For some, this is a repetition of every arguement I have ever given for weight loss and the obesity problem in the US.
This morning on GMA, they were discussing a new weight loss drug that has been approved by the FDA. Apparently it was not approved and then they changed their minds. The list of side effects from this drug are severe but they felt that losing weight was more important because of these this drug is to only be used by those morbidly obese. If you look up what is considered obese - it's not that much weight. It doesn't take long before the charts list someone as obese and even shorter to go from that to morbidly obese.
It makes me crazy when this subject comes up and people start saying things like - all it takes to lose weight is xyz. The truth is - it's not that simple. I am a fat person and I will admit that my weight has steadily gone up over the years. Four years ago, we lived in the country. To eat out was a major affair so I had to make every meal. We rarely purchased quick foods because our life allowed me to stay at home most of the time. We grew a decent garden and I canned or froze the excess. We had neighbors with gardens so we could swap with them. I walked because it was easy.
Then we moved to the "city". We live in an apartment. I can have a small garden plot for a price but the last two years have been fairly unsuccessful (the first year due to poor soil conditions, the second to poor weather conditions). I no longer have a large pantry space so I have to be careful of what I store and our budget has reduced drastically due to the extra cost of living in the city. I, also, don't walk much any more.
The other problem was that we now had easy access to fast food. In fact, I can feed my family more food at a fast food restaurant than I can making something from scratch on some occasions. That's where the real problem lays.
I have to depend on my grocery store for food at this point in time. I have $100 a month that we get in food stamps. Our income is so tight that we are struggling to come up with the extra $30 a month to purchase a bountiful basket so we can have produce. We have very little extra funds for groceries.
I go to the store with my $100.
I prefer whole grain bread to white bread. I can buy a loaf of white bread for $1. If I am lucky I can purchase a healthy loaf of wheat bread for $2.50. Note that I said healthy. I can buy a wheat bread for $1 which is usually the same brand as the white bread but the ingredients tell me it's not really wheat bread. I struggle to find a wheat bread that has whole grains not just a little wheat flour so they can call it wheat bread. Some of the best breads can cost up to $5 for a loaf.
I can make bread at home. I can usually find all purpose white flour for about $2 for a five pound bag. Wheat flour - no less than $3 and I have paid up to $7 to have a five pound bag.
Let's talk salad. I can pick up a bag of iceburg lettuce salad for $1 on many occasions. If I find a good sale I can pick up spinach or romaine salads (which are more nutritionally dense) for $2.
The leaner the hamburger - the higher the cost. A store, not in our community, is currently advertising their great hamburger price for 81% lean hamburger - $2.49 a pound. Chicken thighs and drumsticks have been about $1.25 a pound (don't even ask about boneless skinless chicken I cry every time I want to buy some).
Then add the research that everything we know about diet food is wrong. Skim milk is actually causing people to gain weight (or not lose it) because they add stuff to the milk to make it more appealing to the public. Artificial sweetners actually increase appetite and prevent the body from knowing it's full. Low fat diets actually cause people to consume more calories.
Most diets fail because they are meant to fail - that's how they make money. If everyone who tried a weight loss product lost all their weight and stayed thin - they wouldn't need diet products any more. Add that to the lack of access to inexpensive healthy foods and that's why we have an obesity problem.
It's hard not to be fat when your diet makes you feel sluggish and tired. You work harder so you can provide better food but then you are over stressed and have no energy. We have a society set up to make us fat and until that changes, I'm sorry to say, we will continue to be fat.
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Skipping Meals
For some people the idea of skipping meals is the perfect plan for losing weight and maintaining a grocery budget. Not only is this an unhealthy plan but it's bound to backfire.
If you skip a meal, you are more apt to indulge in less nutritious foods like candy and junk food. The reason is your body craves fuel and junk food offers the quickest solution. They are often calorie dense with high sugar so the body can get back on track.
If you manage to sidestep the cravings, it is a good possibility that you will overeat when you finally have a meal.
If you manage to keep that under control, your body will take over and start changing how it stores energy.
That's a lot of ifs. The truth is our body is basically a machine - it requires fuel to function. Fat stores occur when the body gets too much fuel (calories) so it tucks it away for future use. This worked perfectly when we were a hunter/gatherer sort of people. When food was plentiful, we ate and created fat stores which would be used up when food became more scarce. However, food is now always plentiful because we have grocery stores. This means that fat stores are not as necessary as they once were.
