Obesity Free Forever Blog™

Hi Everyone,

It’s been a while since I’ve written and I apologize.  A lot has happened in the past few weeks and I needed to make some important decisions.  I feel like I am back on track now.

Major decisions used to flip me upside down when I weighed 280 pounds.  In fact, I always felt a sense of hope and optimism when the new year approached.  Sure, I felt some guilt from overeating during the holidays but as the new year approached, I felt as though I had an opportunity to be successful at weight loss.

The truth is that I was practicing denial!  You know, when you tell yourself you’ll start your diet tomorrow and tomorrow never comes.  That happened to me for over 25 years.   

When I made the life changing decision to become obese free forever, I started sometime in August of 2004, the exact date escapes me.  The difference between that August day and the other thousands of days of the 25 years before it was that I had had enough!  Many refer to this as the “aha” moment.

We’ve all had an ”aha” moment when we know we are ready to abandon our old ways and try something new.  In 2004, I made my new years resolution that August and I never looked back!

Now in my 4th year of maintenance of losing over 140 pounds, my advice to others is to drop your new years diet resolution and weight loss plans and commit to taking care of yourself today.  My experience is that a diet and willpower have nothing to do with permanent weight loss. 

Rather, becoming obese free forever begins with a commitment to yourself that you will become your best friend no matter what your current weight.  This may seem counterintuitive to you as it was to me at 280 pounds.  But to commit to becoming your own best friend and to accept yourself no matter how much you weigh is the most important first step you can take on your weight loss adventure.  After all, if you cannot accept yourself “as is”, how can you expect others to?

You can read more about my weight loss adventure in http://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Free-Forever-Losing-Weight/dp/0595486843/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230687453&sr=8-7.

PS:  Please ignore the title in the product description on Amazon.com, it is a mistake!  Amazon.com is in the process of fixing it.

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

When I weighed 280 pounds and was dieting, the holidays scared me!  I knew I wanted to enjoy the tasty treats but I wasn’t sure how I would stick to my healthy eating plan.

Now, after keeping off over 140 pounds for years, holidays and worry about my healthy eating plan are a thing of the past!

Here are some tips I used to deal with weight loss and the holidays:

Exercise a little more.  There is a science behind weight loss and it involves a simple equation of calories in must be less than calories out.  How can you achieve this?  Simple!  Think about your favorite holiday treats, find the calories content and increase your exercise plan to burn those calories.  Then you can enjoy your treat guilt free!

Allow yourself a treat day.  I allowed myself one treat day per month and increased by calories to 2000 daily. 

Plan your meals and snacks ahead of time.  This tips allows you to stick to your healthy eating plan by deciding ahead the foods you’ll allow yourself to have. 

These are the tips I used for weight loss and the holidays in 2004 that helped me lose over 140 pounds.  These are the tips I continue to use to maintain the weight loss for many years.

Happy Holidays!

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

I meant to write yesterday but traveling to Disney World took me off line.  It is beautiful here in sunny Orlando!

Before losing over 140 pounds, traveling and weight loss used to stress me out.  In fact, I wasn’t sure how to stick to my healthy eating plan and travel at the same time.  I developed some weight loss tips that can help you stick to your healthy eating plan and enjoy traveling at the same time.

Check on line for restaurants you frequently visit in your home town.  Many restaurants are national chains and the Internet is an easy way to plan ahead and decide which restaurants you will visit.

Choose hotels that have kitchenettes.  I like the to rent villas or the Residence Inn by Marriott.  The allow me to store and cook my own foods, making sticking with my healthy eating plan easy!

Find hotels that have fitness centers.  This is a must for me.  I also call ahead to make sure the equipment is in good working condition.

Well, off to the Magic Kingdom.  I’ll try to write frequently this week to make up for some lost weight loss blogs while I was in school! 

Take care,

Georgene

Hi All,

I know I am sounding like a broken record because I shared the story on Boca Burgers last week but I cannot say enough great things about these products!

Tonight, I had a treat I have not had in a long time–Chili!  Let me correct myself, I had Boca Burgers and Boca Chili!  I took 2 slices of Aunt Millie’s light high fiber bread, placed some sliced tomatoes and mustard on it and added the Boca Burger with cheese!  I had a nice side salad and a bowl of the Boca Burger Chili.  The whole meal was less than 400 calories, it was delicious and high in fiber and low in cholesterol! 

