That's just slightly more than 1 pound a week. If I can manage to lose 1 pound per week, I will have lost 52 pounds in one year. I don't need to lose 52 pounds, but I have set a goal to lose at least 1 pound a week and so far I'm hitting my goal!
I'm not going to paint a pretty picture and say that this has been easy because it's not easy.
One of the biggest challenges I have encountered is eating out. For the most part I eat at home, or I pack my lunches and snacks for work. But once in a while I have to eat out. My sister Lisa and I try to keep one night per week as a sister night. This used to be a lot of fun. We would go to a favorite Mexican food place and have margaritas and eat baskets of chips with salsa.
Since I am eating low carb/high fat and Lisa is watching her sodium intake, it is very hard to find a place we can eat. I can't eat the chips due to the carbs and Lisa can't eat them due to the salt. We try to go places where we can eat salads but that's difficult because many salads have hidden carbs in the shape of croutons, won tons, rice, beans, corn and sugar in the dressings. For Lisa just the dressings themselves are packed with sodium.
One of our favorite places to eat was Coco's Restaurant. Our favorite dish there was the Spicy Asian Chicken Salad. Below is how the carbs/sodium facts play out. Remember I stick to 20 to 24 net carbs per day and Lisa I believe sticks to 1200 to 1500 Mg's of sodium per day. Our favorite salad has a net carb count of 81 carbs and sodium level of 1410 Mg's. Just one salad!
I also have the same problem eating out with my mom. Mom and I like to go shopping on Saturdays. We both love going to Goodwill and we also do our grocery shopping. We also usually have a nice lunch somewhere. But Mom is a very picky eater. She doesn't do salads and she has such a small appetite that she can't eat in a steak house where she would have to pay $15 or more just to eat one or two bites. Yesterday we went out and the only place she wanted to eat was Del Taco. I ordered their Chicken Bacon Avocado Salad. You can see the nutrition info for carbs is a net of 18. I figure it was less than that as I didn't eat the tortilla chips shown in the photo. I estimate I ate about 7 to 10 carbs. But the salad was horrible, not at all as pictured below.
Another challenge is exercising. My problem with exercise is that I've hurt myself exercising! You remember my post a few weeks ago about my heart attack scare where I actually had only hurt myself exercising. I was diagnosed with Bursitis. I didn't blame exercise at that time, but just this Friday I had to see my doctor for a horrible pain in my left ankle and foot. I explained to my doctor that I had started a walking regimen and she said it's either a heel spur or Plantar Fasciitis. I had x-rays taken and hopefully it's not a heel spur.
Unfortunately this has derailed my exercise routine. I tried all last week to continue doing the 1 mile walking video but by Friday I couldn't stand the pain anymore, and yesterday going shopping with my mom we had to shorten our day due to the pain. It really is irritating because I was enjoying the was daily exercise. I'm going to start riding my stationary bike since that doesn't affect either my arm or my feet, we'll see how long my knees can hold up! But I'm not going to stop moving!
Another challenge is that because it's so hard to eat out I've literally stopped going out. No more Happy Hour with the girls. Margaritas have sugar in the simple syrup, about the only thing without carbs is drinking straight alcohol, like tequila or vodka and I'm not big on that. I can maybe have one Michelob Ultra which I believe has 3.6 carbs, but what about the happy hour foods? Chips and Salsa, Guacamole, Chicken Wings, Potato Skins? None of that is carb friendly.
But challenging as it is I am determined to continue with my new WOE (way of eating) and if I have to give up girls night it's worth it to feel as good as I do, to have the energy I have now. Sometimes it is disheartening and I guess that's why I'm venting now, but it would make my life so much easier if all my favorite things didn't have so many stinking carbs!!!
Well done. One pound a week is the optimal weight loss rate. I know this from experience. Some years ago I was on a calorie count diet, and one pound a week was my goal. It was a very succesful diet. However, dieting depends a lot on what goes on in your life, and I had some bad chapters at that time. So, after a year or so, I went back to food comfort. It's stronger than our will.
ReplyDeleteHere's a story about slimming.. There's a famous chef in my country that used to be very fat. Ten years ago he became slim and is still slim. He explained this by saying it was due to heaviy exercising. I didn't buy that and I was right. The police arrested a drug dealer and this chef was on the list of his clients .The police found at his home only a small quantity of marijuana for "personal use", so he got away with it. He's probably still on a bit of marijuana or some other drug which has slimming property.
Anyway, Good Luck with your WOE !
I follow a lot of people on Facebook and Instagram that do different types of eating plans and it always bugs me when they complain that they lost 5 pounds the first week and now haven't lost anything so they are going to give up. Weight loss is something that takes time plus the fact that you are teaching yourself the right foods to eat. I know that I've bought some low carb tortillas and when I eat one I feel heavier the next day, so I only eat them once in a while as a treat, I know that my body can't handle certain foods, but I'm learning what works and what doesn't.
DeleteMany years ago, when I was in my teens I begged my mom to take me to a doctor to get diet pills. Now mind you this was probably about 40 years ago, doctors weren't quite so careful about what they prescribed. The doctor gave me diet pills and I lost a ton of weight quickly, but I was also high most of the time (although I and my mother didn't know this). I couldn't sleep and was running around cleaning all night long. They were drugs, I shouldn't have been taking them, but we didn't know then what we know now. We felt if they were prescribed by a doctor then they must be ok right?
I'm sure if that chef was losing weight and staying slim there was way more than just marijuana in his house! Thanks for commenting!
First all Alicia I have to congratulate you on losing continuously and following your diet plan!!! I know how hard this is and not falling off the wagon...LOL :-)
ReplyDeleteI totally understand how you feel about how limited our choices are when socializing with friends and not being able to partake in all of the goodies that we enjoy to eat. I'm glad you wrote this post,,,I can relate to all of it...even the about the diet pills!!!
Hope you feel better soon (physically) and take care of yourself!
Hugs!!!
Thanks Oliva! I'm slowly building up my strength and trying to fight through the pain without re-injuring myself. Today for instance I was able to do a mile in the morning and another at lunch but I just tried and could only do 5 minute, but something is better than nothing! :)
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