I’ve been following a dairy/gluten/soy/sugar/oil-free diet for a few months and it’s helped me feel a lot better and has helped ease my illnesses a lot (I’m down to 120 lbs and my goal is 110), but the amount of time (and money) I spend on running to the store to get fresh produce and prepare meals between shifts is starting to wear me out. I feel like my whole life is consumed by food. I’m always thinking about what I’m eating, obsessing over ingredients...it’s not too fun anymore and I’m nervous about Halloweeen through New Years when the holidays, parties, and unhealthy stuff kicks off.

Some days I’m tempted to just go back to eating like I did before because it drains so much energy.

Do you have any advice? Have any of you been in a similar position?

Thank you.

STOP! 120 is fine!

I get you. I resolved to eat healthier since my kids all went to college. IT is tough and takes a lot of time and energy but I think it is worth it. I was almost 200lbs and now I'm 160. I don't think you get results without expending energy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2018 05:40PM by Elder Berry.

Variety is the spice of life.

Maybe take a break. It sounds like it helped you to lose weight, but hasn't helped in other areas. If you're consumed by thinking about food all the time, you may have an eating disorder. You may have a hard time accepting your body weight no matter how normal it may be under FDA guidelines.

Accept yourself right where you are. Get a physical checkup if you're overdue for one. Getting enough exercise may be all you need to round off the success you've had thus far.

Plus, to occasionally treat yourself to something you love is not harmful IMO. If you do it in moderation, you should be able to enjoy most if not all the foods you used to love, and still maintain your ideal weight.

try to get more exercise. The issue isn't so much what we eat but if we burn the calories.

I've been trying to actually bulk more, so I started eating ice cream everyday, and when I started that, I actually lost even more weight. So everyone is different...

I agree. Experiment. We are inveterate omnivores but we don't digest the same.

In order to be successful, your "diet" has to work for the long term. You are going to have to figure out how to make sensible adjustments to your diet so that it makes sense for you and is sustainable over many years. As my former M.D. (who was not a fan of fad diets,) told me, it all comes down to reducing caloric intake. Smaller portions are key. Upping your activity level should also help.

I want you to consider that (IMO) a very low weight is not always better. After I had my last major surgery I lost a lot of weight, and if I had started at something like 110, it would have gone dangerously low. My mother was in a similar situation. Give yourself a little room in case you are become ill or need surgery in the future.

When you have been eating low fat and clean a quick shift can really make you ill. To cut down on market trips try to incorporate more quality frozen. Smoothies with a low cal protein and frozen fruit are an easy quick option. If you can get fresh and local it is best but as long as it doesn't have a lot of added sugar it is good. Schwans.com is a good source if they are in your area. Their stuff is also good for maintaining serving size. Their #502 chicken is perfect for us and each is sealed so you can defrost them quickly.

Get a band. There are a lot of them out there with many different options and price points. I have a Samsung GearFit because I got a deal when I had to replace my phone. Look for something that just doesn't count steps but has an option to have it remind you to move if you are stationary for too long. What kind of exercise do you enjoy? Make sure you pick a band that will track that. Just being aware is a big help. A couple of gals I know that swim a lot have ones that are waterproof and will track swimming. Just think about your needs and shop around. Zulily has had some good deals and you can get cash back with Ebates :)

MyFitnessPal.com is your friend. You can log food on a PC or your phone and once you add some of your regular foods it is fast and easy to log daily. They have a TON in there already and you can add your own foods/recipes too. You can track quite a few things besides straight calories, different fats, sugar, salt, water. As you add food it tells you what you have "left" for the day in calories, fats, carb, protein, sodium, sugar. Makes it easy to plan the rest of your day. You can also take the info from your band and add that to your MFP.

While it is summer, eat up as much fresh as you can hold because it will not last for long! I graze my blackberries several times a day and my cherry tomatoes are producing enough for me to have a dozen or more a day. If you have a spot, these are fantastic -

https://www.lowes.com/pd/EMSCO-GROUP-20-in-W-x-24-in-L-x-10-in-H-Earth-Brown-Resin-Raised-Garden-Bed/3341626

I have been using them for years on my deck to keep them away from the damn deer. I have two full of tomatoes and one for herbs. The herbs will even overwinter covered with a tarp.

Congrats on your success!

I've been using a FitBit since Spring that I love.

It does a really good job of keeping track of my steps daily. And can also monitor how well I sleep at night, including REM sleep.

Have been able to measure my progress from when I started to where I am now. It keeps me motivated to keep moving. My daily miles have increased I'm happy to say.

