About Cheryl H

Cheryl H has been a member since March 11th 2008, and has created 18 posts from scratch.

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In the Weight Loss Trenches

How are you doing on your new journey into a new life? You know that weight loss, if it is to be life long, must be more than a diet. It isn’t a temporary thing. Diets, on the whole, are bound to end in failure. Diets are generally something one cannot stand for very long and so after a short stint of gagging down over-salted low fat frozen dinners, low fat cottage cheese, sugar free candy, butter-less green beans, low fat thousand island dressing on a salad of iceberg lettuce…

We QUIT! Arrrrgh.

No, diets on the whole are not designed to help you do what you really need to do and that is be part of a new approach to life. If I would lose weight I will have to grow up and realize several things: It’s time to be as tough on me as I am on my kids, telling myself, “no, one cookie is enough”. Telling me to drink more water. Exercise even though I don’t feel like it. It is time to take responsibility for my choices in life.

I know I talked about this recently but I have to reiterate that a real weight loss diet one that is meant to help you really lose weight and keep it off is just training ground for a new life – diet only be part of it.

Many weight loss experts are beginning to call this by a better term: weight management or lifestyle management. After all, weight loss is really just a benefit of making better eating choices, adding an exercise habit, choosing a more active part in your own life instead of just going with the flow, listlessly absorbing TV ads for food forms, carelessly buying stuff at the store.

Weight gain is the result of many factors, many of which are a result of poor early education on what to eat, how MUCH to eat, when to eat, whether to and how much exercise, among other things.

If you are like me, you just ate what was there in front of you because Mama said so. Then when you got a little freedom and some money in your pocket you spent it on what, broccoli and carrots? No, I wager it was the biggest candy bar you could afford.  I did that and some kite string.

So, today I want to reinforce at least one of my new habits.  Eat smaller meals more often.  That is my biggest  new habit: to eat more often.   Too many years of skimpy snacks and evening binges to overcome.  I have a hard time remembering to eat before noon.  So, I need to make it part of my day to eat.

What about you?  What is your biggest new habit to make (hardest old habit to break)?  Make notes to yourself.  Tie the old string around the finger.  Do whatever it takes to keep that new habit in the foreground till it is part of your day.

Got to go…I need to eat!

BUSTED! “Safe” Quick Weight Loss Diet

This dangerous myth is actually more of a stumbling block and the main reason why we go on disposable diets. You know, those diets blaring at you in red on woman’s magazine. Disposable diets are the reason we are staying fat! This desperate attitude fuels the whole diet industry. It is the basis on yo-yo dieting. You see, when we have a desperate, “I HAVE to lose weight NOW!” attitude, we are acting emotionally and will make poor or rash eating decisions.

Like not eating breakfast or living on those weight loss bars or shakes in order to lose weight. Or taking on a high protein or some such diet.

Now, I have nothing in particular against a high protein diet, per se. Or using a weight loss bar or shake as a supplement. It is the reason we started the diet in the first place that concerns me. Our decision to lose weight must be a conscious decision based on sense and facts, not a reaction to your waistline.

I found that once I began to make better food choices, decided to eat smaller more regular meals and add regular exercise, the weight began to come off. I also realized weight loss is a long term, if not, lifetime commitment. Because once the weight is off, you will still want to make wise choices.

This is why the better weight loss programs are actually lifestyle management or lifestyle modification programs. They instruct the person to take on new habits. Eating choices that are balanced and based on real food. Regular and small meals. Goal setting and maintaining a cheerful mindset. Reasonable and regular exercise.

When setting out to lose weight, look for this kind of program.

Determine now to stop reacting to your weight. Accept that you are where you are but then begin to take steps to change the things you can. Taking the focus off the fat and placing it on getting healthy. Add new good habits that promote health and slender body.

BUSTED! Disposable Diets

If you have looked at my site for long, you know how I feel about those diets that “sell” magazines. You know, the ones that say lose 10 pounds in 14 days! These diets are disposable in that they rarely are doable past the 14 days prescribed.

Who could stand to eat carrots and tuna with cottage cheese or peanut butter crackers with celery sticks or chicken breasts with mustard sauce… for more than 14 days!?

