lose weight

I ate more takeout food than I should have. And I started to worry that my lost weight may have started to return. It had been a couple weeks since my last weigh-in. The scale is not convenient now because we have had to move things around to keep a clear path for my wheelchair.

So this weekend I had hubby haul out the scale. I’m down another 5 pounds for a 30 pound loss so far! I’m very pleased and I hope I can maintain my new habits and make even better ones as my recovery continues.

to be losing weight as a result of my lifestyle changes brought on after my fall.

I’m still in the wheelchair and can’t drive, which means I can’t just hop in a car and grab fast food. And we can’t just go out to eat several times a week. We have been eating at home a lot more.

The biggest lifestyle changes I have made are:

• not eating out so frequently. In fact we rarely eat out because of transportation issues and are ordering in twice a week (less than we used to eat out)

• no opportunities to grab fast food so we rarely have that

• I previously had a good habit of eating healthy foods spaced out in the morning so I wouldn’t be ravenous by lunchtime (yogurt at 8:30, a little oatmeal at 9:30, banana at 10:30). But now I’ve added healthy snacks in the afternoon to replace junk (candy bars, chips, any kind of high fat sweets) I might have eaten before. Now snacks are fruit, nuts, low fat mozzarella sticks, things like that.

• I’m actually finding I can say no to high calorie sweets at the office (cookies, muffins, cake) by instituting a “one dessert in a day” rule, so I save myself to have some pudding with my hubby after dinner.

• sticking to smaller portions most of the time now for lunch and dinner meals. Once in a while I slip up on this one when we get delivery.

More changes I will be working on:

• eat more vegetables

• eat less processed foods

• eat more fish (salmon, tuna, sardines)

• reduce sweets further

• eat less white carbs

• eat healthier fats (olive oil, canola)

• cook more at home, especially once I’m more on my feet.

Since my fall my eating habits have changed. We can no longer easily hop in the car to go get something to eat. I’m eating at home more and eating healthier snacks and doing a little better on portions.

In my last post on this goal I had lost 15 pounds at the time of my surgery. I’ve been in a wheelchair since then and haven’t been able to easily get on a scale. I felt like I had probably regained at least 10 pounds, and I hoped no more than that. My clothes seem to fit the same as they always did, but I guess it’s hard to tell that sitting in a chair all the time.

Before my accident I weighed myself daily so after two months of not getting weighed I was eager to get on the scale and learn the truth. On Friday I asked to be weighed while I was at PT. Imagine my surprise when I found I am down 25 pounds total!!

This means I got to check off a New Year Resolution for this year – lose 20 pounds. Yay!

My husband has been losing weight too. Now if we can just keep up the good habits. It’s just the beginning of my journey, but this loss gives me encouragement to keep going.

of my accident in March is that I have lost weight. About 15 pounds in total. I think it is mostly because I cannot drive with a broken arm and foot and so going out to eat and getting fast food are not nearly as accessible. So we tend to eat at home more often than not. I hope that once I am healed I can keep these pounds off and work on losing more.

I want to join the Bone Marrow Registry, but I’m about 20 pounds heavier than I can be to donate. I’m told the extra weight poses a risk with the anesthesia they use in donation.

I would love to accomplish this goal to get on the Bone Marrow Registry before other health concerns crop up that might keep me from being eligible.

5 pounds is a drop in the bucket compared to what I need to lose, but it’s at least moving in the right direction. We won’t talk about how long it took me. I’m taking note of it and giving myself a small reward (not food). Onward to the next 5.

I have long realized that my problem with losing weight is primarily in my head. It’s not a question of which diet is best. There are many healthy diets to pick from. The trouble is how do you stay on a healthy eating plan long enough to make a permanent change?

I recently purchased a book that I’m hoping will help. It’s called “The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” by Judith Beck. This book talks about using cognitive therapy to learn new skills and change your habits and the way you think so you can make those permanent changes. It’s supposed to work with along with any nutritious diet.

The author guides you through new exercises each day to learn skills that will help you change your thinking about food and eating. In fact you don’t even start the diet part for the first couple weeks of the program. I love that you can take it at your own pace and make sure you have each skill mastered before you move on to the next.

For now I’m just reading the book. I will be heading out on vacation next week so I will probably wait until I return to get into the exercises. Although I may go through the first exercise before I leave. That would be to make a comprehensive list of all the advantages of losing weight. The list is something the program has you read at least a couple times a day while you lose weight.

In the Q&A section I ran across this answer from Trauma_Junkie in response to someone’s question about how to avoid falling off the food wagon on weekends:

I would try to plan out your weekends a bit more. Make sure you have some structure, even if you plan in 4 hours to “Lay on the couch and watch movies” and plan out meals and snacks, so that you are not actually hungry and tempted to eat everything. A snack can be a donut, just not 6 of them.

I think that’s great advice and hopefully Trauma_Junkie won’t mind my copying it here. I wanted to place it somewhere I could find it again because I think this advice would be helpful for me.

Thanks TJ!!

Do you know what Ghrelin is? I found this definition on the web: a hormone that relays messages between the digestive system and the brain. It works to stimulate appetite, slow metabolism, and decrease your body’s ability to burn fat.

Lack of sleep produces Ghrelin. That’s probably one of several contributing factors in my scale’s refusal to budge in the downward direction. It’s frustrating.

If my scale was accurate this morning I’ve lost the 3 pounds that I gained when I started walking consistently.

I haven’t done too well at eating at home more yet, but I’m still working on it. In the meantime I have decided to go after my fast food habit, starting with burgers and fries. I think that mini goal will be easier than getting home in time to cook. We’ll see how it goes.