Would anyone care to share your favorite tips for getting the most out of this plan? You can include anything from menu tips to avoiding unnecessary expenses. What advice would you give to newbies?
something I just discovered is to be accurate with your servings for maximum weight loss. Your weightloss will slowdown if you are not getting the enough amount of servings, don'tleave anything out, include all your foods! I wasn't eating the right amount of protein and instead of eating 2.5 protein a day I was only eating 1.5. I noticed that once I ate all my fruits and protein properly my weight shifted and I was less hungry!
keep comming back here........to this forum........daily.........get to know these smart, kind, encouraging women.......it will be the most benenficial thing you can do to stay on plan and be successful on LAWL!!!
I agree! As my COD advices: 1 Cup HOT water with 1/2 a fresh lemon sqeezed in it and 1 packet sweetner....it is a natural diaretic and helps get rid of bloated water/sodium gain. Also, eating several times a day instead of two or three meals has been beneficial for me. Not only does it keep your body from going into "starvation mode" but it also keeps you from over-indulging at the dinner table.
1) Be honest in your diary. If you don't, then the counsellors will not be able to determine why you might be stalling
2) Give the bars, supplements at least one try. You never know, you may like it
3) Approach the program with an open mind. Take what you need from it and discard the rest. Remember ALL weight loss centres first and foremost responsibility is to their shareholders, therefore they want to make money. However, there can be some excellent tips you can learn.
3) Hot water lemon-all the way
As far as avoiding unnecessary expenses, I recommed doing an all food plan. The bars, weather you buy them at the COD or use Luna's to substitute, can get very expensive.
Use your food log EVERY DAY and check off your exchange as soon as you have it so you don't "forget". Also check off that you have had your H20, vitamins, supplements, activitiy. It will help keep you on track.
I know the COD encourages you to "change it up" and include a lot of variety, but I find that I am more successful when I stick to the same basic breakfast, snacks and lunch. I will change up dinner but I always start my day with cereal and almond breeze(3/4 cup Cereal =1S and Almond Milk=1condiment!). My snacks consist of a piece of fruit and cheese stick (1Fr;1/2D 2 X Day). Lunch is usually a salad with some protein(2V;1P) like salmon or tuna. That will leave me with 1 Fr, 1S, 1P, 2V for dinner and snacks when I get home. The evenings are toughest for me so using my food budget wisely will keep me satisfied and POP!
I think Holly's advice is very good!!! I do think variety of foods is healthiest, but I think you can change it weekly, or every two weeks......... but keeping breakfast, snacks, and lunch the same makes the program less mind work. It helps you to stop obsessing about what you are going to eat, and it makes grocery shopping much simpler. If you plan your meals ahead of time, you can look at them and if you are lacking in some nutreints one week, you can make up for it the next week.
I am not a fan of the supplements......and simply because they are not FDA approved. To be fair, there are a lot of products, most of the ones that claim to be natural, that are not FDA approved. Because they are not FDA approved, does not mean they are not safe........it simply means that the FDA has not tested them to show that they do what they claim to do, and they may or may not contain what they say they contain. Often times people think that if something says "natural" on the label it is better for them. That is simply not true. Vitamin C is vitamin C is vitamin C, no matter what form it is in. The only way that it is truly for certain natural is if it is consumed in a food in it's natural state. This is the way the body prefers and metabolizes it most efficiently.
