Weight Loss Journal

1. Steam, boil, broil, or microwave vegetables, or stir-fry them in a small amount of vegetable oil.

2. Season vegetables with herbs and spices rather than sauces, butter, or margarine.

3. Try lemon juice or fat-free dressing on salad, or use a yogurt based dressing instead of mayonnaise or
sour cream dressing.

4. To reduce saturated fat, use vegetable oil or tub margarine instead of butter or stick margarine when
possible.

5. Replace whole milk with skim or low-fat milk in puddings, soups, and baked products. Substitute plain
nonfat yogurt, blender-whipped cottage cheese, low-fat sour cream, or buttermilk in recipes that call for sour cream.

6. Choose lean cuts of meat, and trim any visible fat from meat before and after cooking. Remove skin from
poultry before or after cooking. Monitor portion sizes. (Lean meats end in “loin”.)

7. Roast, bake, or broil meat, poultry, or fish, so that fat drains away as the food cooks.

8. Use a nonstick pan for cooking so added fat will be unnecessary, use a vegetable spray for frying.

9. Chill broths from meat or poultry until the fat becomes solid. Spoon off the fat before using the broth.

10. Eat a low-fat vegetarian main dish at least once a week.

source:www.words4u.com/health.html

The concept of the Mediterranean diet is derived from the eating habits and patterns of the people who populate the countries of Italy, Greece, Spain, France, Tunisia, Lebanon and Morocco. As a result, the Mediterranean diet actually includes a tremendous array of delectable food. In point of fact, if a person elects to adopt the concept of the Mediterranean dining scheme, or if a person elects to follow a Mediterranean diet regimen, he or she will have the ability to enjoy a remarkable assortment of scrumptious fare.

The diet of the peoples that have populated the regions around the Mediterranean Sea actually have remained nearly completely unchanged for well over one thousand years. The history of the region is replete with examples of men and women living longer than similarly situated people who consumed alternate diets. Through the centuries, the people of the Mediterranean Sea region have enjoyed longer lives that people in other parts of the world at the same historical epoch.

Mediterranean Diet consists of the bountiful consumption of a number of healthy food items including:

Fresh fruit

Fresh vegetables

Low fat nuts

Whole grains

Monounsaturated fat

In a similar vein, the Mediterranean diet utilized by people for generation after generation excludes or limits certain food items that have been deemed harmful in recent scientific studies. These less than desirable food items include:

Saturated fats

Red and fatty meat

Rich dairy products

Fatty fish

People who inhabit the Mediterrarean region have a demonstrably lower rate of heart disease and related ailments that oftentimes have a direct dietary connection. With the advent of scientific studies that have correlated the incidence of health problems with a poor diet, the positive effects of the Mediterranean diet have become self evident.

Research over the course of the past two decades has conclusively demonstrated that the men and women who populate the Mediterranean region are afflicted with heart disease and similar ailments far less often than people in other regions of the world. The experts who have conducted these studies have concluded that there is a strong likelihood that the diet scheme that is common in the Mediterranean region is responsible for maintaining the good health of the people who live in that corner of the globe throughout the past one thousand years.

During the past twenty years, a significant number of people in different countries around the world have turned their attention towards finding healthy diet regimens that are low in saturated fat and that include bountiful servings of fresh fruits and vegetable. Consequently, the Mediterranean diet has caught the eye of innumerable people who want to include healthy eating into their overall course of prudent living. In short, the Mediterranean diet encompasses foods and beverages that, when consumed in moderation, can work to lessen the threat of some serious diseases and can aid in creating the necessary foundation for a long, hearty lifetime.

more information at http://www.safe-and-easy-weightloss.com

I love being able to eat dessert while dieting  Try this low carb dessert, yummy

Chocolate French Silk Pie Serves:8,10

1 cup heavy cream — whipped 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

3/4 cup artificial sweetener1 teaspoon vanilla 8 ounces cream cheese

How to Prepare:

Mix until velvety smooth, refrigerate. 8 servings

Get 999 more low carb recipes for free click here

 

Life is better, a slow steady weight loss, one to two pounds a week. I find a 1,200 to 1,500 calorie diet is working best.

