07/04/2014
People ask how I lost weight. After yoyo dieting since I was a teen, I decided never to diet again. I decided about 14 years ago that I needed to loose weight but I was going to do it with lifestyle changes. I spent a lot of time working on motivation and how to do it. Finally I realized the impact on my health and became motivated to improve my health and the quality of my life. That has been my key motivation that allows me to do it. If you want to loose weight and keep it off, you must have sustainable motivation. When it becomes more important to you than what you are eating and doing at the moment, it will be something you can do and sustain.
When I want to eat something I decide, "Is that something my body really needs or do I want it? Do I want that or do I want to loose weight and have a healthy body?" I choose every time I eat or do not eat. I add do not eat, because skipping meals is just the same. It is often not healthy because it can make you really hungry and make you eat a lot at the next meal. When I eat a lot, I start wanting to eat more at a meal, and then it takes more food to satisfy me. After a while I eat more total.
In the beginning I had to regulate how much I ate at a meal. But just for a short time till I got use to smaller portions. Then it was easy. I personally find that a few (1-3) days of mostly a liquid diet, with small supplemental food all day, really helps me. It gets me use to small portions. I eat veggies and drink protein and fruit low cal shakes, and maybe eat a little protein. Personally I love to dip veggies and munch on cold shrimp with cocktail sauce or a little cheese. I may also have some salad with berries, nuts, colorful peppers, squash, tomatoes, or whatever.
My first focus is on drinking plenty of water and eating healthy vegetables and lean meat. I logged everything into an app that shows nutrition and worked on getting increased nutrition and decreased calories and a balanced diet. I think a balanced diet is very important.
