Trying to Motivate
I don't know when you'll read this but Good "insert appropriate time of day here".
On this (hopefully) glorious day, remember how awesome getting into shape is going to feel. My Mom lost 100 pounds plus in about a year and has kept it off for five years now. So, it's possible! You can do it!
The really impressive thing about my Mom is that she has been heavy her entire life. All of my memories of my Mom had her weighing at least 200+ and she dieted all the time. Problem was, they were fad diets. She lost the weight when she changed her life. She completely changed the way she approached food.
One of the things she did was, if she had a craving for a donut or a piece of pizza or some candy bar, she wrote it down on her vacation list. Then, once every month she had a "vacation meal" where she ate as many of those high sugar/fat/carb whatever foods that she could. One meal (note: meal not day) is not going to have a horrible effect on progress if you're regularly injesting the correct number of calories and calories from fat per day. AND she found out that many of those things no longer appealed to her and STOPPED CRAVING THEM.
She also treated herself with fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. Really fresh foods taste so much better than the frozen or canned versions and they're better for you. You can do things like take a portion of fresh strawberries, slice them in half and sprinkle Splenda on them for a really wonderful breakfast or snack. It's energizing, healthy and TASTES GREAT!
You can take 1 cup fat free sour cream, 1/2 cup fat free sweetened condensed milk and 2 tbs of key lime or lime juice and make a great tasting low sugar/low fat fruit glaze for fruit salads! It's sweet but the sugar rush is fructose and not glucose. I especially like the glaze on a mango/strawberry combo.
If you like pancakes and IHOP commercials drive you insane, you can make whole wheat pancakes and instead of topping them with butter and syrup take fresh strawberries, blue berries and cherries (whatever suits your taste and is available) and glaze them with fat free low sugar vanilla yogurt then top your whole wheat pancakes with the berries. It adds sweetness and moisture to the pancakes without all the fat and sugar.
Try experimenting with salads. Make salads with different kinds of veggies and lettuces. Try to add flavors you like to the salad so that you don't feel the need to add as much taste in the form of dressings and cheeses. Also, remember a salad doesn't have to have lettuce in it. If you don't like various lettuces think they're bitter etc. Just dice up some of your favorite veggies and toss them in a little lite italian dressing.
Don't know how people feel about endorsing or suggesting specific products but I LOVE Fit. It's a fruit and vegetable wash that really takes a lot of the bitterness out of fruits and veggies by safely removing the wax and chemicals that build up on them. After a soak in Fit many bitter leaf lettuces are actually quite sweet.
Well made sandwiches are WONDERFUL. I have a turkey on whole wheat bread with green leaf lettuce, tomato, bread and butter pickles, 2% sharp cheddar and mustard every day and never seem to get tired of it.
(Hint: wrap the pickles in a paper towel and store them in a separate zip lock bag to keep them from making the sandwich soggy. This works with really juicy tomatoes too but usually if you place the tomato in the middle of the sandwich with the green leaf and meat in between it and the bread you're find. You can add soggy pickles and tomatoes right before eating the sandwich when juicy is a good thing.)
You can also top salads with unusual things like shaved carrots or thinly sliced green peppers. It's low fat and delicious!
I also pack three snacks to eat with lunch or throughout the day. This keeps me away from vending machines. Right now, I prefer a low moisture skim string cheese, a 100 calorie portion of goldfish and a 100 calorie portion of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies. Varying the snacks helps to change things up and, I guess, keeps me from getting tired of this lunch staple.
Well, that's my advice for the day. I hope that, in and of itself is encouraging. My encouragement is to remind you of why you're losing weight. You want to be healthy? You want to be able to walk across the parking lot without a problem? Play with your kids outside? Grandkids? Be able to sprint to catch a bus if you must without feeling like you're about to die? Feel great naked? Go to the water park without embarassment? (I purchased a family season pass for next summer to motivate me.) Think of all these things. Remember it's a long road and slow and steady wins the race.
Nothing that happened yesterday matters. Yesterday doesn't exist anymore. What you have is this moment. Every moment you face is a fresh start and a fresh slate and what you decide in that moment is all that matters. You are going to kick butt and take names! Take control of your life!
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New and looking for a buddy :D
I have never had a diet buddy before and was kinda hoping to have someone to check in on maybe a couple of times a week with how am doing and hopefully they would like the same in return.