Most medical experts would agree that one of the best ways to improve your health is to reduce your sugar intake. Doing this can help decrease one’s chances of getting diabetes and being overweight or obese—both epidemics in this country with adults and children alike. i find Stevia really helps, especially with low cal desserts

Get 1000 low carb Atkins Diet recipes for free

You want the process to go as smoothly as possible. You don’t want to be thrown off guard by roadblocks you didn’t anticipate. You want very much to succeed and making your own clear, specific plan of action will get you there. Here are the five critical areas you need to incorporate into your plan. Tips for making a diet plan

My asthma got the worst of me, and i went back on predinsone… so no way to really diet sucessfully. I am now recovered and ready to start dieting again. I found some resopurces to help,  sucha s this article , 10 Questions to Ask Before You Start Day One of Your Diet  The answers were informative and gave me the strength to stick to my decision to diet.

I am also going to use a hoodia ( green tea) supplement in adtion to going to Curves 3x a week and walking or biking on ttwo other days.  I found from my curves weight loss supprt group experience, I am not cut out for these kids of groups. Too many chances to be embassed or feeling  like you don’t measure up. I need all the postive thinking I can muster.

I find I loose weight on low carb diets easiest ( be sure to tkae vitamins if you do this).

Make a commet, leave suggestions, recipes or just send some encouragement and I’ll do the same for you. easy to do on the web.

Here is a low carb recipe I’m trying  for Valentine’s Day:

Chocolate French Silk Pie Serves:8,10

 CarbsPerServing:5g Effort:Easy    

Ingredients: 1 cup heavy cream — whipped 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa  3/4 cup artificial sweetener1 teaspoon vanilla 8 ounces cream cheese    

 

 

 

Way cool the Curves scale brings me in at 2 1/2 pound weight loss. I attended the second class of the 6 Week Solution. We went over what bad foods to give up and what to replace them with. I feel like I have been dieting so long with no results, I don’t have any bad foods to give up. I need real information and real advice about how to loose weight while living my life, attending work conference  with work luncheons and dinners.

My weight gain is due to being on prednisone for eight months. Does that affect how to take it off? According to John Hopkins Medical Journal, side effects of prednisone include, “In addition to causing weight gain, prednisone leads to a redistribution of body fat to places that are undesirable, particularly the face, back of the neck, and abdomen.”

Bad news about this from a doctor on the druginfonet.com,” extended use of prednisone caused abdominal fat and is not reverseable “.

Other stories on the web sound like me, “I have been on Prednisone for 13 months now (10mg a day) for RA. I went from 123 lbs to a whopping 151!!”, and ” I’ve been on 40mg a day since Dec and have gained 30 lbs “. Prednisone causes osteoporosis, too. Weight bearing exercise is essential to combat this!

But how to get the predinsone weight off? No special diets? Just anyone will do?? I found, no suggestions on any of the many medical websites for a post prednisone diet.

On Atkins, Jenny Craig, Six Week solution– all about 1200-1500 Calories a day, which is what I have been eating in an average day most of my adult life. I eat a natural low fat, high protein, low  carb diet. My weight loss only occurred with  more exercise than my usual . Unless something changes, I think it is the exercise not the diet plans that works.

 

 

Oh the smell of Cinnabons the moment you enter the passenger terminal of the airport . With their selection of muffins, dough nuts and those not to be forgotten hot dogs circling on grill for hours, how can a person pass up all these delights? Well, only by an intensive search can one find, a coffee shop with salads, apples and bananas. Or with luck low fat yogurt hidden between the deli sandwiches. I actually did  pretty well eating “right” at the airport, an egg and  ham breakfast sandwich without the bread, yogurt and an apple for a snack. Since the airlines no longer provide free food the temptation to eat that snack when one is not really hungry is gone . Along with  the meals of small bags of peanuts ate in desperation when connecting flights are late. At least you get exercise running through the terminal!

The real problem was at the group meals with business associates and evening excursions into the city to enjoy the ambience and food. Italian they all want, what does one do? I order chicken  scalopinni with veggies on the side, skip the pasta, skip the dessert.

Then there is the mini bar in the hotel room stocked with candy, chips, and nuts. I opted for the nuts but probably ate too many. There is a Curves in almost every city, so if I had remembered to get a travel pass from my Curves I might have been able to visit one while on the road. But I don’t know when, I was up early every day except one and working hard all day and socializing with work mates in the evening. An important part of what I do, as important as the daily work product.

So for exercise I chose walking, easy to do and still see the town . Airport walking between gates done a quick pace gets the heart rate up. But no 30 minutes work out this trip. I can really wait to see the scale when I get home, I mean really wait, like several days, so maybe it will be down not even or worse yet up!

