Saw this today...

This is your life

Diet/Health Books I'm reading/read

*****(must read)
***(good ideas, but not all doable
** (one or two good concepts)
*(don't waste your money!) 


Books I have finished:

1. The Dukan Diet **
2. Slim for Life ***
3. Low Gi - Belly Fat Diet *
4. The Flat Belly Diet ***
5. Tudo posso mas nem tudo me convém (Portuguese Only) ***
6. The New Atkins for the New You ***
7. The Waterfall Diet **

Books I am currently reading:

1. The Paleo Diet (have read too little to tell)
2. Master Your Metabolism (so far *****)

Books I've started reading but haven't finished yet:

1. Anticancer a new way of life ***** (so far)
2. Why do I still have thyroid symptoms? *** 

Books I bought but haven't started reading yet:

1. Feeling Fat, Fuzzy and Frazzled? 

One day!

One day without coca-cola zero! Its little but its a victory already. 

One day without Gluten either! 

Studies: Why Diet Sodas Are No Benefit to Dieters

By MEREDITH MELNICK | @meredithcm | June 29, 2011 

GETTY IMAGES

More bad news, diet soda drinkers: data presented recently at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Scientific Sessions suggest that diet drinks may actually contribute to weight gain and that the artificial sweeteners in them could potentially contribute Type 2 diabetes.

In one study, researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, looked at aggregate data from 474 older adults in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, or SALSA. At the time of enrollment and at three follow-up exams thereafter, all participants reported their diet soda intake and were measured for height, weight and waist circumference. The researchers wanted to track any association between diet soda drinking and body fat over time.

What they found was that all participants saw their waistlines expand, but those who reported drinking diet soda had 70% greater increases in waistline growth than non-drinkers 9.5 years later. Among frequent drinkers — those who consumed two or more diet sodas a day — waistline growth was 500% greater than among non-drinkers. Researchers said their results were adjusted for other contributing factors like diabetes status, leisure-time physical activity level and age.

The data didn’t say why diet sodas might play a role in weight gain, but previous research suggests it has to do with the disconnect between the taste of artificial sugars and their lack of calories. The brain is wired to expect a big load of calories when foods taste sweet or fatty. But because diet foods fail to deliver, it throws the brain out of whack. Studies in animals suggest that artificial sweetener consumption may lead to even more eating and weight gain, perhaps in part because it triggers the body to start storing more calories as fat.

Excess weight, especially around the belly, as measured in the SALSA participants, is a risk factor for a variety of ills, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

In another study presented at the ADA meeting, researchers found an association between consumption of aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in many diet drinks, and elevated fasting glucose levels in mice.

The researchers, also from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, fed 40 mice their typical chow with added corn oil (to make the diet high-fat). For the half the mice, researchers also added aspartame to their food. After three months, researchers found that the mice in the aspartame group had elevated fasting glucose levels, an indication of a diabetic or pre-diabetic condition.

Of course, the findings aren’t directly translatable to humans, but the researchers think they’re still meaningful. “These results suggest that heavy aspartame exposure might potentially directly contribute to increased blood glucose levels, and thus contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans,” said Dr. Gabriel Fernandes, a University of Texas professor of rheumatology and clinical immunology, in a statement.

Maybe it’s time to switch to water.

Source: http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/29/studies-why-diet-sodas-are-no-boon-to-dieters/#ixzz1qL8MzYK2

Things I have learnt about myself

1. I am stronger than I thought I was.
2. I find it hard to stick to my resolutions.
3. My family/childhood affects me today in a negative way more than I wish it did.
4. My body tells me what it needs. If I crave orange juice it's probably when I'm ingesting too little vitamin C, I just have to be careful with sugar cravings hehe I don't really need that.
5. I found that by sticking to a diet, well at least the calories, I have been more committed to everything else in my life. I've scheduled tests I had to schedule, I've paid bills that were piling up, and its all sort of 'accidental', as in, I don't plan it ahead of time, so in a way I found that gaining some control over one aspect of my life, helps all others. 

