Changing lifestyle= more cooking interest? for losing weight

[shootingstar]

So was it exercise that helped your situation, goldfinch?

I don't consider my mother much of a great cook. Just passable. I'm sure often she saw it as her duty.

But I know she couldn't have passed the healthy foundation of weight (before some of us gained some unnecessary weight after leaving home), to her 6 children, it weren't for her taking an active interest in how she cooked and the quality/type of food she was using. She and my father sometimes discussed it. They also critiqued some of the food that they saw in restaurants. (My father was a restaurant cook.) I (or we) learned and still use some of those healthier cooking techniques.

My mother could lose 30 lbs. or so. And she knows this but knows it's due to her motivation. None of us tell her so. There's no point when already she tries for other areas of her health --drastic reduction in salt-intake (to deal with her 20 yr. problem of hypertension/high blood pressure), she continues to skim fat off food (last 40 yrs.). And now, that my father has cancer, it's probably reinforced all these good cooking techniques. I doubt she's thinking of her weight, more worried about losing a husband.

[goldfinch]

So was it exercise that helped your situation, goldfinch?

One day it was the right day to eat less. And so was the next day, and the next. The exercise came on gradually. At first it was hard to exercise, walking hurt my back and biking on a bike that didn't fit me was hard But, success led to more success. I will say that it is extraordinarily difficult to keep off the weight. I am driven to eat more. I am hungry. Here is where the exercise helps. I could lose weight without exercise but I can't keep it off without exercise.