I''ve always been overweight, but I made it my New Year''s to eat better. Figured that was a more reasonable goal than thinking I''d suddenly take up exercising more, aka. start out small. Well one of my biggest changes is just the way I eat at work. I used to down about three sodas an hour, snack constantly, and for lunch I''d have a few slices or pizza or a couple burgers.
I''ve switched off to water (no soda for a month now). At first I tried switching off to eating a turkey sandwich or lunch, but I found I was staving. So I basically began to pile a ton of stuff on my sandwich. I switched to a whole grain bread, and I put a lot of spinach, onions, tomatoes, and slices of cucumber on it. Plus I eat an apple or banana on the side. And all through the day I snack on either grapes, baby carrots, or plum-tomatoes. Since the beginning of the month I''ve lost four pounds, which seems cool enough to me.
But my coworker, who fancies herself an expert in everything, says I''m still eating too many calories because I''m putting so much crap on my sandwiches. She says I need to snack less, and just have a salad so I''m losing the bread and meat completely. I don''t fancy this at all.
Should I just keep what I''m doing, or should I listen to her?
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Don’t listen to her…or me, or anybody else.
Listen to your body.
Or relearn to listen to it as you surely messed up your body’ hunger signals and taste buds with junk food if your idea of lunch is a few slices of pizza (probably not the healthy homemade kind that you brought from home) and a couple of burgers (from some fast food joint?).
Nobody should tell an overweight guy to “just have a salad” for lunch.
You NEED the bread (carbs) and the meat (protein).
The last thing you need is to get hungry and deny your body’s craving for food (you have to restore your hunger’s signals, not ignore them).
If you snack constantly, it can mean different things.
It could mean that you do not get satisfying meals (not anything to do with calorie content) to sustain you for several hours.
Like high calorie junk food is satisfying on the spot but you’ll get hungry pretty soon.
Also, young males, whether they’re athletics or just overweight, need A LOT of calories to either sustain their physical activities or just their body weight and high BMR.
They should eat HUGE healthy breakfasts/(lunches might not be always healthy as you’re often away from home)/healthy dinners and have all the high calorie junk food they need for mid-morning snacks, mid-afternoon snacks…not after dinner snacks as they go for seconds and thirds on the healthy dinner.
The crappier your lunch is, the healthier your breakfast/dinner should be so you still get healthy food.
I don’t know your stats (weight, height, age…) but any overweight guy needs more than spinach (92% of water), onions (89%), tomatoes (94%), cucumber (96%), apples (84%)…Those are great additions to your diet to get the vitamins/minerals/fiber, antioxidants. Color, diversity, taste…but contain mostly water.
It’s like if you’re thirsty, eating half a grapefruit is like drinking a glass of water, but better because you get nutrients (fiber, carbs, and vitamins/minerals).
Eat fruits/veggies for health but you need a lot of carbs (at least 60% of your BMR), protein (15%, unless you’re building up muscle mass…20%) and dietary fats (25% or 20% if you’re building up muscle mass and need more protein) just to cover your BMR.
“No soda for a month now”?
What kind of soda?
You would have to get over the triple whammy addiction for regular soda (the sweet tooth, the caffeine and the fizz).
Diet sodas are worse, as everybody knows; fake sugars lead to obesity as you get a sweet tooth with super sweet zero calorie fake sugars…and NO energy to exercise easily and efficiently, since you don’t get carbs. Readjusting your taste buds to get over a sweet tooth is a lengthy process…and a sour one!
I would be interested to know how you can get over a soda addiction in a month.
Hopefully, you’re not popping up pain killers to get over the headaches or you’ll have to deal with a pain killer addiction later on.
And you’re not using sleep aid meds or caffeine pills or tea or you’ll have to get over those addictions as well.
You should not replace one addiction with another.
There are ways (I know one from experience) to get over a soda addiction in a “divide and conquer” method without the need for any meds so you don’t have to deal with additional addictions from meds. It’s like people who stop smoking cigarettes but still have to deal with being addicted to the nicotine patches.
Turkey sandwiches are for…I don’t know…people who are not wondering about where that salty processed sliced food of some poultry is coming from…as long as they heard that it has fewer calories than other meat. The only turkey sandwich I would eat is the one after Thanksgiving Day (in the US) or Christmas (in France), using the leftover turkey meat from the turkey I cooked (and that was raised properly).
You always hear about how chickens are raised, but never about how turkeys are raised.
I would not even be surprised to learn that a turkey sandwich does not even contain turkey…no more than a blueberry muffin or yogurt contains blueberries…just a cheaper lab concoction that look and taste like it, with fake sugar and artificial flavors/coloring…without the healthy antioxidants of course. Manufacturers call that crap blueberry crunchlets or flakes so you might still think they contain real blueberries.
“Baby carrots”?
Not baby carrots but baby-cut ones (cocktail), right?
Those have nothing to do with baby carrots but are regular carrots that were too crooked for packaging so they’re peeled, cut into a deceptively nice shape and processed to the max, washed in carcinogen chlorine water (as they do not have skin to protect them anymore). After a few days, they miserably vomit the chlorine out when stored in your fridge in their plastic bag…If you buy a fresh bag that is not yet oozing the chlorine out, you’ll still have to get some high calorie dip to make them edible.
You can find baby carrots the size of a kitten tail in can with peas…nothing to do with baby-cut carrots.
- First off, Congrats to you and change in lifestyle :D I''m on my way also.
Too much of anything is considered bad for you.
But like you''ve said, you have already lost 4 pounds on the diet you chose. So where''s the problem? Your doing just fine love :)
Tell your nosey coworker to stay out of your business. Clearly your doing a very good job and your seeing good results, why stop and change that?
She''s jealous she can''t lose weight lol - You lost 4 pounds didn''t you?!! Keep it up. She is just that, a nosy coworker. Not someone you need to listen to.
- First, if you''re content with the progress of your weight loss, none of us has any business criticizing your approach. Different things work for different people, you''ve found something that works for you so far.
Second, your previous consumption of sugar and white flour sounds so outrageous that you''re lucky you''re not already 500 pounds, and ditching those worst carbs is sure to be a vast improvement.
Third, you don''t need to worry about eating too many non-starchy veggies (unless you''re so insulin-resistant or diabetic that even veggies spike your blood sugar too much. Probably not you.)
BUT -- you know what are NOT vegetables? Tomatoes. Grapes. Apples. Bananas. Those are fruits and contain sugar. That may be fine for you -- but keep in mind that you''re still consuming sugar. If your weight-loss stalls, consider that carefully. It most definitely IS possible that consuming such fruits will slow down or stop you weight loss.
As for ways to improve, if you''re interested in advice. Your coworker is right about bread but WRONG about meat. The fact is that carbs have been the source of your overweight problem. You''re losing weight now because you''ve reduced the carbs (all the sugar, pizza dough, excess sandwich bread). You''d probably lose weight faster if you reduced them still more.
You feel the need to snack, and a turkey sandwich was unsatisfying, because you eat too many carbs and not enough FAT. Yes you need more fat. It''s a politically incorrect fact that humans evolved eating fat and protein, and that''s what you need. If carbs are kept low, you can hoover up all the fat you want (you won''t binge because fat+protein provides great satiety).
You''ll have to cross a great barrier in your mind before you come to believe me. But I wanted to plant the seed. Keep up what you''re doing until it doesn''t work anymore. Then remember my words.