Not sure that I'm losing so much weight as inches. It does increase my energy by virtue of keeping moving.

Try veggies from an air fryer.

We did asparagus last night...washed and trimmed the asparagus, spritz with just a touch of olive oil, sprinkled some salt and a touch of pepper, put them in the basket and cooked at 400 for 10 minutes.

They were amazing. I didn't put anything else on them.

First of all, congratulations on improving your health! That's absolutely amazing. I've done something similar, and feeling full of energy and stamina and many other benefits has helped to keep me focused.

Have you tried batch cooking? Like make up a big batch of soup or stew, nosh on that for a few days, then freeze the rest. That could cut down on some meal prep for lunch and/or dinner.

I personally like to steam a lot of greens and other types of veggies and that keeps me set for a few days. Low or no sodium canned/boxed beans are very convenient. I'm a lazy cook, so anything easy I'm all for.

Then, I do have days where I do some sinful eating. It's either a lunch or dinner splurge but not both. And maybe it's once a week or every other week. I don't write off anything shameful as "never", just very limited.

This has helped me so far for two years. Will I stick with it? I sure hope so, because I don't want to go back to feeling tired all the time, stiff joints and progression towards diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Getting old sucks sometimes but I'm hoping to alleviate some of what comes with age.

Not sure why you are dairy/gluten/soy/sugar/oil-free is it because you are allergic? I am doing the Paleo diet, or am about 90% paleo. The first few weeks I was like you, couldn't think of anything but food and where to get it, what can I eat. I found a few staples that work for me that I can eat and make fast (mostly salads). But I tried a food delivery service (pete's paleo) that is amazing, basically it is precooked veggies and meat and stays in fridge for 7 days or can be frozen for 2 months, I can't get over how good veggies can taste. It is expensive, but to me it is worth it (if you can swing it money wise).

I'm surprised that your diet is draining your energy.

Eating healthy always gives me MORE energy.

Are you eating enough oil? A person needs some oil, in order to be healthy (especially omega 3 from avocados and fish). Oil also keeps you from being too hungry.

I agree that you are probably at your healthiest maintenance weight already. I don't know why you want to lose more weight. If you are flabby, then work those muscles. If you want to appear thinner, an exercised body with some muscle might weigh a little more, but will appear thinner. I was "wiry" and all muscle, and appeared almost skinny, but I weighed a healthy 125 pounds at 5'5". My ballet teacher wanted me to weigh 115 pounds, so I dieted down, and felt like Hell! I didn't have the strength to dance. I learned a valuable lesson, that it's possible to be underweight.

As for the suggestion to get those new i-phone apps--they are great! I hate to think about food all the time, and I hate having to tally up the calories with each meal and snack, all day long. When you keep a record on your i-phone, you enter it, and then you don't have to think about it. (A lot of my standard meals are pre-programed in there.) Quite often, I don't eat enough calories, so this is a great help. I look at my phone and say, "No wonder I'm so hungry--I forgot to eat dinner."

I have celiac disease, so gluten makes me very sick. I eat a lot of milk, cheese, and yogurt, but during a gluten attack, I have to take Lactaid with dairy. Without the dairy, I get hungry and weak.

Maybe it isn't a lack of motivation, but the symptoms of semi-starvation. You could also be vitamin deficient. Most Americans are deficient in Vitamin D and B12, for example. Are you being supervised by a nutritionist?

CONGRATULATIONS on your weight loss! I'm proud of you! You deserve to be happy about this, to relax, to have fun! You need to let go, and not beat yourself up for those last 10 pounds! This is a common syndrome for dieters, and comedians make jokes about this all the time.

Reward yourself with clothes you can wear right now, a trip to the beach in your swimsuit, meeting new people, dancing the night away, doing activities you LIKE.

If you need to lose weight, you could try using a diet that I read about and did roughly five years ago. I lost about fifty pounds but then gained it back. I am starting now to do the same thing again now and plan to keep it off this time.

Don't let yourself eat more than 20 to 40 grams of fat per day for a woman, and 30 to 60 grams of fat per day for a man. No junk food allowed. Then find out how many calories you should have each day for your body weight and only eat between half to two thirds that amount. You'll be hungry all the time. Drink lots of water to quell the hunger pains. After a few months, the hunger pains will go away. One day per week, eat one hundred percent of the recommended calories for your body weight if you need to.

