Here It Is! My Big Weight Loss Secret!!!
 

Okay, I knew you'd look! :lol:

The truth is, I get PMs asking 'what my secret was to lose the weight' often. I'm sure I'm not the only one...and thus, this post.

"What's your secret?"

"Did you use diet pills?"

"Can you tell me how to do it?"

Well...the big secret is...there is no secret.

I remember watching an Oprah video that she released in conjunction with "Make the Connection" back in 1995 or thereabouts. She said something that stuck with me and RESONATED. Okay, I can't quote it WORD for WORD, but basically she was talking about the Majic Pill. Paraphrasing here: "If there was a magic pill to melt off the fat, I would have it. I would take all my money, I would go to the mountain and buy the potion. I would have it. I would have it."

But as Oprah said...there IS no potion. Proof of that are the many, many famous, fabulously rich people who have everything yet still struggle with their weight. Who comes to mind? Oprah...Anna Nicole Smith...Liz Taylor...Kirstie Alley...et cetera. If there was a majic pill, they would have it. (BTW, I'm sure that ANS' recent weight loss is strictly temporary, based on recent interviews where she claimed not to exercise or eat healthfully - she just 'stopped eating' which means a binge is likely imminent IMO.)

As Dr. Phil so wisely said in his recent best-selling book, obesity and overweight cannot be CURED, they can only be MANAGED. We ALL have the propensity to put on the pounds - it's part of our genetics, since we didn't always sit on our butts in front of a computer, then come home and watch TV and eat pre-prepared food. I'm just one generation away from farmers (Dad's side) and coal miners (Mom's side) who did hard manual labor 12 hours a day, came home, did chores around the house and sat down to dinner. And 'dinner' didn't mean going to the store and picking up something to toss in the microwave or even the electric or gas oven. For both my parents growing up, dinner and other meals meant fattening up and butchering their own meat, planting, growing and gathering their own vegetables and fruits, grinding their wheat and rye into flour, chopping wood for the stove that cooked their food (well in my Dad's case anyway...they were pretty much dirt poor). Preparing a meal was a HUGE job back then. (If you got a chance to see it, or can check it out of the library - PBS did a show called "Frontier House" that shows exactly how much work was involved without electricity or any of the modern conveniences...I'm waiting to see "1940's House" which is coming up soon...)

And the meals were not loaded with sugar either. As my Dad never tires of telling me, sugar was a luxury for them - one of the only things they actually purchased at the store (salt was the other one). Even the desserts such as pies and cakes had relatively little sugar in them in comparision to what we're used to these days.

Anyway...flash forward to the 1950's, the advent of TV, and our GI's back from WWII who were accustomed to eating K-Rations - the early fast food - bland, easy to eat, and with more sugar and fat than 'regular food' to sustain our troops. McDonald's opened their first restaurant in San Bernardino with the bland, cheap, fast food, Ray Kroc stumbled across the store when he was selling milk shake machines, and the rest is history...

Flash forward again to today...2004...most everyone works behind a desk or in a job which requires little manual labor. We're surrounded by cheap, high-calorie food. Thanks to the development of high-fructose corn syrup, it is no longer a luxury to have sweet, sugary food. After work, many of us go and sit in front of the Tee Vee or computer.

And meanwhile, the epidemic of obesity overwhelms us. :(

The secret??? Hard work and persistence kept our grandparents lean...they didn't think about it, work was just part of their day, hard manual labor. Now, we need to do what Dr. Phil calls "Intentional Exercise". And food - our grandparents weren't surrounded by Krispy Kreme donuts and cookies and baskets of candy in their workplaces. It's up to us to be STRONG and resist the temptations placed in our path, and not become The Human Garbage Disposal 'because it's there' to be gobbled up in a few seconds and forgotten a minute later.

Basically, you just have to decide what's more important - a momentary pleasure of sugar and fat or lifelong good health?

I posted the following earlier this week at the Ladies Who Lift forum on our weekly thread in response to a post there:

Originally Posted by :
[Willingness to do the work] - that's the BIG secret of losing the weight for real. It's not a book or a program or a plan or anything like that, although there are tools that can aid you on your path.

