Healthy and Fit

I've also looked around for Frozen Yogurt at my local tesco, but they don't seem to have it.  Have you ever made your own?

They sell it at Sainsburys.  Not as soft as US yogurt but much better then ice cream on the hips!

Hi Shrinkers!  I need to get back on this horse too, but still getting myself organised & psyched up for it.  Think I'm a little late to the online New Years resolution crowd because we've been away two weeks over Christmas & New Years.  But I want to live long & be healthy, and I am too fat, sooo... 

I actually lost weight while at my in-laws over Christmas!    I put that down to not very much food (the OAP eating plan) in the days leading up to Christmas, my stomach shrank & then I really struggled with the groaning board come Christmas Day.  That part was good.  But I'm scared to step on the scales just right now, after New Years (and TOM) because I think I made up for what I didn't eat/drink over Christmas & then some. 

I saw a cool programme on BBC One last night at 10:30 pm - although I think it was a repeat from earlier in the year.  It's this (available on I-Player for next 7 days):

10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight

Summarising, the ten things are (these are based on the most up-to-date, hard science, not faddy stuff):

1 - Don't Skip Meals (hormone in your brain compels you to reach for the most calorific foods when your body is starving)

2 - Track your calories (knowing how many calories are in what you are eating, etc)

3 - It's not your metabolism (woman kept a food diary in a couple different versions vs they can measure something in your urine that tells them exactly how many calories you ate...people generally under-record how many calories they are eating by as much as 50%...some of this is down to portion sizes or just being unaware of how many calories are in various things, etc...also they measured her metabolism & it was normal)

4 - Reduce the size of the plate your food is served up on

5 - Eat things that make you feel full longer - the big one here is protein.

6 - Another thing that will make you feel full longer is soup - the thick, pureed kind.  The volume of it stays in your stomach longer.

7 - Eat low fat dairy.  The calcium in dairy binds to fat molecules in your gut, creating a substance that your body will not absorb but will pass on through you.  So your body takes on less fat molecules & excretes more of them.

8 - We are hard wired to reach for a wide variety of food - it's hard to stop oneself.  So the more choices of different foods presented to you, the more you will eat - like at buffets.  (Oh man!  This is my downfall at work too, because people are constantly bringing in all different goodies.)

9 - Exercise.  But the real benefit of exercise is not while you are actually exercising, but in the 24 hours or so after you have exercised.  Your body burns carbs while you are exercising.  After you exercise is when your body starts burning fat = result, even while you are sleeping!

10 - You don't have to join a gym to get more exercise.  Just add more activity to your day - walk around more, do more housework (ugh), dance or walk in place while talking on the phone, watching TV, etc.

Another interesting thing - the guy who was the presenter, well he didn't look unfit.  But he had a test done to measure his visceral fat.  This is not the fat that you can see hanging on you, but rather fat that is packed around key organs like your kidneys, liver, gall bladder, heart, etc.  And it's bad, bad fat - can lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, etc.  Although he looked fit, he still had too much visceral fat around his organs.  I am not sure this bodes well for me! 

So I've got to get going with something here - for my health, because we're planning to do a long walk again this June, and also we're going to the US for my niece's wedding in October & it would sure be nice to be a little trimmer for that!

10 - You don't have to join a gym to get more exercise.  Just add more activity to your day - walk around more, do more housework (ugh), dance or walk in place while talking on the phone, watching TV, etc.

Another interesting thing - the guy who was the presenter, well he didn't look unfit.  But he had a test done to measure his visceral fat.  This is not the fat that you can see hanging on you, but rather fat that is packed around key organs like your kidneys, liver, gall bladder, heart, etc.  And it's bad, bad fat - can lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, etc.  Although he looked fit, he still had too much visceral fat around his organs.  I am not sure this bodes well for me! 

So I've got to get going with something here - for my health, because we're planning to do a long walk again this June, and also we're going to the US for my niece's wedding in October & it would sure be nice to be a little trimmer for that!

My doctor calls the first one "active rest" so basically you park as far away from the supermarket as possible, you get off the bus one stop early, you put the stuff you use most often in different parts of the house.

My bathroom scale measures visceral fat  -

My boy is much thinner than me (he's just slightly overweight by a few pounds but nothing that you'd notice and cycles 10 miles a day) and his visceral fat is much higher than mine, so he's working on dropping some weight as it's worrying.

