Weight Loss for Dummies

Parent Cafe
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<p>NYmom,
It’s hard to get used to at first as i was a big pasta, rice, bread person. I really have to think about avoiding the carbs but if you go for bread or a roll or pizza, try to opt for something high protein instead like meat or cottage cheese or eggs. Be careful, though, womens’s body’s are different tahn mens’ and we can’t consume as many calories as they can and still lose weight.</p>

<p>Today I had an omelette with sauteed mushrooms and a bit of cheese for breakfast (skipped the toast).
Lunch was a greek yogurt and almonds (although I would normally have had a bit more than that. I was too busy to eat today).
Dinner was out with my mom. She got Shrimp Scampi. I got Flank steak with grilled asparagus and caprese salad. It was very filling and satisfying but low in carbs.</p>

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<p>I usually only eat two meals a day also, just because I am not that hungry. I eat a big dinner so don’t eat until lunch. My husband comes home for lunch so I make a decent lunch. I am almost embarrassed to tell you what we eat because it seems so unhealthy. We do eat high fat. I eat cocoa roast almonds for snacks but often don’t even need a snack during the day. </p>

<p>Wednesday I went out to breakfast with a friend, had two eggs over medium and 4 pieces of bacon then didn’t eat until dinner, which we ate out, so I had barbecued beef ribs with a little bit of barbecue sauce (that stuff is usually loaded with sugar but I eat it anyway) and just a few hand-cut french fries and a beer.</p>

<p>Thursday I had no breakfast, leftover ribs for lunch (no fries) and for dinner everyone got home late so we had hot dogs on the grill with a mixed berry salad and a beer.</p>

<p>Friday I had lunch out with my book club and I had shrimp, potato chips that were sliced thin and fried at the restaurant and some seaweed salad with jellyfish tentacles (not my favorite) and for dinner we went to Texas Roadhouse and I had a 12 ounce bacon wrapped filet (ate the whole thing), Caesar salad with no croutons and broccoli and a beer (big one).</p>

<p>Today, I had 2.5 hot dogs for lunch and some red pepper strips and for dinner I had a big burger smothered in grilled onions and mushrooms and some roasted asparagus and a beer :). All those hot dogs are unusual for us but I haven’t been to the store in a while and we usually have a lot more salad too.</p>

<p>When I do have cheat foods (mostly potatoes), they have to be really good, like I wouldn’t eat a frozen or battered french fry or even a baked potato. If I am in a fabulous restaurant, we will split a creme brulee, which has sugar but with the eggs and cream, not too carby. And if we’re at a cake-serving event, we have cake. </p>

<p>We like to have a treat after dinner so I have been experimenting with a lot of low carb baking with various sweeteners (Splenda, erythritol, don’t buy xylitol if you have a dog) and carbalose, almond and coconut flours but really, it doesn’t taste that good so I’m not sure it is worth buying the very expensive ingredients. I like the Blue Bunny sugar free popsicles and Edy’s sugar free frozen fruit bars. I drink a lot of iced tea and gave up my one full-sugar Pepsi a day that I drank for years.</p>

<p>Mostly we eat meat, salad and vegetables (and beer). If I do have breakfast, it is bacon and eggs. My husband makes breakfast stuff with a lot of flaxseed (muffins, pancakes) but I’ve never liked that stuff so he has always been the breakfast maker at our house.</p>

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<p>Oh, yeah and we split a flourless chocolate cake with creme freche and vanilla ice cream (heavenly!).</p>

<p>If it’s flourless, does that mean it’s low carb or am I deluding myself?</p>

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<p>EPTR, that’s how we feel about the creme brulee, no flour so it can’t be too bad, right :)? Breyers makes a pretty decent ice cream called CarbSmart and I’ve made a Magic Shell sort of sauce with coconut oil, cocoa powder and Splenda which is not too bad.</p>

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<p>Ooh! Now we’re talkin…</p>

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<p>No question about it. I’ve been eating between 1750 and 2000 calories a day on my “diet”. That’s low enough for pretty significant fat loss for most guys. Most women are probably going to need to be less than that – maybe 1500 to 1750 calories a day, just because they are smaller.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I eat just riduculous portions – of meat, seafood, salads, and veggies. Most women wouldn’t come close my portion sizes, so there’s some scaling down right there.</p>

<p>There is a danger in going too low with calories. That turns dieting into semi-starvation which is not usually a successful long-term strategy. I think that’s a very common mistake.</p>