To lose weight you need to reduce your calorie intake. However, the body prepares for this. If we don't take in enough calories, our body goes into defense mode. It prepares for starvation or a great lack of food. Our bodies want to survive but they don't really care what our motivation is - they have a job to do. When fuel becomes scarce the body becomes super efficient. This means that when we took in calories before our body utilized them in sort of a lazy way. The body knows more is coming (especially if you are good with eating on schedule) so if there's a little extra calories they'll store them away but it's not using calories to their fullest potential. Some just get dumped because they are not needed.
When the calories decrease drastically or stop, the body reacts by squeezing every little bit of energy it can from each calorie. Because the routine has been disrupted the body is less apt to use the stores and just work harder to utilize what comes in. This is where people get really frustrated with weight loss. They can't drop the weight because the body is holding on to it with all it's might.
On top of that, the body starts obsessing about getting more calories. The nose becomes hypersensitive to food smells. The mouth waters more easily. The brain dumps more chemicals to make us want food (that is if the system is working correctly and the lack of calories is not due to illness). The cravings become so intense that we dump all our diet plans and start bingeing. This pattern is what leads to Bulimia, even if you are fat and society says you need to lose weight. This is unhealthy, period. However, our society supports it which is very sad.
The healthiest way to lose weight is to restrict your calories to a reasonable amount. For me, it should be about 1500 calories (but I've stretched a little to just over 1600). I'm flexible. I eat anything I want, just in moderation.
Moderation is the key and so is eliminating wasteful calories such as soda (which helps the budget because have you seen the price of soda). I do want a SodaStream and that is a dream I will continue to have until I see an opportunity to get one without breaking the bank. But then I will have control over the drinks and I just happen to love seltzer so it's a winwin for me. I make my junk food from scratch. This allows me to have my cake and eat it to.
Hope some of that helps.
If you skip a meal, you are more apt to indulge in less nutritious foods like candy and junk food. The reason is your body craves fuel and junk food offers the quickest solution. They are often calorie dense with high sugar so the body can get back on track.
If you manage to sidestep the cravings, it is a good possibility that you will overeat when you finally have a meal.
If you manage to keep that under control, your body will take over and start changing how it stores energy.
That's a lot of ifs. The truth is our body is basically a machine - it requires fuel to function. Fat stores occur when the body gets too much fuel (calories) so it tucks it away for future use. This worked perfectly when we were a hunter/gatherer sort of people. When food was plentiful, we ate and created fat stores which would be used up when food became more scarce. However, food is now always plentiful because we have grocery stores. This means that fat stores are not as necessary as they once were.
To lose weight you need to reduce your calorie intake. However, the body prepares for this. If we don't take in enough calories, our body goes into defense mode. It prepares for starvation or a great lack of food. Our bodies want to survive but they don't really care what our motivation is - they have a job to do. When fuel becomes scarce the body becomes super efficient. This means that when we took in calories before our body utilized them in sort of a lazy way. The body knows more is coming (especially if you are good with eating on schedule) so if there's a little extra calories they'll store them away but it's not using calories to their fullest potential. Some just get dumped because they are not needed.
When the calories decrease drastically or stop, the body reacts by squeezing every little bit of energy it can from each calorie. Because the routine has been disrupted the body is less apt to use the stores and just work harder to utilize what comes in. This is where people get really frustrated with weight loss. They can't drop the weight because the body is holding on to it with all it's might.
On top of that, the body starts obsessing about getting more calories. The nose becomes hypersensitive to food smells. The mouth waters more easily. The brain dumps more chemicals to make us want food (that is if the system is working correctly and the lack of calories is not due to illness). The cravings become so intense that we dump all our diet plans and start bingeing. This pattern is what leads to Bulimia, even if you are fat and society says you need to lose weight. This is unhealthy, period. However, our society supports it which is very sad.
The healthiest way to lose weight is to restrict your calories to a reasonable amount. For me, it should be about 1500 calories (but I've stretched a little to just over 1600). I'm flexible. I eat anything I want, just in moderation.
Moderation is the key and so is eliminating wasteful calories such as soda (which helps the budget because have you seen the price of soda). I do want a SodaStream and that is a dream I will continue to have until I see an opportunity to get one without breaking the bank. But then I will have control over the drinks and I just happen to love seltzer so it's a winwin for me. I make my junk food from scratch. This allows me to have my cake and eat it to.
Hope some of that helps.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Portion Control
More often than not, you will discover that the problem with weight is in direct correlation to the portion size. We live in a nation of supersize and more for your money. We seek out deals that often offer us more food for less money. We have allowed economics drive our diet.