Ooopsies

This is how this week went:

 

I fell of the wagon, and it was FUN! LOL

The fun bit: I got to eat whatever I wanted without being completely irresponsible. I never went over 1650 kcals, so it wasn't sooooo bad.

The unfun bit: I know I won't have lost, might have gained... thats NOT fun. 

Unfun bit 2: I have to come up with a new diet plan, that works.

It's kind of ironic as this week I read TWO diet books... 

Ok, I'll take it slow

Trying to make a lifetime of eating wrong into the perfect eating habits from one day to the next has proven to be a bit more difficult than anticipated.

So I'm changing my 'resolutions':

Things I'll quit:
- Fried food
- Gluten
- Added salt
- Sodas
- Artificial sweetners

Things I'll eat in moderation:
- Sugar
- Dairy

 

So far, so good

So far I have eaten:

- No gluten
- No dairy
- No fried food
- No added sugar
- No sweetners.

LOL, it seems easier to NOT eat than to avoid all these things.

What I had for breakfast:

- A slice of pineapple (it was delicious, it was SO sweet)
- A chunk of watermelo
- Some fruit salad made with Kiwi, Pineapple, Apple and Paw Paw
- Orange and Acerola Berry juice (Acerolas are rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, they are quite sour, but I did not add sugar or sweetner)

How I feel right now:

Like a million bucks and SO proud I managed one meal within my self-imposed plan.

I don't plan on going without dairy for long, my idea is cutting it for a month or so and then see if I can at least add cheese back as I really enjoy it.

A little plus that made my day: A boy stopped me today to say I was pretty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I lost a pound for each 'last chocolate' or 'just this time'...

 

I've been feeling guilty about my diet for these past few weeks. I feel that now that I'm comfortable calorie counting its really time to improve what is in the calories I eat. Sure, I can have 1,400 cals a day worth of chocolate, it's still 1,400 calories, but is it really?

My health is far from being the best around, so I really feel I have to take good care of it, starting, NOW. I don't want to wait until Monday or something, because that never works, I always think "This will be the last chocolate I ever eat"... haha if I lost a pound for each 'last chocolate' I ate or when I think "just this once"...

So, as of now I no longer:

- Eat sugar

- Eat wheat

- Eat fried food

- Drink Coca-cola zero (or any other soda)

- Consume artificial sweetners

- Add salt to my food, no  matter how tempting it is

- No longer have days "off" my diet, EXCEPT for situations I cannot control (e.g. weddings, birthday parties, etc) even so, I will force myself to make the healthiest choices available.

I read this in a book, "Would you have a little bit of poison every day? No? So why do you eat a little bit of poison everyday?"

I am convinced that gluten does not agree with me.

As for the sugar, my insulin is all over the place and I am insulin resistant, and I actually feel sick when I eat sugar now.

Artificial sweeteners are made of pure chemicals, so is my beloved coca-cola. 

Why am I fat?

Since I've started calorie counting all these emotions have surfaced. At first I couldn't make sense of it all but now the pieces are slowly falling into place. 

How it all started:

Little me was born... Skinny and 'tall'. I was so skinny my grandma says that if you held my hands up to the light you could see they were kind of transparent. 

Little me enjoyed breastfeeding, in one month's time I was already above my expected weight. But I suppose that's OK for babies as they grow so much.

Ok, then its moving on to REAL food. 

My mom was VERY controlling over portion sizes and food types. I strongly suspect she dealt with an ED in the past and still has some traits of that ingrained in her personality. An example of this is at school, all my friends took a whole packet of cookies for their snack. I was only allowed two cookies. One for myself, one for a friend, of course the prohibition made me eat both myself, as I knew I'd get none at home.  

I suppose I have also always been sort of greedy (when it comes to food). I've always looked at the largest potato, or the juiciest tomato, etc. I never really acted on it because I'd be scolded for not thinking of others, but I must admit I really did want the biggest portion, always. 