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<p>^I have to eat less than 1500 to lose weight. It’s hard to eat much fun stuff. But my aim all along has been to find an amount of eating that I can live with for life that resulted in enough weight loss eventually. Unfortunately I seem to be on an endless plateau that’s 10 to 15 pounds above what I’d really like, but at least it’s on the high end of the normal weight zone. I think if I can up the exercise a little, or cut down the calories a little I can get where I’d like to be, but my main goal is not to diet. It’s to find something that will work for the rest of my life.</p>

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<p>In my ‘not gaining any middle-aged weight’ mode, today I ate:</p>

<p>Breakfast - 1 piece of La Brea whole grain bread, 1/2 tbsp butter, tea, 1% milk
2nd Breakfast, - 2 egg omelette, 1 slice ham, 1/2 avocado, 4 oz grapefruit juice, whole wheat tortilla, apple.
Lunch/Snack - Vanilla yogurt, walnuts
Dinner - Chicken fricassee with cream, asparagus, 3 oz egg pasta, 1 glass Sauvignon blanc.</p>

<p>So not no carbs at all, but not carb-dependent, if you will. This is a highly sustainable, non-weight loss diet, that keeps me at 125lbs and 5’5 1/2". If I were in a “need to lose a few pounds” mode, I’d cut out the whole wheat tortilla at lunch, and either the cream or the pasta, at dinner. </p>

<p>I eat a little bit at breakfast, a big lunch or else two smallish lunches, heavy on the protein, and usually a very small dinner. However, I’m teaching my son to cook, so I had to pull out the stops tonight.</p>

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<p>I thought that sugar adds to the carb content of food and /or is processed like a carb. Am i misunderstanding something? When I started my low carb thing, I began avoiding not only flour (especially white), but also sugar. There is a big difference in the carb content of plain yogurt vs. flavored/ sweetened yogurt, for example.</p>

<p>I think the key is to pick your spots and find a routine that works for you. Everyone is different and their own hurdles with weight loss/maintenance. I like to read all these tips and see if any can work with my situation.</p>

<p>What worked for me (some previously mentioned on this thread):

  1. Portion control
  2. Have oatmeal/flaxseed for breakfast, but almost no bread or pasta day to day.
  3. Sweets are rare and not missed. Occasionally,I have a piece of dark chocolate or a few bites of shared dessert if it is an amazing restaurant/ special night. This diet keeps cravings in check.
  4. Don’t eat after dinner.
  5. Activity-not just exercise, but cumulative daily energy expenditures, all of which add up. Walk from the back of parking lots, move quickly when it makes sense, run up and down my stairs a few times a day, walk up escalators, walk while on the phone, etc. You feel more like doing this when eating well and doing regular exercise, but it is a good starting point also.
  6. It helped me to take some things off the table (literally). I just don’t eat certain things and don’t miss them. It simplifies the day and I don’t have to consider whether or not to have them. I don’t even know if it matters what those things are (sweets,other carbs, high fat foods,soda, etc.) as much as it matters that you have what you do eat clear (healthy stuff) and are very happy with what you do have to choose from daily. May be my version of the previously mentioned “calorie shaving”.
  7. I tend to have fairly redundant lunches and breakfasts. I like them and it is easy to keep on tract with portions and amount that allows me to maintain my weight.
  8. Eat when hungry and regularly throughout the day. Most of my “naturally thin” friends do this - it’s refreshing.
  9. Eat real food vs processed food. It is much more satisfying. If i want salt or sugar, I like choosing how much. I don’t eat typically eat many high fat things (easy as I eat seafood but no other meat and like nonfat dairy). I do eat healthy fats in moderation (nuts, olive oil, avocado) which are very satisfying. </p>

<p>I offer this up only as ideas that might make sense for others. There clearly is no one way to do this. I like that it is now a lifestyle, not a diet that will end. It has made all the difference for me.
I am enjoying this thread and wish us all success. Thanks for all the shared tips.</p>

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<p>Women have lower calorie needs on average because, on average, women are smaller, and have a lower percentage of muscle.</p>

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<p>Carbs and Sugar are the same thing as far as the body is concerned…if you are low carbing avoid both as much as possible. Very tasty substitutes; cauliflower cooked and mashed with butter and cream…tastes just like mashed potatoes - use in any meal to replace rice or potatoes. Spaghetti Squash - boiled, roasted or cooked in microwave and shredded…use instead of pasta. Foccacia style flax bread - just google that and the bread you make is a great replacement for bread.</p>

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<p>Right, sugar is the same as eating carbs. I was joking about the flourless cake being low carb because it had no flour.</p>

