Has anyone gone from very unhealthy life style to a healthier one?

[Dok-torr]

Well done all of us!
The body has to go through some huge changes when you stop the nicotene, caffeine and sugar all at once. The way your body metabolises its energy stores has to readjust too. You are expecting it to be active and are stopping its usual glucose loads. It will take some time to be able to use other stores and to even up the blood sugar and insulin levels.

Going cold turkey is tough. I admit I made the changes over a much more gradual time period. The smoking was first (20 year habit) then the activity levels went up (once I could breath again!) then the diet improved.
I managed to lose 60+ pounds over the last few years and am now doing enduarace cycle events and training for a half marathon!

I feel bettre than I have ever felt in my life and will never get out of shape again.
Keep it up guys, and thanks for reminding us all why we do all this!

[mmelindas]

I loved reading everyone's comments! So much good advice!

For me the light went on when I went to these websites, recommended by my new fantastic lady doctor, who has changed my life; I learned a whole new way to shop, to cook, to eat, and my energy has come back, the weight is going down and I feel better than I have in years.

Here are the websites, from the National Institutes of Health, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, recommended by the American Heart Assn and the American Diabetes Assoc:

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/cgi-bin/...umber=1&diet=1

This above link is a virtual reality portion test. It will blow your mind, just as it blew mine and what a wake up call it was!! I think the advertising industry has mind-warped us into supersizing everything!!! It made me realize how I was eating way, way too much and too large of portions of everything! Just changing portions has helped us lose weight, hubby and me!

Create-A-Diet just for you http://www.nhlbisupport.com/chd1/create.htm

This link lets you see how many calories you are eating and why you are probably gaining weight and how to lose it!! Basic metabolic math = exercise less, burn less, weigh more, gain weight OR exercise more, burn more, lose weight, and firm up. Exercise boosts your metabolism higher for 2 - 3 hours, so it burns more calories than in your normal resting life state. Burn more calories than you eat = lose weight.

http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/menuplanner/menu.cgi

Interactive menu planner lets you pick and plan meals. After a few practice tries planning just a day's meals, I could clearly see what I had been doing wrong, in trying to eat healthy, low fat, low sugar and high fiber diets - I had been eating way too large portions and not watching the actual ingredients and calories. No wonder I weighed 300 lbs!!!

Good old Dr. Phil said it right: "You can't be overweight and unhealthy unless you live a lifestyle to support it." How true! And I was supporting it bigtime from the look of what was in my fridge and cupboards!!!

First thing was to purge the kitchen and cupboards of everything that was unhealthy: cookies, candy, ice creams, butter, full fat cheeses and cottage cheeses, yogurts that are full fat, salad dressings that are full fat, and all the meats that had fat on them, all the fried foods, the sauces, gravies that were high salt, high fat, all the pickles with tons of salt, and so forth.

Then, I learned how to read labels carefully and how to cook with Splenda, and still have delicious healthy desserts (in correct portions) but with NO sugar, no fat or low fat! I even found no sugar ice creams or low fat ones, (and I do go to Artic Circle for a cone once in a while....I'm not perfect yet!) ... and life got better in just a week or so!

I bought skinless chicken and lean meats, and barbecued on our gas grill or cooked in our skillet with only a tablespoon of olive oil. (but the low fat grated cheeses still suck, sorry... ) There's even less fat in those spray cooking oils... and boy, have the flavors in those gotten better over the years!! I love the lean barbecued pork - with the grill smoky flavor on it.

I made my pastas from the whole wheat brands (which raises blood sugar less and stays with you longer), and made my own spaghetti sauces from low salt or salt free tomato puree, diced tomatoes, garlic, seasonings, onions, etc...(not near as much salt or sugar or fat as any commercial brand and tasted better.) I learned to use the egg whites and toss the yolks away in my recipes, cutting fat and calories that way. There's plenty of egg yolks already in even whole wheat breads, dressings,etc, so I had to watch adding any myself. (one egg yolk has more cholesterol than I am allowed in one day's eating on my 7% saturated fat limit diet!)

Even the fast food industry is starting to cater to healthier life styles = Wendy's will soon be the first fast food chain to use oil that produces no trans fat in fries; they also have low fat sour cream, reduced fat and sugar salad dressings, and many fast food places are going that route. When we eat out, we eat smarter now.

For us, the key is eating at home, rarely eating fast foods, and when we do, we watch carefully what we eat. All those places have nutritional guides they will give you so you can see the fat and sugar in everything they serve. When you see that most of the unnecessary calories and fat come from the mayo, sauces and frying, you get smart pretty quick!

I used to get tired easily before I started riding my bike. When I started doing that, added swimming a couple times a week and home exercises, I found my energy coming back - no fatigue now.

My body is different from anybody elses, but most all of our bodies work the same way: slow to adjust to new changes in life styles, stubborn about addictions and impatient to reach goals (mentally). Do I have cravings? Yes, but for pickly, sour things now instead of sweets. I would kill for a huge bowl of cucumbers in vinegar anytime!

