Stop Gaining Weight First

You need a reasonable period of time to allow your body to adjust from a weight gaining diet to a weight loss diet. Before you lose how do you put the brakes on gaining? Just to stop gaining is the first and a very BIG step. Starting is probably one of the most difficult parts so let's take it easy and see how we can start. You don't have to wait until the "right" time. This stage can begin immediately without any big effort of self control.

During this period, other than watchng you weight continue to climb, you begin by making the small but important changes in what you eat and your eating habits and life style. This is not a weight loss diet, but it could be if done right. Primarily is is about choices that lead to eating healthier. There is NEVER a good time to get drastically hungry or you will defeat even the best of intentions. But you DO need to teach yourself to become accustomed to the sensation of not feeling stuffed to the gills to be satisfied. Try to think of feeling "stuffed" as looking stuffed like a pillow.

It is self defeating to try to overcome pangs of hunger. They are the penalty of going from weight-gaining to a weight-losing diet in one step. Once people make up their minds to lose weight, they may suddenly feel like they are in a big rush to get started. Most often impatience turns around to bite you on a bigger butt with a rebound in weight and a feeling of defeat. You must allow your body to adjust to eating less of what makes you gain weight, eating the right stuff and it is also a time you need to adjust psychologically. It is very hard to stop doing what you have been doing for a long time and almost impossible to do it in one big step. Well, maybe after you have had a severe trauma such as a heart attach that gets your attention you will click over to a diet. Hell, even that doesn't stop most people. Maybe it is better to skip the heart attack and see the light in the mirror instead.

So why not get started gradually on your own terms and in your own way? You know your personality better than anyone. If you have tried and failed you know what I mean. You have been trying to follow someone ELSE's diet. That is why I emphasize that you have to follow YOUR diet devised by YOU for YOU. So all you need is to think carefully about what you eat and how much. And it is very important to take you time as you make the adjustment and see what works for you.

I can't emphasize enouhg making a conscious effort to think things over. Weight loss is like getting married, it is forever. It is NOT like getting it on. It may take you a week or a month. You will know when weight control starts to be more than an infatuation. You need to be committed for life. Or you can think of it as a hobby. It is imperitive that your diet be something very personal that is pleasant in your mind: Gee, I can do this! It's not as hard as I thought! The results are so great! What is everybody going to say! I can be looking much better soon. Collect recipes and ideas and put them in a scrapbook or notebook if you like. Maybe start a photo collection starting on day 1. Start a facebook profile. Put a buck or two in a jar for buying a smaller size pair of pants that do not pinch in the middle. Whatever!

Practice allowing yourself to be a little hungry for a short time but never allow yourself to feel famished before deciding to have a snack. Try to eat more slowly and LISTEN to your stomach consciously. Don't rely on what you see left on your plate. Enjoy eating! BUT recognize when you are SATISFIED (not full) and have had enough....... and put the fork (and the spoon!) down. Excuse yourself. Get up from the table. Then do something! Clear the table. Scrape any left-overs into the garbage. Wash the dishes. Brush your teeth to get the taste of food out of you mouth. Take a walk. Put on some earphones and listen to music. Send some email. Pay some bills. Bathe the baby. Do some homework. Whatever you do get away from food and distract yourself from that second helping. Let other people finish what they are eating without you watching them. Say something nice as you get up and they won't be as inclined to be crabby. "Why don't you finish? Don't you want some more?" NO thanks. I've had enough. That was great. Is there somethng I can do? Take the garbage out? Feed the dog? Anything to get outta there. Better not say you are on a diet at this instant! You will have to sit down and explain.

If you must talk over your plans to diet, choose the right time and talk to the person most likely to support you. It can be helpful to have a supporter but you may find that some people talk out of 2 sides of their faces.

