Hello and Welcome Chubby33. This is a wonderful place to find information, guidance and support. Many of the people here have large weight losses to deal with - 70 pounds myself - quite a few teachers too! Look around, join some threads that interest you - just hop in! Takes a bit to get comfortable, but shortly you'll find that this might be just what you needed.
I didn't have much luck with Weight Watchers myself the last 2 times I joined although I've been in and out of the program several times over the years. My biggest thing with them was finding a good group for meetings. Many of the leaders were sort of boring and the people would show up for meetings, weigh in and be quiet until it was time to leave. Having a support group really helps.
I'm on a new program now that I'm quite happy with. It's geared around eating for your body type which is a little different from what I've done in the past.
Here's some things I've learned -
I have the slowest metabolism of all the body types. Things I've done over the years plus being on thyroid medicine and post menopausal have slowed it down even further. I would go long periods of time between meals - no breakfast and on the weekends I'd get busy and sometimes I'd only eat once a day. If your body doesn't get fed regularly, it shuts the metabolism down and stores what you do give it as fat. Now I eat 6 mini meals throughout the day about 2 - 3 hours apart. That keeps the metabolism up and since your body gets food on a regular basis, it doesn't go into that starvation and store mode.
Second bad habit was that when I was dieting, I never measured my food portions. Bad, bad, bad. Calories are calories and you CAN gain weight eating "healthy foods". I dusted off the measuring cups and spoons from my WW days, bought a food scale and everything gets measured!
Third bad habit - salt. I really don't like salt, only cooked with it but didn't additionally season my food. The diet I'm on now wants you to eliminate salt, sugar, fats and dairy. It advocates using fresh foods you cook from scratch so that you can control what goes in them. I started reading nutrition labels for more than just the fat content. It's amazing how much sodium is in canned, packaged and frozen foods. Things I thought I was using that were low-fat/low cal were LOADED with salt. I bought a bunch of salt free seasonings and use them and onions, mushrooms and vegetables to season my foods now.
You don't get sugar on this diet because sugar causes insulin spikes which contribute to shutting down the metabolism and having your body process the foods to sugar too rapidly. Same goes for "simple" carbs - pasta, baked goods, white bread, corn. I can have potatoes, rice and oatmeal as complex carbs. You can use artificial sweetners, but my digestive system is intolerant of them so my "sugars" come from fruits.
Had to give up my beloved Coca Cola for 3 quarts of water a day instead. I did make some compromises in this diet just so I could stick with it and one of them is that I still have to have my morning coffee. Now it's one small cup instead of 3 mugs and I still use a splash of flavored creamer because I just can't stand black coffee. Water is my primary drink 98% of the time.
It's been alot of work and discipline on this program but I have lost 12 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks, better than in the past. I have a long way to go yet and I've resolved myself to an average 2 pound loss per week. Frustrating but it does take time. Most importantly, I get well balanced nutrition and I can live with this program. Now fighting the occasional cravings for the old bad stuff is another thing, but I allow myself 3 treats a week. Maybe I could lose faster if I was more strict, but I wouldn't stick with it so the compromise is worth it.
Hope some of this was helpful. You CAN do this! Good luck.
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