Got the exercise part. Can't get the eat less part.

[Meaux]

I have had the worst luck losing weight. I did the South Beach diet and was successful, but I can't not eat carbs. I was hungry all the time and grouchy. And the minute I came off the diet, all the weight came back and it brought it's nasty little friends I don't know what to do. I eat whole wheat bread/pasta/etc. and have been cutting down on my red meat in take (well, my meat intake in general) and have been TRYING desperately to exercise regularly (I work for a law firm, so my hours are often long and late), but with no luck. HELP. I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life and I'm going to ride the MS150 in April and can't bring myself to be seen in bike shorts in front of 12,999 other people. I'd like to blame the birth control and the anti-depressants I'm on, however, I've never been a really small person. (Even when I was thinner, I've always be very curvy.) Does anyone have advice? I'd like to find some bike shorts that fit!!!

[Raindrop]

Squeaky asked what kinds of foods you can keep on hand even when it's hot. Well, there's always jerky (whether beef or turkey etc.) although you have the nitrates to deal with there. I mention jerky because protein and high fiber foods tend to keep you satisfied longer and...it's a scientific fact that proteins have a higher thermogetic factor which means it takes more calories to break down protein than it does to process simple carbohydrates like pretzels etc. The fiber in apples and pears are great but they tend to not be quite so satisfying.

I suggest that if you're really serious about having good food and snacks available you invest in a small container and some freezer gel packs. Then you can have meals and snacks that your control the caloric and nutritios value of.

Does this help at all?

[Dogmama]

You'll burn most of your calories at rest. It makes sense to increase your resting metabolic rate. Adding muscle will do that. Weight training must be a part of your plan.

[Squeaky]

Beef Jerkey, great idea Raindrop! Also, if I'm keeping a cooler in the car, then I could have boiled eggs on hand too.... and I could bring the cooler into the office during the day so it stays colder longer, and then freshen up the ice before I leave.

[KSH]

I have had the worst luck losing weight. I did the South Beach diet and was successful, but I can't not eat carbs. I was hungry all the time and grouchy. And the minute I came off the diet, all the weight came back and it brought it's nasty little friends I don't know what to do. I eat whole wheat bread/pasta/etc. and have been cutting down on my red meat in take (well, my meat intake in general) and have been TRYING desperately to exercise regularly (I work for a law firm, so my hours are often long and late), but with no luck. HELP. I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life and I'm going to ride the MS150 in April and can't bring myself to be seen in bike shorts in front of 12,999 other people. I'd like to blame the birth control and the anti-depressants I'm on, however, I've never been a really small person. (Even when I was thinner, I've always be very curvy.) Does anyone have advice? I'd like to find some bike shorts that fit!!!

It's all about calories in and calories out.

1) Start tracking all the food you eat and the caloric content. www.calorieking.com
www.sparkpeople.com

2) Then try to drop your calorie count to 1600-1800 if you are exercising, and around 1200-1400 if you are not exercising.

Try to find foods that are low in calories and fill you up. That is the secret. Look at eating many small meals a day.

Have 1 cheat meal a week. ONLY ONE.

It's all about the calories... shoot, you could eat McD's all day long, if you only eat as many calories as you are alloted each day. It's all about choices... and picking what you know will keep you full.

Give it about 2 weeks for the weight loss to kick in. After that... you will start seeing some pounds come off. Good luck... with some will power and determination... you can do it.

[Squeaky]

Unfortunately, knowing what to do is not the problem. I know alot of what some people say sound like excuses, especially to those who've never had serious weight problems or eating disorders (with exceptions of course), but it really does help to voice things and know it's not just you. Sometimes you stumble on new ideas or inspiration.

We can sound like broken records saying things like, "why can't I stop stuffing my face?" It's a life long battle and the key is finding balance and learning to live with imperfection. I know many overweight people who are healthier than some skinny people, but that adds to the frustration. I can't count how many thin people do a fraction of the physical activity I do (and have had babies no less!), yet here I am with weight that just won't come off (and yes, for a reason). I'm currently at a weight I should be able to live with, but somehow I can't be content in my own skin.