It's WORK. Yup, there's nothing 'easy' or 'effortless' about weight loss, especially when you have a buttload of weight to lose - despite the marketers and advertisers who would have us believe otherwise (as long as you buy their miracle product!). I was there too, so I know, believe me, I remember. It's like someone handing you a teaspoon and a cup, pointing at Mt. Everest, and saying "move this mountain using only this spoon and cup" when you have 100 pounds or more to lose.

I was/am a big fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and I always remember something her Pa said in one of the Little House Books - I think it was "The Long Winter" when he was digging up the sod for the first time: (paraphrasing here) "Rome wasn't built in a day, nor is anything else worth having".

Nope, losing a lot of weight and (more importantly) keeping it off for good isn't easy, but believe me, it CAN be done - through hard work and (oh yeah) PERSISTENCE! Jeez, I almost forgot about PERSISTENCE...ai yi yi.

And as any of us who have lost a great deal of weight and kept it off can tell you - it's hard work, it takes effort (especially with all the temptations surrounding us these days!) but dang - the rewards are SO RICH. Kind of reminds me of the women I know who've had kids. They've gone through the pain of childbirth (Bill Cosby quoting Carol Burnett on childbirth pain: "Take your lower lip and pull it over your forehead" ), but once their tender new bundle is delivered safe in their arms, the pain is forgotten (I haven't ever given birth myself, but I have three sisters who are all moms plus dozens of friends who are also moms).

I'd also like to recommend (if I haven't already) a little paperback book titled "Diary of a Fat Housewife" by Rosemary Green. (get the paperback rather than the hardcover - it's much more up to date - you should be able to find it pretty cheap at half.com) Rosemary went through the same sort of fat **** and wrote about it at length in her diary. She did eventually get to her goal weight of 135 (and I've heard that she's still at her goal weight after 8 years of maintaining!) and had some terrific insights at the end of the book (I do admit that sometimes during the diary itself she drives me nuts...). Just a must read, IMO - although keep in mind that it is NOT a diet book.

Just don't give up - keep learning and reading and WORKING HARD and you CAN do this! It's not an insurmoutable goal!

A friend of mine, Kristi Larsen, is a certified personal instructor and has done a heckuva lot of research on nutrition and exercise in weight training. (If you don't know who she is, she has a website at www.kristilarsen.com with a ton of info and her journal - you can also subscribe to her e-newsletter as well).

This article is from her latest newsletter...

Originally Posted by :
The Importance of NUTRITION For Looking Your Best
.................................................. ..........................

Take a look around next time you are in the gym. How many people are pushing huge amounts of weight or running like mad on the treadmills and their bodies seem to always stay the same? The reason a lot of them have not seen a change is because they have not realized how important proper diet is. It's difficult to believe (especially considering the media's influence on diet and exercise) that fat loss is 80% your eating and 20% exercise- give or take a little either way.

Don't make the mistake of thinking there is a diet plan made for you out there and all you have to do is find it. Stop buying bodybuilding, health and fitness magazines looking for the secret diet or training program that will change your life forever.

Those who strive for a stellar physique are continually experimenting with their bodies. Each and every body is different and will respond (or fail to respond) to training and diet in a unique way. What is overtraining for one, is not for another. One may have phenomenal success with a low-carb diet, whereas, another might have minimal results. One person may be able to attain 7% bodyfat with little to no cardio training, when his friend might require two cardio sessions per day to achieve that same body composition. No one said it was fair. But that is reality. In fact, two people with the exact same body composition will not necessarily respond the same to diet and training protocols, and supplementation the same way. To get the results you desire, you MUST customize your program to your body.

"99 percent of the human population are lazy *******s! And 99 percent of the fitness industry plays to this strength." ~Jacob Wilson

Honestly, if you are tired of being overweight and "soft," or if you desperately just want to develop your "six pack," then you must educate yourself and get serious about changing your body. It has to become a priority in your life (at least until you reach your goal). There are no quick fixes, however if you use the right information, you will be able to make dramatic changes to your physical appearance in a very short period of time.

One of the best suggestions for customizing YOUR nutritional approach is to log every morsel you consume. Sounds like a hassle- and maybe it is- but if it got you to the body you desire, would it be worth the trouble? Logging your intake keeps you honest. The New England Journal of Medicine found that when people wrote down what they ate, they had UNDERESTIMATED on average by 1053 kcal/day. That is MAJOR!!!

