Weight Loss Dieting Tips Blog

I gotta tell you, that another four weeks passed and the way I was eating had become so different to my old ways and I was feeling better for doing it. But there was a part of the puzzle still missing and I was sorta trying to avoid the issue altogether. But seems like you can't deny what your body needs when it needs it and my body needed something hat would help it to burn more calories from the healthier food I was eating. That something was exercise!

Now don't go getting the wrong idea. I don't do gyms and I don't do workouts. They are for those folks who like that kinda thing. I don't! But I knew I had to do stuff that would help me build up some muscle strength because I was learning more and more about how weight loss works and they say that the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn when you exercise because more muscle needs more fuel to work. Its pretty simple really, so I decided that as I was doing almost zero exercise, it was probably time for that to change.

I know that there are some easy options like walking and swimming so it made sense to me to try those first to see what I liked. I started walking.

Walking for Weight Loss

First of all, it was just a walk around the block, but that didn't do anything and I knew that I had to put more into it. Like time and effort. I heard that after 20 minutes of sustained exercise at the aerobic level, your body has used up all the sugars in the bloodstream and has to provide more for the muscles to keep working. The body gets it from your store of fat! Yup, that's the stuff you gotta lose if you want to get back into shape and not just be lighter on the scales.

I can see in the mirror that while I weight a lot less than I did when I started, I still don't look much different. Sure, I dropped my pant size so I know my waist is slimmer, but I still look fat in the mirror. To get a slimmer body means burning off the fat cause it’s the f at that makes you look, well, fat!

I did the only decent thing I knew to do and that was to get a dog! I always had dogs when I was a kid, so it was something I just fell back into. My wife was really on my side cause she kinda likes dogs too and thought it would be good to have a dog in the house for better security and some companionship while I was at work. Made sense, so it was off to the dog rescue center to see what they had. I settled on a medium size, two year old mongrel bitch that was mostly golden retriever with something smaller in there that made her coat a darker shade of tan. We named her Suzi and she settled right in.

Have dog will travel! Going for long walks every day became my saviour and Suzi was eager to help me out there. It was good for me and I knew I was getting slimmer gradually. Four weeks later I weighed in at 174 pounds and that was a real nice surprise with 8 pounds lost and only 14 more to go!

Categories: weight loss

After the last change in diet, I knew after what I learned about refined white flour that the next big item on my regular menu to be consigned to the "no more" list was going to have to be white bread. That was something I was really not looking forward to. I had grown up with the stuff. Sandwiches, buns and all manner of tasty things in breadcrumbs are what kids eat and we keep eating them into adulthood and carry it on into obesity-hood! Therefore, I was putting this one off for a long time and because of that, it stalled my progress quite substantially.

I intended to make the change after four weeks of no pasta, but it dragged on to another eight weeks until I couldn't put it off no more. But as usual, I couldn't go through life knowing I could not eat bread ever again. That was just too severe and I wanted to still be able to enjoy some food, or even most food that I always enjoyed. So I compromised.

Wholegrain Bread

I knew that refined white flour was high on the Glycemic Index scale of carbs and I knew that anything that was high was going to be something that I would have to omit from my diet. But I read that wholegrain bread was lower on the GI scale and because it contains the whole grain, including the all-important bran part of the wheat, it was much healthier to eat than its white, bleached and nutritionally devoid cousin.

Let me fill you in on what I learned here. Wholegrain bread, which is sometimes also called wholemeal or whole wheat bread is high in dietary fiber, which means it is good for your colon in helping your body to eliminate waste more efficiently. This is good, especially considering most Americans have a terrible diet and load up on junk but almost no fiber. Its no wonder so many folks have dietary problems like IBS and get constipated all the time. You need more fiber, man!

It also contains some goodness with vitamins and minerals that are refined out of white flour. It also isn't bleached, which is something I could never understand why they did that with refined flour just to make the product look shiny white and clinically clean.

Well, that was enough to convince me that I could make the switch to wholegrain bread and even though it is still pretty high in calories, if I cut back some, I could still eat sandwiches and not rob myself of that pleasure in life. The first time I ate it, the experience was strange because the texture of the bread was all different to what I was used to. It tasted different too, but it was a nice taste. Sort of more earthy and nutty with a totally different experience to what I had been used to all my life.

I decided I liked it!

Over those eight weeks, as I said the weight loss was stalled some, but I weighed in at 182 pounds, so it was still a net loss of four pounds on the last time I wrote in here. More to do folks!

Categories: diet

I like the title of this post because it makes me feel I really achieved something after I had gotten my work lunches all figured out and then started looking at what else I could find in my radar to blitz! I saw pasta and often thought it was really only a filler and had no real nutritional value of its own. So after doing some research, I discovered I was right! Pasta hasta go!

I read some things that I'm pretty sure loads of folks haven't a clue about and happily carry on stuffing their faces with all the different shapes and sizes of pasta they can cover in some kinda sauce. I know so, cause I used to do it too! Yeah, I loved spaghetti bolognaise like everyone else and would happily ladel huge portions onto my plate, eating it as fast as I could to get it all down me before it went cold. Well, no more!

You know, pasta is made from refined white flour and I learned a thing or two about that very common item in everyone's kitchen pantry. Folks, its empty calories! It rates high on the Glycemic Index for carbohydrates that make your blood sugar level zoom up and then come crashing down an hour or so later. You get a rush of energy, followed by a burst of insulin that grabs the excess sugars in your blood and carries them away to be processed into fat! Yes, FAT!