As I child I wasn't fat, but I thought I was.  The thing is, I have always thought I was fat. I got bullied and picked on at school, and I overheard my mom speaking to my aunt and saying that it was because I was fat. So this became part of me. In my head ME = FAT, OTHER KIDS = SKINNY, ME = BAD, OTHER KIDS = GOOD soon Fat = bad, skinny = good. 

Because of this perceived fatness I felt out at school and with my family, as all my cousins were (and still are) very lean. My personality has never really fit in with what has been expected from me also. I've always been (and probably always will be) compared to my cousins in ways that I can never 'compete', not that I want to, but I did at one point. 

I remember being 5 years old and feeling guilty for eating an ice lolly!!! 

Ever since I can remember, and this sounds awful, but it's true, I've wanted to lose weight. 

From the 2 - 5th grade I dealt with a hard time at home. 

My dad lost his job, we had no money, and despite being young I really felt that, as I needed a new uniform for school and my parents couldn't afford it and things like that. Dad got a job, and a lover at his new job, and I was the 'lucky' one to find out. Fancy telling your mom that your dad has a girlfriend?!?!?! That really messed with me. Now I can understand my behavior at the time. 

I did something I'm still ashamed of. I stole some of my moms meal coupons (my dad got them from his job) and I used them to buy M&Ms at school. Of course I'd eat them during class, which was forbidden. I remember eating a lot of M&Ms, I can't really say if it was that much or if I perceived it to be a lot as all my portions were always so controlled. 

One day my mom noticed some coupons were missing and she was about to fire the cleaning lady when I came clean to her. 

I felt guilty as hell doing what I did, I still feel a bit guilty to this day, but I'm able to rationalize it now. I was desperate for attention and I was comfort eating. It's funny because to this day if I'm under stress I crave food I can pick at like M&Ms, popcorn, crisps... even chopped carrots (did the test once) its picking at food that soothes me more than the food itself. It's kind of creepy but I'll put it all in a specific order, by colour, or size or whatever I can come up with, but this just happens when I'm at my breaking point. 

Pre-teens and Teens: 

When I got to the 6th grade I changed schools, and it was GREAT! For the first time in my life I had friends and I was actually happy at school. I actually found a picture of me during this period and I was really slim. OF course, I still felt fat and didn't fit in with the cool 'thin' crowd. 

Now I see that its more that I didn't know how to dress and style my hair and stuff like that. My mom has never been a girly girl, so I didn't learn these things. Gosh... I remember going to a party once, and I wore a Goofy T-Shirt (3 sizes too large for me!), jeans and sneakers (my feet were so big at this time the kids said I had TitaNikes, not sneakers)... 

Well, If I had dressed more like the other girls (jeans, cute top, shoes) I might have felt less "left out" still, it was a good time of my life.

It was around this phase that I started stuffing myself with food when my mom wasn't home. Then I felt guilty about it, so I tried to vomit, but it happens that I don't really have a gag reflex, and I can't make myself vomit. Which was very frustrating. So I started chewing and spitting food (junk food, never real food, the real food I swallowed)

High School: Right before I started high-school my doctor told me to lose some weight, my parents offered me 10 quid for every kilo I lost. I lost 10 kg. 

High school was TERRIBLE. If I though that bullying in primary school was bad, I had no idea what awaited me in High School.

Somebody spread a rumor that I was a lesbian, and I was left friendless for all 3 years.

I developed autoimmune thyroid problems it took doctors FOREVER to figure it out. During this phase I gained a lot of weight, and then lost it all. I remember losing 5 kg in two weeks... without doing anything different. Instead of investigating what was going on, my doctor congratulated me on my weight loss and that was that. 

Then I gained all the weight back and a bit more.

And that was my life for a while, lose, gain, lose, gain, lose gain. See, I was going into hypothyroid then hyper in a never-ending cycle, and there was no way of controlling the weight.

Pre-college: This was my thinnest phase ever. I was wearing size 38 jeans -- UTOPIA!!! (before that it was around 40-42). 

I had a boyfriend (who I ended up marrying hehe) and I got admitted into college. 

