First time I’ve cracked that weight plateau since the 1970’s.
Happy dance!
And here’s something I posted while talking about diets on FB, but it took me decades and some soul-searching to figure this out, so it’s worth sharing, where applicable:
“Cooks—let me add one other REAL nasty trap we get into. Cooking is our hobby. We think about it—and food—a lot. We *plan* food. We *buy* food. We get *luv* from food. And *compliments.* Face it—we’re addicted.
“Going totally over to the frozens in March—I felt a little panicked. Come my usual prep-time, I’d get up, go to the kitchen, and stand there asking myself what I was going to do. Too early to put a packet in the microwave. Too early to do anything. No grazing while cooking, either. So I go sit down and think about—food.
“—–Well, after 3 months, I now know that cooking time is 12 minutes for 2 packets, and that I need to be in the kitchen at 15 of 5, not 4 pm.
“I also know that the big problem with Jane losing weight—and us losing weight—was ME! I was cooking too much food, wrong kind of food, too heavy on the fat and carbs, and I was providing enough for us two to feed a family of 6.”
[Note: Jane kept blaming herself, because she’d gain, even when we were dieting, especially when the snack-urge would hit and she’d commit some indiscretion… Wrong, Jane. It was me, the villain all along. I was providing the carbs that would trigger the snack-urge, and almost setting it up that that would happen. I didn’t realize I was doing it. But I was.]
“I have stopped, after half a year, thinking about food. So if you ARE the household cook, and trying to figure why the diets never work—my advice is—shudder—stop getting your warm-fuzzies from food and its preparation, and fahgeddaboudit! at least until you get where you’re going!”
I’ve cracked my worst plateau. Jane is a few pounds from hers, and looks to crack it by the end of September. Yay us!
Congrats on your progress!!
And you are so right about the cook’s responsibilities in the kitchen. We’ve been trying to eat less processed food for the last few years and it’s done wonders for my husband’s gout. Usually we have a protein of some sort and a veg or two, except for nights like Thursday when I had a craving for real spaghetti, not spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce on it. Back to careful eating today…
Hmph! A food seductress, are you? Well here’s something that tastes rich, but has no grain:
Creamed Brussels Sprouts
T.A.Murotake
Brussels Sprouts
Nutmeg
Light Cream
Trim and quarter the sprouts. Spread them in a single layer at the bottom of a covered, oven-proof pan. Dust them well with nutmeg, and add cream almost to cover. Lid the pan and put into a 325 F oven. When you start to smell them, pull out the pan and stir them. Pour in more cream to cover. Put them back in the oven for about another 10 to 15 minutes, remove, stir and serve.
Ought to have said not to lid it on the second cooking.
LOl—sounds good. And we luvz brussel sprouts. When I was a kid, I thought they were little cabbages. I was fascinated by cabbages at the time: gran was growing rows of them. Ultimately I helped her out by cutting every single one of them…
Cabbages and I have a very sketchy past…
Might be luscious, Tommie,but won’t do for me. CJ and Jane seem to succeed by watching the carbs, but it’s fat grams for me. Last year after the broken ankle I dropped ten pounds, into the mid-170s. I REALLY don’t recommend the technique, but being unable to make impulse buys at the grocery, or run to the kitchen for a snack, was effective.
Haven’t gained it back, but the 170 barrier seemed unattainable, but a few weeks ago I was real close.
Then, since my SiL had bought a bunch more heavy cream than we needed for the blackberries I picked, I started putting it in the smoothies that make up much of my diet when it’s 100°. Heavenly taste,but … Oops! Five pounds in two weeks. I went back to 2‰ and yogurt, and four of them have gone away again.
This morning’s discovery: half cup milk, a peach, three stalks of rhubarb out of the freezer old enough that I didn’t want to use for pie, an egg, 5-6 ice cubes, a few drizzles of honey. Yum, yum, yum!
Totally off the subject – here’s what’s been happening out Colorado way.
The soil is clay so the water just runs right off…
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/14/222412778/colorado-gets-brief-break-from-flood-warnings-rain-is-forecast
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_24095664
All the roads around me were closed until late yesterday. And there is more rain in the forecast.
I keep saying that reading cookbooks is zero calories – you’re in trouble when you *eat* the food, instead of reading about it. (Carbs turn into lipids in my blood stream. The low-fat diet didn’t do anything for it, even after 20 years, but low-carb helps.)
