<p>It’s hard to say that the belief carbs cause fat gain is a “fad” concept. It was written about in 1825 by French food writer Brillat-Savin (oft quoted on Iron Chef)</p>
<p>From wiki:</p>
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<p>The great irony is that prior to the 1970s when the low-fat fad gained steam, everyone knew that grains and starches made you fat and that, to lose weight, you should cut back on breads and startches. That is what was taught in medical schools. There was no debate or controversy about it whatsoever. It changed with the McGovern Report in the 1970s, written by a Senate staffer who was a vegetarian.</p>
<p>Dunno about French chefs, but my grandfather used to say to me and my sister, “Lay off that white bread if you do not want your butt to grow huge!” My grandfather always stayed true to his Ukrainian roots and used bacon and onions as the main ingredients in the majority of the dishes he cooked for us (ugh, split pea soup with an inch thick layer of bacon fat at the top - gross). He did not know anything about the Krebs cycle, but he weeded the garden, took care of the chickens and walked 2 miles to the store and back almost every day. He died at the age of 80 about three decades ago…</p>
<p>One could just follow the science on weight loss; it seems to be fairly clear. We may not know all of the exact mechanisms but we’re seeing behaviors and consequences in research studies.</p>
<p>Well, I think it has been a week, and my weight stayed the same. This is not a surprise. I did not get the exercising in. My FIL died, so some stress eating, my husband’s birthday, so cake & Chinese food. And been running around with D on the week before the dance recital mania - pictures, rehersals, etc, so have been eating on the run.</p>
<p>My goal for this week is to start the exercise and make better food choices.</p>
<p>martina - why not start with just one of those two goals - either make better food choices OR start the exercise? I know this won’t be popular but to lose weight the “better food choices” option will go much further. Exercise is great for your heart, health, and other things but for losing weight, unless it’s fairly extreme exercise it does little to help you lose weight. Exercise is also great to help keep the weight off but if you only choose one, make it the food choices; you’ll see more results more quickly.</p>
<p>We had no milk in the house this morning, so I couldn’t eat my Fiber One. I ended up with some lowfat vanilla yogurt and a hard boiled egg, along with my usual low-sodium V8. </p>
<p>Missing my breakfast routine makes me feel like Dustin Hoffman in “Rainman” when he missed Judge Wapner. ;)</p>
<p>So, what’s the deal with sushi? I see the rice. But, it’s such a small amount, I’m not willing to let it declare my dinner a failure.</p>
<p>ETA - martina, don’t let a bad week get to you. I think losing your FIL, on top of everything else, gives you permission for a few bad choices. Btw, please accept my condolences.</p>
<p>I am a perfect example of the saying " you can’t out exercise a bad diet". When I started this weight loss journey a year ago I began with going to the gym daily for 60 to 90 minutes of exercise.I was trying to rehab from a knee surgery. I was faithful and worked extremely hard. After a month I hadn’t lost one pound!!! Nothing!!! Seriously…how can you go from no exercise at all to being in the gym all of that time and not lose an ounce!!! It wasn’t until I changed what I was eating…white carbs…that I started to see the weight come off. I am not a high fat, extreme low carb eater. I don’t eat red meat…haven’t for almost 40 yrs. What has worked for me is giving up the bread and pasta that had made most of my siblings,parents and extended family diabetics with heart problems. I now eat egg whites and veggies every morning for breakfast, a salad with some protein source and maybe some fruit for lunch and chicken/fish with veggies or a salad for dinner. I track on LiveStrong and that really opened my eyes. I am and always will be a breadaholic…love it…but I just can’t have it or everything falls apart. I had to get it in my head that it was toxic for me and I didn’t want to have the health issues so many in my family had. I have treats…love my red wine…but I aim for consistency. It will always be a battle and I still want to lose some more weight. You just have to figure out what your priorities are.</p>
<p>My grandfather was a chef and he use to say that grains are what you feed pigs to make them fat. :)</p>
<p>I’m still trying to figure out my perfect carb range. Too low and I end up with heart palpitations and generally feel sick. Too high and I start having major carb cravings. I probably need to track it more consistently and look for a trend.</p>
<p>For those who don’t have time to cook eggs every morning, I cook up a big batch of scrambled eggs with various fillers like spinach, cheese, bacon bits, mushrooms, etc. and eat off them for several mornings. I can get at least 3 breakfasts out of a batch.</p>
<p>For lunch, I often take a rotisserie chicken and make chicken salad throwing in almonds and sometimes Parmesan cheese. It’s good even without bread and coupled with a small salad, it will keep me full for hours. The other day we went to a deli type place for lunch and I had a scoop of chicken salad, a scoop of egg salad and a small Cesar salad. The serving size was small because it was a ‘sampler’. I wasn’t hungry again until late in the evening. I definitely eat a lot less food when I stick with high protein/high fat items.</p>
<p>Exercise - I have pretty much been a non-exerciser my whole life. Last year, I started to notice I was getting very winded walking up stairs and inclines. When I was walking with a group, I seemed to be the only one getting winded. It really started to scare me because not only do I have a history of very early heart disease in my immediate family but I don’t want to be limited in my activities. Particularly because we travel a lot and traveling internationally requires a lot of exertion. </p>