<p>Travelnut, great post!!! Lots of great tips and I love your philosophy of a changed lifestyle. That is my goal. I have tried “dieting” four times in the last year and it never sticks and it never really works. I tried a new approach a few months ago that was a commitment to lower carbs and I saw results immediately. That’s when it clicked and I thought about how much I was eating in terms of white bread, pasta, rice, etc. Unfortunately my dad died in April and the healthy eating went out the window. </p>

<p>Justforthis,
I am a huge fan of the mashed cauliflower substitute for mashed potatoes! I also pt a little grated parmesan cheese in mine. Delicious!</p>

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<p>I love steamed cauliflower, mashed with a fork, with sour cream, bacon and green onions, also the cauliflower rice, shredded in the food processor and steamed. I usually eat 1100-1400 calories per day but it seems like more because the fat and protein is very satiating and it doesn’t cause cravings like carbs do. When I do get hungry now, I can continue on until I have time to eat something. I used to get shaky and weak when hungry and would have to drop everything until I got something to eat.</p>

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<p>tried the low carb thign for 2 days. Weight went up! :(</p>

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<p>Thank you for all the eating plan examples. I am afraid that I am going to have to start tracking what I eat. With the “old” healthy eating, I had a good sense of what was a reasonable amount to eat in a day. With the “new” plan, I am completely at sea. For example, I’ve seen posts here mentioning what I consider huge meat portions (up to 12 oz). I would never eat more than 4 oz of meat. Of course, I notice that these people are not eating very much in addition! And some of you are not eating meat at all.</p>

<p>This morning I made two fried eggs, cooked in a little butter, and two slices of Ezekiel bread toasted, also with butter. I got very full and ended up putting one slice away. I could barely finish the eggs. Yet I would have been able to eat a large bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with walnuts, fruit, and skim milk. (I also had my 12-oz Coke - haven’t cut down any further on that yet.)</p>

<p>I think Ezekiel bread is fairly low-carb. It’s made with sprouts and lentil flour and is supposed to be good for you.</p>

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<p>Jym,
Not sure if you are giving up, but if you aren’t, give it a week before you weigh again. Use livestrong to track, and keep carbs at <30% of weight loss calorie goal. By then you will experience less cravings.</p>

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<p>I just put in the livestrong for yesterday and the calorie count was way high. As soon as we eat the steaks and crab claws I am going back to low fat (I can do that with the crab claws, not the steaks most likely). We ate at a Thai restaurant last night. The food must have had a lot of salt-- my fingers are very swollen. I just prefer low fat to low carb. Its more akin to my normal way of eating.</p>

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<p>Went grocery shopping this morning and had a look at Josephs oat bran/flaxseed/whole wheat pitas and wraps. Very good in being low carb for bread but they contained additional ingredients that I tried to avoid. I’m impressed that the company has a few low-carb, high-fiber products but it would be nice if they went the extra step to all natural.</p>

<p>I also had a look at pumpkin seeds and they provide more protein and fewer carbs than pistachio nuts. I will look for them at Trader Joes the next time I am there. I’m going to have to switch to the unsalted pistachio nuts - my sodium level is the last thing that needs work and salted nuts will have to go.</p>

<p>Something new that caught my eye is New England Country Soup brand Yankee White Bean (with chicken). It’s $1.50 for a bag and two servings per bag. Each serving is 380 calories, Fat: 9, Carbs: 52, Fiber: 12, Protein:26. It’s not strictly low-carb but it has a ton of fiber (you get that with certain beans) and it’s not bad overall. Where it does well is in calories/dollar at about 506. I like to look at numbers to optimize things and one thing that I was playing around with is calories per dollar. A pound of ground beef at Trader Joes is $2.49 so we have 800 calories / $2.49 and come up with 321 calories per dollar. Obviously the nutritional content is different but I’m trying to add the factor of nutritional efficiency with respect to cost.</p>

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<p>NYMomof2 - you have to keep in mind the 12 oz meat eaters are big men. I’d never eat more than 4 oz at lunch, 4 oz at dinner (think deck of cards), I also usually have an egg for breakfast. I definitely get plenty of protein. I try also to have a cooked veg and a raw veg (aka salad) with both lunch and dinner. I’d really really try to dump the Coke. Why not start by pouring half of it down the sink? A can of coke has **8 **teaspoons of sugar.</p>

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<p>Ha ha, no, that 12 ounce steak eater is 129 pound me! I was hungry :)</p>