Well, I know one thing's inevitable: chicken. Lots and lots of chicken. I think it's just one of those things that get locked into the psyche: "if you're dieting, you gotta eat chicken." Chicken breast makes so, so many meals. Grilled, roasted, diced, caesar chicken salad, or chicken caesar salad.
You get the point. After a while I start scratching at the ground and sprouting feathers.
Of course, it's not the only thing that works for a diet. Hell, a lean steak is good for you if prepared properly. Turkey is ok, but tends to remind me of particleboard, and cold turkey breast can get funky in a hurry.
It's the fat-guy myths I gotta work on avoiding. Someone once told me that calories don't count if no one sees you eat them. Dumb. I remember another friend telling me I ought to sue Diet Coke since it didn't work. But of course, 2 cheeseburgers, french fries and a Diet Coke isn't exactly the formula, you know?
So yeah, pollo it is. A lot. At least in the first few weeks, until you realize that there is more to life than eating a bird, and creativity becomes the mother of recipe invention.
It also helps to stop being obsessed with whatever meal is next. Hey, yo-yo, that's what got you in trouble in the first place, ya know? Ya gotta just go on with life, spending just a few less minutes working out the chew muscles, and a few more paying attention to the others.
Fish is good. Just not tuna salad with 9000 pounds of mayo, ya know? That kind of thinking falls into the Diet Coke + anything you want = weightloss. We had a nutritionist at work for a while, and some lab proved that a 1/4 cheeseburger on a roll had less of the bad stuff than a tuna salad sandwich. Sigh.
But guess what? We're back to the bad word: exercise. Splenda may knock off a few calories, but crunches knock off the pounds. Yeah, exercise is the 700 pound gorilla that's not gonna move out and go away.
Yeah, when someone says, "What's that on the back of your leg" and the "that" turns out to be your ass, it's time to fight the gorilla.
And eat chicken.
I had chicken for lunch.
ReplyDelete;)
My husband is a true meat & potatoes man. I've made one meal without meat and he ended up going to Wendy's to make up for it (he asked my permission - it tasted "too healthy" to him and I understood). So with me on a diet and him loving meat, we had to make compromises. One great solution we had was to get about 10-12 pounds of extra lean hamburger at once, then go home and brown and season it and strain it in a colander for a while, then freeze it in slightly less than 1# portions (about 2C). This way we still had plenty of beef on hand for recipes, but it was a lot leaner since we strained off all the grease and it was lean to start with.
ReplyDeleteTurkey and pork can also be pretty lean - and check out Fiber One chocolate and oats bars (in the granola bars section) for snacks. Although they have 9g of fiber per bar, they're actually really good (my hubby even likes them and he doesn't eat "healthy"-tasting foods). And one of my favorite salad toppings became low-fat cottage cheese - mix 1/2C of it with your favorite calorie-laden dressing and you don't feel ripped off because of the tangy, fresh taste that spreads all through the salad.
And don't forget to eat that steak when you really want it. If you really want it and nothing else will satisfy you, you'll just eat a bunch of fluffy stuff (the kind that makes you fluffy too!), and then eat the steak (or cake or whatever it is that you really want) anyways.
That's my two cents for the day...
I think changing the way you eat is akin to changing the way you breathe. Anyone who can successfully do it has my profound respect.
ReplyDeleteI try off and on, not for weight so much as for health, but I've never really been successful. It's SOOO hard!
My best wishes for you in this endeavor. I hope you'll pass along any good tips.
My daughter is dancing and eating only raw foods. lol
ReplyDeleteI started Chuck Noriss' "Total Gym" and I use the seat for my weight pull. :)