Silk Naturals

I like things to be easy. So this summer all I did is stop eating cheese, cut back on fried things, and went to pilates once a week. I lost 15lbs in about 3 months.

- portion control -- made a huge difference when I first decided to lose weight a couple of years ago: you don't realize how much you're eating until you actually take time to measure it out and do the right portions, at least I didn't
it also helps to do a bit of reality check when it comes to calorie contents: for a while i figured cheese pizza is fine, then I checked and fell of the chair when I realized one large slice contained almost third of my daily calorie needs... and I was eating two of those sometimes :/

- i'm advocate of green smoothies: i have one for breakfast and it not only keeps me full and starts my day right (and regulates, ahem) it provides a hefty portion of my daily veggie needs. i stopped craving warm and heavy breakfast meals and now I crave my smoothie. it really is true: the more good stuff you eat, the less you crave the bad.
start as little as you want, and you won't even notice you put a handful or two of spinach in your berry smoothie - my boyfriend didn't
i'm up to 1/3rd - 1/2 of fruit + the rest green leafy veggies or lettuce or celery or the combination with a dash or two of cayenne, and I love it!
i don't really put much else in there but water to get the right consistency, but you can put some hemp powder for extra protein, and even a bit of sweetener if that helps to get it down better. Victoria Butenko's Green for Life is what started me out; I highly recommend it. If you don't change anything else in your diet, this is still a huge step.

- resist the urge: try to put aside the thought of making that 2nd pbj and give the first one a little time to settle in. if you're still hungry in like 20-30 mins, then you're really still hungry, but you could still try to have a cup of mint tea instad
do consider though that if you keep trying to resist one thing you really really want, you may just want to give in: I went through this a lot, really wanted something I thought I shouldn't have and ended up coming out worse with all the stuff I ate instead to try to substitute or get my mind off the 'forbidden' item: and apple is not a piece of chocolate

- seconding (thirding?) keeping healthy snacks on hand: it helps with emotional eating: it's better to polish off a large handful of baby carrots than eat a bag of chips -- I actually asked my BF to stop bringing home stuff that I used to love to snack on, even though I know he just wanted to be nice, I can't always resist what's in the cupboard

and as others said: don't beat yourself up if you sidestep! however, do consider that little cheatings can add up, so figure out why you're doing it, and try to stop before it gets out of hand. for me it's mostly time management issue: don't have the time to shop or prepare the healthy stuff, so I need to figure out how to man up and cut back on, erm, watching silly TV shows, and go to the store, because I know I feel so much better once the fridge is stocked with the good stuff

Good luck!

Portion control is helpful but can be such a pain! I loathe cleaning out measuring cups and such... I weigh out my dog's food per meal (she eats equal portion weight of low carb veggies and protein) right into her bowl thanks to this scale http://www.amazon.com/Escali-P115C-Digi ... 0007GAWRS/ I have one in Aruba Blue, bright enough it's hard to misplace, and one of my favorite colors so it makes me smile to use it! I don't weigh my food every time because I have to be careful about being obsessive, but I use it to check my portions every once in a while or with a new food that is very calorie dense. Helpful for quick baking too.

Other than that...

Try to make sure 1/2 of your plate is low carbohydrate veggies and 1/4 of it is lean protein. Leaves less room for calorie dense, less nutritious foods.

Dried nuts and fruits can soothe a craving for salty/sweet snacks, I take a handful out and walk away from the bag.

Drinking lots of water, flavored waters without sweeteners, and unsweetened tea helps prevent "hunger pangs" that are really dehydration.

And if you are really, really craving something then have it, within reason. Sometimes cravings are our bodies searching for a mineral we need, other times not but if I have something only when I'm really craving it it usually tastes extra good!

Oh, and move as much as you can, when you can, but not to the point you are fatigued. Leave a little energy to help your body recover and do other things, especially if you deal with fatigue issues.

Can't say that any of this has impacted the 100 lbs I could stand to lose, but that's for reasons out of my control. It does help me feel better though!

egerandi, I am really intrigued by your green smoothie!! do you use fresh or frozen spinach?
what other fruits do you use? do you use milk, yogurt, etc?

this sounds like a nice breakfast to me, and one I could get ready for the night before, so I only have to throw it in to the blender and go!

as for dieting...I am with lily on this, I just move more. walk more than anything. I think overall i have a pretty healthy diet, though since moving to switzerland I have gained a few from some pretty consecutive bad choices (croissants, chocolate...cheese...ahh the list goes on).
and now that I am expecting, I feel like I really shouldnt diet. So I am being really careful with what I reach for, and I have a massive bowl of fruit on my desk that I try to get through during the week.
trying to really eat only whole foods and home cooked, but I really find lunches super hard. absolutely nothing appeals to me and I should really bring my own lunch but either I have one prepared and I forget it at home (happens most often) or I just don't have time to prepare anything.
am on a taco's kick though, so migh grill some chicken up and bring some fixings and have that for lunch. yummmm

la_canadiense(01) wrote:egerandi, I am really intrigued by your green smoothie!! do you use fresh or frozen spinach?
what other fruits do you use? do you use milk, yogurt, etc?

this sounds like a nice breakfast to me, and one I could get ready for the night before, so I only have to throw it in to the blender and go!

