Lindarella

I ate whatever I wanted....

Basically, I came to the conclusion that to lose weight all I needed to do is quit eating so much. It's the basis for any diet.

I had never had a weight problem. I'm 43 years old and had always been a relatively normal weight, around 130lbs or under at 5'5". I gained 30 pounds in about 3 years after I got a computer. At my most I weighed 156 ( I also weighted 156 when I was 20 years old and 9 months pregnant!!!). When I couldn't button a pair of size 34 waist jeans that my husband wears, I knew it was time to do something about it.

I also know that I'd never exercise. I'm one of those people who is all gung-ho about something at first, but after a bit, I get sick of it and quit.. So I realized right off the bat that if I used exercise to lose weight that I'd gain it all back if I quit exercising so I didn't even bother. I'd be one of those people who use their treadmill to hang their dirty clothes on. Also, lets face it, it's just too much to change every single thing about your life all at once.

I've never ate breakfast my entire life. Skipping breakfast is no problem. Eating out of boredom is my problem. When I get up I drink coffee with cream and drink it all day long. I've always done this. If I was starving before dinner I'd occasionally have a cup-a-soup or half a peanut butter sandwich around lunchtime, but it was rare. I used [url="http://www.******.com"]www.******.com[/url] to keep track of calories.

I ate dinner, which consisted of anything I cooked for my family. Spaghetti, Pork chops, chicken, casserole, anything really. We eat dinner around 5pm. Then I ate whatever I wanted until I went to bed. Cake, cookies, snacks, fruit, candy etc. The key was to only eat 1200 calories. It never mattered to me as long as I stopped at 1200 calories.

What I did was to add my dinner to ****** then see how many calories I had left to play with. Even eating alot of dinner seldom put me over 500. The cream in my coffee was about 120 calories a day. So, after dinner I'd generally have about 600 calories to play with. Seriously I ate anything I wanted that would equal the other 600 calories. I tried to eat lower calorie foods just because I could eat more. I didn't do this everyday though. Sometimes I'd eat a Snickers, chips and icecream. The ticket to me was just never go over 1200 calories no matter what.

April 5th -156
May 5th-147
June 5th-141
July 5th-136
August 5th-134
Sept 5th-130

Above is what ****** says. Since Sept 5th I've only used ****** sporadically as I was just trying to get to 130. I now weight 124. I lose on average about a pound a month now. It's the other major changes I've made that keeps me losing I think. I don't count calories anymore.

The other major changes that I've permanently made in my eating are:

1) NEVER EVER EVER eat at the computer. This was the very first change I made.

2) NEVER eat more than the serving size of anything. Reflecting on my weightloss, I believe that this one thing alone would have led me to lose all the weight that I needed to lose. It is my number one tip. Just do this one thing forever and you'd be amazed at how much you could lose.

3) I seldom eat out. I've had fast food only a handfull of times in the last year. When I do, it's just a hamburger and small fries (One Whooper in the last year). At sit down restaurants, I eat whatever I want but don't eat anything the rest of the day.

4) NEVER drink anything with sugar. I only drink diet drinks. Crystal lite, diet soda, diet V-8 splash, coffee, tea etc. I never drink water, yuck....

I weigh myself about every 3-4 days. I'm still losing just by making these other changes. When or if I get to 120lbs I'll start eating more as I think that less than 120 would be too thin for me. I was happy at 130. The other 6 lbs have been a bonus.

You can do it. Just do the one thing--eat only the serving size of everything. I'd guess if you did just this one simple thing, you'd lose slow but sure and be able to keep it off forever.

Good luck to you. I'm sure this isn't for everyone nor is it nutritionally balanced. But here I am weighing 124 in a size 8 pants. It's cool.

Here is a good website for lower calorie snacks that I use.
[url="http://www.shs.unc.edu/library/articles/100snacks.html"]http://www.shs.unc.edu/library/articles/100snacks.html[/url]