Okay, I submit! I'm getting FATTER

[makedah]

Thanks all, for the encouragement and advice!

I used to eat mostly whole foods, preferably organic. I had 2T freshly-ground flaxseed a day. I ate 7-8 servings of veggies a day. Imagine! Somehow, I slipped back into convenience products.

I can "clean" up my diet. I can cut back the carbs (the sweets and junk food are the bulk of my carbs right now).

The main thing I'm going to have to labor at is adding more protein. I'll spend some time tonight figuring up how to do it without going overboard on the meat or dairy (I'm lactose intolerant - ice cream doesn't hurt so much but milk or cottage cheese will make me sick and they're yucky). I'll go back to some of MS and VLC's threads to see how they do it.

Eating more protein is a hard thing to get my head around -- I hear it is for a lot of women. I worry that eating more protein will be bad for my health - most things I read tell me high-protein diets are harmful. (Not that my current diet won't kill me...)

 

[Gladiola]

"the good news is that with a diet like the one you posted, just about any significant change will lend results."

100% agreed!

I relate to not wanting to eat lots of protein - it's a problem for me as well. I also relate to your reluctance... I feel the same way about low carb. I think I'd lose my mind or something.. I'm a lil paranoid about dipping below 150-200g carbs per day!

I think you've gotten great advice so far. Just want to add that I would avoid carb rotation at first... you want to start slow & just get comfortable with clean eating. So avoid anything that might overwhelm & frustrate you - so that you won't end up sabotaging your own efforts.

Pick healthy foods that you love & base your diet around them. Every healthy food you eat & junk you don't eat in a given day is a success! If small steps work best for you - go for it! If you are an all-or-nothing person (that's me) than pick a healthy diet plan & go for that.

EFA's - I LOVE natty PB with banannas or apples cut up - yummy! Nuts to snack on too. Flaxseeds - if you are eating the seeds you won't get much EFA's (b/c the seeds go right through you) so it's flaxseed oil that you want.

Be sure to get enough water, green tea is good for anti-oxidants & some studies have shown it helps weight-loss.

"High-protein" diets are considered unhealthy only because they are usually NO CARB. No carbs means no fruits & veggies & whole grains. Which means no vits & mins & anti-oxidants.

That's is quite different from most bodybuilder of fitness diets. The more I learn about nutrition, the more I'm convinced what I follow (when I'm good ) is the BEST WAY to eat.

 

[Puddles]

Huggggs, Makedah. I know where you're coming from big time.

Knowledge is power though and with all of the help here on the boards, you're gonna do what you need to do to get to where you wanna be. Just don't give up...you'll get it workin and you know everyone here wants to help in any way they can.

Me...I keep my diet simple. I eat similarly to the way Newgirl posted. I've found that having less choices in foods in the house make it much easier to keep on track. Cook in large quantities, this way you will have the food already prepared, which becomes convience food! Read the labels of everything you buy...you will be surprised at how they sneak carbs and fats into things. I don't mix fats and carbs in the same meals. Like...if I have a craving for peanutbutter, I will have a small spoon and eat it just off the spoon, but mixing it with bread and jelly would be wrong because the p.b. is so high in fat. Eat every 2-3 hours...I often fail at this myself, but I do try. Mornings are the worst for me, I will have my coffee with skim milk and then I often find myself not eating until noon, but I'm a late night person, so I make up for it later in the day. I use nonstick pots and pans and the only fat I add to my food is olive oil, sparingly. I grill most of my meats...usually covering them in spices or marinades...A1 steaksauce is my recent favorite...they have like 5 different flavors now. I keep my carbs to under 120 a day...cal's are usually low compared to what I see everyone else eating here...around 1200 to 1400 with about 70% of it coming from proteins (eggbeaters, chicken, tuna, salmon, beef, mrp shakes). I will eat canned salmon (boneless) right out of the can. Tuna now comes in little pouches and I keep them at work so I always have protein on hand, I'll empty it into a paper bowl and top it with yellow mustard and a rice cake on the side. Breakfast when I can get it down, is either a protein shake made with water or eggbeaters veggie scramble. I hate healthy oatmeal, but I've found a great multigrain bread that I have instead. But...it's either protein or carbs for breakfast for me, not both.

