Snow's journey

snow2

snow2

New member
I'm 26 years old, am 5' 3" and weigh 175 lbs.

I've been overweight since I was 10. My mom says she brought home a lot of ice cream sherbet that summer. Ever since then, I've had no self control when it comes to sugar. I want to eat it all. I don't think I've ever eaten just one cookie when another was available.

That was the last year I went trick or treating too. After that I decided not to go because I knew I'd just eat it all in one sitting. I recall doing just that in previous years--picking out all the candy I liked and eating it all after getting back from trick or treating. I've read various things about "sugar addiction", and I have no idea if there is any validity to that, but I know I act like a sugar addict.

I grew up in a house with a diet crazed mother who tried every fad diet through the 80s and 90s. There was never any sugar in the house (not even sweetened cereal), and I always loved sleeping over at a friends house because then I could have sugary cereal for breakfast:)

After 16 years of being overweight, I finally understand a few things.
FIRST, I can't lose weight by exercise alone. I ran 3-4 miles 3 mornings a week for 6 months and lost nothing at all. I stopped running two months ago because I got sick. I have asthma and so when I get colds/coughs they take me out of commission for a long time.
SECOND, I finally understand that I always overeat. I have only just barely started to realize how to know when to stop eating. Now the hard part is stopping when I realize I've had enough!
THIRD, I hate salad. I can't lose weight by eating salad. I love cooking and baking. And eating, of course.
FOURTH, I am obsessed with sugar. There have been very few times in my life where I've successfully eliminated sugar from my diet. I need to go "off sugar" (as my mom calls it) again, and have small portions of desserts only on special occasions. Easier said than done. Especially during the holidays.

So now I'm going to try to implement what I've learned about losing weight. My first goal is to stop making/eating dessert. In my kitchen right now is pumpkin chocolate chip bread that needs to disappear. I will take it to work tomorrow and let someone else eat it.
 
Hey welcome to the forum!
Im a fellow sugar addict, but I find the best way to avoid it is just not to have it in the house. If it's their I'll eat it and biscuits are the worst because its so easy to have more than one! It's hard at first but the less sugar you eat the easier it becomes.
 
It's going to be hard the first week and then once it's gone from your system you won't miss it as much and it will become a piece of cake. Stay consistent and the pounds will fall off. Good luck and I look forward to seeing how your doing.:hurray:
 
Thanks for the advice. I decided to send the pumpkin bread to work with my husband instead of taking it to MY workplace. That way I won't be tempted to go sneak some!

I've been in this bad habit lately of buying a treat whenever I go to the grocery store. There's a small place a block from my house that I go to frequently, and it's so easy to just get a few yogurt pretzels or something else! I always felt ashamed about the little treats I'd buy, and I'd hide them in my desk. I should make a rule--I shouldn't eat anything that I wouldn't be ok eating in front of someone.

My mom would often buy cookies when she was out doing errands, then finish them off before she got home. Usually no one was the wiser! I don't want to be like that.
 
I'm already craving sugar and it's still the first day! Aaach! Also, I just realized that the instant oatmeal I keep at work for breakfast is full of sugar. I wonder what I can eat instead that's just as easy and tastes good?
 
I noticed that the days I eat higher sugar items, like even yoplait yogurt, I start craving sweets much more, and the days I eat eggs for breakfast and lots of rice and chicken, I don't really crave it all it all.

Works for me anyways. Finding a half dozen meals that are low calorie and healthy helped me a lot. I eat them all pretty regularly as my staple. Also because they're easy and always on hand. Good luck!

And I totally ate in secret. I'd always get treats and eat them on the way home. So finding various healthy night-time snacks might be a good idea, like fruit or pretzels or even a bowl of special K with a banana. That helped me break my night-time ritual of sugar.
 
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Yeah, I can't have flavored yogurt either without getting cravings. There are some things that many people don't consider as a treat or dessert, like muffins and yogurt, but I think they are totally dessert. A cup of strawberry yogurt is like 240 calories! That's 140 calories of sugar, compared to plain.
 
So I did pretty well yesterday. I forgot at one point about not eating sugar, and reached for a mini-crunch bar that a co-worker offered, but luckily remembered prior to eating it that I wasn't supposed to! So I left it in the kitchen for someone else to eat. I am so proud of myself for doing that! I feel like I'm in a good place emotionally and my needs (to lose weight) are more important than my wants (to eat junk).

I ate about 1700 calories yesterday, which was 200 higher than my goal. I was super conscious all day about not eating too much, but I still succumbed to snacking on some cheese crackers we had lying around the house. That was no good! I will work harder today.

