[rodeogirl]

Hi everyone! I'm excited to meet others who are losing weight too! I'd like to lose about 150 lbs total (about half my current weight) My first major goal is to get down to about 240lbs so I can get back to riding horses again. here's my story

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I've been eating healthier for about three weeks now. The two things that have helped me the most are prayer and only eating when I'm hungry and then only eating about a cup's worth of food at a time.

What I did was get a measuring cup out and put a cup of food in it and then put it on a plate. Now I have a visual cue which works really well for me. I don't count calories, I just try to only eat a small portion of whatever food I want. Then I wait an hour before I eat again. At that hour if I'm hungry I eat. If I'm not I don't. It's amazing how many times I'm sure I'll be hungry and an hour later I've forgotten all about food.

I've had to re-learn what hungry means and at first I would find myself going for food all the time and I would have to ask myself "Am I hungry?" many times the answer was no. So I'd walk away and wait to get hungry.

It was a total switch from any other "diet" or eating plan I'd ever tried. I have a very simple, natural gauge (hunger) and the hardest part is simply choosing to wait to eat. But one thing I've discovered is that mentally I used to fear being hungry (I have no idea why) so I used to eat so I wouldn't get hungry - which meant I ate all the time.

NOW I can't wait to be hungry because that means I get to eat and I love the taste and texture of food. I put about a cups worth of food on my plate and eat it slowly - putting my fork down between bites or setting my sandwich down.

I taste my food more, I don't have to discipline myself because I know if I really want some creamy chicken casserole then when I'm hungry I'll get to eat it. And I know eventually I'll be hungry. That doesn't seem to be a problem!

The other piece of it is that I have ridden horses since I was 5 years old and I'm too heavy to ride anything but a really large horse at the moment. I prefer Arabs or Arab/Quarter crosses. So whenever I want to eat but am not hungry I just say to myself "I'm going to ride horses again!" and that helps because I really want to!

How I ended up choosing a cup of food goes like this - I was seriously looking into weight loss surgery, specifically the lap band. I had always thought that was my last resort. But when I saw that you could only eat a 1/4 cup of food at a time I just didn't think I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. So I thought - well what if i just try to eat 1/4 cup of food now, without the lap band to see.... Well I quickly decided 1/4 cup of food was too hard (yeah could you please cut that sandwich into 8 pieces?) So I went for 3/4 to 1 cup of food. Which is still a LOT less than what I was eating before.

I also have tried to eliminate as much processed food as I can and particularly avoid partially-hydrogenated anything.

This "method" is completely made up (though I doubt I'm the first person to try it) and based on the idea that reducing total calories was the place to start. I'm also walking a lot more so increasing calories burned as much as I can.

Finally vegetables don't really count towards the 1 cup rule so long as they aren't drenched in oil or fat. For example, I let myself have as much fresh spinach as I want as long as I don't use more than 100 calories of dressing etc. (I love blue cheese dressing so I just make sure to use a small amount - luckily there's a lot of flavor in it so it doesn't take much.)

One of my successful moments was when I made my favorite chicken tortilla casserole. It's got sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, chicken, cheddar cheese and ripped up tortillas in it. Not a "diet" food for sure. I used to make it and would eat the whole thing in two days (2-3 meals!) easy. I made it last week and just finished it last night. It lasted me a week this time. It was a great feeling to see it in the fridge every day and think, wow I still have leftovers!

I'm only weighing myself at the doctors office so I'm judging how things are going by how my clothes fit. So far my clothes are looser and some activities are getting easier (like putting my shoes on) and it's only been three weeks. I'd love to lose 50 lbs this year - any more would be a great bonus. I would guess I've cut my caloric intake by over 1000 calories a day, but it could be more or less. I have Hashimotos disease (autoimmune disease that destroys the thyroid) so I'm on synthetic thyroid but I'm not going to use that as an excuse anymore.

Thanks for reading!

[Shine]

Welcome from a fellow horse lover! You've come to the right place for support!

[MadelinRose]

I totally know where you're coming from with the fear of being hungry... I never understood it either, but I know that I would eat a lot at times just for fear of being hungry later, even if I didn't even need or want the food then!

Now my mindset has changed so much - though there are still times when I go get seconds and then regret them later. It's all about baby steps...

Any way, welcome to the boards - you'll love it here! I can't wait to see your success!

[rodeogirl]

Yes, small steps! And no beating myself up when I eat less healthy than I'd like to. I just pick up and start right where I am.

For me free food is the biggest problem - I always want to get as much as I can - so I'm working on that.

[Arlene Dallas]

Hi Rodeogirl,
I dont know if you are interested but here is a lower fat version of your favorite casserole.

King Ranch Chicken Casserole
From: www.halfmysize.com
Serves - 6
Points – 4 w ff cheese, 5 with Cabot’s 75% reduced cheddar & whole wheat flour tortillas
2-3 cups shredded, cooked chicken breast (or 2-3 c shredded rotisserie chicken)
1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 can 98% fat free cream of chicken soup
1 can Rotel tomatoes
8 corn tortillas, cut into fourths (or whole wheat-I use the high fiber low carb ones)
1 cup fat free shredded cheddar (I use the 75% reduced Cabot cheddar)
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup celery, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Saute onion, garlic and celery in a nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray until tender. Add soups, Rotel tomatoes and chicken; heat and mix thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spray 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Layer 1/2 of tortillas in bottom of dish. Pour 1/2 of soup mixture over tortillas. Sprinkle 1/2 of shredded cheese over soup mixture. Repeat layers ending with cheese. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Uncover and cook additional 10 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

205 cal., 2.4 g. fat, 2.5 g. fiber

[rodeogirl]

Thanks for the recipe idea.

I've tried substituting various fat free or reduced calorie ingredients but I've found that either I really don't care for the flavor or there's a bunch of processing and added stuff that makes it taste better but is less healthy. I used to be afraid of fat but now I just try to avoid the nasty trans-fats and eat small reasonable portions. For example I'm back to using normal butter which is less processed, just consuming a lot less of it than before.

However I'll take a look at the labels of some of the lower calorie ingredient options and see if I can make some healthier improvements. Always a good idea to try.

I live in a fairly small town and have found it hard (or maybe impossible) to find rotesserie chicken that isn't injected with stuff. I usually just buy chicken breasts and bake them with ground pepper to put in my casserole. I haven't looked at them in awhile so maybe I'll check the labels again and see if they've gotten a bit more healthy.

[rodeogirl]

Shine do you have pictures of your horses anywhere? What kind of riding do you do?

When I get down to a reasonable weight I'm going to look into starting Team Penning and then see what other events look interesting. Cutting or doing herd control for someone who is cutting sounds like fun too. I've driven herds of horses before a fair bit, but never cattle and I'd love to get into that. How about you? (Or any other horse lovers out there)

[Satisfaction]

Hi Rodeo I'm new too! =)... I have been going through some of the same things as you too... re learning hunger for sure!... and prayer definitly helps... God will help with anything, he wants to take care of us. In fact in the bible it talks about treating your body well because it is a temple and that it doesn't even belong to us anyway that it belongs to God because everything does.
"1 Corinthians 6:19
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"

You can do anything you put your mind to, sounds like you're making a lot of great changes. I'm here too talk to as well, I'm rootin' for you

[rodeogirl]

Thanks Satisfaction - nice to meet ya!