Logging makes you aware of what you are putting into your mouth over the days/weeks/months (and it all adds up over time) and it just may clearly illustrate why you are not getting the results you expect. Your dietary log can be later used as a concrete tool to seek out professional dietary help.

You can start by logging all foods in Fitday (www.fitday.com) or Excel- especially in the beginning until you know everything by memory. By using a computer program to log your diet helps make sure you are getting the proper ratios of fat/carbs/protein.

Americans are fatter now than ever, even though more Americans are dieting now than ever and over 30 billion dollars per year is being spent on fat loss.

You can't buy fat loss with money. Only with hard work! Quite simply put, there is no easy way out!


"There should be nothing standing between you and your goal. Until you reach your desired body, you should be living, breathing and eating fat loss."
~Anthony Ellis

Summing up...finally... :) Nope, there's no Majic Pill or Potion out there. What magic there is is within each one of us. We ALL have the power inside us to lose the weight - it's in there waiting for us. There truly IS a lean person inside us waiting patiently to be released! Now it's up to each one of you to find her! (and nope, you don't have to pay $153 for it either!)

Thank you Mrs Jim, I really enjoy reading your posts!

Lynn

I don't get it. JUST KIDDING! :lol:

You nailed it, Mrs. Jim. Thanks for the thought provoking message.

dip

Thanks, Mrs. Jim. Those are some great points.

I think the TV has really hurt a lot of Americans because they are absolutely addicted to it. I gave up on TV years ago;it's all a bunch of junk. What happened? A friend asked me to go out with her and do something fun. I told her I couldn't because one of "my shows" was on the boob tube. Later I regretted not going with her and turned the stupid tube off!

Along with the TV comes junk food. For many people, TV-watching goes with eating (mostly foods that aren't good for you.)

I happen to enjoy food which caused me to have a weight problem several years ago. Now I'm approaching two years keeping my weight loss off. I feel so much better. I continue to watch my intake and I continue to exercise.

Thanks again for explaining that there's no magic pill!!

Great Post!! Wonderful reading, ALL so true, and very uplifting. Thanks for sharing!!

It's always good to be reminded of what it really takes.

One of my favorite moments came during a prenatal appointment with my second daughter, when I mentioned to the doctor that I had lost 30 pounds between pregnancies. She asked me how I had done it. That moment is equalled only by the time, in my first pregnancy, when a doctor asked me how I'd gotten pregnant. ;) In both cases, I thought the answer was pretty obvious.

You know, there are magic pills. They are advertised online, in magazines, on the radio, & on TV. Of course, none of them actually work. I have found for myself that exercise feels good (I never really hated myself for being fat, but God I hated myself for being out of shape!) and "real" food tastes better anyway.

Great Thread! Wanna share my story too
 

MrsJim, you are, for lack of a better word, *amazing!*

Thanks for such a great, inspirational piece--my eyes welled up with tears by its end. I joined the message board about 2 mos. ago and wanted to chime in with my own advice to the rest of the Board People.

In a way, I feel sorry for Anna Nicole Smith, because she seems so lost, attention-starved, and I can't even imagine the nutritional catastrophe going on inside her body at the moment. Someone with her kind of money could afford efficient personal trainers, access to state-of-the-art exercise equipment and the best, healthiest foods.

If there's one thing I'll recommend for 'quick weight loss' is RUNNING. 5 years ago I lost 50 lbs in about 3 1/2 mos. by eating low-fat foods, loads of protein and running 6x a week for about 30 min. Though I was never an athletic person, I started by walking around my Company's huge parking lot during breaks, then PowerWalking, gradually increasing the amount of time and speed. By the end of the 1st month I'd lost 10 full lbs. and was running 4 mi. in 40 min. By month #3, I was doing 5Ks.

I moved to Manhattan 2 yrs. ago and most of the weight came back, due to overeating stemming from anxiety and lack of places to run outside. Yes, I got lazy. I refused to run on a treadmill, because doing so was SO boring to me! There's just *something* about running out in the open air!
Anyhow, I am proud to say I have started running again, on a gym's treadmills and am regaining control of my weight. The weather's clearing up, Spring is here, and I'll be running out in a local park very soon. I've already dropped 8 lbs. in a month.

