Helpful Strategies

[Divash]

Do you have a low-fat, low-sugar, low-sodium recipe? Is it delicious?

Do you have a really fun activity that's more like playing than working out?

Do you have a handy little tip for how to handle family and friends' pressure to eat big at social events?

Do you have a clever way to figure out how much fat is REALLY in the restaurant food you're about to order?

Post it here!  

[Divash]

Make Tiny Changes

A lot of the time, we of the chubby persuasion get fed up. "Once and for all," we say, "I'll lose this weight even if it kills me." Guess what? It probably won't kill you unless you become anorexic or bulimic (God forbid), but it WILL fail. You'll lose weight for a while. Then you'll realize that your tummy has felt empty for months, and you're tired from working out too hard, so you'll skip your workouts for a week and you'll go pig out on pizza, ice cream, brownies, or whatever your particular weakness is. It is not healthy or sensible to make huge changes in your life. You'll feel deprived.

What's healthy is to make small, lasting changes. Start with the easiest thing you can think of, and do that, and only that, for a week or two. Then pick something else that seems easy, that you can do without stopping the first thing. Here are a list of some tiny, tiny changes that you can make.

When should you add a new change? Take the next step only after you've become entirely comfortable with the previous change or changes. When what you're already doing becomes automatic, it's time to look for a new step to add. Generally, I'd suggest that you wait at least one week between each change, preferably two to four. If you find it's been two months since your last change, it's probably time to start a new one... unless you've waited because you still haven't really absorbed the current change-list and made them your own yet. If that's the case, go back through the list and figure out which ones you need to devote special attention to. Once you've got those down pat, add another.

What are some tiny changes that you could add? Glad you asked. Here are a list of just a few changes. Remember, pick one at a time. These are not all the changes you could make, of course. They're just a few that I've made myself, and I found helpful.

• Drink 6 glasses of water each day. Not soda, coffee, tea, juice, milk, or Kool-Aid, but raw, clean, naked water. This will flush toxins out of your body and make it easier for your body to let go of the fat that it's been holding.
  
  
• Increase the fiber in your diet. Try these: Switch from white bread, rice, and bagels to whole wheat bread and bagels and brown rice; eat fresh fruits and vegetables; take a chewable fiber supplement every day; buy cereals with high fiber content for breakfast fare. The extra fiber will help clean out your digestive system, which means that your system will work more efficiently. That is, it will digest the food and then get rid of it, rather than storing it as fat.
  
  
• Eat two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables daily. Not only is this helpful for the fiber content, but also for the amazing amounts of vitamins and minerals. Plus, they're delicious. A serving of fruit is one piece of fruit; one-half a large banana; one-half cup of berries. A serving of vegetables is one cup of vegetables.
  
  
• Starchy vegetables count as bread servings, not vegetables. I know it's tempting to think of corn, beans, peas, potatoes, and rice as vegetables. Don't. They don't have the fiber content or the nutritional content of other vegetables. However, they do have slightly better nutritional content than bread, pasta, bagels, and other standard grain products, so use them instead whenever you can. They're healthy and satisfying, too.
  
  
• Beans and peas are starchy vegetables that also contain a lot of protein, so they're good for you. Peanuts are technically peas, but don't count them as a starchy vegetable. They have so much fat that they can really sabotage a dieter's efforts. One tablespoon of peanut butter has the same amount of fat as two teaspoons of margarine, butter or any kind of oil or grease. If you must have them, though, get reduced-fat peanut butter and allow yourself a tablespoon per day. Say, on your breakfast toast.
  
  
• Exercise for five minutes a day, three days a week. Stick to this. Every other week, add five minutes to your workout, until you reach 45 minutes. At that point, add an extra day of workout, so that you're working out four times a week instead of three.[
  
  
• Try one new type of food per week. Look for a recipe that uses that ingredient, and just go for it. Start with new fruits and vegetables that you haven't tried before. You can get some really fantastic recipes in vegetarian cook books and Weight Watchers cook books. Variety can keep you from getting bored with "diet" foods. Instead of having boring diet foods, you can have exciting gourmet foods, simply by making it into an adventure.
  
  
• Speaking of adventure, try a new type of exercise every two to four weeks. You might just find that you get back that feeling that we all had as children, when exercise wasn't called exercise, it was called play, and we had to be ordered to stop doing it and come inside for dinner. Remember how much fun it was? Try to recapture that feeling! Do something unusual. Preferably, with a friend.
  
  
• Get two servings of dairy products per day. If you're a teenager or over the age of 50, get three dairy servings per day. This will promote bone strength, stave off osteoporosis, and help you lose weight. It's been shown that dairy foods can help your body process your foods more efficiently so that you burn calories more easily.
  
