Dieting

The most horrendous word in the English language is 'diet'.  To me, it is a word that breaks down into two words: 'die' 'it', and most time diets do die.  No diet is meant to be lived on for the rest of one's life, and in order to lose weight and keep it off, at least for me, it has to be something I can stay on as a new lifestyle.

This is me at what is probably my heaviest, and I must admit I was never proud of it and have wanted to do something about it for a long time.  I just did not know what to do.  It was not until last November that I became very determined to try something if I could find something that would work.  To date, I found that pills, regimented diets, and regular diets did not work for me.  My doctor suggested those foods you buy, but I could not afford that, and I knew they would have too many foods I could not eat.  I cannot eat tomato based sauces or recipes - tomatoes make me want to throw up because of an encounter I had with stewed tomatoes when I was a child, plus they give me bad heartburn as in the case of sauces made with tomatoes, canned tomato pasta, and canned tomato sauce - nor can I eat anything too spicy.  I also dislike most vegetables and especially most of the cooked ones with the exception of cauliflower, glazed carrots, and corn.  Other vegetables I prefer to eat raw if I eat them at all.

The next thing my doctor suggested was sending me to another doctor who would put me on a calorie diet.  See, there is the word again - diet, and again, we were talking about money I did not have.  So, I decided I would look for something I could live with on my own.

The first thing I found was a calorie program that started me at 1200 calories, and I knew that was not something I could start out at.  It was dropping too much too soon and meant instant failure.  I wanted something that I would not fail at and something I would be able to live with over time.  So that program led me to an ad for another program called My Fitness Pal.

Now, My Fitness Pal can be used three ways.  There is the on-line program, an app for your cell phone, and an app for iPad.  Better yet, it started me with 2200 something calories, so I thought I would try it.  One of the best features is that you can scan the bar code of the food you are eating or type in the type of food it is and it gives you the calorie count without having to look it up in a stupid book that only lists the most common types of food.  Second, you can put in your own recipes and it will figure out how many calories are in a serving, and even better, if you find a recipe on-line or on Pinterest that you want to try, you can copy and paste  the URL code and it will match the ingredients (most of the time) for you and also give you a calorie count for a serving.  The one glitch with recipes by other people is that they do not always tell you what constitutes a serving size.  It will say it serves 4 but does not tell what the portion size is and you usually cannot figure out the actual size of a serving until after you make the recipe.

Okay, so I decided I would try this app and see what would happen.  The first thing I discovered was that I certainly exceeded my daily allotted intake, so I had to make some adjustments to what or how much I was eating.

Now, this app is very nice because you can go back to the beginning of your records and see how you have done over time.  In the first month - November to December - I lost 15 pounds and that includes having Thanksgiving dinner, and from December to January - the dreaded Christmas food season - I lost another 9 pounds.  That was a total of 25 pounds in two months.  It was a very good beginning, and, for me, I found it very easy to do; now that does not guarantee it will be as easy for everyone else, and that is something I will address in on coming blogs..  The one surprising thing, but it should not have surprised me, was that for every 10 pounds you lose, your calories are dropped.  Of course, you could tell the app that you did not want to drop the calories, but that simple fact is part of the reason you can keep losing weight.

Overall, I felt very happy with myself because I had finally found something that worked and that I was able to live with because I chose what foods I would and would not eat and nobody became the food police saying 'No, you can't have that,' unless it was me that said it.  Donuts, for instance, I found out how many calories one donut had and decided to avoid them unless it was to have it as a treat, but if I chose to eat one, then I have to give up the calories someplace else during the day.  Do I eat donuts now - no, and I find I do not miss them, and they now have ended up tasting too sweet.