Down with HFCS!

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Sohrshah

I really think it's all about exercise.

It's not an either/or, it's a both/and. My mom does weight watchers off and on and I think their philosophy is that it's something like 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. Obviously if you exercise more, you can eat more calories and maintain your weight.

I remember doing the South Beach thing a while back and losing weight without ANY exercising. But the problem with that for me was that it was too difficult and time consuming to plan.

But nothing's going to work over the long term if the motivation doesn't come from within. Or the ability to get back down to business if you screw up, instead of saying "screw it" to everything (though usually that happens to me when I get TOO gung-ho about my diet and exercise, and have unrealistic goals, like not eating ANY sugary snacks, or going to the gym 6 days a week, etc., and burn out).

**EDIT** heheh the conversation has moved on... teach me to write a post at work over a long period of time when I'm distracted heheh

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I didn't mention above, but I thought it prudent to add:

My eat habits are 100% behavioral, and I'm personally fighting it using - well, I'm not even that happy to admit it, but whatever. The author of another book I've liked in the past (The Artist's Way) has written a diet book. And while - much like her first book - this book is in part annoying and preachy, it does suggest something that helps me, personally. If I'm going to eat, I have to write. I have to write about what I'm choosing, what I've eaten, and why. If I'm eating badly, I am forced to look at it, and more importantly, I'm forced to look at the underlying reasons.

[Alex]

I'm fat. I'm fat because I eat more calories than I expend.

I eat more calories than I expend because, ultimately, I don't really mind being fat (though how much I mind varies over time) and enjoy eating the calories.

I drink diet sodas because they provide the same benefit as regular sodas but I can't really tell the difference (personally, Splenda tastes fine to me, has no side effects, and I'm fine with it). If regular soda tasted better to me, I'd drink them.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I think Cherny's point, "If you are FULL, you're overeating," is a good one. There are exceptions, of course, but my understanding is that you are supposed to stop eating before you feel full, not once you feel full. That involves a greater awareness than I have of my own body, and I frequenly overstuff myself as a dog would. Heh. It's also something that I heard a doctor explain to my mother a long time ago, after she had half of her stomach removed After the Ulcers Attacked!

Smaller portion sizes eaten as smaller meals throughougt the day help to regulate our matabolism, I think, and one may even develop a better understanding of how much food she can consume in one sitting. I just can't seem to find the time to prepare 5 snack packs for the day. Maybe with my new cookware/equipment, that will become less of a problem. I've also read that certain food combos assist metabolism, while other foods, mixed together, slow it down. But I may have read that in a book written by Suzanne Summers.

On the whole, eat well and exercise, moderating indulgences as you see fit based on the body type you want to mantain or have. I'll eat healthier and exercise more, but I'll never cut out carbs (mmm, breads!) or sugar (mmm, booze!) in pursuit of a smaller, less flabby waist line. My beer marsupial pouch stays with me.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

I But I may have read that in a book written by Suzanne Summers.

Hey, don't knock it. My mom lost (and has kept off) on the order of 100lbs on the Suzanne Summers plan after 3 decades of failed attempts.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Hey, don't knock it. My mom lost (and has kept off) on the order of 100lbs on the Suzanne Summers plan after 3 decades of failed attempts.

My parents also had great success with the book, so I was only really pretending to knock it. I found a lot of good and easy recipes in there, too. They do make for great small meal snack packs.

[katiesue]

The easiest way I find to moderate salad dressings is to order it on the side (or at home put it on the side) and just dip your fork in it instead of pouring it all over the top. You get the same flavor but you don't eat as much of it.

I think whatever method works for you personally is great. It's all basically calories in/calories out. How you make that work for you is up to each individual. And what works great for one may not work at all for someone else.

Portion control is a huge problem. Both my Mom and my Aunt have struggled with this for years. They both must consume everything on their plate. No matter what. My Mom will even consume most of the garnish as well. This makes eating out really hard for them because resturant portions can be huge. This is one of the few advantages I see with "diet" tv type dinners etc. They are smaller portions. If you make say Mac & Cheese you are more tempted to eat the whole box. If you eat a lean cuisine there's only a set smaller amount. Living alone is also harder to maintain portion control as it's not so easy to make just one portion of say stew or soup.

[Sohrshah]

Originally Posted by katiesue

The easiest way I find to moderate salad dressings is to order it on the side (or at home put it on the side) and just dip your fork in it instead of pouring it all over the top. You get the same flavor but you don't eat as much of it.

I think whatever method works for you personally is great. It's all basically calories in/calories out. How you make that work for you is up to each individual. And what works great for one may not work at all for someone else.

Portion control is a huge problem. Both my Mom and my Aunt have struggled with this for years. They both must consume everything on their plate. No matter what. My Mom will even consume most of the garnish as well. This makes eating out really hard for them because resturant portions can be huge. This is one of the few advantages I see with "diet" tv type dinners etc. They are smaller portions. If you make say Mac & Cheese you are more tempted to eat the whole box. If you eat a lean cuisine there's only a set smaller amount. Living alone is also harder to maintain portion control as it's not so easy to make just one portion of say stew or soup.

I have had success with boxed frozen meals like lean cuisine, but be aware that the salt content in those foods is tremendous! I have noticed that eating less salt definitely makes me feel better...

You know it almost seems like a New Year's Resolution weightloss/eat healthy thread my not be a bad idea. I know I'd like to drop about 100 pounds. Or at least 50. Lol.

[Chernabog]

Yes, those are great points LS.... I didn't mean to be so annoying and preachy in what I wrote above. It's just that I've yoyoed myself a couple of times in the last year for short periods of time (at my heaviest a few years ago when I was 20 pounds more than I am now), kinda went "uh-oh", and exercised and counted calories to a degree to lose it. So I'm just speaking from my own experience as far as what has worked, for me. Even my little weight gain over December, when I didn't work out often and ate everything in sight, didn't put me up too much (3 1/2 lbs).

Food is an emotional thing. I order chinese take out when I'm feeling like crap. For me, it feels like the last "vice" that I have now that I don't drink or smoke cigarettes. So it is really really hard. But I try and make the eating healthy and going to the gym thing part of my week. If I've overeaten, I add a day at the gym that week. Training my brain to do something that I don't feel like doing is really tough.... but I can honestly say I feel really good on that walk back to my car after 45 minutes on the elliptical At least I know I'm heading in a good direction.

[Morrigoon]

But getting back to HFCS and the argument in favor of sugar...


What we're really talking about here is not so much the population who wishes to lose weight and/or is willing to go out of their way to eat healthier. We're talking about the average American, who is going to continue eating the same crap as ever. These are the people for whom trans fats are getting banned. We know they're (we're) going to eat crap, so we're going to make crap a tad better (and in the process, as luck would have it, better tasting) by going back to the source and away from the stuff we've "developed" to make crap cheaper, which has had the side effect of making it crappier.

Returning sugar to our sodas means that those people who aren't inclined to avoid soda for its own sake will at least be able to feel fuller on a smaller amount of the stuff, hopefully preventing them from getting up for a refill, or causing them to stop eating the fries once they're cold because they're full now. Baby steps.

And that frees up corn for fuel production. Just sayin'.