Your successful weight loss stories. What kept you going?

Just don't eat sugar except in carefully controlled rations.

If you like yogurt get the yogurts with fruit on the bottom that you stir up and limit yourself to one of those a day as your sugar fix. Don't get Greek yogurt even though you know it would kill the Turk neighbor you can't stand to see the containers in your trash bin. Get the live culture stuff from Dannon or one of the other producers because it will help you with your gut in general. By container I mean the 300 calories ones not the big vats.

Get some fresh fruit, peaches, melon, blueberries, strawberries, etc and cut it up into a fruit salad. Put that into the refrigerator in a container and let it sit for a day. Serve it as dessert for a couple of nights in a row instead of the fatty processed sugary stuff that most Americans think of as dessert. Again, this will be good for your gut and it will be good for the family also. A fructose high is a lot different from other sugars. It's much less likely to demand a repeat performance later the same evening. Be careful of portion size, small bowls not salad bowls.

So at this point you have not deprived your body of sugar you have just moved it to a more controlled, less processed form while also conditioning your gut for the changes you need to make.

Eat skinless chicken and fish as your main meal type. Be careful how you dress it and cook it. If spicy food is big in your house then you are better off than if sweet or sweet and sour dressings are the rule. Don't use prepared (bottled) sauces. Get your own spices and use those to flavor to taste. Much less sugar in a home spice recipe than in any bottled solution that is not strictly low sugar. Make salmon a staple in the family diet, eating it at least once a week.

If the kids are fairly healthy at this point and not obese or verging on it make them alternatives like hotdogs and hamburgers a couple of times a week so they don't tie you and your wife to chairs and start dancing around you with meat cleavers. Stick to the same dessert plan with them though. The fruits are much better for them long-term and they're likely getting high sugar snacks independently when they can anyway - no need to overload it at home also.

Watch carbs in the overall diet. Serving quinoa (editing no-brained cous-cous for quinoa), chickpeas, brown rice and other "good" carb alternatives will save a lot of wear and tear on your pancreas and liver over time. Again, spices can make a big difference in how the family deals with a less processed diet. Cumin, chili, red pepper, black pepper, lemon salt, etc, all of these are low sugar alternatives that will spice up what could otherwise be a bland diet.

You're from Turkey, you know how good the alternatives are, stop eating like an American and you will stop looking like an American.

And goat. Goat is good. Ignore the fact that goats are people too and put away your lust and cravings and get a little Roti now and then. It breaks most of the rules but damn it is a party in the mouth. (Not in the usual way, no fornication with the food stock!)

 

He just wrote a more thorough version of what I shouldve said..

 

You're probably insulin sensitive.

Go low carb, you'll drop the weight so fast. The dietary options are great too.

 

Just lost 32 lbs, but it's taken 7 months, portion control, no snacks, no cake, no ice cream, no chips, nothing but I didn't stop drinking!

 

Brad has done a good job with the food portion.

With regards to exercise it does not have to be extreme, my doctor told me to purchase a treadmill that can be raised to a 10 degree incline, incline it to 10 degrees and walk, DO NOT run, set your speed to 2.5 or 3.0 miles per hour. Do that 7 days a week for 20 minutes.

Purchase a set of 25 lbs dumbbells and after you walk for 20 minutes do a circuit weight lift session of three sets, low weight high reps, shoulders, biceps and chest flys.

It sounds like a very simple approach but it absolutely works, I'm down to 185 from being 220, I feel strong and my stamina is through the roof, I have a cheat day as well, I eat pizza and Tiramisu on that day.

Hope this works.

 

That's pretty good

If you're not working out for a specific sport or competition working out doesn't have to be a long time consuming chore.

High intensity interval training is the way to go. It can be done in a short amount of time only a few days a week with some basic exercise that includes strength work.

Combine that with the keto type diet and weight will peel off fast and your numbers will straighten out fast too.
The off day is recommended like Red said and I suppose it can be compared to rebooting you into keto. Being on Keto straight over a long time is rough.

