Change your mind

Can we please get over all this talk about "cheating" and being "bad?" I think that'll kill a person's resolve to lose weight and get into shape faster than anything. There is no one food, one indulgence, one day spent imitating a slug that'll make you or keep you overweight. Everything is cumulative. Losing weight isn't rocket science--if you burn off more than you take in, you'll lose weight. There are ways to speed this up (aerobic exercise is the fastest fat burner) or do it more effectively (strength training will build muscles that increase your metabolic rate). By the same token, we all got where we are by doing the opposite--eating more than we burned off. It didn't happen overnight, so as we continue on our way to becoming gorgeous, svelte, and healthy we need to keep our eye on the big picture. There aren't any foods that are off limits. You could eat nothing but ice cream sundaes and still lose weight as long as you burn off more ice cream sundae calories than you take in (you'll probably feel like crap, too, but that's beside the point). You may know your food weaknesses and choose to stay away from them. That's fine. But you could also choose to give in to your weaknesses, as long as you budget for them in your total calorie intake (thus my daily tablespoon of chocolate chips). Think of it like scrapbook supplies or fabric--if you bought all the scrapbook supplies or pretty fabric you wanted, you'd pretty soon be declaring bankruptcy. So you limit yourself, and you know what your limits are based on your overall income. Same thing with food--spend a couple of days honestly filling in the food intake and activity logs on mypyramidtracker.gov and you'll be able to get a good idea of exactly how many calories you are eating and how many you are burning. You only have to do it a few times before you get a good sense of how you are doing and what you can "afford" in the way of indulgences. Last night I had Ben and Jerry's ice cream. A serving (half a cup) has 250 calories. I couldn't stick to my calorie budget with that, so I had a quarter cup.

That's another thing. You really do have control over what you eat. No one is forcing those Twizzlers down your throat, and you do have the ability to eat two and walk away. What's more, after doing it a few times, it's (I hate this word) empowering. My inclination is to gorge on sweets, but it's really nice to know that I can eat a tablespoon and even though I want more, I can say no.

I said it isn't rocket science, but it also isn't easy and it is never quick. I spent time this weekend reading old copies of Fitness magazine. My favorite feature is about real women who have lost and kept off weight. Many of these women have lost a ton of weight (100 pounds or more) but most of them were like us--wanting to lose 20 to 50 pounds. There were a couple of universals in all of their stories: they started slowly and made significant changes in both their diet and their exercise over time, and with nearly all of them it took a year or more to lose all the weight. Didn't matter how much they had to lose--it still took that long. Another thing: only 5 to 15% of people who lose weight keep it off for a year or more. Of the women featured in this magazine, 84% kept their weight off over time. The way they did this was by *never* going back to their old habits. We all know this logically, but those of us who have lost weight before still reached our goal (or close enough) and then went right back to eating too much and not exercising.

So the other thing we need to stop doing is setting a date for when we'd like to reach our goal. One to two pounds a week is normal, healthy weight loss. Everyone has weight loss plateaus. Even if we've all lost 20 pounds by Christmas, we can't then eat all the Christmas cookies we want. Start thinking now about how to handle Halloween candy in your house and Christmas goodies, not just for this year but for all the upcoming years (personally my plan is to eat a bunch but work out more often!). I think by not having a time goal we'll be able to keep our eye on the overall goal better because we haven't set ourselves up for failure. If I know that my goal is to be between 135 and 140 pounds, then it doesn't matter too much if I haven't reached that weight in 13 weeks or if I gain a bit one week.

So that's my rant for the day. I also got a lot of other information from the magazines about weight loss and exercise, but I'll save it for later.