Tag: Weight Watchers

Fitness, Water, wellness

Story Time- Eat More

Beth

Tonight we are going to have a special treat! I asked my good friend Judy to share a story with all of you.

Eat more

My name is Judy, and since having children, I’ve had an issue with weight gain.   Growing up, I was a skinny kid, and  even as an adult I had no weight problems, except after I started having children.  I had good results with my efforts in the beginning of whatever I would try, but it never lasted.  I watched friends and family be on the same plan and cheat themselves into the next century, while I did everything I was supposed to and nothing seemed to happen beyond the first initial loss.  I’m really good at sticking to things even if they don’t work at first to stick it out.  However, sometimes I would “cheat.” I’ve noticed that when I would “cheat,” I would lose weight.  I didn’t “cheat” often but every once in a while I would.  Then, even that stopped working.

One example of my weight problem was  two years ago. My sister and I at different times, were on doctor prescribed weight loss plans.  She lost 38 pounds and I lost 8!  Mad?! You bet I was!  I didn’t get it.  I weighed, measured, followed and didn’t even sniff a “cheat” but then after defeat took over I just gave up.

So here we are, coming up to present day. After an unusual year,  with tons of stress (including some major grief) and 2 major operations that caused me to be on too many antibiotics (14) over the past year.  I figured my gut was not happy as I was bloated like never before.  One thing I knew I could do was get my gut happy again. So I began to take my probiotics and stayed away from sugars and acidic foods/drinks.  I found that my USANA supplements helped me have the energy and immune health I needed so badly in order to heal.  Then, all of a sudden I began gaining weight for no reason. I was not over eating or cheating! My frustration was growing.

I know that at my age loosing weight is not easy, and I had listened to my parents in their 80’s still talk about loosing weight.  I didn’t want to be thinking of this anymore.  I’ve decided I’m who and I am and I love it.  Maybe it’s just how it is.  Screw the skinny jeans and cute clothing.  I’ll just be happy with me and end the pressure of it all.  Besides, I could not possible try or do anthing else diffrent.  Or could I?

While visiting my friend Beth (blog owner) I learned that while my protein shakes were the only thing that gave me a balanced meal and started my day off right, I was using only 2/3 of the amount I was supposed to! I told Beth how many calories I was eating, and she said I was not eating nearly enough. She helped me download MyFitnessPal (which is free) and I put in my height and weight and it recommended I eat almost 2x as many calories as I was. After the shock wore off, Beth helped adjust that a little lower so I could manageably eat that many calories. I thought she was nuts that I needed to eat more to lose weight.  Beth explained that larger bodies need more fuel.

In less than a week, I’ve lost 4 lbs! I am eating more, and eating quality! Guess what?  My bloat has gone down too!  I didn’t think I was eating so little, I ate what I thought was the right portion but I would be hungry for the next meal. .   I thought I was doing fairly well.  Overall, I don’t use processed foods, I eat lots of fresh foods and good sources of protein.  What really got me was that I’m dairy and gluten free and when I made those changes, I did not lose 1 oz. of weight.  I would talk to multiple doctors about it, one doctor (who was new to me) told me to get biatric surgery, within the first 5 minutes (Rude anyone?).

I’m excited to actually get healthier.  If I knew that eating MORE was the key,  that would have been easy.  It took one person who was not afraid to tell me what she thought, to start on the right path.  After all the years I’ve wasted, cried over, all the money I’ve spent, all the time beating myself up for failed attemps.  All to find out that every doctor and so called professional I sought out, failed me (because they did not ask more questions, or listen to me).

Be kind to yourself. In my I needed to eat more to lose weight. I will have to adjust my calorie intake as I lose weight. Now, this is that easy for me, for once.  Finally, I feel energized and empowered with a new sense of eating for joy, knowing I’m going to actually have results.  I will continue to learn about the carbs, sugar, protein ratio but I’ll get there.  It’s been less than a week and I’m esctatic!

Be kind to yourself.

Judy M. from New York

 

If you would like more information on anything mentioned here, send me a message! I would love to help you! – Beth

Fitness, Health

Eating Healthy, Being Healthy

Beth

So often we find ourselves surrounded by a myriad of diet programs.  I think I have seen the Weight Watchers commercial a million times and I am sick of seeing it. However, a small caveat is that I am not about to bash Weight Watchers.  I have read a ton of blogs that talk about how awful Weight Watchers is and how they give people a complex about their weight.  I will not bash a program like that.  I see some friends are eating Paleo, which is not just a diet, I think more a lifestyle change.  Some have gone all organic, you get the picture I’m sure.  How do you decide what is healthy when there are so many programs and techniques that are screaming at the top of their lungs that they are the right way.  You stop, breath and go back to basics.

Common sense taught us many things, we learned that certain foods as yummy as they may be are not as healthy for us as other and should be eaten in moderation.  I love chocolate and ice cream, does that mean I eat a gallon of chocolate ice cream everyday? No! I would be sick if I tried that.  We grew up always being taught that fruits and vegetables are good for us. That is a good place to start.  So maybe part of being healthy is to eat fruits and vegetables more.  Most diet plans will agree that these are important so we can start there.  We also grew up being told we needed to drink water.  We know that we need to drink more water, so this also seems to be a good place to start.  We all know that candy and sweets are not good for you.  We remember being told growing up that we couldn’t eat all the candy we wanted or if we ate a bunch of candy we learned that this was not always smart based on the stomach ache we had afterwords. So maybe if we want to eat healthy we need to cut back on some of those things.  If we really wanted to just be healthier, no focus on losing weight we could go back to basics and we know what we should and shouldn’t eat.

Now for myself, I am trying to lose weight.  I know that there are people out there that will say its ok to be big and it doesn’t matter your size. However, I know that things like diabetes and high blood pressure run in my family and I really don’t want those things to affect me.  Also I need to be healthier and I am not healthy where I am.  I am one of those crazy people that go to Weight Watchers. I will explain to some that do not like this program why I think that it works for me.

I currently use the simply filling technique with weight watchers, what does this mean? It means there is a list of food that I can eat and not count points for those foods.  I count points for things that are not on the list.  I switched to this after doing tracking because I changed my eating habits and most of what I eat falls in the simply filling foods.  This technique also helps teach you healthy eating habits.  Its not all about teh points.  Its about eating things that are healthier for you.  Non-Fat yogurts and milk are on the list, fruits and vegetables are on the list, brown rice, beans, lite breads, lean proteins. You still get the 49 weekly points for things not on the list (Starbucks Peppermint Mocha) and you choose when to use the points.  Also for people like me, I need accountability, I need to go into a meeting and weigh myself to keep myself in check.  I need to see my progress on a weekly basis. Others may not need this and they may find another path works great for them.  I know that this path for working towards eating healthy is working well for me.  I would love thoughts about what people say is working for them.