Boca Burgers are made of Soy Protein and recent research is showing that Soy Protein is one of the best proteins we can consume.  It is considered one of the best because it provides all the necessary amino acids our bodies need.  Unlike animal proteins which supply only partial amino acids and we have to consume combinations of protein to meet the needs of our bodies, Soy is considered complete.

Be careful if you have an allergy to Soy products, you’ll need to stay away from the Boca Burger but if not, enjoy!  I certainly did and I don’t feel any symptoms of GERD and Gastritis coming on!  Oh, and guess what, my husband, the meat fan, tried the Boca Burger for the first time tonight and he loved them too!  Let me know what you think.  You can contact me at georgene@obesity-free-forever.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Well back to the paper I’m writing!  One down, one to go and my classes end this week until 1/5, hooray!  I’ll be able to get into some serious shopping then!

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

One of the effects of childhood obesity is high cholesterol.  In a recent study I read, children as young as 2 years old were needing cholesterol lowering drugs.  As a registered nurse I know that all drugs have side effects.  Starting a child as young as 2 on a cholesterol lowering drug can be harmful.

One way to combat the effects of childhood obesity is to introduce healthy foods into your child’s diet.  My son and I tried two new products this weekend that can help counter the effects of childhood obesity. 

I tried a vegetarian product called the Boca Burger.  It was absolutely scrumptious!  I recently learned of all the great benefits of soy and the Boca Burger is made of soy protein.  The Boca Burger comes frozen and you cook it in the microwave for about two minutes.  It really was delicious.  The Boca Burger tastes like a real hamburger but without the cholesterol.  I am confident any child would like the Boca Burger.

The other product that my son tried was the Fiber One Banana Nut muffins.  I baked them early this morning and he said they were delicious!  My son enjoys anything with bananas and he was surprised to learn that each muffin contained 5 grams of fiber!  Fiber can help lower cholesterol levels.  I used egg substitute which eliminates the cholesterol from the whole egg.  My son said little kids might like a sweeter muffin but you can make them sweeter and healthier by substituting apple sauce for oil.  The recipe is on the box. 

After losing over 140 pounds and now keeping it off since 2005, it is important to add variety to my healthy eating plan.  The Boca Burger was a nice treat.  I’ll try the Fiber One Banana muffins too!

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

 I wanted to take a moment and share with everyone the importance of activity and your activity tracker.  To lose over 140 pounds, I learned I needed to increase my activity so I could eat nutritiously.  Sure, in my struggle to learn how to lose weight, I tried high protein diets, low carb diets and even very low calorie diets and what were my results?  Failure for over 25 years!

Your weight loss strategy must include a healthy eating plan along with a weight loss exercise plan.  I found this to be the most effective way to lose weight and feel good.  With all we have to do in a day, don’t we need the most energy possible to get it all done?  What I found on those fad diets was just a lot of quick water loss and then miserable side effects–low energy, hair loss, dry skin, etc.

Exercise plays a vital role in weight loss and weight management.  In truth, as a registered nurse, I knew of the many benefits of exercise all along.  My problem is that I rarely did the right exercises and when I did, I didn’t do them long enough. 

How did I overcome this?  I tracked my activity.  I found an activity tracker to be vital to my plan.  I purchased an inexpensive pedometer from a discount store, I input my weight, clipped it on my waist and forgot about it.  At the end of the day, I had a better understanding of how many steps I took.  I can tell you at 280 pounds, I did not meet the surgeon general’s recommendation for 10,000 steps.  No, at 280 pounds, I thought more about exercise than I moved!  Too bad you can’t burn a lot of calories for just thinking!

Here’s the weight loss tip, MOVE!  And do it often.  I still enjoy eating and as long as I use my activity tracker and I move more, I burn more calories.  When I burn more calories, I can eat more!  Remember if you have health problems you need to check with your doctor to make sure you can increase your activity.  Don’t do what I used to do, go full blast when my diet motivation was high for one day and then stop for months because I had sore muscles or shortness of breath!  Work up gradually.  In fact, the current recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control are to do 10 minutes of activity at a time and accumulate these until we reach the recommended 30 minutes total.  Not a bad deal!  Park a little farther from the grocery store or at work, walk in place or on your treadmill during television viewing or take the stairs rather than the elevator.  These are great ways to add 10 minutes of activity to your day.  Remember to use your activity tracker so you know how many calories you’re burning.

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

While losing 140 pounds, I learned the hardest part of losing weight was finding the balance between eating healthy food and having some junk food every so often. 

As a registered nurse I knew the benefits of healthy eating but my experience with diets never allowed me to splurge.  Following a high protein diet, low fat diet plan or no carb diet left little room for me to treat myself to foods I loved. 