<p>So I started exercising about 9 months ago - first 1-2 days a week, 30 minutes. Now I’m up to 3 times a week 30-45 minutes. I also upped my game by walking the hills in my neighborhood. My stamina has increased exponentially! I can’t believe the difference. My doctor said I was just out of condition after years of not exercising. I’m now an exercise believer - I’m not doing it for weight loss but rather to keep fit enough to stay active into old age. I also think it has improved my mood. My advice is to start slow, stay at that range until it’s comfortable and becomes a habit. Even if it’s only 10 minutes at a time. Then slowly up your frequency and intensity. It can be overwhelming to someone who has never exercised regularly to be told you need to do it 3-5 times a week for 45 minutes at a time. One baby step at a time will eventually get you to your goal.</p>
<p>Are we supposed to have a Friday morning weigh in? </p>
<p>My 7 day weight loss doesn’t look that great today, but that conceals hitting a signficant new low during the week and a minor bounce back as usually happens. Looking at the trend line, I’m certainly not complaining, especially because this bounce was pretty small, suggesting that I’ll consolidate the new low pretty quickly. Overall my weight loss has been crazy the last month, suggesting that a recently started thryroid supplement is probably cranking up my metabolism.</p>
<p>7 day change: -0.4 pounds
14 day change: -2.6 pounds
28 day change: -4.8 pounds</p>
<p>I also track a 7-day running average that smooths out a lot of the day to day fluctuations and probably provides a more consistent look at the trends, certainly on a graph:</p>
<p>7 day change in weekly average: -1.1 lb
14 day change in weekly average: -3.3 lb
28 day change in weekly average: -5.4 lb</p>
<p>I cook my own eggs most mornings. My wife used to do it but she does her morning walks early now so I do it myself. I also fill up the water bottles (we have a very slow undersink filtration system) and will do the dishes if they weren’t done before. This morning I cooked some turkey meatballs (toaster oven), grabbed some leftover eggplant-tomato-chile thing, some frozen black-eyed beans, .75 cups of pistachio nuts and a can of kippered snacks in my workout bag. I use sealed glassware containers so my bag weighed a ton this morning.</p>
<p>I sometimes bring yogurt or cottage cheese or extra sharp chedder or peanut butter sandwhiches or sunflower seeds. I don’t always eat everything that I bring. I shoot for 700-1000 calories to bring in and usually wind up eating about 600-900 calories.</p>
<p>I’m 3 weeks in on Weight Watchers Points Plus and have lost 6 lbs (3.5 first week, 0 second week, 2.5 thus far this week.)</p>
<p>Like many of you, I have a problem with carbs. One thing I like about points plus is it weighs carbs more heavily in terms of points, so even if an item has the same number of calories as another item, if it is higher in carbs it will be more points. This has really helped to discourage me from carbs a bit. I am not cutting them out completely, but I am choosing my meals and snacks differently. I think this is why I am losing weight (finally!) </p>
<p>For example, if I feel hungry in between meals, instead of grabbing a few crackers or popcorn, I will have a teaspoon of peanut butter or some almonds (or the occasional veggie…which I am not a big fan of). I know that once I grab a handful of crackers, I usually go back for more…so this is (ultimately) cutting down on calories from carbs (plus whatever it is that causes us to gain weight from carbs.)</p>
<p>Vacation starts tomorrow, so it will be a great challenge to not gain the 6 pounds back. I may come back here for support!</p>
<p>It appears that Weight Watchers is acknowledging the issue with carbs in a big way. I’ve always had a lot of respect for WW as I’ve seen people lose weight with it but didn’t know how it works. I never liked the idea of calorie counting until trying out the LiveStrong site which makes it so easy.</p>
<p>BTW, wife and son watched the HFCS video a few days ago and I showed my wife my LiveStrong stuff. I think that she’s a bit confused by my fairly new approach to eating. I think that she was somewhat amazed at all of the information that I had available on what I eat in terms of carbs, fiber, sugar, protein, etc. and that I can track trends and determine the nutritional content of foods easily. She doesn’t have a weight issue but I think that she could benefit by knowing what she eats as she sometimes has deficiencies in some areas that cause mild but annoying health problems.</p>
<p>The biggest issue I see with Weight Watchers (esp. the online version) is there is no way to ‘see’ what I am eating in terms of carbs/fats/protein balance. I used to use Livestrong and also BodyBugg and I liked being able to see what the make up of my food intake was at the end of the week. </p>
<p>Once I get down to my target weight, I will likely give up the WW online and move back to Livestrong. (Counting points seems to be working for me now…but hopefully I can move away from it eventually.)</p>
<p>Instead, Cosgrove has her clients get a pair of “Thermometer Jeans”, jeans that are too small, and hang them in the front of their closet (or have the gym keep them during a grouip Thermometer Jeans Challenge). The idea is to try them on every couple of weeks and watch as they go from at least being able to get them on, but not zipped, to zipped but too tight to wear in public to fitting perfectly. I stumbled on this technique by accident, sorting through tiers of “fat clothes” in the the closet (like layers of shale fossils marking the eons on an archeological dig) long before I heard of Rachel Cosgrove. Trying on and fitting into smaller pants has indeed been great on-going motivation and another source of those consistent “wins” that sustain long-term motivation for fat loss and fitness. </p>
<p>So you know when WW acknowledges it, it’s going mainstream! I am a lifetime member of WW, becoming one when WW still used the ‘selection plan’ where you ate x servings of protein, fat, bread, dairy every day. I found it easy to lose under this system and kept the weight off 5 years. Never had much success with losing once they moved to the points system. I think, in part, because the points could be used any way your want (and WW stressed that) and I ended up eating way too many carbs. It’s all starting to make sense to me. Glad to hear they are taking the carb thing seriously.</p>
<p>This was my first week dieting and working out. I lost 4 pounds. That’s halfway to my goal. I doubt this pace will continue, and I don’t think it would be wise to let it. Hmmm. I guess I’ll stick with what I’m doing under the assumption that week 1 was mostly water.</p>
I ended up with some lowfat vanilla yogurt and a hard boiled egg, along with my usual low-sodium V8. </p>