Sometimes your efforts to diet are best kept to yourself. If you seem picky they may think you don't like what they serve. If you lose weight they may be jealous. If asked say "I am full" or " just cutting down on sweets" and quickly change the subject. If you need to throw in some back up - "the doctor says I should cut back or I will become diabetic". That makes it hard for people to argue. [If you don't want to make it up, you can ask the Doc about diabetes and overweight and that you would like to lose weight and it won't be a lie!] Look up diabetes on the web and print out a copy of the risk factors and foods to avoid. Maybe that will help prove to your Mom or significant other that you are serious without too much explanation. YOU might also learn a thing or two about the risks of being overweight as well as the risks of diabetes - like blindness, amputations, impotence, etc! While you are at it check out high blood pressure risks! Maybe print them out.

Reduce the time you watch TV. It is not just because it's sedentary but TV is also filled with cues to eat, eat, eat. More harmful than being a couch potato is being a couch potato and eating and/or drinking empty calories at the same time.. Try on some light activity. A short walk with the dog even if he could go in the back yard. Climb a flight of stairs 5 times. Put on the phones and boggie a little or, if you are sensitive, close the bedroom door. Walk around while you talk on your cell phone - don't sit or flop. Go to a local ball game with a friend instead of watching on TV. Do ANYTHING that involves some activity. Mostly we just watch TV to watch TV. Be selective about what you really like and just watch that. When the show is over, don't start flipping - turn it off or go away.

Start eating ONLY real food. Cut down on unhealthy foods. You know what they are. They are over-processed food and a warning sign is that they come in a box or bag. You should always check the label of anything you buy in a box or bag to be sure it is not full of salt, fat and/or sugar. No, pop-corn is NOT a health food - even without butter. It has no socially redeeming value in your diet - just kernels between your teeth and a desire to eat it in huge buckets. OK, plain is better than chips but will you eat it without butter and salt? Get real. How many calories are you talking per cup? Check the box label. Can you really keep it below 100 calories and no more? Start making choices. Make a mental picture of popcorn as Styrofoam with butter and salt.

Eat what you want from the produce and meat sections of the supermarket. Paste, rice and potatoes are OK but start to eat them in small proportion but watch the mayo or those creamy concoctions which are just mayo with tomato, horseradish or mustard added. Plain mustard is fine, pickles, catsup in small quantities are OK.

Eat a big salad, raw and cooked veggies. Dilute creamy salad dressings with a little milk so they mix better with the greens. Use just a tablespoon or 2. MEASURE IT!

Meat and poultry are OK if the portion is about the size of the palm of your hand (a chicken breast for instance, not fried). Tuna and egg salad are great. Just make it with minimal mayo - a tablespoon is enough for a small can of tuna or 2 eggs. That is more than enough for 2 sandwiches. If you like fat free mayo - go for it. I prefer "a little" oil and vinegar to mayo. Actually real mayo is nothing but oil and lemon juice held together with an egg white. The real stuff is not poison. Just eat it sparingly. Maybe dilute it with lemon juice or a little water.

Don't think in terms of a LOW carb diet but a lowER white carbs diet. If you have a low opinion of food made from whole grains you have not checked out or experimented with the newer stuff on the shelf. Granted some older whole wheat products are downright chewy and weird! I like oats, barley and rye but, frankly, they may give you hellacious gas if you are unaccustomed to them! :-( ! If you eat them better take with a Gas-X/generic chaser (works better if you take simethicone products with a food you know gives you gas and not wait until it hits you 2 hours later!)

So what is so wild and magical about whole grains? Because they contain lots of indigestible plant fibers. (so do most vegetables) nutritionists think we need them in our diets to promote intestinal health. Fiber helps keep things moving. If food sits in our bowel for a long time it rots there and may be a cause of cancer of the bowel. You can certainly tell if your bowels are not working right. But they also cause gas for some people.

The second reason is that whole grains are said to be digested more slowly and that may help make you feel filled up. Does that make sense? Takes more time to digest but makes your bowels work faster? Well, it depends on what part of the digestive tract you are talking about.

But really, it is not like we are eating whole grains in the whole condition most of the time. Processed flour - corn, wheat, removes the fibrous, indigestible covering of the grain. Whole grains are milled into flour too. The indigestible outside of the grains is broken down but it still runs through our guts undigested but the digestible starchy part of the seeds/grains are turned into sugars and absorbed into the blood just like any other carb once they are dissolved.

