I lost weight when I jumped off the excuse train

When I tell people that I have lost 100 lbs I get a lot of different responses. Most are very positive but a few have an echo of resentment. I have heard comments such as: "well it was easier for you because you (insert reason why it's supposedly easier for me). I can't lose weight because (insert excuse why it is supposedly harder for them)."

Now this doesn't bother me personally. I have lost the weight and no amount of negativity one can take that success away. I don't even honestly care if someone does think I somehow just got lucky. I know the amount of work that went into it. I had and have just as many, maybe more, obstacles to contend with as anyone. 

What concerns me, and I'm going to be blunt here, is the delusional rationalizing that that one CANNOT lose weight because of circumstances in his life. Some conditions may make it more challenging. My sleep apnea and back issues didn't help. Some issues may (MAY) make it harder to see results. I'm not even convinced of that. But nothing prevents someone from eating less and healthier. 

People have struggled with the same health issues through history, plus more  than we have now. Virtually none of them had weight problems. Look at the old pictures. If anything, they were underweight, regardless of country or culture. So why then are so many of us, with the same problems, overweight or obese? Because the health conditions have little or nothing to do with weight gain. That is caused by overeating, eating junk, too much screen time and too little activity. 

And excuse-making. That is huge. I have penned volumes on my own ride on the excuse train. And there's more to come. Another pair of roadblocks is blaming others and  looking everywhere but in our own backyards for change. Those are definitely going to require further blog posts. 

But I will leave you this thought for today. Cuz that's all we have...now, this moment. If you are struggling with shedding pounds, you may be on the excuse train. If so, get off at the next station. Or better yet, jump! Every time you start to think of why you can't, shouldn't have to, don't really need to lose weight, stop. Each time you start rehearsing the litany of reasons why you have weight problems, why you are your helpless and why it's actually someone else's fault, slam on those brakes. That's a side track you don't want to go down. Believe me: been there. 

What I had to do was to revise my attitude and rewrite the script with proactive things I can do, right now, to effect healthy change in my life. Try it... It'll revolutionize your life! 

I love you guys! And despite being the least interested in hockey of anyone I know, I nevertheless use Red Green's closing quote: keep yer stick on the ice and remember I'm pulling for ya ❤️ --mar

Portion control may be the most important tool in weight loss

I've written a lot about the importance of portion control in weight loss. But I could write volumes more. Here are 5 crucial issues to remember about food intake. 

1) Big portions make big people. If I overeat, and don't burn it off I'm going to gain weight. Very few people use enough energy to balance extra intake with body size. You might be surprised to learn how few calories are actually burned by exercise. That's why exercise alone does not lose weight.

2) Majority metabolism rules. Sure there are some people like my husband who eat whatever they want and don't gain weight. Some have a higher metabolism or actually burn a lot more calories than they realize. Some would like to gain weight but can't.  But for the majority more food in means more weight on. 

3) It's about habits. I'm not talking the occasional overeating. I'm talking habitually eating enough to feed two to three people. I'm talking cooking far too much and having too many leftovers around. I have been laid up with shoulder surgery and been blessed with meals from friends. I appreciate them all but esp those that bring two brownies for dessert not a whole pan. Stuck on the couch, the extra goodies call out to me to eat them. And I don't need the extra 15 lbs when I'm already having trouble moving 😳

4) Stomach stretching is real. Remember the old saying about stretching your stomach if you overeat? It's true. If I continually accustom my stomach to larger portions it will expand to accommodate. And I will feel hungry even though I have eaten a reasonable amount. 

5) Get back to the good old days. In 1950, a McDonald's meal was one small single hamburger, small fries and a 7 oz Coke. In 2021, those portion sizes have tripled to quintupled. And don't even get me started on the buffets. If there's one positive take away from the Covid-19 pandemic, it's that we can get ourselves out of a habit of eating those monstrous restaurant portions and back to smaller healthier intake. But it has to start at home. Here's how.

