What One Small Change Made the Biggest Difference?

BioQueen wrote: »

The biggest thing for me was to stay on track. I can be an all-or-nothing type of person with my eating and exercise, so if I stop logging then it will be a while until I come back, and I would come back having gained weight. I tended to stop logging during stressful times or during big life changes. This time around the biggest change was that I log ALL days, even the bad ones (I wouldn't do this before). Even if I wasn't 100% accurate or forgot to log everything, I logged on every day. This way, I quickly see when there is a problem and I am able to fix it quickly with minimal, if any, damage to my progress. It also reminds me that just because I have a bad day (or couple of days), I won't ruin everything I've worked for.

Oh yeah, definitely this ^

Batch cooking and single-serve packaging of what I make.

SherryTeach wrote: »

DuckReconMajor wrote: »

Chewing each bite 30 times, or until it's just not feasible to chew it any longer.
Not letting my water cup sit empty.

You count all your chews? How can you converse with people over meals? Or even really enjoy food? I'm genuinely curious about how that works.

My father used to make me do this growing up?

Measuring my food portions has helped me tremendously! I never know how much I was eating until I started measuring it. It has made all the difference in the world in my wellness journey.

Logging all my food...even when I know that it's not going to be pretty!

SherryTeach wrote: »

DuckReconMajor wrote: »

Chewing each bite 30 times, or until it's just not feasible to chew it any longer.
Not letting my water cup sit empty.

You count all your chews? How can you converse with people over meals? Or even really enjoy food? I'm genuinely curious about how that works.

Yeah that is annoying. You get better at sort of multitasking it where you don't really need to concentrate on it much, and eventually the habit forms and you don't really have to think about it at all.

If eating during a conversation you need to focus on you'll end up waiting to take a bite which in itself makes you end up eating less which can help. Or you just take a break from counting since the conversation is going to slow down your eating anyway.

As for enjoying I found i enjoyed the food much more when i chewed longer because i took more time to savor it instead of just swallowing after several bites.

1. Focusing on the journey, not the goal. When I have stumbles, I do the next right thing and remember how far I have come on the journey of healthy living! 2. Being mindful of the difference between true physical hunger and a desire to use food to meet needs that would be better met a different way.

karenalyssa9 wrote: »

Measuring my food portions has helped me tremendously! I never know how much I was eating until I started measuring it. It has made all the difference in the world in my wellness journey.

It does!

e4057852 wrote: »

Measuring & weighing, reading labels for calories, logging what was eaten, setting early goals, telling myself I can do this, and having others who were trying to do it too. Even though some of those stalled, having support makes all the difference. Remember to return the favor.

Meat salads. Salad + meat + dressing gives me enough food to feel full (mmm, veggies), low enough in carbs I don't have to worry about it (recovering from pancreatic organ failure, my response to carbs is crazy, not a low carb nazi in general, I have specific health issues around digesting carbs), and high enough in fat to keep me feeling full. I think I'm down a good 80 lbs from having a meat salad for lunch or dinner most nights. From a lovely hand crafted seared steak with beautiful farmers market veggies, to oil packed tuna dumped on a pre-mixed Marketside salad. It's been awesome.

Also, they're about half the calories of what I was doing before, so there's that, as well.

For me, it was more of a mental thing. For SO long I wanted to be fit and healthy and energetic and workout but for some reason I always came up with an excuse to eat junk food and be lazy. I was unhappy with my body but I never did anything to improve it. So, my small (huge) change was to realize that instead of changing my body because I hated it, I was going to become healthy and change my body because I love it. Once I realized that loving my body helped me to take better care of it, it became so much easier to workout and eat right. Before, I would put myself down and say, "Well I'm never going to look better so I may as well eat all of this junk food." Now I say, "I am reaching so many goals and becoming stronger every day. Fueling my body with healthy food is going to help me reach my goals even faster!"

I also plan my entire day around food/working out. That may sound ridiculous to some but it's helped me beyond belief. I plan out all of my food for each day on the night before and plan what time I'm going to workout as well. "If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail." Good luck on your fitness journey!

Knowing that I don't have to be 100% healthy and allow myself to have things that I want as long as I work it off. I don't have to have all or nothing mentality. Slower change but change nonetheless!

I totally changed my diet (as in what you eat, not what you do to loose weight). There will be many people who voice up to tell you that you don't have to stop eating your favorite foods. You just have to east less of it blah, blah, blah... blah, blah. And that is true. I've lost weight that way. But it was HARD. I mean the pizza is only partly eaten... there's another slice right there... Mom brought home donuts, sure i can eat just one (or 4). And of course I can't live without X, Y or Z...

Screw it. Why deal with having to resist those foods or only having 5 bites when there's 20 in the bowl? I set a formula for myself. 4oz of lean meat, 2 servings of veggies. I eat 4 times a day. My meals are 300-350. and yes you can look and see that i eat ice cream but it's not the ice cream that I used to eat. The amount of energy I have is amazing and it's really hard not to be happy.

My point is that because I changed what I was eating I don't have cravings for the food I used to eat. My mother can bring in donuts and I'm not even tempted. I watch tv commercials and feel nothing. I don't need a bite so I can savor it. This is the third I've tried loosing weight and this time has been the easiest by far in regards to food.