Monday, October 11, 2010

Eating habits

Along with working out on a regular basis I have changed the ways that I eat. I didn't do it overnight. It's been a work in process. Some of the things that I have done may seem silly but it's been working for me.

  • I asked my husband not to put cookies and stuff in my hands. He had a bad habit of this and I had a bad habit of eating it even if it didn't really appeal to me.
  • I have a sweet tooth and instead of trying to never eat sweets I have just tried to find better choices to eat. A few examples are I stopped buying ice cream by the cartons and mostly just buy the ice cream sandwiches or bars. These are easy for me to control the calorie count and also I don't tell myself that the ice cream will go bad if I don't eat it. A box could last weeks and it's fresh still. A bad habit of mine was every day stopping to buy a cold soda even though I always bring soda to work and I would buy little debbie snack cakes or hostess cakes. They are about 600 to 700 calories. Now, I have broke the habit of having to stop for a cold soda. I do it only twice a week and now if I can't resist the urge to get something, I go for a candy bar which is normally under 300 calories. We used to buy the pastries when they were on sale and then we would eat them. Now, we pretty much stopped buying them. My husband and I have an agreement that we keep the cookies out of sight. He walks about 8 hours a day and can afford to eat more sweets than I do.
  • I don't deal with hunger very well. I had a really bad habit of stopping at McDonald's and eating there. I still sometimes have the urges to stop but I have been pretty good about not. I do eat at pizza hut sometimes, because my husband works there and it's free. But I eat about half as much as I used to.
  • When we make a cake, pie, brownies or anything else sweet. I don't think the same way anymore. I admit that I do have a serving but after that, I try to leave it alone. It doesn't matter if we have to throw stuff away. We feel like to bake something and throw some out is no different than ordering a cake or pie out and paying an high price for it.
  • I am getting better at eating smaller portions. I am listening to the full signal and not always eating all my food.
  • Up until this summer, I had a client that sometimes, I would go to get take out two to three times a week and would eat with them. I think it was a good thing that they ended their service with out company because even if you only eat half of the take out it's so much higher in calories.
  • I am not doing the emotional eating. Ya, know. Get into a fight with my husband and eat this or that. Or be depressed and use it as an excuse. It doesn't mean that I don't ever get sad but my first reaction isn't to eat something anymore. I suppose it helps that my husband and I are getting along great. Also, suppose it helps that I do have contact with Izzy even though it's not on my terms. If it was on my terms, I would have already met her. I think the fact that emotionally I am in a better spot really helps me stay strong and not to use food as comfort.
  • It also helps that my husband is always calling me pretty girl and saying how I look good and he is proud of me.
  • Last but not least, I think it helps me that I am not in a big hurry to lose all the weight. I want to lose it but I will not resort to any medication or quick fixes. When I weigh myself and see that I didn't lose any but remained the same, I take pride in the fact that I am maintaining the weight loss.
  • I still need to work on drinking water
  • I also need to start working some weights into my routine.
So, that wraps up what I have been doing to lose weight. That's from Mid April to now. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

1 comment:

Sara said...

I just wanted to say Way to go!!! I too am working on losing excess weight. I am right now bordering on 20 lbs lost in 2 months. It's been slow and the past week has been horrible! (I quit smoking!) but it's getting there.
Eating better doesn't happen over night, it takes time to develop those healthy habits and it sounds like you are doing really well!!!
I don't know if you track calories or anything like that but I use www.sparkpeople.com to track all my stuff and they have tons of support teams there if you are interested.
WTG and keep up the good work!! If you ever wanna chat my email is saraschrotenboer@gmail.com
Sara