I'm insulin sensitive and get inflammation easily and this is a real help there. Or I'd be headed towards diabetes and hypertension. It was close when I caught it. Sugar, processed food, refined carbs, and excessive dairy took it's toll.

 

I don't take a day off from working out, except when I'm sick, but I do take a day off from eating well.

You make a great point about the working out for a specific sport or competition, that's where I had to make adjustments and not make it a chore, otherwise I would have quit.

Glad you caught yourself before becoming a diabetic, it's a tough condition to live with. my father in law had it and I felt bad for him, so regimented with everything.

We take our health for granted when we don't have to think about everything we consume and how it can hurt us.

 

It's not as hard as you think. The tough part is getting started and being patient. Once you start to feel and see the difference you can gain momentum. At that point it can get pretty easy as you focus on the continued positive results and you actually really enjoy the natural food more and more. There's so much good stuff to eat with out resorting to junk. That takes work tho.
Caution tho, cheating can derail you easy and it's hard to get back on track. I space my reboots over a much longer time frame unless I'm at the weight I want to be at. Then Red's schedule is ideal.

 

Gotta change your habits overall. Start slower and go from there. Dont jump in head first, youll burn out. After a while youll find you won't even be craving things you use to

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That' s the hardest part, imo, Brook,, it's 99 % mindset and determination

 

Set goals for yourself, start with small incremental goals that you can reach, start with adjustments to your eating habits for a couple of days, then build it up to a week, then a couple of weeks...etc

The one thing you have to do is start working out, it's about burning calories and reducing caloric intake. Once you see the results as others have mentioned, you will be motivated to continue.

Even if you have a setback, don't give up, get back on course and continue with your routine.

I don't eat salads either and I managed to lose over 35 lbs, I simply found other ways to make up for not eating salads.

I make ground turkey in a skillet with spaghetti squash, cherry tomatoes, pepper medley, onions, minced garlic and spinach, I buy brown rice pasta as a substitute for regular pasta, it gives me a good mixture of greens without making me feel like I'm a rabbit.


If you need to reach out to us don't hesitate, I know what it's like to get into a bad cycle.

Keep us posted on your progress.

 

Baby steps, Brook.

Make your own lunch and bring it to work. Choke down an apple every day when you need to snack. Drop processed foods from your routine wherever possible. Get a half hour of some kind of exercise every day. A little will go a long way. As you start to feel better, and you will, you’ll be able to hit it harder.

 

This is both the hard part and easy to do. Don't go on a diet - change your lifestyle instead.

It's hard in that you feel like you're giving something up when you do this. You used to eat a lot of stuff that you're just not going to eat now.

It's easy to do because you just change the shopping lists to match the new lifestyle and set new rules on food eaten outside the home.

It's a lot easier when walking by the local ice cream shoppe to just say "that's not what I do" and keep moving, instead of "oh, is now the day I'm going to have an ice cream? The diet has room for a little bit of cheating and I've been on it for awhile."

Eat a meal just before you go food shopping. You will stick to your list then and avoid impulse buys because you are not hungry as you shop. Also, if the water in your area is not the tastiest buy lime juice, lemon juice, even limeade or lemonade and a bunch of bottled water or carbonated water. If you go the limeade, lemonade route make sure you dilute like 1/8 or higher, 1 part juice and 7 parts water/carbonated water, before drinking.

A lot of the time when your body says it's hungry it's really thirsty instead. Try a tall cold glass of whatever dilute beverage you prefer and often the food craving will go away. Again, this is good for your gut and your body. Make your gut healthier and the rest of you will follow.

The trick to mental toughness is to pave the way for your mind to make the right decisions. It's hard to stick to a diet, particularly if the plan is to eventually come off of it. It's much easier just to stick to your lifestyle choices. In the first case you have a lot of what, when, where going on in the background. In the second case you just have a "no" sitting there with no "yes" option or timing to fret about. Much less mental energy expended that way.

Giving up goats is going to be hard. That's the struggle you need to have.

 

The gut craves what the gut is used to having. As you say, when you change what you feed the gut you reduce the cravings for what you used to feed the gut.

 

This is 100 percent true. Thats why changing eating habits is so important

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