Here are some tips I used to transition to eating healthy food and lose, and keep off, over 140 pounds.

Learn the Basics

Understanding the macronutrients of carbohydrates, protein and fats, and how they are used in the body can help you make better choices for eating healthy food.  The healthy eating pyramid at the My Pyramid website is a great resource to use to learn the basics.

Start Slow

Turning bad eating habits into healthy ones is easy if you take it one step at a time.  Try to eliminate one high calorie food weekly from your diet rather than go cold turkey!  Eliminating or reducing one high calorie food while introducing a low calorie one will help you stick to a healthy eating plan. 

These are a couple of tips I used to help me lose over 140 pounds and keep it off since 2005.

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

I recently shared some easy weight loss tips that I used to lose over 140 pounds.  One easy weight loss tip is jello!  Yes, sugar free Jello is one of the best ways I found to add pleasure to my healthy eating plan.  In fact, I still eat sugar free Jello with each meal during the maintenance stage today.  It is a refreshing dessert that contains less than 10 calories.  Also, it is considered a free food which means you don’t have to count it in your calorie intake (provided you keep your free foods below 50 calories daily).  

I purchase the multipak of Jello found in the dairy department of my local grocery store.  I even add fruit and Fiber One to it with a little artificial sweetner.  This makes a great dessert and adds variety and very little calories. 

When I travel, I purchase the Hunt’s brand.  Unlike the Jello brand, Hunt’s does not need refrigeration.  Hunt’s also contains Sucralose which may upset your stomach.

Stop back frequently.  I’ll share more easy weight loss tips in the future.  Feel free to post your tips to help others.

Take care,

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

Many women fear aging because of the possibility of menopause and weight gain.  I actually experienced just the opposite.  In fact, one of the benefits of healthy eating at that stage in my life was menopause weight loss.  Why?  I’m no expert on the endocrine system (hormones) but it seemed that by balancing the nutrients my body needed, many of the annoying symptoms such as hot flashes and irritability were less noticeable while I experienced menopause weight loss.

I remember when I was 280 pounds and I would binge eat on carbohydrates, that the hot flashes seemed worst.  As I experienced weight loss during menopause and my healthy eating plan became nutritionally balanced, these symptoms subsided and were more manageable by waiting them out. 

Menopause and weight gain do not necessarily go together, contrary to popular belief.  While aging may cause our metabolism to slow down which could lead to weight gain, my experience was menopause and weight loss with less symptoms! 

Check with your doctor or a nutritionist to see if nutrition can reduce your symptoms and you can avoid menopause and weight gain.

Have a great day!

Georgene

Hi Everyone,

Work, school, family and a business can get stressful at times.  This week was an exception as many deadlines came to a close and the pressure was on to meet them.  In fact, it reminded me of stress and weight loss when I set out to become obese free in 2004. 

Stress and weight loss can really derail you and test your healthy eating plan.  Worse, stress and weight loss can put a negative slant on your diet motivation and weight loss inspiration!

Here is what I did to manage stress and weight loss.

First, I made a list of every task I needed to do.  Once I saw on paper what was expected of me, I was  able to deal with the challenges.

Second, I placed a completion date next to each task.

Third, I checked to see if I could postpone any task or whether the task was even necessary.  Anything that was not a priority for the day was placed on the bottom of the list.

Fourth, I watched what I said to myself.  When I weighed 280 pounds, I was so very negative!  My communication to myself was full of gloom and doom.  As I lost over 140 pounds, I stopped myself from thinking and speaking negatively.  I immediately corrected myself and replaced the conversation with the bright side of the situation.  My problems are little compared to what other people face.  It is important for me to remind myself of my blessings when I feel stressed.

Fifth, I stayed true to my healthy eating plan.  Mindless eating is so common with stress and weight loss.  As you mentally make lists of everything you need to do, it is easy to eat and forget what you consumed.  When you know you are under stress, take a moment and write down what you will eat for your meals and snacks.  Then make sure you follow the plan.  The tasks will get done, they always do.  And it is important to stay true to your healthy eating plan during times of stress and weight loss to avoid relapses and feeling guilty later.

Sixth, I asked for help.  When things really spiraled out of control, I asked for help during times of stress and weight loss.  Each of us has a few people we can rely on to help us out every once in a while.  We always return the favor and then some.

Stress and weight loss can be manageable.  I used these tips to lose over 140 pounds naturally and safely beginning in 2004.  These are the same tips I use today to maintain my weight loss since 2005.

Take care,

Georgene