College: When doing college I continued to live with my parents, but I was over 18, and felt "Free" and "Independent" and could do all that my parents forbade... I discovered this store that sold sweets near university and I really did overdo the chocolate for a couple of months, but then I got a part-time job and started walking a lot and I ended up actually losing some weight, I was also very happy so I didn't really crave food in particular. I continued thin, and for once in my life I knew it and I felt great. 

Then all hell broke loose. I developed endometriosis, and with it terrible diarrhea, and vomiting and I went for 15 days a month without being able to eat, living on Coca-cola and Gatorade. This went on for a long time until I was given surgery and put on the pill to keep me from having periods. Then the weight problems got real.

I started gaining non-stop, right after the operation. I tried to diet, I tried going to the gym, swimming, everything, but I now imagine that the combo Days and days without eating + pill really messed up my metabolism.

Marriage: Before getting married, I went on the South Beach diet, Still under my mother's watchful eye, I manged to lose 15 kg pre wedding, but I came back from my honeymoon weighing an extra 2 kg. 

I didn't really know how to cook, I didn't have gas (I forgot to call the gas company and have it installed...LOL) and we ate  a lot of junk and microwaveable food for the first weeks after our wedding.

It was during this period also that I started losing my hair. I read that harsh diets could do that so I decided I'd start eating more, but silly me started eating ALL the wrong foods.

That was the beginning of the end. 

I stated piling on pounds, I wanted to make yummy food for my hubby to show what I good wife I was. One day my hubby pointed out that I was eating more than he was, and then reality hit me. 

Well, now, here I am. 3 years later (post wedding) trying desperately to shift this weight, but so far, in almost 3 months of dieting I've only lost 5 kg, of which 1 I regained. 

I do feel sort of doomed regarding my body and body image.

In a nutshell: I always saw myself as being fat, even though I wasn't. A better body image would have helped me avoid what I'm going through, but at least I know I'll appreciate my body more when I'm able to lose even the slightest bit of weight. 

Mini victories and one mini setback

So last week I didn't have the energy to write here... I've been coming from a few weeks of intense work, both at work and freelance stuff I do when I get home. I was exhausted!!!

1- I'd like to share and register my mini-victory: Last week, I managed to get back close to my lowest weight since Dec. 2011!!! 89.9 kg, I was so happy I was literally jumping up and down all over the place!
2- This Friday I was able to get into a pair of jeans one size smaller than what I was wearing and they were COMFY and fit me perfectly!!! =D From size 48 to size 46 OOOOOHHHH YEAH!!!!

 

After today's weigh in I was a bit disappointed, 91.1 (at first I thought, oh only 100 grams more.. that's fine) then I got my maths straight 1.2 kg actually... so that's kind of disappointing, but it's TTOTM, and hopefully next week this will all be over and I'll be weighing even less than 89.9 (fingers crossed!!) 

What doesn't kill you...

My diet

I've decided to start a 100% personalized diet...

Phase 1 - March 7 - to April 7

 - Eat between 1200 and 1400 calories a day, excluding the following food from my diet:

• Carbs (Except for those in veggies).
• Sweetner, as possible.
• Diet sodas
• Decrease sodium as possible
• Remove processed food from my diet as possible
• Eat at least 12-15 grams of net carbs from greens and veggies. 
• 160 mins of cardio per week 

Phase II - April 7 - Until I reach 64 kg

• Do all of the above, and introduce one portion of fruit always with fiber or protein to reduce blood sugar impact. If I continue to lose, I'll continue adding fruit until I reach 2-3 portions a day.
• Include regular strength training to boost my sluggish metabolism.

Phase III - After I reach my goal weight, for the next 2 years (to let my body get used to its new weight and consolidate the weight loss). 

• Find the maximum level of carbs + calories I can eat to maintain the weight I managed to achieve. 

Phase IV - Ongoing life maintenance. 

• Eat Low GI for the rest of my life. 
• Include one 'treat' meal per week. 

Weight gain, fluid retention and diet deamons...

Another week, no loss... A bit of gain so on and so forth.