Not egerandi, but I have done these smoothies- the recipes usually call for fresh ingredients, because they have the most nutrients. I use a magic bullet/mini blender with about half baby spinach. I'm not big on most berries, but love apples. The smoothies are super green, but taste pretty good. I like to add flax seed, honey, and cinnamon.

la_canadiense(01) wrote:egerandi, I am really intrigued by your green smoothie!! do you use fresh or frozen spinach?
what other fruits do you use? do you use milk, yogurt, etc?

this sounds

Like Samantha said, the fresher the better, but I do use some frozen fruit, for example. It's considerably less expensive to get organic berries that way, and are available in the winter, and I also buy mangoes and bananas in bulk, clean, cut up, and freeze. Yes, it will lose some nutrients in that process, but I can deal with that for the sake of a bit of convenience in my already hectic prep routine
Talking about convenience: I have some green saver bags (the kind the holds the produce fresher a bit longer), so I cut up and wash all the leafy veggies and celery, and have them ready for about a week, so I don't have to spend time on that in the morning.

These smoothies are dairy-free. Sometimes I use fresh coconut water instead of water, but I tend to keep it simple. I follow food combining rules, so for me
it's only the same class of fruit (a whole other story, hehe) and only certain leafy veggies (LOVE kale, but I use spinach, dark leafies, red and green leaf and romaine lettuce, celery, parsley and green sprouts too). And, cayenne For example, today's smoothie is one mango, one banana, two stalks of celery and a large handful of home-grown mixed green sprouts + cayenne and 12oz of water. Now, this may be a bit much for a beginner, you may wanna start with a bigger fruit to green ratio. There is dispute as to what constitutes the ideal ratio, but I tend to do half/half. There are some tips at the bottom of http://www.greensmoothie.com/blend/green.html or more here: http://www.rawfamily.com/recipes or just do a 'green smoothies' search for more inspiration. After a while, you'll just make them up on your own, depending on what feels right

If you're not very strict about the separation, you can use hemp or nut milk instead of water, you can add superfood powders like acai or maca, and add hemp protein, chia seeds, coconut, hemp or flaxseed oils or avocado, or even raw cacao. Some like it sweeter, for which you can use the sweetener of your choice like agave, dates or honey.

Good luck!

ETA: i invested in a $400 Blendtec blender, because it blends pretty much anything into a smooth consistency, and much easier to get it down. The old blender I had was leaving pieces of lettuce and celery, yuck, hehe. But, try it first to see how you like it, imagine it much smoother, and that will help to decide if you want to invest. I love my blender, use it several times a day for blended soups (whatever veggies I have in the fridge, pretty much), nut milks, smoothies, etc. Vitamix is another good choice.

Thanks for the tips on the spinach in smoothies....I just added some to one of my berry smoothies. Not bad. It did make the color a bit darker, but I really could not taste the spinach in it.

JenW wrote:Thanks for the tips on the spinach in smoothies....I just added some to one of my berry smoothies. Not bad. It did make the color a bit darker, but I really could not taste the spinach in it.

And it's easy to hide from the kiddos too

The fresh vs. frozen thing is not strictly true. If you buy your produce from California and you live in say Calgary (because that's where I live), then frozen vegetables and fruit will actually have more nutrients as long as the food was frozen relatively quickly after shipping. The reason behind this is because food starts to lose nutrients the minute that it has been picked so if food takes a day or two to get to you, but is frozen within 8 hours, the frozen food will have lost fewer nutrients.

That being said, I use either in my green smoothies depending on what I have on hand.

yogingineer wrote:The fresh vs. frozen thing is not strictly true. If you buy your produce from California and you live in say Calgary (because that's where I live), then frozen vegetables and fruit will actually have more nutrients as long as the food was frozen relatively quickly after shipping. The reason behind this is because food starts to lose nutrients the minute that it has been picked so if food takes a day or two to get to you, but is frozen within 8 hours, the frozen food will have lost fewer nutrients.

I'm lucky in that sense, I live in California and shop at the Farmers Market as much as possible. But you're right re 'fresh' stuff that has been in a truck for days vs the one that was frozen at its peak, especially if the latter is organic.