I don't actually enjoy most meals anymore, but for me, good tasting food is a big issue for me so I just consume my daily foods as a necessity instead of a pleasure, just eating to survive kinda mentality, then on Friday nights we have our cheat night where I allow myself to enjoy food for a night...it's at our favorite Italian resterant and I enjoy every bite, every sip of my drinks and I even have desert sometimes! I've only recently been getting creative in the kitchen again...tonight I made Chinese fried rice...used brown rice (I keep a huge pot of cooked brown rice in the fridge at all times), onions browned in olive oil, eggbeaters scrambled in there, and a little soy sauce...after it was all done, I diced up my already cooked chicken breast and added in the oriental mixture of veggies which had broccoli, water chestnuts, carrots, and some kind of funky peas. I'm a very good cook which is partly how I put so much weight on in the past. Sauces with butter and wine went on almost all of my dishes, good Italian foods...I married into a traditional Italian family and my cooking skills were appreciated. Strangely, I don't really miss the foods on a daily basis...maybe it's because I allow myself the cheat night once a week.

One last thing...are you drinking your water? I never did because it gave me stomach aches. I found that drinking room temp. water stopped that. The tap water here in Florida is awful, so I buy the Zephyrhills 24 oz. sports bottles by the case (3 cases at a time actually...that lasts us about 2 weeks here) and now I'm like an infant...I can't go anywhere without my water. I will carry it up and down inside the house with me, and I never get into the car without a bottle. Water is very important for fat loss and it helps your skin...drink up!

 

[JJFigure]

Eating more protein doesn't have to be as bad as it sounds. There are a few decent whey proteins out there - here's my current fav:

proform whey - pure whey isolate = no lactose issues
www.nextgenproteins.com
2 scoops = 194 kcal, 0g carb, 49g protein + some vitas and minerals

This is a light tasting, easy mixing (lump free!) whey protein. I'm currently using strawberry banana, but have tried chocolate too. You can order samples from the company to try in advance. There are also decent bars out there - Doctor's carbrite low carb bars, Labrada's lean body, and Nitrotech bars (peanut butter choco chip) are some of my favorite brands. But better yet, stick with the real protein sources. I mainly use bars when traveling, although I drink protein after every lift.

Eggs and egg whites are great protein sources - you should see my shelf o' eggs in my fridge! And of course, there's chicken, turkey, and tuna - the other "white" meats. As far as digestive issues with protein, it may just have been the combination of foods you've been eating, not just protein. I'm trying to eat a few more carbs right now - it's actually been harder on my digestion, believe it or not. Carbs + protein = unhappy tummy in my world. However, protein + fat = happy tummy. And I'm eating clean carb/protein combos, like oatmeal and egg whites.

Good luck sweetie! It sounds like you have the right mental attitude to tackle the diet side the right way!

 

[takniteasy]

Please excuse for hijacking your thread but JJ, do you have any problems with bloating with the Proform whey protein powder? I would love to get my hands on something that wont make me bloat like there's no tomorrow.

Thanks!

 

[makedah]

You ladies are the best!

Okay, I'm getting revved up! I bought some eggs and tofu tonight and some oats (don't like 'em cooked - but I like 'em raw, so I'm gonna try some in my A.M. protein shake). Going to start experimenting with chickpeas tomorrow with this dish I found on epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=1654

[Edited planned diet b/c my math doesn't work. TBA]

Glad - Thanks for sharing the protein/carb 'fear'... I see I'm not the only one. I'm jumping right in with the new program. There are some foods in my house that can't be returned or given away (like frozen foods my veg friends won't eat) - that kind of stuff I'll work into my diet until it's gone. But I'm not trying to go 'squeaky clean' just yet. I'll do the additives/artificial sweeteners thing (judiciously) as long as I feel I need to.

I know that grinding the flaxseeds makes them digestible - I ground mine to a powder in a coffee grinder (don't worry, I don't drink coffee. That would be NASTY!). The seeds are cheap, they have the fiber and lignans and they kept me regular! Are you saying I can't get the EFAs with ground flax?

MrsPuddlesFL - Tee hee, I remember Tampa water. But I do pretty well at drinking my water - plain, seltzer and as herbal tea.

I love to cook as well, and one of my resistances to a 'strict' diet was having to limit the dishes I could make. But I'm getting over that - a good cook can always find interesting things to make.

JJ - thanks for the tip - I'll call them for samples. That powder would help me a lot. I've heard people say that their GI issues with meat decreased when they decreased certain carbs. Let's hope so.