Your weight loss shows that we women of a certain age can lose the extra pounds. Congratulations! You have good reason to be proud of your success.
For me it’s not what I eat but how much I eat. My doc (A wise and savvy lady who is , yea gods, young enough to be my daughter and how did that happen?) pointed this out last year. She is convinced that if I just get portions under control and start some moderate exercise the weight will come off. And no, sitting in a studio, using a brush for six hours does not constitute exercise!
Standing in the studio might?
I’ve just got down to the top of my range in the 145-149 area. Now I have to figure out how to maintain it there. Getting there took 9.5 months and now I’m there I’ve noticed a tendency to slide back into old habits. Got to watch myself like a hawk when in the kitchen.
I’m going back to the YMCA next week to start a little light exercise. As is noted elsewhere “you lose weight in the kitchen and tone in the gym”.
Oh, the guys have the same sort of problem and essentially the same reasons. Once our metabolism slows in adulthood or toward (ouch) middle age and after, it’s especially true. Men (and boys) are brought up (mostly) not to show our emotions much, or our need for demonstrative affection, giving and receiving. And food tastes good and people like getting good food, whether they’re the cook or the family, friends, and guests. Food is often a way of showing love and friendship. So we get that message, usually without realizing it.
There is also the old adage that the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
This holds true for both the male and the female of the species.
I think I’ve lost a little weight, but it’s not down to my target yet. Two problems: One, I’m borderline hypoglycemic, so if I don’t eat enough or eat right for it, I can get shaky. A little of that, you can put up with, but your body’s instincts / cravings tend to make you go overboard when you do eat. You go for the wrong stuff easily because…it’s quick and it tastes good. Two, even cutting down on portions, eating more healthily, I still find myself going for things I shouldn’t, at times.
When I do cook, I like to cook. But I buy prepackaged food too. I like carbs and starches too much. — I love veggies, which is a good thing. I’ve found I have to have a certain amount of protein, and for some reason, if I don’t get enough red meat in a week, it makes a noticeable difference in how I feel, energy, mood, draggy, complaining, etc. But other protein sources (fish and seafood, poultry, pork, beans, nuts, etc.) help a lot. So I’m going to have to make more conscious changes and increase exercise to lose more, back down to my target weight.
I’m closer though, I’m nearly down a waist size: No longer 38, and 36 is more loose than it was. (If I get down to a 34 waist, and around 145 to 150 pounds, I’ll be at my target. I haven’t weighed in a while.) I doubt I will fix a real “traditional feast” for Thanksgiving or Christmas, either.
These days, I’m cooking just for me. But that leads to its own thinking and habits and er, yes, not always best choices.
This being human stuff is tougher than it looks!
Great news on cracking that plateau!
I’m working on a similar project. Unfortunately, I was doing well for the first three months and going sideways since. Likely a similar explanation. I do well when I record everything I eat. Exercise helps, but the focus on deciding when and what to eat rather than just grazing is the key for me.
I got my first smartphone at the end of last year and an app that helps with this process has helped as well.
Recording absolutely everything got me from 212 (ugh!) to 183 a few years ago, but boy, it was time-consuming. Recipes in spreadsheets, lots of computer time, obsession. I went for enough protein, plenty of fiber, as little sodium as I could manage, and very low fat. You CAN’T eat junk if those are your criteria. I used the USDA’s Composition of Foods a lot -it’s now online.
Also I had recently discovered the Progress Report. I thought, “well, if Cherryh can take up ice-skating, I can at least walk!” It worked for about twenty pounds and thirty points of blood pressure, till I went visiting for several weeks and fell off the wagon.
Also the folks at the About walking.com forum are great for support and logging your exercise.
Tracking what I eat is essential. It’s a PITA but MUST become a habit if I want to stay at this weight for the foreseeable future.