The kicker is that I know how much better I feel, regardless of my weight, when I eat clean. ahhhhh!

[han-grrl]

I see this problem with a lot of my clients...i get the "i know what i SHOULD be doing - i just don't do it!"

I too was like that for a long time. Its all a matter of recognizing the self talk when it happens (many of us don't).

We talk ourselves out of our workout ("i'll go tomorrow", "what's the point?" etc etc).

when we start talking ourselves OUT of something you must ask yourself
1) will this decision affect my health or wellbeing?
2) Will i be proud of this decision, or will it be something i try and hide?
3) will this decision prevent me from reaching my goal?

you also have to think the following way (or start to) - HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO REACH YOUR GOAL?

My brother in law has skin problems and wants to get into this study that is testing some kind of cream to heal it. He was assessed and was told to lose some weight. One of his problems is red wine. He drinks a lot of it. and he eats a lot of fatty foods. He was complaining to me one day, about the size of servings and how he NEEDS a bigger class of wine (his wife serves him up 1/2 a cup instead of his usually 2-3). I tell him this - how important is it to him to make it into the study and potentially get help for his skin problem. Or is it more important to drink wine.

Some food for thought (pardon the pun)

Smile

Hannah

[Squeaky]

Thanks Hannah, these are good questions that I'm going to start asking myself when I'm tempted to overindulge. And hopefully BEFORE I do it .

[Offthegrid]

I like the idea of beef jerky, too! It's chewy and tastes good, as opposed to having rice cakes or yet another apple or granola bar. I think I'll get some for the car for those emergency times when I feel like I'm going to crack.

[han-grrl]

this is an interesting read:



Sports Nutrition: Sheila’s Nutrition Digest Vol. 9: Food Psychology - What is controlling your eating?

By Sheila Kealey

September 2005

In this new series, XC Ottawa (and OAC Racing Team) member Sheila Kealey will help athletes choose the best foods for performance and overall health. Sheila has a Masters in Public Health and works in the field of nutritional epidemiology as a Research Associate with the University of California, San Diego.


Have you finished a bag of chips when you only wanted a few? Do you eat only when you are hungry? If physiological cues were the sole determinants of our eating habits, the nation’s obesity and health statistics would look quite different! Ubiquitous food marketing and advertising make it obvious that many other factors have a huge impact on what we eat and how much we eat.

Brian Wansink, PhD, is a researcher who is passionate about figuring out how cues that aren’t related to hunger influence our eating habits. Dr. Wansink wants to use this information to help us control how much we eat and choose nutritious foods, which contrasts the food industry’s single minded goal of encouraging us to eat more of their product. As professor of Marketing and Nutritional Science, and the director of the University of Illinois' Food and Brand Lab, he has conducted over 100 studies looking at eating behavior.

Through lab experiments, hidden cameras, in-depth interviews, and consumer panels, his work has revealed some fascinating information about how environmental cues influence what we eat. Here’s what we can learn from some of his findings:

Beware of Package Size
BIG packages encourage us to eat more, even when the food isn’t great.
When Wansink gave moviegoers popcorn in large-sized buckets, they ate almost 50% more than those served popcorn in smaller buckets. Both groups estimated that they’d eaten the same amount of popcorn. Were they overeating because the popcorn tasted so good? Not likely – the test subjects were munching on stale, 14-day-old popcorn, showing how automatic some behaviors become, and how package size has a powerful influence over the amount we eat.

In another series of studies, Wansink looked at consumption of 47 different grocery store products and found that people generally poured more out of larger packages than smaller ones.