But for someone on a diet there is something more important. Ever notice as you chew a cracker slowly and let it "melt" in your mouth it actually begins to taste a little sweet? That is because white flours begin to turn to sugar right in your mouth! That is a job for saliva besides help washing it all down.

Once it is sugar it is digested just as quickly and you get rebound hunger pangs because you body starts screaming for more. It releases hormones that are supposed to make us hungry. So you shouldn't be cajoled into eating lots of whole grains. Yeah, they are health alternatives but not unlimited quantities of them. A half cup to a cup is plenty at a meal depending on your body size. If you need more fiber - eat veggies - cooked and raw. Cooking does not destroy either sugars or fiber.

Bottom line, carbs in excess will result in excess hunger in a couple hours. You can easily prove this to yourself by eating NO carb meals for a couple days. Atkins made a fortune on this simple truth. But they ARE and SHOULD be a healthy part of your diet. You just need to limit their intake. One slice of whole wheat or oatmeal bread to a sandwich. A small bowl of oatmeal or other whole grain cereal. Up the proportion of the other things in your sandwich like the lettuce and tomato - eat a half sandwich or use a knife and fork.

What I like (not a promotion): IMO Pepperidge Farm makes a whole wheat bread, 17-grain bread and oatmeal breads that are soft and very tasty. Beware of PF selections right beside them that have lots of grains on the outside but are really just glorified white flour inside. Muellers makes a whole grain pasta (macaroni and spaghetti) that cooks up more tender than their whole wheat variety. It actually has some chick pea/garbanzo flour in it which is high in protein. It turns almost white when you cook it. Put a sauce on it and you can't see any difference and it tastes normal.

Be wise! Look for the proportion of white or processed flour on the label. If it does not say wholewheat or whole grain FIRST on the label it is NOT whole wheat. Any adjectives before the word flour means it is not whole grain. Fortified does not mean it is better, just vitamins added. If it doesn't come first on the list of ingredients it is not the main ingredient and if there are only a few ingredients it may rank very low. If you want added vitamins and minerals - take a multi-vitamin pill (only a couple additives are required by law like folic acid in breads to lower the incidence of a neural birth defects).

When you ARE hungry and feel like you can't wait for the next meal - maybe the meal is only an hour away - have a bowl of low sugar cereal (3 grams or less!).

What you are doing is cutting down your chances of over-eating as well as substituting a healthy snack for an unhealthy one. You kill the pangs but you do not stuff your face with greasy, starchy or sweet junk. Those sorts of foods will add pounds and increase your hungry later in the day. You will go to bed hungry or feeling like you have cheated on yourself. Maybe a little depressed that today you did not succeed.

Choose your bowl. You decide how much cereal is enough. Actively think about how much is what you need right now - just to get you to the next meal without nibbling. Pick the "right" size bowl for the job but choose careful and don't fill the bowl twice before the next meal. Add low fat milk and sweetener if you want or maybe you get more satisfaction by munching it plain like chips. Eat slowly. Remember, you can always eat some of it and THEN decide that you have had enough! Throw the rest away! If you can do that you are learning!

Yeah, I know, Mama always said don't waste food. Guilt, guilt guilt! But you are NOT a garbage pail and it's YOUR life. TOSS any food in the real garbage the second you have had enough. Do not leave it for later either. OK, you have learned something about YOUR correct portion size and maybe the next time you will be less wasteful. When you get to the weight losing phase, the size will gradually get smaller.

The cereals that you should choose from have 3 grams or less sugar on the box label. They are usually the old fashioned originals: Cheerios, the new unfrosted Mini-Wheats, Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies, plain oatmeal. Check the labels on the "designer" cereals and you will find they are almost invariably higher in sugar. WATCH OUT for the boxes that tout they are "healthy" and "heart wise". They may be stuffed with nuts and dry fruits but that makes the sugar go up significantly. Dang! it is incredible some of the things that get the heart healty sign. If they are low fat (and most cereals are) and whole grain, they are loaded with excess sugar which the body can make into cholesterol! If you want to eat nuts and fruits - eat them separately so you can see how much you are eating!