DH has a smartphone app called CarbCounter which has proven incredibly useful on the weight loss front — at least for DH 🙂 I regret to say my job is largely sedentary. I attempt to come home and get on the stationary bike at least 3x weekly after work, but it’s a struggle. Weekends I garden or do home improvement. As long as I keep busy, I have little inclination to wander into the kitchen and snack unless I am truly hungry. When you are filthy from ripping out dead shrubs or replacing curtains, the idea that first you have to wash up and make something before you can eat it is a deterrent to nibbling. Strangely, being grubby has never kept me from drinking fluids as I work.
balancing what I eat with how much and how I feel has changed over the last few years. this year suddenly if I eat red meat or crab I get sore knees. so that’s out! my IBS rules caution with brussel sprouts and many other veg, although I have always been a keen veg and fruit eater. I like fish and we do have a wonderful fish shop, with local line caught off the beach fish in season. I eat a lot of dairy for my bones, but that doesn’t always help the weight – though I just don’t buy butter, and there are NO sweet biscuits (cookies) in the house. there is virgin olive oil however. and 70-80% cocoa chocolate, usually, however, I am banning that too for the time being. I make a loaf of sourdough 2/3 spelt wholemeal, 1/3 strong white, which lasts me a week or more – I eat it for lunch usually with some cheese. snacking is one problem … but I also have that borderline hypoglycemic thing, and snacking can just stave that off if I want to continue working in the pottery workshop until suppertime … waistline has definitely disappeared in the last 3 or so years (I am 63) – it used to be 25″ (well, upto my mid thirties) now it’s about 31″. awful! … I do go for a brisk hour’s walk every morning, since I have a dog who needs it …
Have you found a tolerable skim milk? I had to try a number of different brands before I found one that is all right. It’s from a local dairy in my region with no antibiotics or growth hormones fed to the herd. They are also on a vegetarian diet of alfalfa hay, cottonseed and corn, with the majority of the feed grown right on the farm.
For those who are in the Oklahoma, Kansas area this is Braum’s.
I’ve just come across the Hacker’s Diet: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/ – developed as an engineering approach to weight control. It quite funny in spots, and it doesn’t give any food group recommendations, but it does have a set of spreadsheet tools to help you monitor your weight trend on a daily basis. This includes data smoothing and trend analysis so you can catch changes before they get unmanageable or uncomfortable. His spreadsheets are for Excel, but the Wikipedia page has a link to Libre Office files. I think that’s the most useful part.
I’m just starting this, so I can’t report any success yet, but it looks like a sensible approach to monitoring, while you choose whatever diet plan you think you can live with. My current goal is to lose 12 kg (25 lbs) in about six months. To get to a BMI of 25 I’d have to lose another 20 kg; OTOH I just saw a picture of a bunch of Ukranian men, and none of them look like 25 BMI to me. (HuffPost.ca article on WWI internment camps near Banff)
I just finished the epilogue to my novel, The Marginal Way, fixing all the continuity issues I could spot and merging the various files along with table of contents, pronunciation guide, etc. (I write in sections: text feels more manageable and locatable that way) into one, complete… Book!
Now I need to go prep for my anthropology class tomorrow night, but I really want to just gaze on full, complete book file…. so I transfered it back onto my IPad where it looks so, well, done… and immediately spotted a spelling error. Sigh, of course an old, twisted tree is gnarled, not knarled [knash of teeth :)]. I guess that’s why this is a “beta” draft. I don’t run spell check on the sections because too many of the words are Scots or Scots Gaelic. At some point in the many transfers between IPad to Mac to IPad and back as I edited drafts, the auto-spell feature went away in my old copy of Word and I can’t figure out how to turn it back on.
I will say this, separately, on the weight front: spending the last 7-8 weekends on a marathon editing binge to finish the main novel by Sept. 9th and the 500th anniverary of Flodden (yup, did it!) and Epilogue + formatting by today, has not been particularly kind to the waist or to the garden upkeep. Spending 3+ months unemployed and not walking a couple miles to/fro the MBTA subway stop week-daily didn’t help either (final book or waist). It’s portion control for me and no succumbing to tasty baked goods.
Congratulations on finishing your book!
Indeed–congratulations!
This image — an older simpler version, which we found at the ‘healthy librarian’ site a year or more ago — changed how we eat. We’d already gone vegan; this focused that:
:http://soulsearchingvegan.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/b221301818.jpg
Slightly skewed off topic: I wore a size 14 in 1973 when I started college. If someone had the same measurements today, they would wear a size 4. I wear a size 14 trouser today at 65 pounds larger.
I have no idea what to make of sizing, since I can go from a size 12 to a size 16 or 18, or a M to XL, depending on manufacturer. I even have pants from one company that are theoretically all size 16, but one of them fits like a 13-14, and a size 14 from the same company is actually looser — go figure.
I’m hoping for a 12, but if they’ve changed the sizes — heh— maybe a 10. I don’t really think so, though, because what’s bone is not subject to diet!
With the impressive weight loss to make things easier on the joints, will you be back at the rink?