My doctor calls the first one "active rest" so basically you park as far away from the supermarket as possible, you get off the bus one stop early, you put the stuff you use most often in different parts of the house.

My bathroom scale measures visceral fat  -

My boy is much thinner than me (he's just slightly overweight by a few pounds but nothing that you'd notice and cycles 10 miles a day) and his visceral fat is much higher than mine, so he's working on dropping some weight as it's worrying.

Wow! That's a serious scale!  Ours sucks, so maybe I should look into splashing out a bit, as it would last a long time. DH has always been skinny as a rake, but even he has gained 20 pounds since we quit smoking.  He actually has a little belly now, so I'm not the only one using the scale anymore. 

Thanks for all the info, Mrs R, very good to know! I've been recording Healthy Appetite with Elie Krieger on the Food Network to get ideas for healthier cooking, and one thing she says she does is to "prepare the fridge" - she boils a dozen eggs and puts them in an egg container, she cuts up some different fresh vegetables and puts into plastic containers, and she makes a dip of some kind (hummous or fresh dressing or tzaiki (sp?) or whatever) and keeps it in the fridge so that there are always healthy snacks on hand.

I have definitely found that eating a good breakfast is key for me. And it has to have a large amount of protein. Cereal and skimmed milk and fruit and things like that don't stay with me very long and I am starving by lunchtime. This past week, I had two scrambled eggs with a wholemeal roll and I was full until lunchtime, which meant I could eat a lighter lunch without feeling like I wanted more afterwards.

Wow! That's a serious scale!  Ours sucks, so maybe I should look into splashing out a bit, as it would last a long time. DH has always been skinny as a rake, but even he has gained 20 pounds since we quit smoking.  He actually has a little belly now, so I'm not the only one using the scale anymore. 

Thanks for all the info, Mrs R, very good to know! I've been recording Healthy Appetite with Elie Krieger on the Food Network to get ideas for healthier cooking, and one thing she says she does is to "prepare the fridge" - she boils a dozen eggs and puts them in an egg container, she cuts up some different fresh vegetables and puts into plastic containers, and she makes a dip of some kind (hummous or fresh dressing or tzaiki (sp?) or whatever) and keeps it in the fridge so that there are always healthy snacks on hand.

I have definitely found that eating a good breakfast is key for me. And it has to have a large amount of protein. Cereal and skimmed milk and fruit and things like that don't stay with me very long and I am starving by lunchtime. This past week, I had two scrambled eggs with a wholemeal roll and I was full until lunchtime, which meant I could eat a lighter lunch without feeling like I wanted more afterwards.

There's this one which is pretty much the same as mine and a bit cheaper  


It is really easy to use and really good, it seems much more accurate than my wii-fit.

There's some tips here on how to stay fuller longer -
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=673

I think the preparing the fridge is a really good idea, I've started to do that more as my plan has 3 small meals and 3 snacks a day, so I make sure I have high protein, low fat snacks to grab like individual portions of Low Fat Cheese, or carrot batons and a high protein dip made with Fage yoghurt and spinach/garlic.

I'm all about the high protein breakfasts, especially now I'm a big advocate of turkey bacon, just like oprah!

Well, I'm down 3lbs this week so there's movement in the right direction! Only 2lbs more and I'll be at my pre Xmas weight. But still 5 stone left to go  

Jewlz - I am jealous you can eat eggs, they seem so easy but the smell & texture immediately turns me off from them.

CB - I love turkey bacon!!
My Breakfast of choice is 40g of oatmeal with a sliced banana (made with water) since I drink 3 cups of coffee with milk it balances out.

WebyJ - good job...I have lost 3 lbs as well, it is a start!

3lbs is LOADS in a week, that's almost a stone in a month, well  done!

I've completely lost my will power today and had 2 CoOp triple chocolate chunk cookies ...too much stress today and I'm so ashamed of myself  ...hopefully tomorrow's better.

I've completely lost my will power today and had 2 CoOp triple chocolate chunk cookies ...too much stress today and I'm so ashamed of myself  ...hopefully tomorrow's better.

Don't be ashamed of yourself for eating two little cookies!  All is not lost--you can still lose weight this week, and you shouldn't deprive yourself to the point of wanting to binge (which you haven't done).