Day 3: I worked out at Curves. It does make me feel stronger  and I can see the results in my everyday life. It is easier to lift things, carry groceries, and walk up stairs. So even if I don’t loose  weight, there is a benefit. The toughest part about exercise is getting there, so many other things to do. I have scheduled it into my work day, put it on the calendar, but there is always a pull from family and job to  do something else instead of  exercising.

Day 4 and 5: What is it about my body that when I’m dieting, I  get sick. Usually I can fight off the germs!  I am taking Weight Loss vitamins!.  Being sick makes it hard to follow this high protein diet, just too much food to eat when feeling bad.  And makes it almost impossible to exercise. I only did take a few short laps around the pool.

Day 6 and 7: On Monday morning when I weight in, I expected the worst when I stepped on the scale. Much to my delight, I had re-lost a pound ( the one  gained at Disney) and today I am down another 1/2 pound. So after one week my weight loss, according to my scale, is 1 1/2 pounds. The scale at Curves is different than mine. Why is this? Both of them are certified accurate.  Scales always seems to  weight differently, at the doctors, the club…  Oh well, one can only hope that the difference will work for me! Maybe if I take off my shoes, socks and …

Still looking for a  magic wand that takes 5lbs off in a week? Does that only work for those under 50?

First I went to the store and stocked up on all the high-protein foods for this first week of the diet. It is amazing how long and difficult a grocery store trip can be when buying food one usually does not buy.  Could this mean I’m buying the wrong (fattening)   food normally?

So far I feel like all I do is eat—more food in a day than I usually eat. Three meals and 2 snacks, a protein milk shake and lots of water. Since I worked out at Curves the day before, my husband and I went for  a 30 minute walk. This could help get him fit too!  He is saying all the right support stuff about my diet,  while piling on  whipped cream to his fruit and while buying Hershey kisses .

Day One Results - lost 1 lb!

On the second day I was scheduled for business meeting  lunch at a restaurant and an afternoon at Disney MGM for fun. I followed the eating out guide and had a low carb chicken Fatias salad for lunch, drank lots of water while walking around Disney and ate an apple and 1/2 of an oatmeal raisin cookie . For dinner we ate out at a Chinese restaurant—a little more tricky. I had not looked up Chinese food in the eating-out  guide. I skipped the rice and had chicken and vegetables. The best part of the day for the diet was all the walking. Unfortunately the result was regaining the pound I had lost.

It seems like I’ve tried it all– Atkin’s diet, South Beach diet, Jenny Craig…… the weight I gained  due to menopause and being ill and taking Prednisone just stubbornly clings on.   I went on the  Atkin’s diet at age 45  when I had gained 15 lbs following a hysterectomy.  It worked, I lost the 15 lbs and was able to keep it off for  5 years.

This time all my old diet tricks are not working. I lost  only 5 lbs after  two months on the Atkins diet.  I joined Curves about a month ago. I was pleasantly surprised to actually enjoy the exercise.  They actually taught me how to use the machines. The atmosphere is fun, women centered, and friendly. I love the stations between the machines where you do aerobics of your choice,  or choose to dance. It fulfills my love of dancing and rare opportunity to do so. My husband only dances with great coercion and then usually only to slow music. With no men at curves I can exercise, dance, and enjoy myself . I lost 6 inches but only a 1 1/2  in the first month

My local Curves is offering the 6 week solution — supposedly a life long healthy weight program. So I took the plunge, and joined. This is a big step for me. I am adverse to group learning  experiences. School was nightmare for me as a dyslexic back in the days when they did not even know about dyslexia!

But there I was yesterday, sitting in a small room filled with other women as anxious as I to learn how to really lose weight and keep it off.  Our group leaders are impressive, a former NCAA swim coach, very enthusiastic and one with personal experience fighting genetic obesity. We all shared our passions. Our group leader said it takes passion to make change,  get weight off, and keep it off.

We signed a pledge listing various factors such as not watching more than 2 hours of TV a day, sleeping 7 hours a night, and walking 30 minutes in addition to the normal 3 times 30 min workout at Curves.

So I have my Members book with menus and information, CD ROMs  filled with information form a  preachy motivational speaker, a shaker to mix up high protein shakes … …Ready to go? Well, I’m committed to trying, but I am skeptical since the diet is a high protein and I have been on one of those for 2 months now.

so far so good…