This morning I woke up and weighed in at 200.4-pounds. I thought for sure last night before I went to bed today would be the day that I would blow through the 200-pound barrier.
It's now been a week that I have been hovering above the 200-pounds barrier. It seems to be a normal set point for my body. Every time I get close to the 10 pounds point I hit this invisible barrier. I thought that maybe it was just something in my mind.
It's like I wrote before, "slow but steady." Don't kill yourself to lose weight. Monitor your progress. Be persistent in a set plan of attack for the weight. Eat a little bit less. Count those calories.
Some people say count the fat grams. Hmmm? Let me see. If I count the fat grams then let's completely eliminate fried chicken, fried eggs, fried fish, fried food entirely. It's because fried food absorbs fat.
How many fat grams in a piece of fried chicken Mr. Expert on weight loss? Oh, you can't tell me off the top of your head? Then what am I and the general public supposed to do?
What is the average weight-watcher, or preponderant person supposed to do? How, with all of the different ideas about weight loss, is a person supposed to navigate through the tidal wave of information coming at them with diet books, diet tapes, diet cards, and other people who have hair brained ideas about weight reduction?
Do what works, that is what I say. EAT LESS FOOD! But, for goodness sake eat something!
What Should I Do?
How do you eat less food? How do I know when I have had the right amounts?
Answer: Read the label.
On every package of processed food there is a label. Two facts about the food are on the label. Portion size, and calories allocated for that portion.
There is also a table that gives government recommended total calories. Most labels show 2000 calories for the average person.
This fact was established years ago. The average diet should only be around 2000 calories.
What? I have to eat 2000 calories? Well, maybe? If you are like me 2000 calories may even be a little bit too much. After all at 1,500 calories I am just barely shedding the pounds. With 2000 calories a day and my current activity levels, I may actually gain weight. You might gain weight too.
Let's say someone is laid up in bed. There is very little physical activity. Someone eating 2000 calories in that case may just be eating to many calories. I don't know for sure.
I have a friend that can eat a whopper hamburger with three meat patties on it. Every time we go out he eats gigantic amounts of food. He eats full size sandwiches, big beef burgers, etc.. Yet he's thin as a rail.
How is that for him, and not for you or me? I don't know. He has a different metabolism. I can't answer for him. If you are preponderant (tipping the scales) then you aren't like him either.
Living in denial of what is fact and fiction gets us all into trouble. The fact is: I was obese. I was preponderant. I had to do something to fix this problem.
If you want to get trimmed up, then you too are going to have to do something. You can pay hundreds of dollars for advice, or maybe read along with my blog.
I don't charge for what I am writing. I am having fun writing this blog. I hope someone stumbles upon it and can see that there is a real person out there losing weight, and not killing himself to do it.
I couldn't blog for yesterday. I stepped on the scale in the morning at 201.4 pounds.
I ate a Lean Pocket Ham & Cheddar Cheese for breakfast. I was up at 4:45 AM. At 11:00 I ate at Burger King. I had a Large Omelet Sandwich (730 calories). Ouch! I also ate small potato hash browns circles (230 calories). My total calories for yesterday were under1,300 calories.
After I had that sandwich which had eggs, sausage, bacon and cheese on it, along with the potato hash browns; I figured out that I was pretty close to my daily allotment of calories.
I quit eating after that. Yep I went the rest of the day without eating. Was I hungry? Yes, I had some hunger. I also knew that I wasn't going to starve to death. I had eaten. That was it. I hit the wall on the calories.
I could have squeezed in maybe 300 more calories of food. I decided why bother? I wasn't as hungry as I used to be.
In the beginning of my dieting adventure I was dying of hunger. Now, I am learning slowly to deal with the hunger. I think about what I ate, and realize I am not going to die today from starvation.
Why Did I Write About Someone Else?
Two days ago I wrote on my blog about a woman who I know personally.
I talked about my view on her weight loss. I also commented that I think she has a problem. Why?
It's because this might be you. You may be one of those people who thinks everything is OK because you aren't eating. If you aren't eating then you are slowly starving. You are depriving the body of the nutrients it needs to survive.
When I write about losing weight, I am not advocating starvation. The only time I might advocate starvation is for purging the body. Doctors do it with patients before testing in the colon area.
I might say fast for one day to give the body a chance to detoxify itself. Then I would recommend water and fluids like juice or gatorade during that time period.
However fasting as a program to lose weight and then not realizing that there is a problem is just a recipe for disaster.
Don't be foolish. Eat something. If you are persistent you will be able to figure out what works. For me 1,500 calories is about all I can take in before I stop shedding the fat.
Your Body Will Do What It Was Designed To Do
Your body will do the what it needs to get energy. If you give it some protein it won't destroy your muscle tissue for amino acids. If you give it some vegetables and fruits it will have some sugar and fiber. If you give it a little bit of carobohydrates it will have a little glucose. If you give it some fat it will get some fat for the brain.
I say just enough to live. After that the body is going to go after that stored fat. It will have to. That's when you will begin to see the fat start to melt off.
And don't think your spoiled body isn't going to throw temper tantrums because it will. In the beginning you'll get dizzy, you'll feel hungry like crazy. You'll think that you're going to die.
Sooner of later the body gets trained to think, "Hey, there is another source of energy called fat here."
Don't give in, and don't give up. It's not easy. It's been a little hell for me to get off 40 pounds.
What Did I Eat Today?
This morning I ate stir fried vegetables, with a can of Tuna Fish.
I stir fried two cups of mixed vegetables in a wok. This time I tossed in some salsa, honey, grapefruit juice, and olive oil. I fried the veggies for 10 minutes or so. Then I tossed in a can of Tuna Fish.
It was yummy. It was a filling meal with not so many calories. The vegetables really act to bulk up the stomach with food without adding so many calories.
You might try doing this for a meal. I was a tad bit hungry after I ate it. But, when the sugar inside the food finally hit the blood stream the hunger dissipated.
Bye for now....
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