dfwesq Member

Welcome back! And you're in good company - a lot of us gained weight without wanting to. :) By the way, among those who gained unwanted weight during the pandemic, the average was about 30 pounds.

Portion control and slow-down-the-eating victory here! I measured 1/4 cup of peanuts into an empty plastic chewing gum container (the kind that lets you shake out one or two pieces at a time) and used it for snacking. It's the end of the day and I still have peanuts left to enjoy. I'm going to mark the container at the 1/4…

Just wanted to share a couple of recipes. This one, for fennel parmigiana, is terrific. I cut way, way back on the cheese, though. Another good one is tofu braised in tomato sauce. There are several variations on it. Here's a Vietnamese recipe. I make a simplified version by sauteeing some onions and garlic in a skillet,…

I've gone back to taking the stairs at work. After about a week, it's noticeably less difficult.

Glad you had a good time at the park! Being outdoors in nature and in the sun really can be a big mood lifter. Being around other people, too - even if we aren't interacting. I commend you for seeking out therapy, too.

If you want to go the seafood route, a shrimp louie or crab louie salad with several kinds of vegetables would be a tasty option, quick and easy if you use precooked seafood and premade or microwave-steamed vegetables. An egg white omelette with vegetables could be good too, if you are OK having more eggs.

Red peppers are pretty sweet, raw or cooked. Depending on the recipe, braised red cabbage can be sweet - especially with apples and either allspice or cloves.

You might try watching some cooking shows or videos that feature vegetables. You might not ever use any of the recipes you see, but just seeing how a vegetable can be prepared and served can inspire you to try it, or even to try cooking it yourself. I saw Lidia Bastianich cook tomato-braised cauliflower on her show. It…

I lost a notch - not in my belt, but in my watchband!

My regular hikes have a time limit of about an hour. I hike as far as I can get in about half the time - or until I begin to feel tired - then turn around. It's rough terrain and the views are great. The NSV is that my hikes have been getting progressively longer, because I'm going faster. Last week, I almost didn't notice…

Last year I wore a size XL shirt. This morning, I put on a Medium shirt that had been hanging in my closet for several years - and it looks and fits great!

Or buy cheaper belts. With your weight going down, they're temporary anyway. :)

I think that's probably true. Even the equipment where you enter your age, weight, etc. there is bound to be some variation. The manufacturers who decide how their equipment is going to be programmed have every motive to estimate at the high end of that range rather than the low end. That said, 426 calories for an hour of…

Besides hiking and walking for fun, I also try to run errands on foot, instead of driving. A 10-minute walk to the library or post office is 20 minutes of exercise.

I think "lightly active" probably works for you. Examples MFP gives of "lightly active" jobs include teacher, and that seems similar in terms of hours and activity level. The additional steps might count as exercise, depending on what you are doing.

I use olive oil spray. It coats food and surfaces evenly so you can use less. Some people don't care for the propellant in aerosol cans. If that's a problem, you can get a spray that's propellant-free (just pressurized with air). Or a spray pump bottle you fill yourself. If you opt for the refillable bottle, be sure to get…

If you're ordering in a cafe, you could get a regular iced coffee and add nonfat milk. That's one of the drinks I enjoy in hot weather. If they have sugar-free mocha syrup, you could have them add that too. You may be able to get it decaf, if caffeine is an issue. Another option is iced chai tea with some nonfat milk and…

The estimate of the calories you burn every day just by being alive and conscious already includes calories needed for activities like eating, chewing, digesting, etc. If you treated vegetables on some list as zero-calorie or negative-calorie, you'd be deducting those same calories a second time.

Perfume has the added problem of possibly attracting wasps and bees. http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/life/home-garden/2015/05/04/avoid-scents-attract-bees/26877045/ Of course you could always try Axe and see if it repels bees just as much as it does humans.

All that running to the bathroom could be good exercise, I guess. :D Good hydration is helpful for weight loss, I think. And just good for you in general. Drinking a lot more water than you need, probably not very helpful. For me, a gallon would be far too much. For someone doing manual labor in the sun, it might be fine.

Fwiw, soft drinks - especially the sugary kind - are known to erode tooth enamel. That doesn't mean no one should drink them. But if someone is drinking a whole lot of them, throughout the day, it's probably a good idea to cut back. Also, their potential to erode tooth enamel is related to pH, but pH isn't the only thing…

It can be useful in weight loss, especially if you have a habit of drinking sugar-sweetened drinks or eating sweets. It's certainly not a health food, but in moderate amounts it seems pretty harmless. It's probably a good idea not to make it a habit to drink a lot of the stuff regularly though. If you're doing that, it…

Here's his March diary, if anyone would care to look. He did his experiment through March, and has made his diary public. There are some treats in there, but overall it looks pretty healthy to me. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/MityMax96?date=2017-03-01

What I said was I thought your post was "not quite accurate". To me, that means it was close to accurate, but not quite. Then I said what I thought needed clarifying. It sounds like you read that to mean I disagreed 100% and thought what you said was the reverse of the truth. I'll take a chance that it might be helpful to…

I didn't say that, and I've re-clarified already that I never said or intended to say that. I had hoped this would be a useful conversation, but I think it has outlived its usefulness. [edited for formatting]

I think you have that backwards. Such a study would be needed to show that weight loss by itself - rather than the improved diet and/or more exercise that caused someone to lose weight - was responsible for improved overall health. I'm not the one touting weight loss alone as the best way to improve overall health. (To be…

Yes, a healthier diet leads to better health more quickly than weight loss does. No one was arguing that losing weight is bad, just that it takes longer to lose a lot of weight than to change one's diet. I wasn't recommending any kind of template. And I certainly wasn't saying that it's good to be obese. Btw, there's no…

Mine's also lower than the chart says it should be, and my doctor is really happy about it.

In the short term, it might help to find a substitute, like tea. Decaf or herbal are fine if you need that. It doesn't have to be unsweetened - you can add the sweetener of your choice. In the long term, maybe look for ways to relax that don't involve food or drink. Some people do light exercise, listen to music, pray or…