6) I said five tips this is a bonus lol. Read labels, count calories and do the math. Food manufacturers put RDA (recommended daily allowances) on their labels. Take advantage of the research and use the data to plan meals and portions of reasonable sizes. Track how many calories you are eating. (11 x your goal weight daily is a good target). Be sure to get all the nutrients. This is how I lost 100 lbs. 

Love y'all! Be well --mar

Deconstructing Cravings: Understanding why you crave things and healthy hunger vs destructive addiction

Some of the biggest roadblocks to weight loss are food cravings. Today, we're going to take apart those cravings to find out what they are, what why we have them and what we should do about them. 

What is a craving? It's basically an intense hunger for a certain food. It can become obsessive and overwhelming. Some cravings can feel like drug addiction, in intensity. This is true especially of refined or processed sugar which acts very much like heroin on the brain. It releases the same pleasure sensations, like dopamine, as certain drugs do. So cravings are bad, right? Well, yes and no. 

Why do we crave things? Not all cravings are created equal. And they are not triggered by the same the same factors. It depends upon the person, situation, duration and the specific craving. There is a difference between craving and addiction. If the person chronically craves a certain thing like chocolate, cannot get enough of it and still longs for it even after consuming a large amount, this a food addiction. If the craving is acute (temporary) it may actually indicate that you are low on and in need of the desired food. 

Is my craving good or bad? Follow these steps to check

--First, decide if it's acute or chronic. If you randomly want pizza today, that's acute. But if you think about sweets all day long, that's chronic. If you had a donut (or three) for breakfast, cookies with lunch, candy for a snack and a piece of cake for dessert and later before bed, that is a sugar addiction. You probably still want more and have developed a tolerance for it, so that you never hit satisfaction. Even half that much, on a daily basis, will lead to insulin resistance (pre-diabetes) as your body cannot process it all. 

--Next, think about what you are craving. Are you really hungry for pasta? It could mean several things. Pasta is typically what we think of as a comfort food. It's warm, nourishing, often homemade and probably in some form, a food we remember from childhood. Are you feeling your age and missing your youth? Are you in need of a hot home-cooked meal? Are you hungering for lasagna or missing your mom? Not that any of those are bad or that eating lasagna won't make your feel better. It's just that you may be missing a bigger picture or using to fill other gaps. 

Decide what you are really craving. Are you lonely? Sometimes food is the friend we long for. Are you tired? Do you really need a nap, or a break or a vacation?  Are you depressed? Eating sugar, for example, can make you feel a little better. For awhile. Then the the spike drops and you may feel even worse than before. Or you feel guilty because you over-indulged and ate the entire package of cookies instead of enjoying just a few. 

--Determine whether you are craving, addicted or hungry. I know that sounds like a no-brainer. Of course I'm hungry, you're thinking, duh. But it's not always that simple. If you are actually lonely, tired or depressed, you're not craving food but something to meet those needs. If you have a food addiction, you are not really hungry. You have a chemical imbalance.  

So what should I do? If you're hungry, you need of nourishment and the "craving" is your body saying what it needs. In the example of pasta, it's comforting partly because it's also the perfect meal. I know, you Keto folk eschew carbs. But the fact remains that it does contain all the food groups, with a few additions. Chicken broccoli alfredo for example hits all the nutritional needs: starch for quick energy, protein for sustained energy, vegetables for vitamins and minerals. Just go easy on the butter and cheese. And since it's so common a craving, the body must know it needs those ingredients. 

If you have a chronic craving you can't satisfy, you have an addiction. These cravings are almost always for processed, chemically enhanced foods with refined sugar and even fake sugar, HFCS, MSG, color or flavor additives, transfat or hydrogenated fat. Like drugs, these chemicals pirate your brain, so it mistakes them as necessary. They manufacture a need for themselves, causing you to overdose yet not get enough. Your body can't handle these chemicals which have now become toxins, and they start taking out your endocrine system, liver, kidneys, circulation, digestion, nerves. Your body tries to protect the organs by storing fat and insulating them with it. Your brain says go, while your body says NO. 