Now a thing to remember. IF you don't particularly LIKE cereal! Holy cow! It's no secret, you have refined your taste to fattening foods. The smell of French fries turns you on. You have to start making the mental adjustment. You LEARN to prefer certain foods. Think of how those fries as if they are a day old (maybe not if you are so far gone you would eat them! then better just avoid the temptation.). You CAN learn to change your preferences too.

Guess what!, if you don't absolutely "ADORE" some particular food maybe you will not be as tempted to over eat it! It will be easier to stop. So maybe that is a good reason to make a choice for something other than cake. [think: Let THEM eat cake, I'll eat some cereal and I have a secret - I am getting thinner]. If you are one who hates this food, can't eat ___, never eat, or detests that food that is "good for you" you will have a great big problem losing weight unless you make some changes in your attitude.

A picky attitude is a barrier to weight loss that some dieters have to fight besides all their other problems. If you never tried a lot of things when you were a kid it was probably because your parents did not stray far from comfort foods or you ate all your food in fast food joints. You have a major problem concerning taste to overcome. On the positive side - if you are hungry enough you may be more inclined try a little of certain things and you may just wind up liking them - eventually. But make a list, probably there are at least a few good foods in your diet that you could eat more of and less of others. You have to decide if you have any notion of succeeding. Eat more good foods and eat a lot less of the bad foods.

The fewer choices you give yourself the more monotonous a diet will be and maybe harder to stick to. Unless you are like the guy who ate the same Subway sandwich every day for a year (I believe he also ate other food at some meals so there is more to his success than Subway would want to stress!). Would you be able to maintain a monotonous diet for a week, month, forever after you lose the weight?. It is an adjustment only you can make. What works for you?. But don't forget to give yourself a chance to change your mind after a while! It is not like you have to jump head first into adoring spinach or broccoli overnight! You can do it by little bites on the sly when no one is looking ;-)

If you want a sweet fix - you can put non-caloric sweeteners on your cereal. I use only a few "diet foods" as a crutch. But I have a sweet food which for me is 2 packets of Splenda in cereal or coffee. It satisfies my need. I sense a bitter after-taste from some others sweeteners but if you are not one of them choose the one you prefer. If you don't like it sweet - forget the sweeteners. If you must have a little real sugar in your coffee how about switching to half sugar and half sweetener? You gotta start somewhere. You can even switch to using natural sugar (demerara or turbinado -light tan crystals). It's not because they have less sugar or are healthier. Calorie for calorie they are still sugar, but the added flavor may add a perk and help you take less. Make you feel like you are treating yourself.

If you like, you can add a couple dashes of cinnamon to cereal.

Sometimes for breakfast I eat a small bowl of oatmeal (1/3 cup quick oats -not instant- oatmeal in 1/2 cup water) I add a dash of cinnamon, a few raisins (for flavor) a dash of salt. Bring to boil on a burner or in a micro, turn off and wait a minute to thicken. (cheaper, tastier and about as fast as instant). I add a couple spritzes of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray marg (zero fat or calories) and a dash of 1% milk. The marg makes it taste like cream. Or I skip the milk.

Adding "a few" raisins is not going to raise the amount of sugar free oatmeal above 3 g. If I add them myself I can control the amount unlike cereals with "raisins added". By contrast, a bowl of oatmeal with sugar would leave me hungry by lunch. At least raisins are not totally empty calories. I also eat a half a banana pear or apple for breakfast. Maybe a cube of Queso Blanco (a whole milk cheese like Feta without the smell).

Drinks. Don't consume calories in drinks. They do not satisfy your hunger and may add significant calories. Please have a look at the label on orange juice. Though the OJ producers you would have you think it were a health food it is mostly sugar water with vitamin C and no significant fiber (even pulpy types)! So they have to add other ingredients like calcium. Tomato juice, by contrast, has less than half the calories, 100% of the recommended vitamin C as well as vitamin A and other nutrients as well as fiber - naturally. But choose lower salt if your family is prone to high blood pressure. Check all fruit juices and punches. V8 is not as good as plain tomato juice. Add hot sauce if you like! You could have 2 small glasses a day for 2 of recommended "servings". Diet drinks with 0 sugar are OK but tap water is best. No cans, no plastics.