Make it work for you: If you’re concerned about reducing your caloric intake, opt for small plates and bowls at home, and be aware of the sizes of containers and plates when eating out. Select large packages of foods you want to eat more of (e.g., those big bags of salad greens), and small packages of foods that you are trying to limit.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Ease temptation by putting unhealthy foods out of sight
We’re likely to eat more candies if the candy bowl is on our desk rather than just 6 feet away. Wansink studied the behavior of secretaries, and found that they consumed 50% more Hershey’s kisses when they were within arm’s reach as opposed to a few steps away. The type of bowl influenced consumption too: people ate more candy if the bowl was clear and they could see the candy, than when an opaque bowl stored the candy. They found that the same applied to healthy foods – for example, people ate more carrots when they were directly in front of them than when they had to get up to eat them.

Make it work for you: Surround yourself with healthful foods. At parties, you’re better off within arm’s reach of the vegetable platter than the chip bowl. Keep unhealthy foods out of sight, or don’t bring them home from the supermarket in the first place. As nutrition expert Dr. Marion Nestle has said: “If you resist it at the grocery store, you only have to resist it once. If you take it home, you have to resist it every hour of every day.”

We Eat with Our Eyes
The more we see, the more we eat.
Wansink’s group designed a clever experiment to show the powerful influence visual clues exert on how much food we eat. They rigged up a self-refilling soup bowl (a “bottomless” bowl where soup refilled from a hidden hose at the bottom of the bowl connected to a pot of soup). Unsuspecting college students who ate their soup from the self-refilling bowls ate 73% more soup than those eating from normal bowls, but both groups reported the same degree of “fullness.” This study shows we often use visual cues, like the amount of food left in a bowl or on a plate, to figure out when to stop eating, rather than relying on feelings of fullness.

Make it work for you: Don’t feel you have to “clean your plate,” but try to become more aware of adequate portion sizes and feelings of fullness to figure out when to stop eating.

Optical Illusions
We perceive that tall, slender glasses hold more liquid than short, wide glasses.
Wansink conducted studies showing that visual illusions cause us to pour more and consequently drink more when we use short, fat glasses. Researchers gave people either tall, slender 22 oz. glasses or short, wide 22 oz. glasses. People poured about one third more liquid into the short, wide glasses than the tall, slender glasses, although they thought they poured less into the short glass. In another study, Wansink showed that even bartenders were susceptible to this vertical-horizontal illusion, pouring about 28% more alcohol into tumblers than highball glasses.

Make it work for you: Pay attention to the glass shape: since short, wide glasses encourage us to drink more, use these for beverages that you want to consume more of, and save tall, slender glasses for beverages that you want to limit.

Variety Makes Us Eat More
Many studies suggest that being presented with a variety of foods makes us eat more. Wansink examined this phenomenon with M&M’s. He compared eating patterns of bowls containing ten M&M colours vs. bowls containing seven M&M colours. People ate 25-30 percent more M&M’s out of the bowl with ten colours compared to the bowl with seven colours, even though all M&M’s taste the same.

Make it work for you. Look for variety in healthful foods, since a variety of nutrients is the foundation of a healthful diet. For example, you will likely eat more vegetables if you are presented with a combination of colourful options rather than one type of vegetable. Eating this variety ensures that you’ll benefit from more protective nutrients that are important for good health. Also, recent research has demonstrated that nutrients from different foods may interact to provide extra health benefits, suggesting that that your diet is more than the sum of its parts.

Our Expectations Influence Our Taste Buds
People eat more when a food has an enticing, creative description rather than a plain name.
Even when two foods are identical, people rate the food with the most descriptive name as tasting better. Descriptive menu-item labels can increase food sales and improve attitudes customers have towards the food and the restaurant, according to Wansink’s research. For example, “New York Style Cheesecake with Godiva Sauce” got better ratings than a simple “Cheesecake,” though both were identical. People even indicated they’d be willing to pay almost 10% more for a descriptive menu item. Wansink believes that associations that evoke positive memories or emotions like nostalgia, locations, or sensory descriptions will influence our perception. What would you choose: Grandma’s Famous Sugar Cookies or Sugar Cookies? Tuscan Sun-Kissed Breast of Chicken or Chicken Breast?

