One of the reasons diets don't work very well is that "starving yourself" is unpleasant and creates an emotional feeling of deprivation, as well as changing your metabolism to make weight loss less likely.
Weight control is a lifestyle decision.
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That's what it all came down to for me. I wouldn't say that I was self-conscious about my appearance in a wet suit per se ...but it did appear over time like my wet suit had "shrunk".
This past January I was getting my head (and gear) ready for a liveaboard in Belize. One day I just decided that I had let things drift off course long enough and it was time to make a major course correction. My wife had been experimenting with the whole WeightWatchers thing for a couple years but hadn't had much sustained success. Since the WW literature was all over the house I started to read a little about their theory. Pretty amazing stuff in those pages about the content of foods.
I'm not much of a conformist and there's NO WAY that I was going to join WW, but what I was reading was starting to make sense. So, I decided to commit to a long term lifestyle change. I knew I'd never become some exercise nut so I had to concentrate on the food intake side of the equation.
By simply reducing the total number of calories I was consuming per day and choosing foods low in sugars/fat I began to see the weight start to drop. Now ...I'm not talking about huge amounts of weight here. But the losses were measurable and sustained. Bottom line ...from January 23 to March 11 (the day we left on our dive trip) I had lost 18 lbs.
Sure, I gained some back on the dive trip. Who wouldn't with all that stuff Nekton serves you ?? But as soon as I came home I got right back on the program. As of this morning my total weight loss (since January 23) was 23 lbs.
I'm not starving myself and I'm still eating a lot of things I like. Big difference is portion size and meal timing. I keep low calorie/sugar foods around me during the day (like small fruit cups in light syrup and applesauce, an apple, pear or orange) and whenever I feel a bit hungry I eat a little. When I get home at night we now SPLIT a portion of food that we both used to eat individually. I still like my beer now and then but for the most part I only drink the low carbohydrate/calorie stuff and only have one ...instead of the 2 - 3 I used to have at a single setting.
Best thing of all is I don't feel like I'm suffering or punishing myself. Sure, I was hungry at first when I made the major changes, but after a while it actually started to feel good when I was a little hungry now and then. Who knows, I may fall off the wagon one of these days and eat a pound of bacon at a single sitting and chase it with 3 - 4 donuts ...but I don't think so. I've still got about 6 - 8 lbs to go and then it all becomes a "maintenance" routine.
Sorry for the long post. But, if I can do this pretty much anyone can. Just be reasonable about your goals and stick to the program. Be satisfied with small BUT consistend losses and look at it all as being POSITIVE instead of a pain in the ***.
'Slogger