A half an apple or a pear are good snacks to eat an hour before lunch or dinner to ward off the pangs. So is a half cup of cottage cheese.

We are NOT talking cereal bars for a snack! They are nothing but glorified cookies disguised as health food. And they are 100 calorie or more cookies at that! South Beach Diet bars have 6 grams of sugar! Even the big gurus sell out their names for profit. Thank God for labels! And think about it....who will profit even more if you DON"T lose weight? It's a rip off, honey! You can do better.

If cereal is not your bag, try a handful of nuts. Not the salted or sweetened nuts in cans or dry roasted in jars but the ones that come shelled in bags without any additions. Usually in the produce department for good reason, not with the snacks.. Walnuts are best because they contain those lovely omega3 oils for your heart but almonds, pistachios or other nuts are almost as good. You can eat unsalted roasted peanuts without oil too - but they may only be available in the shell. That's OK, shelling slows you down. I don't recommend peanuts if you can't stop though.

What's a handful? Well it's not the same for a small gal as it is for a big guy. A handful is what you can close your fingers over in your palm without anything peaking out. For my size hand that is about 8-10 walnut halves. That is a "portion size" and it relates nicely to every one's body size. That's OK because bigger people burn more calories in proportion.

Remember it is the SALT that makes that - "you can't eat just one" - rule work. The taste buds for salt are on the tips of our tongues. So even though there may be more salt in the food, it's the salt sprinkled on the outside that makes us crave more salty foods. The potato chip and doodle makers know where your weakness is and exploit you mercilessly! Your buds are being USED by manufacturers to sell foods. Notice how they even add salt to sweet foods and sweet to salty foods. Are you going to let them get you by the you know what??????????????????? Take control by telling those dope pushers to buzz off in no uncertain terms.

Sugar sugar sugar is a diet buster. Cut down wherever you see it. Read labels. Make choices between foods with sugar added. You know how fast a teaspoon dissolves in a glass of tea or lemonade. It dissolves quickly in your stomach too and gets into your blood stream in a matter of minutes. The cells of your body need sugar for their metabolism but they only can use so much. What they can't use is converted in your liver to fat and put into storage. aka FAT.

So what happens after the sugar has cleared from your system? In simplest terms, your body cells run out of fuel and signal the hunger pangs to start to tell you to "fill 'er up" again. It is done with a variety hormones different cells secrete. Hormones are not just about sex, there are different ones that act as the messengers for all functions in your body. Some turn on and shut off hunger. Turn on those hormones in large doses and you feel starved. You have heard of the glucose index some diets taut and there is truth to them. But it is all bundled in lists of what you can eat and not eat. Just know it is sugars in their simplest forms. Words with -ose on the end, like glucose, fructose, sucrose, are sugars.

If you eat too much sugar at one meal, you are going to be more (abnormally) hungry before the next meal time. It is a vicious cycle you need to stop to get control over your appetite.

You know how it goes, a couple doughnuts, coffee and/or OJ for breakfast and you are "starved" in an hour or two. You are tempted to eat brunch before lunch. Your stomach growls. Same after a starchy or sweets at lunch. You are likely to eat more sweets in the afternoon too. You will be ravenous before dinner. Sweet=EAT = Sweet = eat!

Last but not least. Alcohol. Alcohol is the only thing that gets into your blood faster than sugar - and it has the same effect as simple sugar. If you drink more than an ounce of hard alcohol a day, you should think about cutting down to 1. If you have to choose, a glass of wine is best. Beer? Think about the gut. Beer is liquid carb. A glass once in a while is OK. But beer often goes with greasy food and salty chips. Time to make some choices. I am not going to tell anyone to stop drinking. But if you are seriously trying to change your lifestyle because your weight is too high. This is area numero uno to make a start.

Remember I did not say to not eat when you are hungry during this stage but decide WHAT you are going to eat that will stop the upward spiral.

Give it a try.