I'm really excited that my cough is almost gone, because that means I can start jogging again. I jogged three mornings a week for 6 months until I got sick this season, and haven't jogged in two months. I just kept getting new illnesses! I'm excited to start jogging again. Hopefully it will make my other efforts be more effective. I know from experience that exercise alone will not help me lose weight, but perhaps COMBINED with watching what I eat will yield results. Yay!
 
Hi. I can relate about the sneaking food and eating treats in secret. I've found that this website helps a lot. Sometimes just the idea of having to post a treat here and in my food journal is enough to make me think twice.

Some people find raisins, dried fruit, and honey good substitutes while they are trying to get off sugar. Of course, the key is moderation, but they might help out when the cravings hit.

Have you read Sugar Blues by Dufty? It's an older book, but full of great info on sugar.

It looks like you're off to a good start. You can do it!
 
Cool--thanks for the book tip!

I'm realizing that counting calories when you eat homemade food is hard. I've got a lot of leftover lasagna that I've been working on the last few days, but it is light on cheese and heavy on vegetables. The lasagna caloric content is for sure different than what is already stored in calorie dictionaries for lasagna. Those of you that cook--do you just guess on the calories, or do you actually calculate the custom calories for each recipes based on the ingredients? I've tried doing that before, but it is time consuming and I never keep it up.

I'd hoped that I wouldn't need to count calories eventually and that I could just eat until I'd had enough food. I think learning to pay close attention to when I am hungry and to only eat when I feel hunger and stop when I don't will be much better than counting calories.

I can't help but think that the calorie counting I'm doing now is almost pointless since it's totally inaccurate (since I eat homemade stuff most of the time). What do you do about this?
 
snow said:
Those of you that cook--do you just guess on the calories, or do you actually calculate the custom calories for each recipes based on the ingredients? I've tried doing that before, but it is time consuming and I never keep it up.
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Have you tried using fitday? It's free and has all the calories for different items. Then you can add custom items. What I usually do is just add up the calories for the entire dish. And just about everything I use has the nutrition right on the label. So for lasagna, it's not too difficult then to add up all the calories. Noodles have so many calories, cheeses have so many calories, beef, etc. Then I know that the whole pan has say 6000 calories, so I'll cut it into 12 pieces and then I know that ea. piece has 500 calories. It might take five minutes to add up each dish the first time you make it. But after doing it once you'll know forever. Or I often find recipes online that have the nutrition info included. That way I can experiment and still have a good ballpark figure.

I cook every sunday, usually it's pretty simple stuff, just rice veggies and meat ... but I cook it up in bulk and then portion it up so I know that all week I know pretty close to how many calories are in my homemade lunch.

And last week we went out to Applebees to eat, so before we left I quick googled their menu and found out how many calories I'd be eating for dinner. I picked a healthy choice and knew the calories and it only took me 3 minutes on the computer.

And if you use fitday you can save every meal. So next time you make lasagna all the nutrition info will already be in there and it's get even easier.

I'd hoped that I wouldn't need to count calories eventually and that I could just eat until I'd had enough food. I think learning to pay close attention to when I am hungry and to only eat when I feel hunger and stop when I don't will be much better than counting calories.
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That's not a bad idea, but I found that counting my calories for 2 weeks really helped me to see how many I was eating and where I could cut back and improve. I could only eat when I was hungry and eat 4000 calories or only eat when I was hungry and eat 1500 calories, all depending on how filling and nutritious my meals are. Now I still count, but just not as obsessively, since I know the calories in all my standard dishes.
 
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I also use fitday. I enter each ingredient for the recipe, and then divide the quantities by the number of servings in the recipe.

For example, if I were making a pan of lasagna, I would enter separately the noodles, the oil, the sauce, the cheese, whatever else is in it. Then say that makes four servings. If I had one serving I would divide the quantity of noodles by four, the oil by four, etc.

If I were in a hurry and needed a shortcut, I would just use fitday's entry for prepared lasagne and figure at least I'm in the ballpark.

Tracking calories keeps me accountable, but others have had great success not counting them. Omega comes to mind. She has a very detailed and inspiring journal a few pages back.
 
I started using fitday a few days ago, but was hoping they would have a built in recipe feature. I ended up adding up all the calories in the entire lasagna dish and dividing it by servings like you suggested. Just as I thought, it was less calories than the prepared fitday lasagna. Thanks!

So yesterday went well. I ate about approx. 1450 calories. It is so eye opening to realize I how much food I actually need to feel satiated. I was just eating a ton without paying that much attention to when I felt satiated. I'm also learning the difference between satiated and full. I can't believe it took me so long to understand this about my body.

