Action Plan-Have to start somewhere

I enrolled on my health care sight & took a Health Assessment. 

My weight 263.  BMI 41.2.  They say it's "markedly overweight"

Says I'm @ high risk for: heart disease, stroke, diabetes

Successful Weight management consists of 2 parts:

                              Healthy Eating
                              Regular physical exercise


An Action Plan for You:

1. Define your goals. Ask yourself, "What weight could I realistically see myself reaching?"
2. Set a date that you will begin your healthy changes. On this date, start exercising at least 2-3 times per week in the beginning.
3. Try one new healthy recipe each week. Make sure to include healthy ingredients like fruits, vegetables, and lower-fat items such as skim milk.
4. Make healthy food substitutions. For example, try wheat bread instead of white bread. Use olive oil instead of butter. Replace whole milk with skim.
5. Cut calories. For most adults, cutting back 50-100 calories per day may prevent the gradual weight gain that comes from aging. To lose weight, you may need to reduce your food and drink by 500 calories or more per day.
6. Find extra calories that are easy to cut. Eliminating one 20-ounce (600 mL) sugar-sweetened cola each day can add up to over 3,500 calories in 2 weeks, and 3,500 calories equals 1 pound (.45 kg).
7. Increase exercise. For health benefits, adults should moderately exercise at least 30 minutes most days of the week. To prevent weight gain or to lose weight, adults may need 60-90 minutes of exercise most days of the week.

Remember: To lose weight, calories in should be less than calories out.

Find out how many calories you need, visit:

• http://www.choosemyplate.gov/

Oatmeal: to have or not have?

One of my first changes is my breakfast.  

Having a chicken biscuit from Bojangle or McDonalds is one of my favorites.  But that is not healthy nor nutritious
It doesn't help that I live in the middle of Collinsville where there is every fast food restaurant known to man!  Sonic, Hardees, Burger King, McDonald's, Biscuitville, Bojangles-all within 1/2 mile..

What is healthy you ask?

According to The Woman's Health Magazine: 

Orient Express Oatmeal

Multi Grain Blueberry Waffles

Breakfast Burrito

Scrambled eggs with Salmon & goat cheese

 

Strawberry Parfait

While all of these choices sound delicious & tempting, they are not very practical for me. This week I've eaten some Honey Nut Oatmeal & Yoplait Yogurt.  It's been tasty and filling.  Much more healthy than what I've been eating & quick to fix & eat while I'm driving to work.  Oh yeah-did I mention I ALWAYS eat breakfast while driving to work-I have a 30 minute commute.  Can't be wasting time!  It does limit what I can & cannot eat one handed or while 2 fingers hold the steering wheel.  Thankfully there's not much traffic on the highway hindering my daily mealtime!

 

 

100 Ways to Lose weight & keep it off!!

My name is Karen Conner and I'm addicted to food.

There-I've said it.  I love food.  I love to eat.  I eat for comfort, for fun, when I'm bored, nervous, sad, happy, watching TV, driving to work, you name it.

I've been on hundreds of diets.  Well, in my head-I've said "your on a diet"-but over the years that really doesn't mean anything.  My deep inner self still makes excuses to eat what I want.
Therefore, I've NEVER lost any weight while I was on a "diet".

Today I stumbled upon-that's really what it's called "Stumbled Upon"-ha ha
#39 says to do a blog.

My plan is to blog about all 100 ways & see if it helps me or anyone else!  GOOD LUCK!!


100 ways to lose weight effectively & keep it off.  Here they are:

