Posts Tagged ‘whole wheat’

5 Mar

Your Monday Reading Assignment (3/5)

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , .

It seems to me that the process of losing weight and/or living healthier is, at it’s core, a matter of breaking old habits and making new ones.

“Burger and fries” has to become “burger.”  “Let’s order pizza” becomes, “I’ll go pick up a pizza,” because the places that deliver don’t use whole-wheat dough.  Waiting for the elevator turns into taking the stairs.

As a consquence, I have a passing interest in how habits work.  So does this guy.  Fair warning – I haven’t read the book yet, but the story on Fresh Air was interesting. It’s been covered in a variety of media, mostly because of the Target/pregnant teenager anecdote (OK, now I have your attention), but as usual, Terry Gross does a nice job of asking the author the right questions.  The cookie story makes it extra-relevant to this-here blog.

Here’s a list of habits that would do you and me both some good.  Most will be familiar to Skippers (That’s a new term I’m testing for regular Skipping Dessert readers – let me know what you think – maybe “Skippies” instead?), but worth rereading nonetheless.  Don’t take number seven to heart until you’ve had a chance to re-read Skipping Dessert from start to finish.

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15 Jun

Five Things That Have Helped Me Lose Weight

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

I hereby proclaim Wednesdays on this blog to be “Five-Things-Wednesdays.”  

Over the past few days several people have asked me what I “did” to lose the first 19 pounds.  The sad news is that there’s no magic bullet, no turnkey fad diet I can reference.   But enough people have asked that I decided to list below five things I’ve employed to help me lose weight:

1.)  As you might surmise from the title of the blog, I skip dessert.  Actually I skip sweets altogether.  That started in March, and led to my getting serious about losing weight.  I’ve eaten fewer than five desserts since then, and even those were in markedly smaller quantities than I’d ever have eaten before.  I don’t miss them, except on rare occasions (which I’ll describe in a future post – stay tuned).

2.)  As the subtitle of the blog suggests, I take the stairs if there is an option to do so.  And I park farther away than I normally would if there is an option to do so.  All of which I like to think of as passive exercise.

3.)  I stopped eating fast food.  What is “fast food?”  If there’s a drive-up window and the food comes out in a small paper sack, it’s fast food.   Since Christmas Eve 2010 I’ve eaten exactly three Taco Bell chicken quesadillas, and that is the only thing that passes for fast food I’ve eaten since then (which was before I even got serious about losing weight – I just decided fast food wasn’t doing me any favors).  Do I miss it?  Yes.  Because it’s fast.  I could drive through Burger King, check my email while sitting in my car in the line and eat the burger(s) while I was driving.  Can’t do any of that without fast food.  I do not, however, miss the “food” itself.

4.)  I stopped drinking sugary/fake sugary sodas at the same time.  I drink water, bubbly water (H2O with CO2 and maybe a little natural flavor) and occasionally tea (unsweetened – and yes, I miss that), sometimes juice (real juice – no high-fructose corn syrup added) and coffee.

5.)  I write this blog.  Which helps me focus on what I’m doing and keeps me accountable to the people who read it.  I want you to make endless fun of me if you see me with McDonald’s special sauce smeared on my tie or buttercream icing on my nose.  Because I don’t like it when people make fun of me, I’ll make an extra effort not to do the things that would lead you to do so.

And a bonus thing number 6.)  I avoid white-bread and all white-refined flour products whenever possible.  Sometimes it’s not possible without being fairly rude, and I’m not ready to do that just yet.  But when it is possible, which is most of the time, I opt for whole-wheat/whole-grain breads, cereals, rices and pastas.

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