Yesterday I calculated my BMR using and it says to maintain my current weight I should be eating 1900 calories per day. If I weighed 130 lbs, I would need only 1650 for maintenance. It makes perfect sense now why people lose weight fast initially and then slow down. If they eat the same amount of calories per day, and since the amount their body burns per day decreases as they lose weight, then the difference between what their body burns and what they eat decreases with time. This is super cool! I have done a lot of research my whole life on weight loss and exercise and diet, but the simplicity of these numbers still seems really cool.

On a separate note..I got the H1N1 flu shot yesterday and my arm hurts:( But I'm still so happy to have gotten it!
 
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Hey Snow, :waving: I just read through your journal and have to say you are doing great so far. Sugar is a hard one. If you love baking pick up the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Sienfeld. It's a cookbook dedicated to 'hiding' fruit and veggies in food, but I use it for everything. My kids will eat everything but you can cut almost all the sugar out of a recipie just by adding a sweet potato, or sugar free apple sauce!! It's AWESOME!!! I made a pumpkin loaf for while my sister in law was visiting which had pumpkin, banana, and cauliflower pruee in it. I used WW flour and used brown sugar and cut the amount in half. She (who is quite over weight herself) said it was the best loaf she had ever had. Check it out :)

I too had a yoyo dieting mother which I know is where most of my problems come from. The biggest step I've taken during my journey was to stop talking her about anything to do with weight! She doesn't even know that she's doing it, but she is so condiscending when it comes to my body. I was so used to it that I didn't even know she was doing it either... it was my husband who started pointing it out. His concern was that we have 2 girls, 6yrs and 3yrs and he didn't want me doing to them what she did to me... her mother did to her... etc. She cannot have a conversation without talking about her weight, what she's doing, etc. It consumes her thoughts, her life actually, and I don't want that for me or my girls. I've been teaching them to make healthy choices and about moderation. I talk to them about sugar and all the negitive effects it has on the body. Halloween is a tough one, but we have a rule... as long as they have had a good day of making good choices in ALL aspects (not just food), then they get to choose 1 item from the candy box. It's nice b/c some days one of them will say at dinner that they are full and they don't need a candy. Makes me so proud and I think 'hell, if a 3 yr old can turn it down, so can I'.

Sorry for the long post, I got alittle carried away :blush5: Good luck on your journey, and have fun with it :D

marie
 
Don't you wish you would have learned all that stuff about calories and exercise and health when you were younger? I find that the more I learn about healthy living the easier it becomes.
I noticed some of the instant oatmeal brands have more sugar than others so just be sure to check the labels when grocery shopping and go with the best option. Keep it up!
 
Marie--I feel the same way as you do about not wanting to project my mothers image onto my (future) children as my mom did to me. I don't want to obsess about it.

chubbygirl- I actually did learn a lot about health and calories when I was young. My mom lost weight healthily many times before she became a fad dieter. Then her willpower just got less and less. When I was 12, my parents sent me to a weight loss camp for almost 2 months. It was lots of fun (I wanted to go--it's not like they forced me!) They controlled how much we ate, and we got a lot of exercise. I lost about 20 lbs while I was there. I slowly gained back the weight I'd lost there over the next few years. Though I knew about calories, it just never clicked that I was eating too much.

I remember the night I came home, and my family was like--wow you look so good! They immediately took me to dinner at a yummy buffet restaurant. But I'd already eaten dinner on the plane! I ate more food anyway. It's strange I remember that night so well, even though it's been 14 years.
 
PS. I sort of went overboard with the snacking on dried fruits and nuts this weekend. They are just TOO tempting for me! I know now I can't buy that stuff as a crutch for getting off sugar.
 
Hi Snow. :seeya:

I read your journal. You are doing great. It's a real eye opener to realize how much you have been eating and relate that to calories isn't it? Good for you on trying not to eat unless you are hungry. That has always been one of my major issues. I just want to eat to eat sometimes. I'm working on that one.

I cook most of my own food. That way I know exactly what is in the finished product. I have found it is super easy to modify most of my favorites to make them healthier. It works out really well for me. I use calorieking.com to find calories and fat in fruits and veggies. Otherwise it is a calculator and the package. Since most things now days have a nutrition label. I also use fitday to track my food, weight and measurements.

Have a great day! ;)
 
hi snow!
reading up on your journal, you're doing so well so far. I am a sucker for chocolate! Most other snack food I can pass up but chocolate is a huge weakness. I used to justify eating dark mint chocolate by saying "its okay, its dark chocolate and i feel like i've brushed my teeth after". HAHA!
Like Amanda, I have also been using Calorie King for finding the calorie content in foods. It's good because you don't have to become a member or anything. Here's the link if you need:



-hannah
 
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