For me, my diet is rather well balanced (could use more fresh fruits and veggies) but my problem is I eat lots of it. I love food. I love good deals. And I am not one to leave food on my plate because that's a waste of perfectly good food. One thing I want to note is that my parents were not the sort that made us clean our plates, this is a habit I developed all on my own.
In my house, the rule is you don't have to eat all your food but if you want seconds then you must clean your plate. This ensures my son eats his veggies before going back for more rice or pasta.
We're also carb lovers. I can live off of bread, pasta and rice. I love vegetables so that's good but I'm not big on fruit necessarily. Meat I can take or leave most of the time. I love starch and this shows in my food diary. I often lack in my protein and go over on my carbs.
How does this all translate to weight loss and budgeting? Easy - portion control means eating a set amount of food. For me, this means measuring the food so I know how much I am eating and so I can accurately record it in my diary on Sparkpeople. Knowing exactly how much food I should eat encourages me to cook less. Cooking less save on my budget.
Now you may feel that bulk cooking works best for you. Great, so long as you are watching your quantities. More food encourages us to eat more. That stems from a time when food was more difficult to regulate. Bigger plates encourage us to dish up more because we want to feel like we are eating.
For my house, cooking in bulk means one of two things - my 14 year old son eats all the leftovers because they are there or we throw out the leftovers because we forgot about them. This is not always true but it happens more often than I like. Cooking enough to feed everyone reduces waste.
Am I hungry? The honest answer is yes. My body is getting adequate calories and nutrients but I'm hungry because my body is used to eating more. Our stomach is flexible, it stretches and shrinks to accomodate food cycles (back when we were hunters and gatherers). Just because I am hungry doesn't mean I'm starving.
Hunger is a tricky thing. If I allow myself to get too hungry then I will overeat when I have the chance. I might sneak in a snack which, more often than not, will be something with little nutrition.
The beginning of retraining my body to eat less is hard which is why most people fail at their diet. I don't deny myself a type of food but I limit how much I eat. I don't feel deprived but I feel hungry. I'm working on teaching my body to eat differently than I did before. It sucks, I'm not going to lie, but it's the same as if I was training to do anything. If I wanted to run a marathon - I would ache, I would be tired. I know I would wake up some mornings and question my whole reason for doing the marathon and wonder if it's really worth it. It's all worth it when you cross that finish line.
For me, my diet is rather well balanced (could use more fresh fruits and veggies) but my problem is I eat lots of it. I love food. I love good deals. And I am not one to leave food on my plate because that's a waste of perfectly good food. One thing I want to note is that my parents were not the sort that made us clean our plates, this is a habit I developed all on my own.
In my house, the rule is you don't have to eat all your food but if you want seconds then you must clean your plate. This ensures my son eats his veggies before going back for more rice or pasta.
We're also carb lovers. I can live off of bread, pasta and rice. I love vegetables so that's good but I'm not big on fruit necessarily. Meat I can take or leave most of the time. I love starch and this shows in my food diary. I often lack in my protein and go over on my carbs.
How does this all translate to weight loss and budgeting? Easy - portion control means eating a set amount of food. For me, this means measuring the food so I know how much I am eating and so I can accurately record it in my diary on Sparkpeople. Knowing exactly how much food I should eat encourages me to cook less. Cooking less save on my budget.
Now you may feel that bulk cooking works best for you. Great, so long as you are watching your quantities. More food encourages us to eat more. That stems from a time when food was more difficult to regulate. Bigger plates encourage us to dish up more because we want to feel like we are eating.
For my house, cooking in bulk means one of two things - my 14 year old son eats all the leftovers because they are there or we throw out the leftovers because we forgot about them. This is not always true but it happens more often than I like. Cooking enough to feed everyone reduces waste.
Am I hungry? The honest answer is yes. My body is getting adequate calories and nutrients but I'm hungry because my body is used to eating more. Our stomach is flexible, it stretches and shrinks to accomodate food cycles (back when we were hunters and gatherers). Just because I am hungry doesn't mean I'm starving.
Hunger is a tricky thing. If I allow myself to get too hungry then I will overeat when I have the chance. I might sneak in a snack which, more often than not, will be something with little nutrition.