Thanks for your great message to everyone out there!

Diana

Okay so tell us your secret?

Aw jeez youse guys! :)

I wanted to add this from our Meg. I came across this post she wrote this morning on the Support forum in a thread titled "Oh, I Wish This Was Easier...": http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39446

Meg's post is copied here for your reference...

Originally Posted by Meg:
If there’s anyone who can relate to what you’re saying, it’s probably me. :) I walked the same road myself back in 2001 and 2002 and experienced all the same feelings that you talk about in your post. You’re not kidding when you say that losing weight is hard work, but I want to tell you that it’s so so worth it. From where you are now, you have a vision of what your life’s going to be like at goal, right? A dream about how you’re going to look and how you’re going to feel?

OK, I want you to step into my skin for today and feel what it’s like to be me. You with me? You see, I used to think it was all about how I’d look when I got to 135 pounds. I never realized that the pay-off is how good I FEEL. So if you can walk around in my (sweaty gym) shoes for one day, I guarantee that nothing in this world will stop you from losing the rest of the weight.

Here we go!

It’s 4:30 AM and I wake up before the alarm, bursting with energy. I need a lot less sleep now than I did 122 pounds ago. I never dreamed that I could feel so good! The first thing that goes through my mind every day is — woo hoo! I did it! I’m not fat anymore! To me now, every morning is Christmas morning; every day is the best day of my life. :D

I jump out of bed, make coffee, and throw on my gym clothes. That’s a huge change from before, when I was allergic to exercise. :lol: I’m at the gym when it opens and do my cardio for the day, listening to music with a great beat. I notice how much faster and more intensely I can go now than when I was heavy and every day I try to do a little more than the day before. That endorphin rush is a great way to start the day — I’m always so jazzed when I walk out of the gym. :hyper:

Back home to breakfast: oatmeal and chocolate protein powder. The way I eat now and the way I used to eat are like night and day. No more sugar highs and crashes, no more feeling bloated, no more hating myself and feeling controlled by food. I plan my meals for the day and enter them into Fitday.

Then the usual Mom stuff and household stuff. It’s so cool to fly up and down the stairs without having to stop and catch my breath or having my knees and feet hurt. I get my chores done in about half the time it used to take. I love the feeling of being strong just while doing the everyday tasks of life: taking out the trash, carrying the laundry upstairs, hefting the 20# box of kitty litter. :strong:

And then the highlight of my day: back to the gym for weights. The gym was the scariest, most alien place in the world for me when I was heavy and now it’s home. I love lifting weights and love the muscles and the look they give me. I used to be afraid to look in the mirrors at the gym (you know how the walls are lined with mirrors) - now I catch a glimpse of myself and marvel at the stranger who’s looking back at me. How could this be me? I spent all my life as the fat girl and now I have toned arms and little hips. I walk out of the gym on :cloud9: , knowing that I've pushed myself to my limits as I worked to build my best body. Lifting weights has taught me that I have strength and endurance and discipline that I never imagined and it carries over to all other aspects of my life. I know that I’m capable of anything that I set my mind to doing.

Let’s stop and do some clothes shopping on the way home, OK? :) I walk in and bypass the plus sizes and head for all the pretty clothes in the regular sizes. I don’t have to shop for camouflage anymore — no more big T-shirts to hide the butt or long sleeves to cover the jiggle. No more elastic waists or towels strategically covering up my bathing suit. I can look at crop tops and low-rise pants, beautiful (and sexy) lingerie, and tank tops. I see something that I want to try on and look for it in a 4 or a small(which can be hard to find). Now stand in my shoes with me in the dressing room and hold up a pair of jeans in size 4. They’ll never fit, right? They’re WAY too tiny — I used to look at small sizes and think that no one could have a butt small enough to fit in those. :lol: But they slide right up over my hips and fit perfectly (no sucking in the gut). The problem with clothes shopping when I was fat was that nothing looked good. The problem now is that too much looks good — hard on the old budget. :D

Back home, normal life. My dinner’s different from the rest of my family’s but it doesn’t bother me or them a bit. And then to bed, knowing that I physically feel better than I ever have in my life. But more than just how good I feel is the knowledge that I did it! It took me 47 years, but I finally got rid of the fat that weighed down every aspect of my life. There’s no better feeling in the world.