Yes, I do eat chocolate = York Mini Patties now come in sugar free and are exactly the same as the full size kind in flavor and texture. I indulge in about three of them a day = only 110 calories!! Fat free, too! Dark chocolate is actually good for your heart ....but no way can I eat as much of it as I'd like to anymore -- it's a treat for special occasions.

Let's face it - doing what is right and good for us is HARD...and it takes time for our bodies and minds to come into alignment together.. our bodies balk, complain, ache, get pooped and sore,

The journey to health is worth it, believe all of us when we tell of our experiences, how much better we feel doing exercise through biking and other sports...we are powerful women, of all sizes..., all shapes...., progressing towards our own individual and unique levels of perfection.

[plantluvver]

Dok-torr, you reminded me that we ARE all different. I needed the change in activity levels to get my mind off the smoking.

Mmelindas, I think we will need to give you a yellow jersey (hope I got the reference right). I am so glad to have you gals to remind me it is not just me alone in this difficult world.

My BF is not very health concious, and my depression (and I finally admit it may be PTSD) tend to keep me wallowing in my little safe-appearing (NOT!) cocoon. So the positive influence of this forum is very important to me. In fact I am crying now, (good tears).

Yesterday went to the Golden Arches, and wanted the DVD I had read about (But had already chosen the deep-fried fish TWO in fact .). So I asked around to find someone ordering the salad, and paid for a drink to add to her order.

My DVD had a picture of Maya doing lunges. and was reminded of my crew days. Coach had us doing lunges in a parking lot, for about 200 feet. Everyone else had finished, and I felt I was holding up the practice, so I started rushing to finish. He told me to go back and do them right. First one, and then a few other girls came back for more lunges to keep me company.

WARNING WOUND-LICKING COMING UP:

So much of my childhood, I felt alone, and at the mercy of others. My mother had her own probllems, and couldn't be bothered about mine, so she trivialized them. My peers at school mercilessly taunted me. I honestly felt my only purpose for being was to test my peers' capacity for cruelty. I tried to fast, because of al the guilt I felt, for the staving masses in Africa who weren't as luck as I was. And then felt lke a total failure when I would break my hunger strike. ( I guess I'm lucky, I never thought about purging.)

I dreaded parent teacher conferences, because my mother would then criticise me because my test scores were so high, I SHOULD BE getting A's. At the same time, if I talked about someday going to college, I would hear, "what makes you think you'll go to college, when your brother is losing his grant". The high school counselors' recommended that I attend the public college prep school that just that year was opened to girls. When I became excited about this possibility, my mother said that she thought I would just be too lazy to take the bus to school, and just drop out.

I was the only National Merit Scholarship Finalist at my public high school, in a class of about 950. I was so brainwashed by this time, that I told my counselors and teachers that they didn't understand, the scores didn't mean anything, I wasn't smart, I only did well on tests, and it was just a fluke, I couldn't do well in college.

Fast forward three or so years, to junior college. I get pregnant and marry the guy because of it. HE had been planning to get married all along, I was a substitute for his fiance who jilted him. He becomes physically abuse, even before the marriage. I cry to my grandmother who up to now has been one of the only reasons I an still somewhat sane. Her response was, "Why are you fighting with the husband of your child?" So I beleive that physical abuse is a normal part of a marriage that is just never talked about, like sex. And I stay married for seven years to the creep, who has no respect for me. I FINALLY figure out through girlfreinds at work, that some women are married because they enjoy it, and like their husbands, not just because divorce is wrong, and marriage is for better or for worse, and if he hits you, well that's just part of the worse.

And that is enough for now, many other relationships, cruel, probably abusive. But I still don't recognize when I am being treated badly.

Today I am dating someone, that I don't love, He doesn't spend time with me on the weekends, Our relationship is he may buy me McDonald's and we have sex, and occasionally he'll cut my grass. After two years, I've never been to HIS place. He's never spent the night at MINE. But he does try to stop me from crying, tell me he admires me, that I am smart, heis proud that I study math. He CLAIMS to not be married. I don't even ask to go away for a weekend together anymore.

OKAY DONE WITH THE SELF-PITY COMMERCIAL BREAK:

One of my counselors has told me that I have been badly brutalized, and my mother was intentionally cruel to me. That my minimization of it is just another symptom of my PTSD , (WHICH by the way, I DON"T think I have, because my mother had good reasons to be neglectful, with seven kids . And she never MEANT to be cruel and unloving).

Anyway, all that was just to let you gals know just how much it means to me to have positive company, and folks around who can be supportive.




And now I will shower and wash away the tears, because I have a bike to work on and some great folks are devoting their time and energy to a free bike repair clinic.

I will go ahead and post my insecurity and blemishs, because as someone here said about their birthmark, my freinds will like me whether I hide it or not, and I might as well know up front who are not my freinds.