healthful oils in place of unhealthful ones, but don’t lose sight of how many calories you are adding when you add the oil.</p>
<p>Am asking my compadres for a few day reprieve. I am currently at a resort with DH, sitting outside with a bottle of complimentary Chardonnay, having just returned from having a massage and facial, looking out over the lake. Dinner tonight will be casual (poolside) but I think it has lobster (good) and havarti (bad). Will go to the gym tomorrow (its spectacular) and will bicycle on the trails. Am nursing a calf issue (hoping its not phlebitis or the Baker’s cyst avcting up) but will test it inthe morning. Really.
I think they have us mixed up with someone else, as they just put rose pedals on our bed!!! LOL!! Maybe the wine was for someone else too! lol. I will get back on the program next week, after the joint celebration of fathers day/son’s bday/my bday this thurs. I wont overdo it too much, I hope.</p>
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<p>Yeah. Once I figured that out, I took a page from my grandmother’s cookbook and started saving the fat from cooking bacon in a jar in the fridge. Now I use a tablespoon of that to sautee sometimes, like for fajitas. Great stuff. Adds a lot of flavor and it doesn’t have one more calorie than horrible fats like corn oil or Crisco.</p>
<p>You are right, though. To lose weight, you need to be aware of how quickly calories can add up from various foods. Tracking for a while really helps, just from an educational standpoint.</p>
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<p>This is why I was successful with the South Beach diet when I wasn’t with previous attempts to cut out this and stop eating that, or count calories. The book has meal plans with recipes, so all you have to think about is eat this (rather than don’t eat that). After the first two or three days, I wasn’t hungry at all and found the diet tasty and satisfying. Other diets might have worked as well, provided they had plans and recipes.</p>
<p>Marilyn, may I suggest the “braces” diet, something that has worked for many of us (except for Bunsen who obviously is more talented). </p>
<p>Of course I am not suggesting you really get braces, but when I eat now I cut everything in tiny little pieces, I chew very carefully, drink water to help loosen any food, and find that I don’t eat nearly as much. </p>
<p>So don’t change what you eat, maybe just try for one week to really, really slow down and be mindful. No eating while reading (my personal bad habit) or watching tv or doing other things. Dining will be dining. </p>
<p>(When you snack promise you will immediately go and pick, floss, and brush your teeth - all of a sudden snacking isn’t as much fun)</p>
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<p>Good for you, Jym! Sounds heavenly! I really think that in order to succeed at a healthier lifestyle, you have to be realistic and allow yourself special occasions now and then. It has been my experience that, if I am generally eating well and exercising regularly, my body will forgive me the occasional fall off the wagon.</p>
<p>Marilyn, I’m wanting to be supportive, but IF that is truly the base of your diet - butter, cheese, bread, crackers, pasta, etc…then your answer is right in your sentence! That’s pretty much all fat or carbs! No vegetables, fruits, lean protein, etc.! </p>
<p>Please change your diet just for the nutritional value - cause that stuff has very little!</p>
<p>Make a list.<br>
Fruits I’m willing to eat
Vegetables I’m willing to eat
Lean meats/protein I’m willing to eat.
Snacks that satisfy me and have SOME nutritional value (your PB/Celery counts!)
Whole grain breakfast foods I’m willing to eat.</p>
<p>Start with these lists and let us know what you come up with. Then we can help you more. :)</p>
<p>It’s also true, I think that food preferences shift. But you have to nudge them along and just start moving your diet towards nutrition.</p>
<p>OK I’m in. Twice a year I have the woman at the gym measure me and weigh me.keeps me honest. Tonight was it. I don’t “do” scales regularly it’s far too depressing. I noticed my tops were alittle snug and some “spillage” but everything else fit so I figured I was up a few pounds. Ugh. 7 pounds. 4" more around the top , 1/2" at the waist…everything else measured was the same - stomach, hips, arms, thighs the same as 6 months ago… How on earth does THAT happen?? My H had the audacity to laugh at me when I got home from the gym and told him. Anyway, I am now officially thinking about what goes in my mouth.</p>
<p>I have to admit I’ve been eating a vending pack of peanut M&Ms every work day for 6 months at about 3:00. And I used to use a salad plate for dinner and I stopped that sometime during the holidays and am now setting the table with a “normal” plate for me. Also I never ate a roll with dinner and I admit more than one time a week I’ve grabbed a roll (and butter, yup real butter). THAT is where weight comes from. I haven’t taken the time to add up the total calories of 120 bags of M&Ms and probably 25-30 dinner rolls and probably 15 teaspoons of butter but I bet it adds up to 7 pounds on a middle aged woman. I don’t go see my physician until September so I’ve got time so I don’t get the evil eye. I’m normally an OK weight and an OK BMI but I’m pushing that upper number… </p>
<p>So now I’ve confessed my sins. Hopefully when 3:00 rolls around I can get through it…maybe I’ll wean myself with some almonds or peanuts (without the chocolate). Definitely going back to the smaller plate and saying no to the roll.</p>
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<p>So, honestly, if I want to watch carbs, then FRUIT is bad? I thought fruits and veggies were GOOD. Or are they “good carbs” (as opposed to “bad carbs”)</p>
<p>Ohhhh…this is too much for me. I love exercise but changing diet is hard for me. It was way more fun when I was younger and could give up soda for a week and lose 5 pounds.</p>
<p>Justamom,
I find the carb thing confusing too. My solution is to focus on cutting way back on the “bad carbs” like white bread, white past, rice, potato. I’m also eliminating ice cream and sweets (although i did buy a box of WW Dark Chocolate and raspberry ice cream bars (yum). I think they are about 100 cal, 1 g fat and 12 carbs.</p>
<p>I can’t worry about eating a pear or an apple, for goodness sake. I feel like a hero if I eat the pear over a rice krispie treat!</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that I do eat some of the healthier stuff - cottage cheese and fruit, nuts, salads (mainly just the greens), many fruits (but not blueberries), eggs (I like the whites best; not as big a fan of yolks so yay there), chicken, turkey, oatmeal, popcorn (is this good for you?), and even like broccoli occasionally. Also carrots and peapods, since they’re the sweeter vegetables. But I admit the bulk of my calories come from the “bad” carbs. If I limit to just the healthy stuff I do like, it won’t be enough to keep me from being hungry. So I figure I need to add some other foods to fill me up, only I’ve learned that it’s very very hard to eat food that doesn’t taste good to me!</p>
<p>As I noted, I know what I should eat - just don’t know how to get myself to be willing to eat more of it! I also can figure out all sorts of psychological reasons why I head towards food so often. I’ve studied all about carbs and glycemic levels. A few years ago, I read the book about “mindless eating” and will try smaller plates and smaller bites of food. I will also try to drink more water before meals. I will go look at my too-small summer clothes and remind myself how much I’d like to wear them again. </p>
<p>jym626 - my husband and I once checked into a hotel and found a bottle of champagne and an unopened cheesecake in the little room fridge. We called the front desk since we thought it was misdelivered, and they said someone must have left it, and if we were of drinking age to just enjoy!</p>
<p>Arghh - I’m getting hungry right now.</p>