Synthetic vitamins get a bad wrap. The chemical structure of synthetic vitamin C is NO different than the chemical structure of vitamin C from a natural source. I prefer things that are FDA approved (synthetic or natural), because I know the FDA tests these products, and I know that if the label says it has X amount of vitamin C, that is exactly what it has, in every single dose. Non FDA approved supplements don't necessarily have to have everything they claim to have in them, because they are not regulated. Most likely, they ARE in fact exactly what they say they are, but I prefer not to take any chances. I know, I sound paranoid.......but supplements can be VERY misleading. Often times (synthetic, natural, FDA approved, not FDA approved) supplements can't even be absorbed by your body before they are excreted. So, often people are mislead into thinking they are meeting their daily requirements of nutrients, because they are taking the proper supplements. Often they are not, because their body's aren't absorbing the nutrients from the supplements. Our bodies were designed to get our nutrients from food. All of the systems of our body are designed to use food, not pills or power bars, or electrolyte balancing beverages or any of that. A lot of the proteins in protein bars are not complete proteins, and our bodies cannot break down and use some of those proteins.
With all of that being said, I am not AGAINST taking supplements in an exteme fashion..........I am just saying, it is smart to be very aware of what you are putting inside of your body. It is good to ask the right questions......it is good to find out if your body can metablolize what it is being fed.......and it is good to try to get as many of your daily nutritional requirements from food first. And if you are wondering........yeah, I take a daily multiple vitamin. My eating habits are far from perfect. I take Centrum......my doc says the body can utilize most of the vitamins and minerals before they are excreted. If anyone knows of a better one........fill me in. That was advice from my doc about 10 years ago, and things change quick.
1. Plan your menu out and faithfully keep your diary.
2. Read and post on 3FC LAWL website
3. When you go to the COD and find a good counselor - ask for that counselor when you go back (at my COD you can write that person's name down when you sign in).
4. Try at least one new recipe each week to break the monotony (use recipe thread on this site)
5. Exercise is not a focus at LAWL, but it should be! Keep moving!!
In addition to the wise words already posted here, I would add a few things.
First, it is not cheap to eat healthy, but there are ways to be frugal. Shop ads, shop seasonal foods, plan you menu accordingly with what you can get on sale and lastly, remember you are worth the money it takes to stay on plan. In the long run, when you add up all the money spent on eating out and eating junk that is detrimental to your health, you're coming out on the better end!
Next, if you fall off plan - IMMEDIATELY get back on! Don't let the detour take you too far off course! Something made you decide to do this - remind yourself of that and get back on track! Our greatest mistake is letting one incident become a day of incidents and then a week, and then... well, you know the rest because most of us have been there.
I can't stress enough the amount of support you will get here on this site. Not only are these people able to empathize with you because they are on the same road, they can advise you and hopefully prevent your detour by their experience!
Lastly, no matter what, you are worth it! Worth the time, worth the money, worth the sweat, worth the aggravation, worth the frustration, worth the struggle, worth it, worth it, worth it!!!! Your family deserves the healthiest you that you can be. YOU deserve that too!
A lot of us on the board (me included) plan their menus weekly. It's so much easier if you just have to look at your list and put it in your lunchbox, or defrost it. You only have the decision-making once a week.
Definitely plan your meals based on what's on sale if you can. You will find you save a lot more money that way.
Veggie burgers and other "veggie" products are your friends.
When you get your plan and are totally overwhelmed with what to do, go through the food lists and highlight the foods that you like. It's much easier to not get stuck in a rut and to figure out what to eat. Four veggies per day seems like so much, but if you really plan and get what you like, you can break it into manageable exchanges.
Eat all of your exchanges. They are not a range. They are not something that is "up to a certain amount". They are set and specific and they are the way they are to keep your body from starving and stalling.
Forget everything you "know" about weight loss. If you are going to pay the money for this program, then "buy into it" completely. Do what you are told, and follow your plan. Fighting the system or trying to figure out ways around it will result in your weight loss stalling and you getting frustrated and quitting.
Lastly, for the newbies, just follow the plan. You can get a lot of information from this board, but sometimes too much can just bog you down. Read this board, contribute when you can, and ask anything you want. But, follow your plan and listen to your COD above anything. If you see a conflict between your COD and what you've read here, ask the COD to clarify, speak to the manager, or even call or e-mail corporate LAWL for clarification.
Best tips for making the most of LA Weight Loss