The beginning of retraining my body to eat less is hard which is why most people fail at their diet. I don't deny myself a type of food but I limit how much I eat. I don't feel deprived but I feel hungry. I'm working on teaching my body to eat differently than I did before. It sucks, I'm not going to lie, but it's the same as if I was training to do anything. If I wanted to run a marathon - I would ache, I would be tired. I know I would wake up some mornings and question my whole reason for doing the marathon and wonder if it's really worth it. It's all worth it when you cross that finish line.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Dieting and Sparkpeople
I have a love hate relationship when it comes to dieting. For years, I battled Bulimia and it took far too long for me to get help. One of the big reasons it took so long was - I was fat. I am still fat but that's not the point at this moment. Fat people can't really have eating disorders because dieting is good for losing weight and all fat people need to lose weight. It is this attitude that has left me a really bad feeling when it comes to my own weight. It's really hard to be a fat person with an eating disorder. First of all, everyone assumes that if you mention having an eating disorder and are not skinny then your problem must lay with eating too much or binge eating. I did have a little binge eating problem, usually due to the lack of food from before. My method of losing weight had to do with severe restriction of my intake followed by excessive exercising and other techniques for removing calories from my diet. The reason why I wasn't losing actual pounds was my body was fighting for every fat cells survival. I had a lot of muscle mass from working out but I couldn't make the number on the scale shrink.
Fast forward many years and lots of therapy. I weigh more now than I ever did. The heartbreaking part of eating disorder recovery is that you gain weight. I had gotten pregnant and had to see a nutritionist. My whole life changed and I gained 50 pounds when it was all said and done. My body knew it had a chance and took it. I knew I had a problem when I forgot to feed my son one day when I was not eating. He was still a baby. Fortunately my mothering instinct kicked in and I got myself help. I managed to maintain my weight and give up dieting all together. Later I got married and my life changed again. Things happen and one day I weight a lot more than I really want to weigh and realize that something needs to change.
How do I go about dieting when I know I have this problem? I talked with a friend who ran a weight loss group and eventually joined. I love my friends but I soon learned that I couldn't be a part of that group - there was too much self hate. I hadn't noticed it before but being in that group I had to be super vigilant. I wanted someone who could make sure I didn't go off the deep end. The sadest day of my life was when my friend mentioned getting off her fat butt and kicking her diet into gear. There was so much venom in those words that I realized that I had to be even more careful.
Fortunately during this time I discovered Sparkpeople. It's a free dieting site but it can be so much more. There are so many different avenues one can take that it pretty much creates a program for each person. You can choose to have the site select an actual diet for you and a workout plan but you don't have to. There are so many articles and e-newsletters in many topics that can assist you along the way. What I like is the nutrition and fitness tracker. Sparkpeople "assigns" me a number of calories a day. These calories are based on your current weight, the amount of weight you want to lose and the amount of time you want to take to lose that weight. My calorie amount is about 1600 to 1900. Notice that it's a range. All the parts of the diet are ranges not exacts, giving you flexibility. It tracks my calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates. At the end of the day, it tells me where I went too high and too low. Then it offers some suggestions to make a change. It's a little frustrating because I rarely get it all to balance but I love the challenge. I don't look at it as a diet but as a scientific experiment to get me healthy.
The fitness tracker is just as great. You put in what you did and for how long and it tracks calories burned. The tracker doesn't really yell at me (even though I say they do) but it encourages me to spend a certain amount of time exercising and gives me a calories to burn goal. They are not huge goals - maybe as much as 1000 calories a week. That sounds like a lot but it comes down to 90 minutes of exercise a week.
You can also earn points to spend on icons to send to friends you make on the site. I have made some great friends. Almost everyone is encouraging. Those who are negative are coping with their own problems not really being mean to you. I found those people were easy enough to avoid.
My favorite part of Sparkpeople is that it's all about me. There's no pressure. There's no negative part. There are no restrictions. If I choose to eat ice cream and popcorn for dinner - it won't hate me or tell me I am a loser. It just encourages me to eat better the next day.
I can't say that I have been perfect with Sparkpeople but I am learning. I struggle with my own emotions when it comes to eating and my body. I haven't been punishing myself for slipping and I found like minded people who encourage me with their own struggles. We all remind each other to use kind words about ourselves. We get to see each other's struggles (Sparkpeople encourages blogging on site about your process).
I had hoped to find that perfect solution to my weight issue. It's not out there. Weight is like particles that build a mountain. Most of the time, the gain doesn't happen overnight. (It can happen quicker than we plan - like during an illness or pregnancy but it didn't happen all at once. Even with my pregnancy, it took me months to put on all that weight and nature was against me the entire time.) However, a mountain doesn't crumble overnight either. It's warn away. Sometimes there are events that wear it down faster but it still takes time. Our bodies are made up of all these particles. We can't expect them to just go away. They need to be made useless and unnecessary. We have to provide our bodies with consistent nurishment and then put those cells to work with exercise.