The way to break this addiction cycle is to detox and retrain your brain with a 12 step type program. More on that later. The left image is me at 100+ pounds overweight and right is after weight loss. You can see in the left, how inflamed my face is with stored fat. 

Spectre at the feast, or out, out damn scale!

Hi everyone! Back with another episode of the weight loss blog, summer 2020. I've been working on weight maintenance for 6 years, since I lost 100 pounds in 2014. And to quote (misquote) ZZ Top, "I've been up. I've down. Dallas, Texas, Hollywood. Lord, I'm just looking to avoid some tush." (Get it? Pun! Pause for laughs. What, not funny? Hey, don't judge. You try writing the comedy lines a weight loss blog!) Anyhoo, my point being that I've thought and done this diet thing from all angles. I've gained some back and lost it and gained... You get it. 

And lemme just say that what gets really old is having to constantly think weight wherever I go. No matter what I eat, when or where, there's this nagging voice in my head telling me not to overindulge. Oh sure, I can throw caution to the wind. I can eat whatever I want. Sort of. But I know it will come hunt me down sooner or later. The inescapable truth is that I can either watch what I eat for the rest of my life or run the risk of putting all those pounds back on again. 

Yes, the spectre at the feast is annoying. Sometimes I wish she'd just shut up and leave me alone. But then she reminds me that she has my best interests at heart. She knows how hard I worked to get to a healthy weight. And she doesn't want me to backslide just for a bit of indulgence that I really didn't enjoy that much anyway. 

Cuz yeah, truth is, it's not worth it. The candy, cookies, chips, etc really don't taste as good as I think they're going to (except seafoam and marzipan, lol those always meet expectations!) But most everything else lets me down. That's not just head talk. Try it sometime for yourself. Visualize some treat or other that you love. Anticipate it. Notice how after the first bite or do, it's not as satisfying as you thought it would be? That's what I call saturation theory (more on that later). 

So while I would sometimes like to pull a Lady Macbeth and wash that scale right out of my life, I realize that having just the right amount of guilt over eating the wrong things and fear of getting back into old habits is not a bad thing.  They are reality checks, intended to help me stay strong. So I've decided to make friends with the spectre at the feast and be grateful for her. 

Not to say that I will always make perfect food choices. Sometimes, honestly, I don't always know what those are. Sometimes my body feels better after a handful of M&Ms. Like it knows what it needs. It's as if it was designed intelligently by a Higher Power who knows what He's doing (ya think?) But I'm glad to have that still, small voice encouraging me to make mindful choices. I feel very confident and powerful when I see that I control food and it doesn't control me. All part of the Divine Plan, I'm thinking. I wish the very best for all of you, my dear friends. Thank you for reading these little markings of mine. Drop me a line to say hello <3 (PS we are smiling under out masks. And I don't know what my husband is looking at, lol)

Covid 19 weight loss update: Accepting ch-ch-changes and getting back to work

In today's episode of my weight loss journey, Covid 19, sooner vs. later or wake up and smell the coffee (long, painful occasionally digressive story to follow, but with happy resolution)

Backstory: I've always had (or been told I had) weight issues but as a teen in the late 70s, early 80s, this meant something very different. People in general weighed less overall back then. 135 pounds for a 5'3" girl, was overweight. I felt ashamed of being "fat" and in college, I basically didn't eat. I began my first pregnancy at age 22, at 110 pounds and always shed pounds quickly after 4 babies.

Odyssey Begins: In 2001 and 2004, I lost stillborn daughters, experienced insane anxiety and depression, took Paxil, was at times suicidal, was diagnosed at Pine Rest with Bi-polar 2. Yes, that's a thing apparently. It means you alternate between happy and sad, but not as happy or sad as Bi-polar. So pretty much normal? I declined the offer of DepaKote. Turns out my suicidal thoughts, which prompted me to check myself into Pine Rest were PMS driven. My husband called this and tried to tell the psychiatrist that I severe PMS (actually now called PMD) but was ignored.

