Than there was a year ago. Over the past year I've lost 60 lbs. and have kept it off even when not dieting (Thank you, I heard the whoo hoo!) I needed to lose weight because of a family history of heart disease, diabetes and stroke. I love my husband too much to leave him early or make him have to take care of an invalid wife. It was a long journey, but one which wasn't at all hard, much to my surprise!
I'm going to be contributing to a weight-loss journal that Sandy Osborne is writing and I promised her I would write my thoughts down for her to incorporate, so it's easier to write to you guys than to a blank piece of paper.
Here's the principles I learned in my weight loss journey:
- There are a lot of good weight loss programs out there, and they all share at their core these basic principles: eat healthy, measured portions, exercise and take the time to figure out why you're eating too much, then change the patterns.
- There is no magic pill, food or diet that will make weight loss require no effort. You have to change your existing habits. I ate too much of the wrong foods and didn't exercise… there really wasn't a mystery even though I would have preferred that there were!
- The things I didn't want to do were the very things that set me free from the chains of overeating. I had to keep a food journal, which meant measuring and writing down every piece of food that entered my mouth. I had to read up on the calorie counts of every food. Yes, it was hard at the beginning, but within a week I knew that 1/2 cup of brown rice was 108 calories and my usual portion before had been 432 calories. I learned a small slice of cheesecake might be 450 calories and a large bowl of melons 100 calories. Now, even if I can't write things down I always know where I am in my daily intake almost without having to think about it.
- I discovered that wonderful tasting food didn't mean high calories. Most spices are 0 calories! Also, whole foods mean huge portions for small calories so I never felt denied. Whole grains don't make your insulin levels spike, they take a long time to digest and keep you at an even keel (for normal, non-diabetics I don't know how it affects diabetes).
- I discovered whole foods satisfy my hunger and stop the cravings. 100% whole wheat, brown rice, 7 grain Kashi Pilaf, fresh fruits and vegetables give my body real body-building, energy-producing calories and when my body gets real food it quits screaming "feed me." The cravings stopped within 3 days of cutting out white flours and refined sugars. The very cravings that I had been powerless to overcome disappeared totally.
- I discovered that eating even a little bit of white sugar, white flour and other refined foods set me up to fail. It initiated cravings in my body that made my "dieting" very hard and uncomfortable. When I avoided them, I literally had a hard time eating all of my 1200 calories per day allotment.
- I had to face the ways I used food to meet my emotional needs and realize that it never actually did. Food wasn't my friend, my comforter, or my way to beat boredom.
- I learned that it was detrimental to my body to ever drop below 1,000 calories a day. My body would start to eat it's own muscle rather than the fat I wanted to get rid of.
- I learned to love the way I eat so much I don't want the foods I used to think I couldn't live without. Best of all, if I love what I'm eating it's easy to eat that way for the rest of my life.
There's more in the program I was on, which is the Prism Weight Loss Program, www.pwlp.com. It is a Christianity based, common sense, weight loss and support program but you don't have to be a Christian to benefit from it. Every person inmy life that has worked the program for 6 weeks or has found incredible success at losing weight and keeping it off.
A daughter is doing Jenny Craig's program and doing wonderfully. A friend is doing Weight Watcher's and has lost 50 pounds. The secret is start a program, go to the meetings and do the work and it will work for you too.
Audrey Jeanne Roberts
). Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels withoug knowing it. Hebrews 13:1-2 