No, these diets are designed to sell magazines. You know the kind.  You are desperate to lose 9 or 10 pounds so that when you see the latest diet emblazoned in Bold Red Letters on the cover of some women’s  magazine, you grab it. You quickly scan the article to determine the food for the menu for a week and set off with a will – THIS time I am going to lose 10 pounds!!  uh huh!

Folks, these diets are losers even before they begin. For one thing, they are self limiting! 10 days or 14 days or whatever? Unless all you have to lose is 8 or 10 pounds you will want to stay with it for much longer. And face it, there is no physical way to lose 10 pounds of fat in 10 days. When you lose weight on one of those magazine diets, it is made up of mostly water weight, some minerals and a pound or 2 pound of fat.

To top it off, because you starved yourself for the duration, your body is now saying, “Hey, you starved me. So, now I have to save up energy/fat for the next starvation period.” And there you go, gained all the weight back and more!

No, unless you only have to lose 5 to 10 pounds total, these diets are bound to fail. It is these diets that give weight loss dieting a bad name, too.

If you are serious about losing weight – for good – you have to decide to eat better food choices, exercise regularly, drink plenty of water, get fresh air, de-stress your life. There are no short cuts.

Take a look around this site for sound advice for safe, healthy weight loss.

Making Exercise a Habit

I am by nature a lazy person. I avoid exercise like it was the plague. I am not afraid of work. I can work circles around my family members. But when it comes to exercise, I just drag my feet.

Till now, that is. I am going to be 48. I am some 50 pounds overweight and am beginning to feel it! So, I am going to make myself accountable to you wherever you are, dear reader, to add exercise to my days. I bought a very nice commuter style bicycle two years ago and never rode it! Till last week.

I actually got on it and started to try to ride it. My kids are great! I love them so much and you know why?? When their mama got on the bike and wobbled around and barely got herself up the road, they just cheered me on. Not a hint of a giggle.

Then when I could barely get my Jello like leg back up over the seat to get off – don’t laugh – I crumbled. But I was smiling! I made it up the street! woo hooo! Panting like I just ran a marathon, too. But I did it, thank you, Lord!

That was last week and now I am getting around the block twice!! Still smiling, too. Hey, by next week I will be going up the second block and beyond! Burn fat, burn!!

What are you doing? Are you walking? Biking? Swimming? Just do it! Take a look at the folks stuck in a nursing home and remember that that could be you someday unless you start to do something about it – today!

BUSTED! Never Try to Lose Weight During Pregnancy

Weight loss at any time in your life is never unsafe – IF it is approached with healthy foundations and not in response to your emotions. “I’m FAT. I have to lose weight NOW!”, is emotional. With this kind of thinking you will be tempted to do one of those disposable, temporary and often dangerous diets that usually are severely limited in their caloric intake and missing some essential nutrition.

Whenever anyone takes on a weight loss program to lose excess fat, they must come to terms with the fact that they will be in this for the long haul. Real weight loss programs consist of healthy balanced meals that anyone can use (unless you have specific allergies or limitations imposed by your physician). So it stands to reason that a nursing mother, even a pregnant woman can safely lose weight by eating smaller meals of real foods.

Weight loss is something a woman must undertake to gain over all health. When approached with an attitude that you are going to eat like this for the most part for the rest of your life, then weight loss becomes part of the natural course of things. You lose weight eventually when you eat smaller, more balanced meals.

As it happens, most of us want to lose it all now. We see our bulges and flabby tummies and we react by severely cutting our food intake. This causes more weight gain as the body feels it is starving and conserves food as fat.

What anyone, pregnant or nursing or otherwise, must realize is that weight loss is going to be the result of a conscious choice to make the right eating choices and eating on a regular basis and coupling it with sensible regular exercise. There is no short cut to a slim body. No “nine pounds in 14 days diet” will work in the long run.

True weight loss depends on you making a commitment to establishing good habits. Get serious about eating good food and allow yourself planned treats. Take up walking or biking on a regular basis. These are things that anyone can do to start on the way toward a healthy weight.

The key is to not react to your fat but respond by planning to lose safely no matter how long it takes. So, Mama, be patient. Be consistent. Make better food choices. Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with healthy snacks in between. Walk wherever you can. Take up a favorite sport for exercise. Above all, enjoy life and let the weight take care of itself one pound at a time.