Dark Passage: Fast forward to 2011 (I say fast forward because much of time between '04 and then is a Paxil-induced near-comatose blur. I was an emotional leper, numbed and not comfortably.) I don't recall exactly what woke me up, but when I did, it wasn't the debatable 10 pounds overweight of the 80s. I had packed on 120 lbs and was clinically and morbidly obese.

Tunnel Lightens: By 2014, I had lost 100 pounds. You see me at my biggest (middle) and after weight loss in these pictures. I did it while being a sedentary at-home worker (a fact I'm rather proud of). It was thanks to my higher power whom I choose to call God, AA type legwork, calorie counting, supplements and mental resets.

Ch-ch-changes or what the hell just happened?? By the pricking of my thumbs, something...well, not wicked, but certainly weird this way comes. Here am thinking I'm doing great, maintaining weight loss but then I start to feel bigger. Clothes fit a little differently. Tummy (which has always plagued me) seems bigger. What changed? Quite a bit and not much. Lemme splain. After losing weight, it got easier to cut corners than calories. I got lazier with portion control and eating what is, for me, kryptonite (the 4C--cheese, chocolate, chips, crackers) Also, our schedule has changed and not for the better. I'm working till 9-10 p, not going to bed till 1am, back up at 4:30 am and sometimes napping. Days off, we don't go to bed till 4 am because that's how husband has to do it when he works (5pm to 5 am). And let me tell you, lack of sleep and a wonky nocturnal schedule play hell with your biorhythms and weight gain. What's not changed is that I'm not really eating that much more, and in some cases less, because in this Covid-19 pandemic, we aren't going out to eat. And I'm exercising more doing Shipt rather than being stuck behind a desk 6 ft from the fridge. Go figure. I think it's the screwed up sleep and when I'm eating (late at night).

Covid 19 = quaran 20. So, 2020 and I'm doing a reality check again. I've for sure put on weight. Not a lot as you can see by <--this Feb 2020 pic. Some of it is probably due to building muscle doing Shipt rather than being desk-bound.  But last summer's clothes are tighter and that's a wake-up klaxon. Cuz I don't want to gain the quaran-20.

What I learned on my summer vacation: To boil this down to brass tacks (My husband's AKA Mr. Malaprop's famous line) while it sucks to have a sucky schedule and Covid 19 sucks in general, I've discovered that I CAN lose weight again, if I want to. All the things that worked still work. And what's really great is that it will be so much easier. I won't have to shed 100 pounds because I caught it in time. Ergo, the title of this post...Sooner vs. Later.


What not to do (and a bit of what to do): If you're like me, you default to excuse-making rather than acceptance. You blame your clothes (they shrunk) your scale (damn thing's busted) your mirror (it came from a carnival fun house). You justify the weight gain (it's only a few pounds). And you may be right about all those things. But do you really want to ride the denial train till it crashes? I would rather derail it now when it is so much easier. So it's back on the bandwagon for me. I'll be sharing some tips and tricks on this but in the meantime, feel free to comment, ask questions and share ideas in the little box thing below. 😍😍

My How-to-lose 100 pounds Diet: Fasting, religious diets, food swaps and more

In 2014, I lost 100 pounds and a lot of people have asked me, "so how'd ya get from <--- to ---->?"  I don't follow a specific weight loss diet because there's no one meal plan that hits everything I'm looking for.  Here are the basic tenets of my "how to lose 100 pounds" plan.

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN USE AND LEAVE THE REST

Al-Anon says "take what you like and leave the rest." My eating strategies are culled from a variety of weight loss programs. The Ketogenic (Keto) Diet, South Beach, hypertension DASH diet, paleo, Mediterranean Diet, Weight Watchers and more.