Make it Work For You: Don’t be fooled by descriptive labels at the supermarket – and you won’t have to look far to find many good examples creative and enticing names! At home, present your healthful dishes with great names, and your guests may find them more satisfying!

Be Aware!

Since most of us can feel hunger and already have a general idea of nutritious foods to eat, being more aware of other powerful influences on our food choices can go a long way to help us adopt a nutritious diet.

[han-grrl]

i hear the busy at work thing from clients a lot too. I always recommend the lunch bag. Bring enough food for the hours you plan on being in the office. people often don't pack enough and by two oclock are completley ravenous until they get home.

Vegetarian sources of protein are not as "concentrated" so to speak. that means you need a lot more of it to make up for the protein (more specifically to beans). So if you aren't eating enough protein and fat you will tend to be hungry and grouchy. make sure you have some kind of protein with every food, which also helps prevent blood sugar fluctuations.

I suggest that if you're really serious about having good food and snacks available you invest in a small container and some freezer gel packs. Then you can have meals and snacks that your control the caloric and nutritios value of.

Does this help at all?

Originally Posted by Meaux
I have had the worst luck losing weight. I did the South Beach diet and was successful, but I can't not eat carbs. I was hungry all the time and grouchy. And the minute I came off the diet, all the weight came back and it brought it's nasty little friends I don't know what to do. I eat whole wheat bread/pasta/etc. and have been cutting down on my red meat in take (well, my meat intake in general) and have been TRYING desperately to exercise regularly (I work for a law firm, so my hours are often long and late), but with no luck. HELP. I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life and I'm going to ride the MS150 in April and can't bring myself to be seen in bike shorts in front of 12,999 other people. I'd like to blame the birth control and the anti-depressants I'm on, however, I've never been a really small person. (Even when I was thinner, I've always be very curvy.) Does anyone have advice? I'd like to find some bike shorts that fit!!!

[HappyAnika]

I love food. Good food. DH and I both love to cook. I only eat fast food about 2x a year. I drink about 3 - 4 liters of water a day. I try to make healthy choices for my meals, and compared to most Americans I eat very healthy - no chips, no soda, no packaged cookies, rarely packaged candy. But, like I said, I love food, so the food I do eat I eat way too much of. Portion control is a huge problem for me. I noticed when DH cooks, he'll plate my food and give me as much as he gives himself (he's 6'5", 215 lb). I obviously don't need to eat as much as him, and I've tried explaining this to him, but he feels like he needs to be "fair" in portioning food. That "don't need to clear your plate" thing is a good idea, but my problem is if food is in front of me, I will likely eat it. Same thing at restaurants. I have a hard time responding to my fullness cue, to stop eating when I'm not hungry anymore. My other biggest problem is my carb addiction. It doesn't help that carbs tend to be more convenient for the busy person. For example I eat cereal every morning (healthy cereal, but still cereal, and a lot of it), and for lunch I like frozen pita pocket things, they are organic and filled with vegetables, but its still a ton of carbs. Damn carbs. I know that good carbs are essential to a healthy diet, but I go way overboard. Why isn't protein as convenient?

I am in the best shape I've ever been in, but I'm not the thinnest. Its so frustrating. I thought cycling would help me loose weight, but I actually gained weight. It was because I felt like I deserved more, but I was eating more than I was burning off. It didn't help that exercising so much made me so hungry!