I couldn't believe what I was reading, but its true enough. It turns out there's a helluva lot of products made with refined white flour and pasta is one of them. I made the decision to cut pasta out of my diet completely thanks to learning this stuff about it. I know there is brown pasta that's made with whole wheat flour and its supposed to be tons better for you, but I tried it and I didn't like it much, so I think its netter to just draw a line under that one and find other things to eat that I can enjoy just as much without them carrying all that calorie and fat baggage.

Well, I didn't do anything different to what I have been doing except I don't eat pasta any more over the last eight weeks. Yeah, I know it’s a long time and its okay, cause I have decided to go at this slowly and steadily after all. But after eight weeks, my weight has dropped a little, but only a little to 186 pounds. That another 6 pounds off and I'm still pretty happy about that cause its going in the right direction.

Categories: diet

Well, so that went on without too much happening for a few weeks before I got up the courage to start making more changes in the way I was eating. Remember, its still early days but I feel the changes I already made were doing me some good. My weight had dropped some and over the next few weeks that rate of weight loss slowed down. But I wasn't so bothered as it was going in the right direction, which was NOT up! So what did I do next?

I had a long hard look at what I was eating and I didn't really like what I saw!

Lunches were a big problem for me because I spent my lunch break in a burger joint mainly or some other fast food restaurant that served up high calorie, high fat food that just was not good for me. I knew it and I just kept on going to the same eating places cause I just couldn't help it. Or could i?

You know, will power is a strange beast. Some things you can make yourself do that another person can't, while other folks seem to be able to do stuff easily that you think is almost impossible. Take those lunches. A few of the guys in the office just didn't eat that stuff at all. They stayed in the building where we have a small kitchen and heated the meals they brought to work with them. One of the guys was actually eating a diet from Nutrisystem! How could they do that and I could not?

I decided that I could and so I went to work one Monday with a meal my wife prepared the night before and put in the fridge for me to take in the morning. It was a simple meatloaf, potatoes and vegetable plate that I put in the microwave for two minutes and then sat down with the other guys who were visibly smirking at the fat guy NOT going to McDonalds, to eat my meal. I loved it. I mean it tasted great, I took my time over it and really tasted it probably more than I had ever done before. I was amazed. I got talking to the guys and they accepted I was trying to do something about my size and after the round of jokes, they got serious and said they'd do whatever it took to support me through "hamburger cold turkey"

I got through another four weeks like this and took a real meal to work every day. I met the guys in the kitchen and we got talking more on other stuff and I really started to enjoy my lunch breaks more than I had ever done just shoveling hamburgers down my throat with other fat guys in the burger joints.

Well, after that four weeks of real food for lunch, it was time for the moment of truth. When I next got on the scales, to my surprise and joy, I was below 200 and in fact was 192 pounds! This was a really nice thing to see cause I wasn't sure I had lost as much as that, although I had already gotten back into pants a size smaller as the bigger ones were now too big. Great!

Categories: weight loss

Okay, this post looks at the next thing I changed in my diet. it wasn't exactly earth shattering but then, none of my changes were really all that huge. I decided that I was doing this little by little, so it was manageable by me. I know other folks could probably do things faster, but they are other folks and I'm me. So I went at my own pace and that's one of the things that made this work for me.

You see, when you go at your own pace, you call the shots and if something isn't working, you change it. That's how I liked doing this stuff and that's why I am the way I am now and not still the way I was then! So, back to the change and the next one, after the cookies went from my life was another weird upheaval in that old friend, sugar.

Yep, I loved to take sugar in my coffee and as there was no way I was giving up coffee, the sugar part of it had to go. Oh yeah, as a secondary thing, so did the cream. There is a load of logic behind this small but significant change in the way I decided I was gonna like my favorite beverage. I heard that in Europe, especially France and Spain, they drink their coffee black and unsugared. In France you ask for a cafe and you get black coffee. if you want milk you have to specify "cafe au lait". Same thing in Spain. You ask for cafe and you get a tiny cup with a thimbleful of mind-numbingly strong coffee that will take your scalp off. Its called cafe solo, but if you want milk in your coffee, you have to ask for cafe con leche. Don't bother asking for cream, cause they will look at you kinda funny... But what struck me was if you ask for cafe americano, you get a full cup of coffee, black but very drinkable.

So with that in mind, I decided that of it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. Now, my first cup of black, unsweetened coffee nearly made me throw up. It was horrible! But I persisted cause I was determined to do this. Three cups later, I was actually starting to get used to the taste. A few more cups and I actually liked it and kept it up for that week. But what was really strange was at the end of the week I absent-mindedly made a cup and put sugar in it. That first mouthful nearly made me throw up! I hated it! How does that happen?

Okay, I'm glad it happened cause now I only take my coffee black, unsweetened and I like it that way. the good side is that caffeine makes your metabolism go faster, so you burn more fat, at least when you are more active. I was still pretty sedentary at that point, so I knew that the next changes would have to be made to my activity levels. More on that next post.

Oh yeah, two further weeks on of no cookies, no sugar and milk in my coffee and no soda and my weight had dropped to 201 pounds!

Categories: diet