Reply to Please share your success stories (without medication or unrealistic calorie deficits)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think I qualify. I was 20 pounds overweight once everything leveled out after the birth of my younger child, and about 25 pounds heavier than I was before I was pregnant.

This calendar year, I’ve lost 12 pounds and improved my health, and I feel really good about the progress and the sustainability.

It’s a VERY slow rate of change - 2 pounds a month. But it’s been pretty consistent. Here’s what I did:

I actually started last year with exercise. Exercise is unlikely to impact your weight (it didn’t for me) but IMHO it’s much more important for overall health. I had a back injury at brought me to a physical therapists office and it quickly became clear how out of shape I had become. I walk a lot, and I’ve kept that up, prob an average of about 30-60 mins a day (I don’t have a car which makes this easier). But I added in twice a week core exercises during the work day. Takes 20 mins. Then I added in 15 mins of Pilates 3x a week after the kids go to bed. Such a small time commitment, but I feel way stronger and healthier. I did this consistently for over 6 months before I started worrying about my food intake.

Then for food, I actually started with ADDING not subtracting - have a green smoothie with lunch every day, and a fruit with breakfast and a veggie with dinnner. Got into a groove with that, again no weight change. This was all last year.

This year - it was time to stop cutting out some of the crap I was eating, and that’s when I started to see the numbers on the scale move. I started by brainstorming/imagining what a moderately healthy (not necessarily weight loss, just healthy) day of eating would be for me. Here’s a sample day:

Breakfast: banana and some peanut butter crackers
Lunch: turkey sandwich, green smoothie, cheese stick
Dinner: Reasonable portion of pesto pasta with chicken and asparagus. 
Evening snack: low fat ice cream sandwich

So i decided I would focus on eating three healthy meals and one small treat each day. And then I gave myself some wiggle room. 15 “points” (yes, this is weight watchers inspired). A point is roughly 100 extra calories. At any given time.

So if I go out for ice cream with the kids and get a full fat cone, I figure that’s prob about 200 calories more than my usual evening treat. So that’s 2 points. If I randomly eat a few chips with salsa before dinner at a party, that’s a point. Extra portion at dinner? Maybe 2 points. I keep it to 15 points a week, Thurs-Wed, and I weigh myself on Thursday morning.

No tracking, rarely googling, no math, just super imprecise estimations, and the only thing I have to keep in my head is my current number of points, one simple number. And there are weeks when my weight has ticked up a bit and I’ve had to say, “Okay, you’re getting a bit liberal with what constitutes a healthy meal, tighten up a bit next week.” And that does the trick.

This feels incredibly sustainable. I can do this forever.  And to me, that’s key. [/quote]

Love this. I am tracking my food this week and it’s a bit soul sucking. I really enjoy healthier foods to be honest. love vegetables and lean meats, and think food prepared simply is delicious (I think I compare it to the quick, processed food I grew up eating). However, I enjoy bread and sweets too and I think I’m a bit of an emotional eater too. I only plan to track for a a few months, when I hope nutritionally-better portion sizes are second nature and I hope to have curbed my tendency to eat high-fat/high-sugar when I am bored or stressed. [/quote]

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