Day 14 - Celebrities and Diet Plans

Diet tip of the day: Keep track of your nibbling. A cracker here, 3 M&M's there, licking peanut butter off the knife, 2 potato chips... it all adds up. Make your nibbling count. If you want that little lick of peanut butter, pair it with 3 celery stalks. You'll remember to keep track of your snack and won't need to nibble later.

There are a lot of diet plans that use celebrities in their commercials. Nutrisystem has used Tori Spelling and Dan Marino. Jenny Craig has had Queen Latifa, Kirstie Alley, and Valerie Bertinelli. Weight Watchers has used Jenny McCarthy, Jennifer Hudson, and Fergie (the Dutchess of York, not the singer). Slim Fast has had Kathy Lee Gifford and Whoopi Goldberg. All of these celebrities, for the most part, have had weight loss success. But they are celebrities. They have assistants who can control what they eat and when they eat it. They have personal trainers to whom they pay tremendous amounts of money to keep them on track.

But we are real people with real priorities and real bills to pay. We can't pay someone to manage our weight loss plan. We have to do it ourselves. So we need to stop looking at those celebrities and saying, "I'm on the same plan, why am I not having the same success?" We can't compare ourselves to celebrities. We tell young girls not to compare themselves to models in magazines, why do we compare ourselves to these celebrities and think that we are no more delusional than they are? Let's be realistic with our goals. Do any of those trend diets work for working people? Instead of looking for a quick fix, we need to make smarter choices. Every day. Long term. We need a change in lifestyle.

The reason I started with a tip about nibbling is because that is one of my biggest dieting problems. But nibbling doesn't have to bad thing, as long as you structure your nibbling into something you can keep track of. Last night, dinner at my boyfriend's parents' house was a spread of meats and cheeses with bread. I made a sandwich with one piece of bread, a slice of turkey and a slice of ham and 3 pickles. My nibbling consisted of a few small pieces of brie, white cheddar, and Stilton. My calorie count was under budget, though most of dinner was an approximation. Feel free to nibble, but don't nibble freely.

And now for your suggested exercise. Everyone hates underarm jiggle. To get rid of those built-in punching bags, sit down on the couch and scoot forward to the edge. Plant your hands on the edge of the couch as you inch your way off the couch, then lower yourself down so that your arms form a right angle. Lift yourself, then lower yourself down 5 to 10 times. This is an easy one to do during commercial breaks. Try to do it twice during each break. If you have very little upper body strength like me, you can start by just supporting your weight with stiff arms and work your way into the 90 degree angle.

Good luck! Thanks so much for the comment, Anonymous. Don't be afraid to make a name for me to remember you by. I'd like to keep track of your progress and advice just like you can keep track of mine.

Day 12 - Workin' 9 to 5

Diet tip of the day:
Pamper yourself, especially your face. It's easier to love your body when your skin is soft and your smile is bright.

In my Intro Psychology class my freshman year of college, we learned that you can actually make yourself happy by smiling. Even if you're faking it, you trick your body into feeling better. I think my face has a natural frown to it (especially when I'm driving), so I have to remember to smile throughout the day to lift my spirits. Try it! I mean it. Try it right now and see if you feel better.

Today, I'm working 9 to 5, standing the whole time (with the exception of my break). This usually leaves my lower back pretty sore. One of my goals in this weight loss journey is to improve how my body feels after simple tasks. I'm only 20, and I have back problems. That should definitely not be the case. I've heard that for every pound you lose, you take 10 pounds of pressure off of your knees. Who wouldn't want that?

I totaled up my calories on the Lose It! app yesterday, and it said I hit 1,348 before subtracting my exercises, so I think I'm going to post my meal diaries at the end of the day instead of the beginning, just to keep it consistent.

I must be off. Work starts soon. Remember to keep smiling. Seriously! Smile again, right now! :) Enjoy your day.

And for an exercise tip, I found an app called Couch to 5K. It's a 9-week workout plan that starts out easy and gets you up to being able to run a 5K. I'm going to try it this summer. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think of it.

The Journey Begins

Well this is it. This is the time when I realize just what I've done to myself. Let me start by explaining just what brings me to this point in my life.

I have struggled with weight my whole life. As a friend of mine jokes, "I've been on a diet since grade school." For me, it started on the last day of 4th grade. I told my parents we needed to diet that summer because I was sick of being made fun of. That next Saturday, we started Weight Watchers. I weighed in as a 144-pound 10 year-old and spent the next two years losing over 20 pounds, reaching my goal weight of 120 pounds just before starting 7th grade, having grown about 5 inches. I felt and looked healthy, but when I returned to school in Fall, the boys still teased me. They called me "Man Cow" and moo'd at me whenever I entered a room. I was devastated, and gained back every last pound by the time I went to high school.

This is where my weight gain kicked into high gear. By my sophomore year, I was up to 160 pounds, despite being an active member of my high school show choir. My junior year I hit 180 pounds, and was soon diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, a reproductive disorder that can either cause or be caused by obesity. My senior year, I researched PCOS to find that there are serious reproductive and health consequences involved with this disease, including a high risk of diabetes. People with PCOS also have a harder time losing weight. A specialist I saw put it this way: "A person with PCOS can eat half the amount of food as a normal person and not lose a pound." I lost control of my weight at that point, reaching 215 pounds by graduation. My freshman year of college I reached 250 pounds, and promised myself to take my dieting seriously over the summer. Unfortunately, my boyfriend tore his ACL and needed to have surgery, putting him out of commission for the whole summer and making it a chore just to get him outside. My summer was spent indoors, either working or watching movies with him. Not only did I not lose any weight, I kept gaining steadily, and on April 5th, 2010 during my sophomore year of college, I reached my highest weight, just over 280 pounds.

Here is what changed everything. I went home for Easter the weekend before, and my sister suggested that I try the Special K diet, saying that she had lost 6 pounds in one week. I needed a jump start, and I needed something so structured that I couldn't cheat. I talked to my boyfriend, who agreed we should start it as soon as we could go grocery shopping. One week into the diet, I am down 8 pounds, currently at 274 pounds. We plan on continuing with the Special K plan for a month (twice the recommended 2 weeks) or until we run out of all the cereal we bought at the beginning.

Once classes are over, we are going to continue on a more relaxed form of the diet, substituting cereal for dinner a few times a week instead of every day. We will also add regular exercise into the mix.

My goal is to lose over 100 pounds. My ideal weight is 175 pounds, and I hope to meet that goal within a year and a half. This goal is lofty, but I need to aim high to push myself.

I will be posting my weight 1 to 2 times a week, because if I learned anything from Weight Watchers, it's that you will drive yourself crazy if you're on the scale every two hours. I will also post my daily food diary with nutritional information provided by the Lose It! app for iPod Touch.

Please leave comments, join my diet plan, suggest exercises or recipes, and join my support system. I am dedicated to kicking this over-eating habit and changing my life around.