The reasons I will post are not in order of importance but rather how they came to my awareness. I have spent a lot of time pondering and analyzing the "why" in this weight loss journey. As reasons come to mind, I will post them.
Today I was thinking about the foods we eat when trying to loose weight. All previous success in weight loss was because I following a certain plan, a certain way of eating. Eating certain foods, measuring, weighing. The thought of putting forth this much effort this time was tiring. I have 4 kids. I home school these kids. I have church responsibilities that take time. I AM BUSY! Most people are!! I do not have time to put a lot of time and thought into what I am going to eat, which is why I have a weight problem! This time, I knew measuring, following a specific plan and eating specific foods wouldn't work for me this time. I had two choices, either find a way to make it simple OR accept the fact that I was a plus sized individual and be happy with it. Option two was way to exhausting to accept! The idea I had was to keep eating regular food. Unfortunately, foods with the least amount of processing tend to have the most fat and calories, but on the plus side, they also have real ingredients. Pick up a jar of regular mayonnaise. Read the ingredients and you will recognize what is used to make the stuff; oil, eggs, vinegar, salt...things you could pull from the cupboard and make yourself-if you had the time! Now pick up some fat free mayo and look at the difference in ingredients-looks like it was made in a lab! We live during a time where we are taught that if we are going to loose weight, we have to eat fat-free, sugar-free, carb-free, to be successful. This time, I decided to prove them wrong--at least I had hoped!
When I decided to start paying attention to what I was eating, I decided to by all means reduce or eliminate some of foods that have no nutrients for our bodies. Ice cream, cake, brownies... (Chocolate is good for the soul so that isn't one I was going to cut out, but I certainly needed to reduce the amount I consumed!) Changing the way I cook so that I can loose weight in a manner that my kids will still eat is quite a time challenge as well as a budget challenge as well. Who has time to cook multiple dinners or money to buy fancy specialty foods so you can make a meal taste better than it really is? I remember cooking items when I did WW that had ooodles of ingredients so that the food would have the same taste and texture as the full fat version. This is fine if you have tons of time, but who has that when the full fat version only had a few, common, household ingredients and was guaranteed to be yummy? The only solution I could find was asked in a question, what if I just eat the foods I cook already, that the family likes and just eat smaller amounts? So that is what I have been doing. We make strogganoff with full fat cream of mushroom and sour cream, bean burritos with real cheese, casseroles full of potatoes, cheese and sauce. I just eat a portion and then fill up on salad that has olive oil and vinegar on it or some other vegetable. The fat is what fills us up and good fat helps our body have healthy skin, shiny hair and strong brains, not to mention helps us utilize the fat soluble vitamins A,D, E & K.
So in summary, make sure you are cooking foods that are full of real foods, get rid of that chemical "diet" food. Find recipes that are easy to make and that your family enjoys because that will make your life simple. When you go out, don't be stressed about what you are going to eat, just eat a portion of whatever is being served. If you are going out, where portions are typically bigger, eat half of what you are served and save the rest for the next day or share with another. At home, eat a portion of whatever you make and add a vegetable. Sometimes, you might not be full, but you won't be hungry. Physically, it doesn't take a lot to kill the hunger pains and if you are hungry again in a few hours, have an ounce of your favorite nut and some water. In the evenings, which is my trigger time, I love a mug of herbal tea with a splash of milk. Most of the time though, after eating regular portions of food, we aren't physically hungry, our appetites are. It's the control of our appetites that we have to mentally deal with. Some people with distract themselves with other activities, others will try to analyze why they want to eat, for me, I just had to not focus on it. The more I focus on my appetite, the more I think of food and we know where that will lead us, back into the kitchen and I don't have time for that. I found that I LOVE books. Getting wrapped up in a good book at the end of the night kept my focus on the storyline instead of my appetite.
No comments:
Post a Comment