FOOD SWAPS

Some of my favorite weight loss tricks are food swaps. Using the "eat this, not that" and "hungry girl" concepts, I create recipes that trade fatty, sugary, salty, junky ingredients for healthier, low-calorie ones.

RELIGIOUS FASTS

I also follow many of the dietary fasts and restrictions of other religions. I'm not a Muslim, but Islam's halal foods are typically healthier. So are Jewish kosher foods. I am Catholic and observe Lent, but I try to do it all year-long. I try to live and eat simpler as Buddhists and Hindus do.

Even doctors recommend some fasting (I say "even" because I got very little help with weight loss from the medical community, aside from advice to get gastric bypass surgery. So I don't put much faith in traditional medicine.

VEGAN AND DIABETIC
Arguably, vegan or at least vegetarian is how we should all be eating. I'm by no means vegan, but I have tried to reduce processed foods. And I'm not diabetic but before I lost weight my glucose number was getting higher. I was tentatively diagnosed with pre-diabetes (aka insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome). So I try to avoid refined sugar as if I had Type 2 diabetes.

SUPERBOWL FOODS

"Bowling" is not only a sport but a trendy eating style just now. It just means eating food in bowls, typically based on salad and soup. I've begun eating less starch-based meals and foods on bread and swapped with vegetables. Our best meals feature high protein and lots of veggie varieties. And we love to make big pots of warm, nourishing soups bursting with herbs and low in sodium.

Exercise is good but diet is crucial in weight loss

A few years ago, a major carbonated bevvie manufacturer (Coca-Cola, I'm talkin' to you) tried to feed us line that diet wasn't the key to weight loss. No, no, they said. You don't  have to count calories (sic) stop drinking our pop, you just have to exercise. Well, I don't know how many execs at Coke are overweight but I was...over 100 pounds so. The image on the left is me in 2008.

And I'm here to tell you that I could have exercised all day but without amending my food intake, it would have done no good. I'd still be tipping the scales at over 200 pounds instead of the healthier 140 I am now (see pic on right). In fact, I might be heavier because all that exercise would make me hungrier and without the food limiting part, I would gain.

Where they found "scientists" to back up this malarky, I don't know. But I think we can see that Coke had a clear agenda to keep us drinking their sugary drinks. What is harder to accept is that their findings might not be true. Because I think most of want to believe in a plan that lets us keep eating the way we want and still lose weight. And many of us don't care that we are getting fat and fatter.

At this juncture, I'm going to digress for a moment. I know I said earlier that I hate the word "fat" when applied to people and that we shouldn't use it. But there's the reality component too: ya gotta look the issue in the eye and be honest before you can see what needs to be done. You can change the cadre: overweight, plus-size, large, heavy etc., but you can't change the problem. Obesity is a pandemic more dangerous than any we've ever seen. It took me looking in the mirror and accepting how fat I was, before I could begin the healing process.

Okay, so back to changing eating habits. Yes, I said that many of us don't care how fat we're getting. I'm talking to myself here too. There are many reasons for the downward spiral-- feelings of failure, despair, inability to see the problem, to name just a few. In my case, the cause of the apathy was that I was on an antidepressant after losing two stillborn daughters. It didn't make me less depressed. It made me emotionally deaf, dumb and blind. My senses were so dulled by the drug that I was unaware of my ballooning body. Or maybe not unaware. I knew I was gaining but I couldn't seem to stop it and I felt defeated. I knew what I needed to do but I just lacked the something-or-other to do it. The antidepressant pirated my mind to such an extent that I felt like a prisoner to it.

I had to quit the Paxil before I could make any significant change. I will blog more on that process and how horrendous it WASN'T later. Once I came out of the drug-induced fog, the path became a lot clearer. I discovered that I did have the whatever-it-is to shed the weight. It wasn't easy but it was nowhere near as difficult as I'd believed it would be.

I love you guys! Be well