Exercise can be as simple as walking a little out of your way, dancing while dusting the house or as complicated as a gym membership or training for a marathon. It's time to stop seeing this as a battle of wills and do something good for your body. I encourage anyone to ask questions and lets see what ideas I can come up with. I do think I will offer some tips I have learned along the way. Just because I am fat doesn't mean I don't understand healthy eating. I just struggle with some of the emotions that affect my eating (I still can't help it and need to work on them harder).
Fast forward many years and lots of therapy. I weigh more now than I ever did. The heartbreaking part of eating disorder recovery is that you gain weight. I had gotten pregnant and had to see a nutritionist. My whole life changed and I gained 50 pounds when it was all said and done. My body knew it had a chance and took it. I knew I had a problem when I forgot to feed my son one day when I was not eating. He was still a baby. Fortunately my mothering instinct kicked in and I got myself help. I managed to maintain my weight and give up dieting all together. Later I got married and my life changed again. Things happen and one day I weight a lot more than I really want to weigh and realize that something needs to change.
How do I go about dieting when I know I have this problem? I talked with a friend who ran a weight loss group and eventually joined. I love my friends but I soon learned that I couldn't be a part of that group - there was too much self hate. I hadn't noticed it before but being in that group I had to be super vigilant. I wanted someone who could make sure I didn't go off the deep end. The sadest day of my life was when my friend mentioned getting off her fat butt and kicking her diet into gear. There was so much venom in those words that I realized that I had to be even more careful.
Fortunately during this time I discovered Sparkpeople. It's a free dieting site but it can be so much more. There are so many different avenues one can take that it pretty much creates a program for each person. You can choose to have the site select an actual diet for you and a workout plan but you don't have to. There are so many articles and e-newsletters in many topics that can assist you along the way. What I like is the nutrition and fitness tracker. Sparkpeople "assigns" me a number of calories a day. These calories are based on your current weight, the amount of weight you want to lose and the amount of time you want to take to lose that weight. My calorie amount is about 1600 to 1900. Notice that it's a range. All the parts of the diet are ranges not exacts, giving you flexibility. It tracks my calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates. At the end of the day, it tells me where I went too high and too low. Then it offers some suggestions to make a change. It's a little frustrating because I rarely get it all to balance but I love the challenge. I don't look at it as a diet but as a scientific experiment to get me healthy.
The fitness tracker is just as great. You put in what you did and for how long and it tracks calories burned. The tracker doesn't really yell at me (even though I say they do) but it encourages me to spend a certain amount of time exercising and gives me a calories to burn goal. They are not huge goals - maybe as much as 1000 calories a week. That sounds like a lot but it comes down to 90 minutes of exercise a week.
You can also earn points to spend on icons to send to friends you make on the site. I have made some great friends. Almost everyone is encouraging. Those who are negative are coping with their own problems not really being mean to you. I found those people were easy enough to avoid.
My favorite part of Sparkpeople is that it's all about me. There's no pressure. There's no negative part. There are no restrictions. If I choose to eat ice cream and popcorn for dinner - it won't hate me or tell me I am a loser. It just encourages me to eat better the next day.
I can't say that I have been perfect with Sparkpeople but I am learning. I struggle with my own emotions when it comes to eating and my body. I haven't been punishing myself for slipping and I found like minded people who encourage me with their own struggles. We all remind each other to use kind words about ourselves. We get to see each other's struggles (Sparkpeople encourages blogging on site about your process).
I had hoped to find that perfect solution to my weight issue. It's not out there. Weight is like particles that build a mountain. Most of the time, the gain doesn't happen overnight. (It can happen quicker than we plan - like during an illness or pregnancy but it didn't happen all at once. Even with my pregnancy, it took me months to put on all that weight and nature was against me the entire time.) However, a mountain doesn't crumble overnight either. It's warn away. Sometimes there are events that wear it down faster but it still takes time. Our bodies are made up of all these particles. We can't expect them to just go away. They need to be made useless and unnecessary. We have to provide our bodies with consistent nurishment and then put those cells to work with exercise.
Exercise can be as simple as walking a little out of your way, dancing while dusting the house or as complicated as a gym membership or training for a marathon. It's time to stop seeing this as a battle of wills and do something good for your body. I encourage anyone to ask questions and lets see what ideas I can come up with. I do think I will offer some tips I have learned along the way. Just because I am fat doesn't mean I don't understand healthy eating. I just struggle with some of the emotions that affect my eating (I still can't help it and need to work on them harder).
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