Tips and tricks for losing weight

1. Drink one pint of cold water when you get up – This kick-starts your metabolism.
2. Don’t skip breakfast – Having breakfast tells your body that it is day time again and that there is no need to slow the metabolism because you are sleeping.
3. Use cinnamon – Add to an apple pie or other desert, it is the perfect spice to speed the metabolism
4. Steer clear from creamy, coconut based curries – If you have to eat curry have something tomato based or something from the Tandoori oven. Skip that naan bread too and go for plain rice.
5. Eat spicy food – The spicier your food the more calories it takes to digest, making it lower in calories than the same food with no spic.
6. Drink Green tea – This can boost your metabolism, is high in anti-oxidants and is caffeine free.
7. Stop eating three hours before bed – This goes for drinks that aren’t water also. Your sleeping body will struggle to digest and burn off all those evening calories when your metabolism is slowest.
8. Do yoga – Not only does it help you to lose weight, you’ll also be more flexible, improve your posture and feel more energised.
9. Metabolism is better in the morning – Do all your exercise and heavy eating in the morning to maximise how much you burn off.
10. Don’t just stick to cardio – Include strength training in your workout, if you can build more lean muscle your body will lose the fatty bits quicker. You’ll also stop yourself from getting loose skin.
11. Go for a walk during your lunch break – Don’t sit and stare at the TV in the coffee room for an hour, get outside, go for a walk!
12. Walk the dog – Walking the dog is fun and great exercise. If you don’t have a dog, get one or go walk a friend’s.
13. Don’t starve yourself – If you let your body go into starvation mode your metabolism will slow and losing weight will be harder.
14. Try and eat five to six small meals – Doing this will keep your metabolism active.
15. Eat wholemeal foods – This includes pasta, cereal and bread. These sorts of carbs will keep you sustained for longer and contain less calories.
16. Go light – Try eating light mayonnaise and salad dressings, every try low calorie bread an cheese!
17. Bake or grill instead of fry – Usually fry those burgers or bacon, grill it or bake in the oven, a much healthier option.
18. Track your weightloss progress – Just trying to lose weight without monitoring things like your start weight, current weight and goal weight will lead you to just feeling hungry with no return.
19. Avoid very restrictive diets – Don’t go on a diet that leaves you feeling hungry and craving foods because you’ll just give in a binge. Go on a diet that allows you to eat some of the foods you love in moderation.
20. Use a measuring tape – Just because you aren’t losing the pounds doesn’t mean that you aren’t losing inches. Measure your waist, hips and any other bits you want to lose on when you weight yourself. Keep track of all of it.
21. Build healthy habits – Don’t just eat loads of fruit, exercise and eat healthily when you are on a diet. Even when you reach your goal weight keep these healthy habits to maintain that weight.
22. Join online weight loss support forums – There are hundreds of forums and communities online that will give you support, weight trackers and dieting buddies to keep you motivated.
23. Read labels – Keep an eye on your calorie, fat, protein and carb intake, especially if your diet restricts one of those things. Note down what you eat, how much of it and the nutrition content.
24. Tell people – If people know that you are on a diet then they are less likely to suggest MacDonalds for lunch. Some may even give you support, tips from their diets and will also notice when you do lose weight.
25. Buy a Wii – Get a Wii, play Wii sports and play Wii fit. These games are fun for all the family and certainly help you work up a sweat.
26. Set realistic goals – A good amount it to lose 1-2lbs a week, any more then you will start losing weight unhealthily, leading to a weight rebound. Set a goal you can realistically achieve and you will feel so brilliant when you reach it.
27. Take supplements – Often when you are dieting you might miss out on essential nutrients that may help the weightloss process, take a simple multi-vitamin once a day.
28. Create a motivation sheet – Create in paint, on paper or in photoshop a sheet containing photos of yourself you hate. Pictures of people you aspire to be like and statements saying why you want to lose weight and what you will be able to do. Make it your computer desktop.
29. Find your ideal weight – There are loads of calculators online that will look at your height and build to determine your idea weight.
30. Don’t ignore your BMI – This is your body mass index, great for normal people who want to get to their ideal healthy weight. Less good for body builders with loads and loads of heavy muscle. It takes your height and weight into account; you need a BMI of around 25 to be healthy.
31. Don’t eliminate the foods you love – Eliminating foods you love with cause you to over eat when you can get to them. This will undo all your hard work. Treat yourself but do it in moderation.
32. Find a diet buddy – Having someone to talk to about your weight loss plight will help you to both keep on track.
33. You aren’t in this alone – Finding others with a similar amount to lose will help you keep on track. This is especially useful if the people in your day to day life aren’t dieting, you can end up feeling lonely.
34. Don’t keep junk food in the house – If there is junk food in the house then it will be harder to restrain yourself.
35. Try something new – If a friend asks you to go belly dancing then try it, it is a brilliant way to lose weight. Doing new and exciting things will stop your weight loss from becoming boring.