  
• Get two teaspoons of Healthy Oils per day. Your body needs a certain amount of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in the five healthy oils: olive, sunflower, safflower, flaxseed, and canola. Those fatty acids actually help to break down other fats, as well as keeping your skin and hair looking healthy. Use them in cooking, or as a light salad dressing (along with vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice, and spices if you wish).
  
  
• Stir-fry using vegetable or chicken broth instead of oil to unstick your wok or fry pan. It's more flavorful and contains a lot less calories.
  
  
• Use your sitting-down time. When you're at your desk, playing on Gaia or doing your homework or whatever, squeeze your tummy or your butt rhythmically. It's good exercise, and every little bit helps.
  
  
• Start looking at the product information on packaged foods. You can use those labels to find out how much fat and fiber are in your foods. It might surprise you, and it'll certainly make you feel like being more careful. Look for high fiber, high protein, low fat, low sodium.
  
  
• Take your lunch to school or work instead of getting cafeteria or restaurant food. Cafeterias and restaurants like to put in a lot of salt, sugar, and fat because those taste satisfying and are pretty cheap, so they make more money off the final product. They're not healthy. A hamburger made at a fast food restaurant or cafeteria usually has three to eight times the amount of fat of a burger you make at home. Ditto with most other homemade versus restaurant or cafeteria food.
  
  
• Do you have five TV shows that you watch every week? Drop one from the roster. Use that time to go for a walk, or to slice fruits and vegetables fr the following day's snacks. Trust me, the world will go on turning if you aren't watching As The Stomach Churns, and you'll be a lot healthier and slimmer.
  
  
• Can't live without dessert? Slice up a cup of strawberries, sprinkle some Splenda or other sugar substitute on top, and maybe add a tablespoon of non-fat whipped cream substitute if it's a special occasion.
  
  
• Reward yourself with healthy foods. Instead of thinking that "treat" has to mean candy, cookies, pie, cake, or other high-calorie foods, think of "treat" as fresh blueberries, sushi, a big salad, or some stir-fried veggies. They're even more flavorful, far healthier, and will help you get in your fruit and vegetable servings that day.
  
  
• Reward yourself with non-food rewards. Celebrate every 5 pounds you lose. Treat yourself to a new pair of track shoes, a new shade of lip gloss, a new water bottle for drinking your 6 glasses of water per day, a movie (skip the butter on your popcorn, or bring your own healthy snacks). If you need to lose a lot of weight, mark every 20 or 25 pounds with a new article of clothing, because you'll probably need it.
  
  
• Every time you lose a pound, drop one to five dollars into a cleaned-out coffee can. Base the amount on how much you need to lose. If you only need to lose 5 pounds, drop in $5 or $10 per pound. If you need to lose a hundred pounds, one or two dollars per pound is probably fine. When you reach your final goal, celebrate by taking the money and buying yourself a cool new article of clothing, or a whole outfit. The more you put into that weight loss fund, the more new clothes you'll be able to buy to fit your svelte new self!
  
  
• Instead of buying new clothes while you're losing weight, have your old clothes tailored. I've done it myself, and I can tell you that while you might be able to buy two to four new skirts or pairs of pants for $100 (US dollars; Canadian and Australian dollars will of course not be the same), you can tailor five to eight skirts you already own for the same amount of money. I had to tailor my things after the first 25 pounds I lost, and in another ten pounds I'll have to do it again -- but that means I'll only spend $400 for all my tailoring (about a dozen skirts, tailored twice each) instead of the $1200 I'd have spent on replacing 12 skirts twice.
  
  
• Most of all, celebrate every accomplishment. Celebrate not just the smaller numbers on the scale, but the steps it took to get there. If you ate healthily for an entire day, that's an accomplishment. If you worked out today, that's an accomplishment. If you tried a new exercise or a new healthy food, that's an accomplishment. Be proud of the steps you take, and the results will naturally come from those steps.
  
  

 

[Kaego]

Thanks for the advice!

But for me, walking is a something that's fun. I usually get some of my friends together, and we go walking around the community. It's fun, and excersice at the same time.  

[Divash]

That's awesome, Kaego. That's got a whole lot going for it, right there. Friends/social time; exercise; a change in scenery; learning something new about your own neighborhood; possibly a stop for a fat-free sorbet at an ice cream shop on the route.  

[Wrathful Rain]

I keep a 32 [or more] oz glass of water near me when I sit at the computer. Which I do all day long, until it gets cooler so me and my 2 year old daughter can go for a walk. Since the water is there, I drink it more. One day, I drank like 3 glasses full! eek Seriously!!  

[Soi Tsuba]

have you ever noticed the water you engulf after working out (or during)

it's scary, i drank 10 bottles of water in one sitting  

[Divash]

Yep. My Weight Watchers leader mentioned that a person should try to get in an extra glass of water for every ten minutes of exercise they do each day. You REALLY deplete your body's store of water when you work out.