This is a FREE EATING PLAN - the word diet is out! All it takes is motivation, really, truly wanting to loose those excess pounds. It does take a little effort to do the 5th grade math of keeping accurate track of the calories you eat every day - keep a continual journal - figure your total weekly calorie intake and then your average daily intake of calories. We are thinking of it as our new hobby. Thanks to better calorie labeling on foods and restaurants posting online calories of their meals, it is not that hard. I keep tract of everything on the computer but a regular pen and notebook would do just fine.  Weigh yourself daily or weekly - whatever works best for you. When you do weigh in, do it until you get at least 2 same weight readings.

You have to be down to the last can of beans on your self before you will make a committed, motivated effort to change something in your life.......so I was taught.  Looks like I am down to that last can.

Suffering from unbearable pain with osteoarthritis, which drugs do not really help, I went looking on the web for some “magic” cure-all via foods and supplements just to ease the pain. I also know I need to drop a few pounds......well, OK, drop a LOT of pounds.  I am not able to do exercise. I came up with the following plan for us - make no claims whatsoever, always check with your Dr. before starting a new diet plan.

Found some interesting things online - Green Smoothies made from fresh baby spinach, parsley and fruits in blender - tasted good, even Uncle likes them. Found Health Benefits of PARSLEY, onions, garlic, BEER and green tea. Found a list of foods that some think take more calories to burn than they have in them - The Negative Calorie Foods. Read about the importance of getting enough boron, getting enough calicum/magnesium/D together which helps eliminate more fat, and the usual supplement list.....D-alpha E, Luetin for eyes, sources of A, Omega oils, B vitamins, Esther C, zinc, folic acid, etc. We had fallen off the vitamin & supplement wagon past 3 years - time to get back on!



I remembered that it takes 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat off your body. If you divide 3500 calories by 7 days in a week, that means you need to take in 500 calories per day less to loose 1 pound per week. Just 500 calories less? Yes. I've known all this since I was 17 years old but guess it never really sunk into my brain. I have always said that I got fat because of hormones, more sedentary life style, meds, female stuff, etc.  However, when I was finally, totally honest with myself and actually did the math - what a surprise. I went back to when I started putting on weight. Just adding 300 to 500 more calories a day, it mathematically accounted for my weight gain - OH NO! Could this be true? I guess it could. So if I took in 500 calories less per day would I loose 1 pound a week?

In order to get an accurate average of calories that kept me at present weight I kept a food journal for 6 weeks. Counted every single calorie that went into my mouth - didn't matter what it was, just had to count it.  Averaged my calories per week. After the 6 weeks, calculated that I averaged about 2500 calories a day.

2327 - week 1
2090 - week 2
2275 - week 3
2085 - week 4
2422 - week 5
3050 - week 6 - all those oreo cookies
______________
6 weeks average calories per day = 2571

Then I found a neat calories needed per day calculator online - just google, there are many of them - where you put in your age, sex, weight, height, activity level - it calculates how many calories for you just to breathe and then how many to just breathe plus adds your activity level for your daily maintenance calorie count. To loose weight, you take in 500 to 1000 less calories per day than you need. Using this calculator - looking at both the "just breathing" calories and the sedentary activity level for me - came up with 1400 calories per day and 1800 calories per day for Uncle. Mathematically, we should loose 1- 2 lbs per week.

I also remembered this dieting tidbit  - if you want to loose weight, calculate number of calories to maintain your GOAL WEIGHT and eat that number per day. Mine came up with 1400+ calories.  So it is 1400 calories per day for me either way.

Before when we seriously dieted, we did low carb (25-50) WITH low calorie (1200 for me and 1600 for Uncle). We lost but not happy and always fell off the food wagon. We wanted those bread, rice, potato carbs.

This time just counting calories - we can eat anything we have a desire for, just have to count into daily or weekly calorie count. Also by allowing more calories per day - 200 more each of us, it makes the plan go a lot easier. After first few weeks, while the body is adjusting, if we don't loose weight for 2 weeks, will lower daily calorie intake by 100 or so but never going below 1000 calories per day.

Have we lost??  Surprise, surprise - yes, Uncle has lost 7 lbs in 6 weeks, his insulin keeps him from loosing faster, I have lost 21 in 7 weeks (the first 10 was probably water).  Do we feel deprived - NO -we eat pizza but only 2 pieces instead of 4 each but we have a 95 calorie beer with it so full and happy. We have eaten out at Red Lobster’s all you can eat shrimp feast and the Olive Garden. They have great online listings of calories in their foods. We have baked beans with hot dogs, mexican food, spareribs, canned ravioli, bread, tortillas, rice, potatoes - whatever we want, just smaller portions and count the calories into daily amount. The other day I had 14 mini eclairs but no supper. What if go over one day?  Eat less the next day.

I have us on a weekly plan - Saturday to Friday - count up the daily calorie intakes to get the average WEEKLY intake. I started weighing in on Saturday only but more often now.

The first week was a little tough - the 2nd week got better and by the 3rd week doing good. Now we are at a point of making more healthy choices of foods - been eating a lot of fresh veggies in stir fry - made big pot of homemade chunky chili and chicken soup which I counted all the calories that went into them and then divided by number of cups got per pot for calories per cup.  The first couple of weeks drank 2-4 cups of green tea a day to help flush out system. I steep one bag of green with one bag of Raspberry in 6+ cups of water. Let set no more than 5 minutes before taking the tea bags out.

pre-diet time - did 5 weeks of activa - made green smoothies - started eating raw onion sandwiches, drank a lot of green tea.

Working with the old photos on facebook recently, seeing how I looked back then and how I look today, I think I finally, for the first time, really looked at myself. Somehow I always saw me as I was.....not as I am. More motivated now to try to drop these excess pounds. Will take 2 years but that is OK.


Notes:

* I got out measuring cups and spoons and left on counter - so Uncle could learn what a cup really was, what a tablespoon really was, etc. I also use them to measure things like soup, chili, etc. to get more accurate calorie count. We also have a neat scale that lets you put your plate on it.....it weighs it and then you put your food on it, it subtracts the weight of the plate. I use this mostly for meats or to figure out just how much is 1 oz of Bacon Rinds? It can also measure in grams instead of oz.

* We have been having 2 or 3 low calorie beers (95 cal) a week. Fills me up - makes uncle happy.  See the Health Benefits of Beer

*Use Jello cups - just 10 calories. Got 45 individual size Austin brand peanut butter crackers and cookies from Sams  - the kind in vending machines. They have 190 -250 calories, use them as part of breakfast or lunch - makes me feel like I am getting a treat.

* I use a reg notebook to keep track of daily intakes - it does take awhile to get used to counting calories in foods - keep a running list on computer - also on computer keep the daily and weekly counts, etc.  Calorie Counting, our new hobby! In time Uncle will make me a fancy self calculating spread sheet so when put in breakfast and lunch calories, it will tell me how many left for supper. 

* It is a personal choice, but I don't use anything but real butter, real mayo, real salad dressing. Try to stay with whole foods as much as possible, shying away from the processed foods, the ones that are "better living through chemistry", with ingredient list a mile long.  Do use pre-cooked bacon (25 cal per slice) - got to have a little bacon and low fat turkey & ham lunch meat (30 cal per slice). Uncle likes the Jewish, Hebrew brand long hot dogs (360 cal per dog) so work that into his calorie count.


Example of my computer files - goes from Sat to Fri - with Fri on top.