A few things I've found helpful:
If I'm starving in the afternoon, have a snack, otherwise I will over eat when I have dinner. Plate my own dinner, or remind DH I don't need so much. If I'm eating at a restaurant, plan to eat half my food, then take home the rest for lunch the next day. Eat dinner as early as possible, metabolism slows in the evening, so a piece of bread at dinner can cause more damage than the same piece at lunch. If I feel like I have the munchies, I ask myself, do I want to eat because I'm hungry or because I'm bored. Usually its because I'm bored. There are all kinds of mental things that go along with my hunger. If I'm happy and busy, I'm not so hungry. Weight training is incredibly helpful. While cardio makes you feel like you're more in shape, weight training burns a ton of calories.

KSH and others from the triathlon board have inspired me to start keeping track of my food on sparkpeople.com. I hope that helps. I really need to make a concerted effort to eat more protein and ease off the carbs. Evil carbs!

[quint41]

I guess I'll throw my 2 cents into the hat as well.

I lost 40 lbs over the span of a couple of years. I took it off slowly in about 12 lb chuncks (and I'd kind of stagnate for a few months before starting the weight loss again -- I swear that helped it STAY off in the long run). I was on Weight Watchers and learned some good stuff from them. Ultimately, it was just the right combination of diet and exercise that made the difference for me. Here are some of the things I learned ...

Everyone needs SOME fat in their diet. If everything in your cupboard and fridge says "fat free," you're making a mistake. Instead of a fat free salad dressing, try olive oil (just 1-2 teaspoons) & vinegar with some herbs and a dash of Splenda for sweetness.

Carbs were my enemy. I almost completely wiped them out of my diet. I'd have bran flakes for breakfast and a wheat wrap for lunch (with meat, lots of veggies, no condiments). I completely cut out pasta, rice, potatoes and bread. I found it to be true that carbs actually caused me to feel hungry faster.

Lean proteins are my friend. A very small portion of scrambled eggs at 8:30 keeps me satisfied until lunch at 1:00. However, a huge bagel with margarine at 8:30, and I'll be hungry by 10:30-11:00. So, proteins really do stick to your ribs!

Many experts recommend that you graze instead of eating "meals." Combining the lean proteins, less carbs approach, I'd have one scrambled egg for breakfast (and coffee) or some bran flakes. Mid morning maybe a slice or two of turkey. And water. Lunch I'd have my wrap (no condiments, no chips on the side!) and water. Mid-afternoon maybe some tuna with lemon juice or a TOUCH of lite mayo or some nuts. And water. Dinner a HUGE salad, or a piece of fish with a HUGE portion of veggies. Dessert would be some peanuts in the shell (they take longer to eat) and water. And I always take a vitamin and calcium supplement.

Then there's the exercise part of the plan. Whatever you are doing for exercise, either double it, or change it altogether. Sometimes your body needs a kick-start by using different muscles than you usually do. (And weight training is a must.)

[ACG]

Offthegrid - I struggle with the same thing, am hungry all the time. I'm eating the wrong stuff. The ladies here are very supportive and not at all judgemental. I like this thread so much I printed it and am going to use the advice I see here.

I've started really watching what I eat, increased the water and the vegetables, cut out the sugar, fast food, processed food, nothing fried. The water really helps a lot. I was not drinking what I should, I'm still not, but am a lot better at it. I eat out once a week, ask for 2 servings of vegies and bypass the potato or rice. I cut out all sweets, just eat lots of fruit. I've lost 7 lbs in 7 weeks, not a lot, but it is something.

You have some fantastic goals, good for you! Keep us posted on your progress.

[lesliejo]

Congratulations on yourweight loss.
I was one that battled with weight all my life, until I started biking. Then the weight just melted off. Now, I find I have to work to keep it on!
I find that if I eat a protein with carbohydrate for each meal it balances out the blood sugar. But, you need to know that often hunger pangs are mistaken for lack of water. Sometimes when my stomach growls...I am just thirsty, Have you been keeping up on your water intake? Just a thought.
I snack on fruit and low fat dairy. Plus sometimes lowfat popcorn, not the healthiest, but fun.
Good luck on your quest. You can do it, just keep riding.
Bionica