36. Set small goals – After setting your goal weight set small goats, perhaps monthly. You’ll be so motivated at hitting that small goal that you’ll be spurred on to get to the next one.
37. Look at yourself in the mirror – Get a full length mirror and look at yourself every so often in a variety of clothes, note how they fit, how you are looking better and how you will look even better when you get to your goal weight.
38. Create a look book – A look book is a series of pictures of you in different outfits. Taking a photo every other day or so will help you to keep track of how you are looking. You can then compare the old photos and new and revel in the fact that you now look brilliant.
39. Start a blog – Keeping a blog is a great way of writing down what you eat, how much you are losing, what you are trying and even posting photos of yourself. This can keep you motivated and on track by keeping the diet plan at the forefront of your mind.
40. Muscle weighs more than fat – If you find that one week you haven’t lost or have even gained then don’t forget that all your exercise could be building muscle. Measure your waist, if you’ve lost inches then great.
41. Drink water – If you feel hungry then drink a glass of water, the brain sometimes struggles to tell the difference between hunger and thirst.
42. Eat slowly – Easting slowly will give your brain more time to adjust to the fact that you are getting full. If you wolf down a meal very, very quickly then you will find that after you will feel bloated. Only eat as much as you need to.
43. Cook with non stick pans – Doing this means you won’t need to use the butter and oil to stop your food sticking to the bottom of your pan.
44. Create a menu as a shopping list – If you can plan exactly what you are eating on a day to day basis you won’t buy food that you then feel the need to eat.
45. Satisfy your sweet tooth – Don’t deny yourself sweet treats, have a small bar of chocolate just take its calories into account. For a healthy sweet treat try microwaved apples with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
46. Add apples into your diet – Apples are full of fibre and can help to curb your appetite better than any food supplement. Cheaper too.
47. Walk to work – If you don’t live too far from work then walk or bike in, you will burn around 300 calories more than if you drove for 15 minutes in rush hour traffic.
48. Never leave home hungry – Even if you are going out for a meal you should have a small snack of fruit, this will stop you from overeating when  out.
49. Start saving for that new outfit – Having money to buy your new size 12 jeans will keep you motivated to get to that goal weight.
50. You don’t need to finish everything on your plate – If you feel full stop eating.
51. Be smart then it comes to Fastfood – When going out for fast food, be clever about what you eat. Stay clear of the fried foods and huge portions, go for a small hamburger or baguette with a diet soda.
52. Stay focused on being healthy not becoming thin – If you obsess about your weight then you’ll never see a change. Focus on being healthy and the weight loss will follow with out all the stress.
53. Start on high calories – If you are calorie counting, find out what you need to lose two pounds a week. Start as high as 1700 calories a day and when you start to plateau you can drop it down to 1500, your body will also have time to adjust and won’t think that you are trying to starve yourself.
54. Watch your portion sizes – It is okay to treat yourself to steak and chips but have a small grilled steak and a few chips, fill up on fresh veg and water.
55. Don’t skip meals – People think that skipping a meal will lead to less calories and therefore weight loss but you’ll find that your body goes into starvation mode and your metabolism slows down making it harder to shift the calories when you next eat. If you find you aren’t hungry just have a small, healthy snack such as a banana.
56. Buy new clothes – If you buy new clothes when you’ve moved down a dress size or two then you can throw away the old clothes. This means you will be less likely to go back to those old sizes.
57. Don’t give up – You are bound to have bad days but get over it and move on so you can continue with the diet and exercise the next day.
58. Add a fruit or veg serving – If you add just one serving of fruit or veg a day then you can slowly build this up to get your five a day without a big diet change.
59. Have a salad for lunch – Doing this means you can have a dessert with your dinner because you’ve saved up on calories.
60. Do the housework – Doing work around the house or in the garden can help you to move and work up a sweat, great exercise.
61. Stop eating out – Of course don’t cut this out of your social life completely but think about hosting a dinner party once in a while. It’ll be cheaper and you can control the amount of calories you consume.
62. Take your kids out – Running around with your kids in the park is great exercise, break out a football
63. Don’t obsess – You can keep an eye on what you are eating and how much you are exercising but don’t obsess, it will lead to stress and you feeling miserable.
64. Limit your intake – If you have to give in to that craving then limit how much you have, just one scoop of ice cream or two segments of that chocolate bar.
65. How does your weight affect you life – If you could get down to your goal weight what would you be able to do that you can do now? Play with your kids, shop in your favourite clothes shop or simply fit into that perfect wedding dress.
66. Don’t feel guilty – If you get full and don’t eat all of your meal don’t feel pressured to finish it just because it’ll be thrown away otherwise. Think about your waist line.
67. Take time to cook a meal – When you are fussing more over a meal then you will probably eat less when you come to meal time. Also moving around and cooking will burn more calories than putting something in the oven and leaving it.