Losing weight — and more importantly — keeping it off is hard work and it’s a job that we’ll have to do for the rest of our lives. It takes sweat, hard work, planning, and self-discipline. You know what to do; like you said, the elements are habit now. But trust me, the pay-off at the end of road is far, far better than you can imagine.

Keep going — you’ve come so far now. When you think about the alternative — going back to being fat and unhappy — really, what choice is there? I guarantee that when you reach your goal (and you will, I’m sure) you’ll agree with me that it was the hardest and, at the same time, the best thing that you ever did in your life.

Wow! I can't wait to feel like that! I 'm just so happy now that I'm in a size 12(14 in some ) and that is the smallest size in Avenue it too big for me now makes me really happy. The smallest I've been was a size 7 went I was dancing almost everynight in a dance company. Actually I did get to a size 5 once but it was unhealthy( I couldn't eat because I was scared out of my mind I was pregnant) I didn't grow up with bad eating habits my mother always made for the most part healthy foods for us and gave us fruit for snacks and only made desserts on weekends. We hardly ever had fast food because we were poor! We had pizza once every 2 weeks, the same with KFC or McDonalds It was a treat for us because it cost a lot to feed 5 kids for a struggling family but they did want to give us a treat once in a while and thats what I grew up thinking of it as.
I didn't start gaining weight until after I moved out and had my our money, I kinda went wild with all the choices I had and ate out alot out of boredom too so I never had a
weight problem as a kid because I was always running around playing and when I was a teenager I was busy with my swimteam and dance classes so it wasn't until I got
a desk job and started having afterwork drinks with co-workers and going to all-you-can-eat buffets.

I really like what you said about how there's no "magic bullet" or we would all be thin! But I tkind of makes me mad that It seems that I put this weight in what seems to be such a short time and It's taking a such a long time to get rid of it.

It's not fair! Oh well. thats again for sharing your inspiring story!


Melodie

Thank you Mrs. Jim!!!! I have been looking for a miracle even though I know the only miracle that is going to happen is for me to stop eating junk!! Tee Hee. Just kidding. I will stop eating junk. I started exercising and I do well on diet 50 percent of the time. Unfortunately the other 50 percent I spend searching for some easy way out of this bod. I know what it takes yet I am still trying to find some hidden secret. Very catching title.

Thanks again

Perfect, just perfect Karen and Meg. Also knowing everything about nutrition,dieting, and excercise doesn't work as well as actual application. For some reason I always thought my vast amount of knowledge and research and trying everything would put me a step ahead of the game. I think a wise woman on the LWL board once wrote, "Abs are made in the kitchen". I have not found words that have been more true to my weightloss. Thank goodness Meg said 47 years to get it, at 32 I was beginning to believe I am the worlds slowest learner. :D

Chris

I always love your posts, Mrs. Jim.

You know, for me, it's not trying to find out someone's "secret," as in the Magic Bullet.

Recently, I have started asking people (who, like me, are insulin resistant or diabetic) on this board what eating plan they used or are using simply in an effort to find a place to begin.

So, when I have asked people on this board "how they did it," I guess I don't see the answer as obvious. When I ask "how", I don't mean "did you reduce calorie intake and increase exercise." I mean: did you journal? Did you do a low carb diet? Did you focus on cardio or a mix of training? Did you count calories? Weigh portions? Get group support? What else? Which of these factors helped *you* and why?

I'm just lookin' for ideas. Inspiration. A nudge in the right direction. It is quite possible to work hard at losing weight, restrict calories and not have success.

Maybe when your Dr. asked how you did it, she was just wondering how you overcame the obstacles that throw so many of the rest of us off course. That's really what I mean.

In any event, you're an inspiration. Thanks for the great post.

Hi I Am New To This Sight My Doctor Has Recently Put Me On Glucophage 500 Mg A Day I Have Lost 11 Pounds In 21 Days. Has Anyone Else Tried This Way Before Please Let Me Know Thank You Chrissy

Hi Shirley! congrats on the weightloss!

I have never heard of Glucophage so I looked it up and it seems to be for "Type 2 Diabetes Control". Do you have sugar diabetes?