I feel a bit of an interloper as I'm not officially trying to lose weight so just tell me to butt out if you want to, but I do want to say the less I have of sugar, the less I want it.  Since I've been in the UK my sugar eating habits have really dropped.  I do crave chocolate and cookies still and I do eat them, but much less than before.  I eat loads more fruit now and my cravings are more for fruit than sweets.

I also find that I can still have stuff like pizza if I have loads of steamed broccoli, etc. with it--I fill up on the veggies and still get to have the pizza, but end up eating less of it (leftovers for another day!).

If my job wasn't so stressful and active most of the time I would need to go to a gym to keep the pounds from creeping back on, (I should do something more aerobic to improve my heart health though) and I have been overweight many times in my life.  I probably weigh at least fifteen pounds more than what Nutrisystem said I should weigh back when I did that program 20 years ago, which I think is ridiculous.

Edited to add:  It's not ridiculous that I weigh fifteen more pounds, just ridiculous that Nutrisystem said I should be such a low weight.  I'm 5' 2" and not quite small-boned (medium, I guess) and they said I should weigh 111 lbs.  At the time I struggled to get down to 119 and was thin enough.  I averaged out at about 126 and I prob weigh a bit more than that now.

Thanks for all the info, Mrs R, very good to know! I've been recording Healthy Appetite with Elie Krieger on the Food Network to get ideas for healthier cooking, and one thing she says she does is to "prepare the fridge" - she boils a dozen eggs and puts them in an egg container, she cuts up some different fresh vegetables and puts into plastic containers, and she makes a dip of some kind (hummous or fresh dressing or tzaiki (sp?) or whatever) and keeps it in the fridge so that there are always healthy snacks on hand.

I was doing that with the veg & hummous for awhile late last summer/early autumn, then slacked off.  Our fridge is kind of on the small-ish side & always seems to be full of condiments & the contents of our veg box - lol!  I need to get back into the habit though.

I am tracking again via the new WW plan.  I didn't go nuts when I was home in NY..but you know, it's NY, and I wasn't actively dieting, either.  I did try to go two lean meals, one heavy one.  But I know osso bucco doesn't do anyone any favors, delicious as it is.

But I feel better being back here, I find it much easier to maintain my diet when I'm on home turf, of course.  There are still some chocolates in the house, but I haven't been going crazy.  I need to get more fruit/veg in the house, because as someone said earlier, when they are available, I definitely crave them the more that I eat them.  So, trying to get back into that. 

I'm feeling pretty frustrated because I've hit a plateau and I'm feeling especially hungry today. I think it may be time for emergency measures: carrots with (a little teeny tiny amount of) ranch dressing.

Jewlz - I am jealous you can eat eggs, they seem so easy but the smell & texture immediately turns me off from them.

I love eggs! So it's easy for me. 

But this morning I had peanut butter on wholemeal toast and that was very filling, too. 

I've lost two pounds so far this year, which is a pretty good start. I hope to lose five pounds this month (and then five pounds a month for the next three months, would be ideal!)

Don't be ashamed of yourself for eating two little cookies!  All is not lost--you can still lose weight this week, and you shouldn't deprive yourself to the point of wanting to binge (which you haven't done).

Thank you for your kind words.

Well, the cookies were about the size of a dessert plate   but turns out that they were only 125 cals each. So I guess it wasn't too bad.

I'm not a sweets person so I can resist sugar fairly easily. I'm more of a savoury craver...sausages, kebabs etc for my cravings the greasier the better...but it's a good thing that Mexican is difficult to come by here  .

I've given up regular Pepsi -which was probably the only sweet thing that I do love- as a step toward healthy eating and I've replaced it with water (and currently crystal light that I got in a care package from a lovely friend) & some Diet Coke. The only thing that I do have with real sugar is my coffee and it's one small dessert spoon per cup and I have 4-5 cups a day.

The cookie day was just a miserable day all around and unfortunately I turned to food that day to try to feel better...it's not completely messed up the overall picture but it did manage to stop me from losing any more weight these past few days. Oh well, I think I'll be able to drop a pound or two by Friday...I hope



I know there's a lot of SparkPeople users here but I found that it was hard to log my food because of it being mainly a US site so I've been using FoodFocus instead. So for those that are not keen on SP it's another option.