I'm starting to get very frustrated by all of this and have decided to look back and adjust my strategy, as this one is obviously not working.

This morning I woke up so swollen all over I couldn't even close my hand in a fist.

I have come to a few conclusions:

        I.            There are 'diet gods' and 'diet devils'     The 'devils' and their little evil deamons get out at night when you are seeping, and they do evil things:

a) they get salt and water and inject them under your skin so that you wake up swollen.

b) they also inject you with sugar so that you gain weight.

c) they take your clothes out of the closet and tighten them so you think you are gaining even more.

 

True! I swear that's what's happening to me! 

Get that heart pumping!

Less than an hour ago I wrote about how shitty I felt (sorry, excuse my language, but that's how I was feeling.)
I tried to lie down for a few minutes, but I just felt worse. 


What I was really craving wasn't rest, apparently I needed some endorphin and to get some frustration out of my system: to get  my heart pumping fast...I turned on some nice music, and filled a bottle up with raspberry flavored green tea...
Got up on my Elliptical trainer and got my legs pumping as fast and hard as I could. Never got my heart monitor beeping so fast haha. 


Recommended workout cd: Evanscence by Evanescence. It's upbeat, and has a slower song now and then, and trust me, when the slower songs come on you're ready to take it easier. 


Now I'm sweating like a hog, lobster faced and out of breath but I haven't felt this good in a long time. BTW, that headache is gone. 

Breaking down

Broken, shattered. 

My hands can no longer work. 

My mind is too tired to think.

My eyes, too, have tired to blink.

All I want to do is lie down and sleep. 

Enter into a world of slumber 

and into a dream world or wonder.

I need a break from work

I need a break from life.

I need a break from being me.

I need a break from judgement.
 I need a break from opinions.

I need a break from people.

I need a break from thinking.

I need two weeks at the beach

or maybe on the top of a mountain,

drink water from a life fountain

I'd like to lie down in a field of flowers

Stay there for many hours, 

doing nothing at all.

I need a break from hurt

I need a break from pain

I need to start living life again.

Broken, shattered. That's how I feel.

Falling off the wagon, NOT!

This week has been COMPLICATED! I've felt hungry, satisfied, ravenous... and everything in between. The good thing is that I went through a very anxiety-laden week and was able to stay away from emotional eating.

I did feel at a point (on Wednesday, when I had a terrible day at work) as if I were losing my marbles... that if I didn't eat 1360 kcals the world would come to a bitter end, and so on and so forth.

In the end it all worked out, I had a little cry about it, ranted a bit, and am back to my 'usual' self, whatever that is.

So this is how the week went calorie-wise:

Sunday: 20 kcals over
Monday: 196 kcals under 
Tuesday: 398 kcals over 
Wednesday: 12 kcals over
Thursday: 217 kcals under
Friday: Goodness knows! Will try to eat 1340 cals.
Saturday: Will behave
Sunday: My day off, BBQ at my Uncle's house! =D Yum!

That means that all in all... I was 17 calories over what I should eat this week, not bad at all! I can assure you, I had a lot more fun haha.  I think I'm going to start thinking of calories more like a weekly goal than as a daily goal. It gets too stressfull, then therere are those days you feel more or less hungry... I was ravenous yesterday. I felt like a lion who hadn't fed in months, and today I was 'unhungry'.

Didn't really fall of the wagon, but the picture is cute...

So, my new goal is to have 10,000 calories a week, that's 1360 x 7 + 500 kcals for my 'day off'. Maybe this will keep my body guessing what's coming next and get me off this plateau.

So far this week I've felt no changes in my body. I am retaining loads of fluid and feel as if my legs are about to explode. The weather is unbearable hot, which doesn't help either. 

When it comes to exercise.. hummm haven't been meeting my goals... I did exercise one day this week (in addition to the usual 15 min walk home)... but I'm too tired and too busy to exercise more as I'm working on a big freelance project. Will try to squeeze in 20  mins, tomorrow, on Saturday and Sunday. (BTW, I consider my diet week to begin, of course, on Mondays).