I have never had a cut off time. I eat right before I crawl in the bed many nights.
I don't do small portions either. I have big portions that fill me up, but they are foods that will keep me full.
I use Splenda often, with no guilt.
I eat fast foods a couple of times a week.
I don't watch my sodium either. No blood pressure problems here either, I pray I never have it because I like my food on the salty side (especially my morning oatmeal!).
-I don't watch the sodium
-I drink a couple of beers at night-switched from Bud Light to Miller Light
-I don't exercise like I should
-Once a week I eat a fat steak (lean, but 2 portions of protein) and 2 portions of starch (Oven fried potatoes)
-now that I've been on maintenance since Sept., I also have a 3 ounce hamburger and oven fries once a week. I love red meat and taters!
Ah, I'd forgotten about splenda....I use about a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar-free flavored syrup and a portion pack of 1/2 and 1/2 in my giant mug of morning coffee. And then there's that Danon Fit and Light yogurt
I also occasionally go under 1200 calories, but not often.
I don't really pay attention to sodium, but I have low blood pressure and cook about 98% of the food we eat from scratch, no or very little salt added. I'm sure that most of my sodium comes from things like cottage cheese and fish.
I don't do moderation either. There is no such thing as moderation for a lot of foods for me. There's either a closed container or an empty container. I'm better off never opening it.
I love this thread! But I don't feel like such a rebel seeing so many other people breaking the rules!
- I don't worry about my water intake
- I don't set evening cutoffs
- I use splenda (though a lot less than I used to)
- No food is forbidden (though some can't enter the house)
- Big portions rock!
- I don't always eat breakfast shortly after I get up. Give me my coffee and I can go a couple hours without eating. I nearly always eat breakfast, though.
--No moderation here. I just can't do it, it's not right for me. This means I have a "Bad Food List". Some foods ARE bad for me.
--I regularly forget to drink water. I know I should, I just forget.
--I don't use substitute foods. If it's something that is on my Bad Food List and my option is something sugar free/fake, I just don't even try. I HATE SPLENDA. If that's my option, I'll just skip it.
I like this thread, mainly because it's a reminder that (even among the big losers here) nobody does everything "by the book"...especially because there is no ONE BOOK.
I'd been seeing a lot of posts that said "I know I shouldn't eat after 8" or "I know I should be cutting out diet sodas" and was thinking to myself...I did BOTh of those things and still did OK. Weight loss isn't a game of "this is OK, this is not"...it's a game of figuring out what works for each of us and working at as best we can.
eat WHAT I want WHEN i want..no cutoff times here, or serious restrictions.. there is only ONE food on my forbidden list (fried chicken..i have a serious problem with it. i also don't go out to eat very often, but i've always preferred home cooking)
don't buy LF or FF foods, except FF yogurt (stonybrook farms.. it still tastes like "real" yogurt to me). for me it seems like whole, unprocessed foods "work a lot better"
use REAL FULL FAT butter when I cook if that's what the food needs or top a piece of toast.
don't drink soda but if you dare try to take my coffee from me, you're in trouble - my 2-6 cups a day with real cream (no sugar, but only because i don't like it my coffee) you're in trouble. i firmly believe the caffiene HELPS my weight loss.. i tend to stall if i cut out the caffiene completely.
drink alcohol. not on a regular basis, but a glass of wine with dinner a couple times a week and friday nights is "drinking" night. hasn't seemed to hurt me in the least. the only time i cut out alcohol completely was the first two week i did atkins (which did help me lose 50 lbs)
am not seriously counting my calories or on any other plan. i am listening to my body and feeding my cravings when i have them, and only eating when i am hungry and stopping when i am FULL and it is working incredibly well (20 lbs since november!)
don't exercise as much as i should. i have a VERY physical job - 8-10 hours a day on my feet, lifting and moving and walking and there's a part of me that KNOWS that if i exercised more on top of this I could more than likely be at goal already, but i am honestly too lazy. that being said, i AM going to start running if it EVER gets warm outside. i have been blessed with a very muscular frame and i am starting to realize an incredibly bizarre metabolism. i always thought i had a slow metabolism but that doesn't seem to be the case. i'm VERY muscular for my size and the two years that i was maintaining my weight and not losing, i figure i consumed somewhere around 4000 calories a day. (of junk! and i didn't gain a lb! i would often have a yogurt and granola bar for breakfast - 300 cals if not more, cheese and fruit for a snack - somewhere around 200 cals if not more, a Fast Food lunch that was at LEAST 1200-1400 calories, snacks throughout the afternoon and a dinner that was at least 800 calories. while i'm not officially counting now, i'm losing 1-2lbs a week on what is probably 2000 calories a day if not more. i never realized how much i ate and how thankful i should be of my metabolism because i should honestly have a lot more problems than i have)
-I eat many of my calories after 7 p.m. Like 600 of my daily 1300 are within a couple hours of bed.
-I have a cheeseburger at least 3 times per week, the other nights are a turkey cheesburger.
-I hate veggies.
-I weigh every single morning (and most evenings too)
-I eat just about the same menu every single day (makes planning and calorie counting exceptionally easy!).
It would be easier for me to simply state which rules I DO follow. And that is to eat less (calorie-wise) and move more. Other than that, I follow no rules.
If I'm hungry enough, I eat. If that's 1 hour before bed or 1 minutes, I don't care. If I want a desert badly enough, I may get it, realizing that I don't get it all the time nowadays and know how to get smaller portions or share it instead of eating the entire thing myself. I try to drink MORE water, but I don't add up how many glasses and make sure I'm meeting a certain number.
Pretty much every rule out there goes with the "rules are made to be broken" mantra for me. I simply eat better and make sure to get in exercise and it worked. Rules are what always made me fail before. So they're not for me.
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