Unbelievable diets

There are some absolute crackers of ways to lose weight out there that people have tried and in some cases still try in an effort to lose weight.

http://bit.ly/H56G5I

I found a highly absorbing website called www.everydiet.org that reviews hundreds of different diets, some of them credible and some of them a bit scary.

One of the scariest was the 'Tapeworm diet', only available in Mexico and for a cost of $1500 (on top of possible health costs for the side effects). If you're unlucky, this diet can be lethal.

There's the 'Wrong Hand Diet' where you eat with your non-favoured hand. Or the one where you make sure at parties that you are holding something in one hand (like a handbag) so that it is more difficult to hold multiple items of food. This could also result in you simply spilling everything down the front of your favourite outfit, or worse down the front of someone else's favourite outfit.

Perhaps you could try the diet where you chew your food 32 times and spit it out, because you're not allowed to swallow it. The brilliant mind behind this one was art dealer Horace Fletcher (in the early 1900s).

A few people have invented diet aids, like the red/green light fork, patented in 1995.

http://www.faddiet.com/redligfor.html

The fork senses when you eat something and the light changes from green to red. You can't eat again until it turns back to green. Bit frustrating really.

Some of us might like the sound of the sleeping diet, sleeping 24/7 so there's no need to eat, and you'll be tired enough to sleep because you'll be exhausted from lack of the energy normally provided by food. Not how I want to spend my days...

Establishing good habits

I'm really pleased to be able to say I lost weight this week. The meal plan I created last week was great. Because it was full of my favourite meals, I looked forward to every meal and really enjoyed eating them. My favourite was probably the filo fish pie which was a Taste.com.au recipe. It was surprisingly creamy for something low-fat, so it felt like I was having something naughty. I also looked forward to my sweet treats enough that I didn't indulge before I was supposed to.

The top moment of the week was when I discovered that I needed to wear a belt with my favourite jeans. It'd been so long since I'd worn a belt I couldn't remember where I'd put them :)

A few people commented this week that they didn't know how I kept on doing all the exercise. I'm doing about 5-7 hours a week, and I have to say that even though I sometimes think, Oh I'll just miss it this time, I usually don't. I think it's become a habit to ride to work on Monday and Friday, and to go paddling on Tuesday morning and Wednesday night, and climb on Thursday night. Then if I feel like it, I do something on Sunday as well. I didn't really like my yoga class and it was expensive, so yoga is on hold until I find a better class.

There's a lot to be said for creating good habits. Exercising can become a habit, and so can the foods you eat. You start eating a healthy breakfast, and soon you don't think about how you used to just have a coffee, because you enjoy the breakfast and it gives you a good start to the day. 

The thing about habits is that the bad ones keep sneaking back in, so you have to keep up your guard. Telling yourself that one piece of cake won't matter is fine, if that's the only piece of cake you're having over a few days. If you start telling yourself that everyday, those pieces of cake are going to start adding up before you know it!

Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits. (Robert Puller)

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. (Jim Rohn)

Weekly plan of fave low-fat meals

I needed a jump start this week, so I spent some time on the weekend preparing a meal plan I was sure to stick to. I've taken some of my favourite meals and recipes from a huge assortment of Weight Watchers meals plans and cookbooks I own, my Contours cookbook, and some recipes from Taste. Contours women's gym runs a six-week challenge every few months that is really worth doing. You get a cookbook, personal training on a 30 minute circuit and a bio-age assessment. I like the Taste website, because the recipes usually work, they're reviewed and rated, so you can be sure of the recipe you're choosing, and they give you nutritional data that allows you to make healthy choices.

My meal plan goes for six days, because I always eat out at least one lunch or dinner each week. If I don't, I can always just repeat one of the other days. I aim to eat 7000 kj a day, which is close to the recommended kilojoules for someone of my age, height and weight. I also try to keep the fat to under 50g a day - remembering that your saturated fat should be under 20g a day. I might update my table to show saturated fat soon, except not all recipes show this figure. Eating a bit under this each day allows for the extra kilojoules I'm bound to eat when I eat out, or gives me the flexibility to add another cup of soup or can of baked beans if I'm hungry.

I try to keep it balanced with a few sweet treats because if I don't allow myself to have them I end up eating a whole lot of them at once, which does a lot more damage. As long as you don't have more than about half a day's worth of your weekly kilojoules made up from sugar, you'll be fine. The main problem with sugar is it doesn't fill you up and often leaves you wanting more. You'll notice I also include a balance of fruit (at least two pieces a day), vegetables, proteins and carbohydrates. I've also put thought into how satisfying a meal is and what types of snacks I'm likely to want before the next meal.

I'm planning to make four of these plans in total. That way I've got lots of variety and won't get bored with the food. We tend to eat the same meals over and over normally, cooking our favourites each week, so hopefully I'll develop some real favourites that will help me be healthy for life.

I didn't lose any weight again, so I've only attached my exercise record for the week. I really worked hard at kayaking this week and was so sore and tired after my time trial on Wednesday night, I couldn't bring myself to fight the road traffic to get to climbing on Thursday night! 

Emotional eating

It feels like my weight loss goal has been dragging on forever. I feel for my readers because there hasn't really been any progress over the last few weeks and I'm now a kilo behind where I wanted to be now. BUT, I think there's been a little progress, because I've managed to keep up my exercise and I haven't put on weight. That's been half my battle in the past.

I've talked before about some of the barriers to weight loss, including not having a good choice of foods while travelling, and eating when you're tired. A big one for a lot of people is emotional eating. I had a hard week, and found myself looking through the cupboard or fridge when I wasn't hungry, just to take my mind of things. I resisted the temptation to have a big serve of hot chips, and even when a guy in my office offered them around, I only had one. It was harder to resist having another piece of bread, or a hot chocolate, or a few lollies.

There's a lot of theories about why we eat when we're emotional. I think I do it for several reasons. As I said above, it's a distraction, eating is calming and satisfying (especially hot food), and I'm less likely to stick to plans when I'm upset, as I just grab whatever is handy. I don't know how important this is, but when I was little my mum gave me treats when I was sick and food to calm me down. Many people have written about the connection between this and adult reliance on food, but I can understand why parents do it - the affect is magical. When you've got a distressed child you want to make them happy again and food often does it.

While it's handy to know all the reasons we eat when we're emotional, the most important thing is to recognise it when it's happening. If you're upset and you find yourself staring at the food cupboard, think about talking to a friend, or writing in a journal, or exercising (the endorphins willl make you feel good and it's good for you as well). So while I didn't lose weight this week, I feel good that I didn't let my emotions take control of my diet :)

Quick update

Something that gave me confidence this week was the discovery that I could stick to healthy eating without following a meal plan. Years ago I lost a fair amount of weight, but really struggled to maintain my goal weight. After all my hard work and 14kg lost (from 78 to 64 kg) I put it back on pretty quickly. So while I only lost 300g this week, I'm pleased that I managed to lose anything when I didn't really plan my meals.

Lots of kayaking this week. I went three times and I'm feeling a lot more confident for it. I took five minutes off my time at the 6km time trial this week, possibly due to singing while I paddled. It helped me keep time and a regular stroke going. It was the second time I've tried stand-up paddle boarding. This is a really good form of exercise, as your leg muscles are constantly working to balance the board.