Why Can’t I Lose Weight?
June 7, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Weight Loss
If you’ve been following this blog, or my static weight loss site (it’s been around since about 2003) then you know that I did lose 100lbs in about one year and have kept most of that weight off. Fact is I gained back some of that – about 30lbs.
I’ve been trying, though not very hard, to shed those 30lbs and bring my weight back down to 270lbs to 280lbs – though this is still far from my ideal weight which the doctors, nutritionist and dietician say is around 180lbs it’s been something that I was comfortable with – I was able to get into slimmer suits and my stomach didn’t bulge out as much as it is doing right now plus I could run up the stairs without huffing and puffing, play with my son without breaking a sweat and could handle warm temperatures without looking like I just got out of the shower!
If you go to my weight loss site, you’ll notice the statement that I made on the front page:
Weight Loss Is By Choice, Not By Chance
This means exactly what I say – weight loss is by choice. YOU have to make the choice that YOU want to lose weight. Though we go on diets, and make lifestyle changes for many reasons – it needs to be a reason for us – YOU. Yes you can make the statement that you want to lose weight for “my spouse”, “my family”, “my son/daughter” or any other reason, but unless you are doing it for you – why would you have any motivation to lose the weight? Seriously, think about it. If there is no vested interest for you – why do it?
Enough of the lecture. So what am I doing?
I had given up keeping a food diary, too much work. But then I bought an iPod Touch about a year ago and downloaded some great applications (I will review the one that I use in an upcoming post) to track what I eat and when. I’ve been keeping track of my food intake for several months now and discovered a few things:
- I started eating late at night, again (after about 8:00pm)
- I started consuming more sugary drinks than I normally do (like juice, and soda pop)
- I started consuming MORE artificial sweeteners that I normally do (I love my decaf tea)
- I started eating MORE junk food that I’ve done in the past
- I started eating out more often
As you can see, I started many wrong things instead of right things.
So how to break the cycle? It’s not easy. You can’t quit cold turkey (no pun intended). You need to stop bad habits gradually. So the first thing I started was cutting down the late night romps to the kitchen. We ate when we ate, and that was it. If I was hungry before bedtime, I had a glass of warm milk or some fruit. It took about one week for the new habit to set it, but now when I’m hungry and head downstairs and open the fridge – I think about how hungry I really am and usually grab the milk jug instead of left overs.
Next was the sugary drinks. I’m don’t particularly like soda pop so cutting this out was easy, I like juices more – dropping that is hard. Cutting this out was hard, but we found some juice that is lower in sugar – it’s advertised as 25% less sugar and it’s not sweetened with any artificial sweetener. I avoid stuff like Tang Orange Juice crystals and even drinks like Kool Aid and will look for juice thats either sweetened with natural fruit sugars or is reduced sugar. I also limit how much I drink in a day to one or two 8oz glasses.
Eating out is another habit difficult to break, while I generally won’t go to McDonalds, Burger King or any other fast food place that often — there are times when the french fry or onion ring craving hits. My solution was to stop. I just won’t go there anymore. But the other foods that I enjoy are mediterranean style foods, and there is a great place close to work that I like going to. My solution was to limit how often I go. I will go there, but generally once per month. I was going weekly before. There is also another place I like to eat, but as it’s about one hour away we generally don’t go more than once every few months.
Junk food is a hard habit to break – I love chips, tacos, nachos etc., giving these up was difficult. So I didn’t. I count out 12-15 chips and snack on them instead. Yes a GREAT amount of willpower is needed – but you know what, when you eat regular meals and good snacks you don’t get the cravings (or not as many and as severe) for junk food.
There are other things you should also know – as a general rule, we don’t eat a lot of processed meats at home. This is where you’ll find a lot of fat, and salt. Because we don’t eat pork/bacon/ham – this cuts out a lot of the processed meats that we can eat — which is generally limited to items such as chicken or turkey, and even then because of our dietary requirements (halal) I can’t just stop into my local grocery store and buy what’s out — I need to make the effort to drive to the store and buy it.
We also don’t drink alcohol – so no extra calories from there.
We do eat traditional indian foods – such as biryani, curries, and rice not to mention naan/roti — so I need to exercise greater control. Because of my needs, my wife will normally cook more North American styled foods for me – such as more chicken and fish.
So how are things going? So far, so good – my pants are starting to feel a little loose on me again and if I’m able to keep this up I should be down those pesky 30lbs in 3 to 6 months time.
Remember – DIETS DO NOT WORK - but lifestyle changes do work. Why not Let us know how things are going, and any challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome those challenges.
Here is to your health!
