Ugh. So confused....

fat is your friend! stay under 100 carbs, eat .5-.8 grams protein per pound of lean body mass depending on how much you work out and make up the rest of your calories with fat. easy

I think that the more I read about how to balance the foods I put into my body, the more confused I get. Every book I read makes sense to some degree. And I start trying to do match this food with that food every time I eat, and get crazier and crazier. Then one day, it struck me. Cave men didn't know about all of that stuff about macros. They ate fresh foods off of the earth whenever they found it. No food combinations or ratios - just good, whole foods. And when i eat that way, I lose the weight. When you start to get a little crazy and confused, just remember to keep it simple!

yeap, same 20...over and over.

I think we all go around, and up and down, that same mountain.

But we're here. It's needs to become something we can live with everyday. For me it's about intake. I have to get my food choices and portions w/in healthy boundaries, and not go over those limits every other day.

And yeap, it would be so easy if we were simple cavemen...dang those drive-thrus.

Keep going, never give up.

v

I think the best thing you can do, and it's really worked for me, is to KEEP logging your food....even if you KNOW you're failing hard at it. It gives you some perspective.

I don't think that healthy eating is all about deprivation and willpower. It's about learning to enjoy the "bad" foods less often, without cutting them out completely. It's about learning how to counteract these "bad" foods with exercise when you DO indulge. And it's about learning what your major triggers are, which make you indulge in "bad" foods more often than not.

I learned that I CAN go out to eat....I just need to pare down from eating out 3 times a week to maybe once or twice a month.

I CAN eat that slice of cheesecake....just not the whole cake in one sitting. I can buy one slice maybe once a month or once every few months and enjoy the taste for a special treat, but I don't have to have those "treats" every day or several times per week.

Our unhealthy relationships with food usually stems from an all-or-nothing perfectionist attitude. We think we either have to be perfectly depriving ourselves of "bad" foods all the time to be doing it "right", or we think that if we fail once or twice that we may as well give up because it's "not working", instead of looking at the PROGRESS we made. My past "diets" didn't work, because whenever I'd fail, I saw it as a complete failure and not a setback. I saw a stall on the scale as a reason to give up, instead of looking back at how many awesome changes I DID make! I just spent all my energy focusing on the things i failed at!

Does that mean I'm the perfect example of healthy living? Absolutely not, but I definitely see the progression of my thinking. I'm seeing that my meals are healthier than they used to be. I see that I've reduced my times of going out to eat by over half. I don't spend the day beating myself up because I was too tired or ill or depressed to exercise. I don't feel like crap when I only get a 15 minute workout in....I look at it as "I got a 15 minute workout in! That's better than nothing!" It's all about our mental pep talks we give ourselves....or the lack thereof.

Healthy living is 90% mental, 5% diet and 5% exercise.

Focus on healthy foods in appropriate moderation. Lots and lots of vegetables, to start with. Are you getting 3-5 servings a day? Most of us aren't (I know I'm not). Vegetables are full of fiber and nutrients and not a lot of calories. Also try to get 1-2 servings of fruit as well - some sugars, especially when they come from fruit, are okay (a recent article in Parents magazine quotes a child nutritionist who said fruits, and dairy products, have chemicals in them that tell our body what to do with the sugar, so it's not the same as eating sweets). Speaking of dairy, 2-3 servings of lowfat or fat free dairy can be a good part of a balanced diet. Then look at your grains: they should come mostly from whole grains (whole wheat flour and pasta, brown rice, whole rolled oats, etc.) and very little from refined white flours, pastas, rice, potatoes, and other grains. Up to 8 is okay - it helps you get your fiber and nutrients. Also make sure you get enough protein daily: 2-3 servings of lean protein a day is recommended (lean meats, nuts, beans, eggs even). If you focus on eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean protein, etc, you will likely feel satisfied without going overboard on calories, carbs, or fats.

Part of our biggest problem, I think, is not knowing what a serving is. 2/3 to 1 c of veggies is a serving (most often we have less than half of this as our "serving" of vegetables). One slice of bread is a serving. 1/2 c rice, cooked (measure it out, it's not a lot). 2 oz of pasta, dry (about the size of your fist cooked). 1 oz of cheese is the size of a domino - that's a serving. We tend to overestimate how much we're getting in veggies and severely underestimate in carbs (and in meats too - a steak is often way more than the 3-4 oz serving size, for example).
You can focus on what TO eat rather than what to NOT . good luck!!