68. Chew sugar free gum – This keeps your mouth busy so you won’t be tempted, plus most foods will taste awful after all that minty flavour.
69. Try out the clothes that are too small for you – You’ll either find that they fit or that they don’t, if they don’t keep dieting and exercising if they do then celebrate with more clothes in that size and move on to your next goal.
70. If you feel the need to eat call a friend – This will take your mind off what you wanted to eat and will give you something more productive to do instead. If you can’t get hold of anyone go online and chat.
71. Give yourself different reasons to lose weight – Of course you want to lose weight to be happier, healthier and better looking but what about losing weight so your trousers don’t wear out between your things or so no one ever called you ‘that big girl,’ again.
72. Substitute – Swap mayonnaise for mustard, start drinking semi-skimmed milk instead of full fat, eat wholemeal pasta and brown rice as opposed to their plain versions.
73. Keep reminding yourself – If you keep reminding yourself that you need to lose weight then you won’t stray from the path. Have something on your desktop reminding you of your goals, if you have an iPhone use an application that tracks your weight, update your blog with everything you are doing.
74. Flavour your own water – A lot of people don’t like the taste of water and steer clear from it. Don’t do this, water is so, so good for you, flavour it with a bit of lemon on lime.
75. Remember that being over weight reduces the chance of getting pregnant – So if you are trying for kids then try and shed some pounds!
76. Don’t crash diet – If you crash diet and lose 10lbs in two weeks or something else ridiculous then you will have a weight rebound which will put you right back to square one. Lose the weight steadily and it’ll stay off.
77. Drink a glass of water before a meal – This will make you feel fuller, stopping you from over eating.
78. Buy a bottle of water – If you are in a shop about to buy a drink, opt for water and nothing fizzy.
79. Eat Fresh fruit – Eat fruit instead of drinking fruit juice, more or less the same flavour without the additives but with more nutrition!
80. Try new vegetables – You may think that you aren’t a fan of veg but there’s so much on offer try something new like asparagus or rocket instead of peas and lettuce.
81. Drink black tea or coffee – Cutting out the milk and sugar can cut out loads of calories, if you need your caffeine fix then without milk or sugar these drinks have practically no calories.
82. Chocolate is a luxury – Have chocolate and other sweet fattening foods as a treat every so often and savour them as you have them.
83. Embrace vegetarianism – Not every meal has to have meat in it, try and put a few meatless dishes into your weekly menu.
84. Use sweetener not sugar – You can’t taste the difference in tea or coffee and certainly not on cereal so you’ll be cutting calories and not even noticing!
85. Go easy on salt – There’s no need to put salt on a meal, if you’ve cooked it properly it should taste just fine without adding the extra salt at the table.
86. Boil your veg – Doing this is so much healthier than baking them. If you can then even eat them raw all the nutrients get lost upon cooking.
87. Reward yourself – If you see a change in your weight or waist size don’t reward yourself with chocolate but buy yourself something nice or go out with a friend.
88. Get it yourself – Instead of asking your partner / child / housemate to get yourself something get up off the couch and get it yourself.
89. Get up during the adverts – Get up, get a glass of water, stretch, you don’t need to see the adverts, get moving instead.
90. Exercise at your desk – Having a job where you are sitting all day makes it difficult to burn calories, move as much as you can, stretch at your desk, go for a walk around the office. Get up to speak to someone rather than using the internal phone system.
91. Park a little way from your destination and walk the rest of the way – If you have to drive for half an hour to get to work then you can’t really attempt to walk it but you can drive for twenty minutes then walk the rest of the way.
92. Run up the stairs – Don’t move slowly up the stair case, try and run up as fast as you can or take two at a time.
93. Go swimming – Swimming is a fun way of exercising, especially if you have kids that you can play with. Although it is best to do lengths messing around and playing can be very beneficial.
94. Exercise during your morning routine – For example when brushing your teeth don’t just stand there; lift yourself up on your toes, stretch the back of your legs and down again. Do this until you are done brushing.
95. Don’t slouch – Sit upright, tuck your tummy in and retain good posture.
96. Stay Comfortable – Don’t over do it, if you find that your exercise routine is making you ache and you are in pain and unable to move then step it down a little. Do ten minutes less a day or take on a more sedate kind of exercise. You need to be able to feel that it is working but don’t hurt yourself.
97. Organise an exercise plan and stick to it – Set something you can realistically stick to so you aren’t missing sessions. If you are new to exercise try ten minutes a day to begin with and then build it up.
98. Go over your food diary – Pinpoint where you’ve lost the most weight and if you’ve put on anywhere, then try and work out why to improve your diet.
99. Go to your Doctor – If your weight is wildly out of control and you don’t think you can manage it with healthy eating and exercise then go to your doctor they can advise on calorie intake, an exercise plan and maybe even some pills.
100. Limit alcohol intake – Limit your intake to one glass a day and be smart about it, clear spirits and dry white wine are the healthiest options.