At first you will lose a few pounds quickly, mostly water weight. After that, count how many calories you don't eat each week as you stay below your daily recommended number of calories. One pound of body fat is 3500 calories. So if you only short yourself 500 calories per day times seven days, that's 3500 calories or one pound of weight loss in a week. It doesn't usually work out to check the scale each week and see one pound of loss. After ten weeks though, you would see ten pounds of loss at 500 calories per day calorie deficiency. Don't go below half of your recommended calorie intake on average or it can be unsafe. Don't try to lift weights during this process because your muscles will tear down in one session (normal) and could take months to heal (not normal - happened to me and is scarry because you don't know if it will ever heal and you stay sore the whole time). But this doesn't happen if you don't try to build muscles by pumping weights while your body is in a state called ketosis (not to be mistaken for ketoacidosis, a life threatening condition that diabetics can get if they use insulin shots or certain types of medications).

After about a month on this diet, you should be able to use ketostix (look it up) to see if you lost weight on any given day. When you burn body fat, your body produces ketones and the test strips will turn various shades of purple when you pee on them, depending on how much fat you burned the previous day. With a low carb diet and vigerous exercise (cardio only) the ketostix will go dark purple and then turn almost black when the ketones in your blood and urine are really high. You can add the carbs burned during exercise to the carbs you don't eat to accelerate your weight loss.

I am a person from a heavy family. I am not. I am though the type of person who if there is a cake in the house, I eat the whole thing. If there is a bag of chips I eat the whole thing. I control that by using the "Don't buy it diet." I don't kid myself that I can control it so I just don't keep it around.

I ate chicken soup and nothing but chicken soup for 5 months to lose 30 lbs. As long as that was all I ate, I was fine, satisfied. It was really good homemade with lots of vegetables. Nice balance of protein, fat and carb so it was pretty healthy.

Then at a certain point I couldn't eat one more spoonful.

I knew I couldn't go back to what I was eating before or I'd gain the weight right back. I quit worrying about the foods I shouldn't eat and concentrated on finding new foods that I liked a lot. Then I only ate them occasionally, not over and over.

I kept looking for recipes that I could love but were healthy. Always something new to try---not reverting back to the old. So easy to find recipes on line.

I avoid the white foods except in moderation. I eat extremely low calorie and low carb during the week and then have more of something really great on the weekend. I'm religious about this. It is a much better gospel to follow than Mormonism, let me tell you.

I found I don't really like eating an evening meal that much. I usually have a big handful of mixed nuts and a glass of red wine while I read a book.

This worked for me once the weight was off. Long time now and I haven't gained.

Everybody has to find their own but that is what worked for me. Now I've got to go. Got two cakes and a pie in the oven. :)

Find a broken scale. It will change your entire outlook. I now weigh my ideal weight consistently, eat whatever I want, whenever I like, and best of all, I feel competent, capable and confident.

PS - Lose the mirrors, have only fatter friends and set a goal to write The Joy of Obesity by June 1st of next year.

Works for me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2S-VJwygfI

see also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNNn2FVETE0

My SIL gave the advice to stand next to something large--like the Grand Canyon, when you are having your picture taken. In family group photos, she would rush over to her husky brother-in-law, and hide partly behind him. We were on to her, and it was funny to watch her. My brother even thought it was funny, and he always took the most unflattering candid photos of her.

Um...ketosis is not good for the body. It can cause kidney damage. I went on such a diet, after my first baby was born, and lost too much weight, too fast, and felt very unhealthy and fatigued. I was unable to maintain my low weight, due to extreme hunger, and I needed to build muscle for tennis, bicycling, skiing, and hiking. Being skinny and weak didn't fit into my lifestyle, and neither did being cranky! I gained back all the weight plus 15 more pounds, to be fatter than I had ever been in my life! After my second baby, my OB said not to diet, and I didn't, except to do my best to avoid sugar and junk food. Otherwise, I ate real food, healthy food, whenever I was hungry, and ate slowly until I wasn't hungry anymore. Duh. I wasn't hungry, weak, or crabby. It took me 18 months to get the baby weight off, plus that other 15 pounds from the ketosis diet, but it has stayed off for over 30 years!

My siblings and parents were all overweight, except for me. Lots of skinny jokes at my expense.

If you build muscle, you will burn more fat, and you will be able to eat more without gaining weight. Women don't need to worry about becoming "bulky". Lighter weights with more reps work just as well. Using muscles builds them up. For example, cross-country skiing builds upper body as well as lower body muscle. Muscle building with gravity helps prevent osteoporosis. I would never take advice to NOT build muscles.

Enjoy life! Enjoy eating! Don't eat anything you don't like!

"Don't buy it diet" Best. Advice. Ever.

I don't like feeling "deprived," so when I turn down wedding or birthday cake and cookies and pie (I have celiac disease) I have to treat myself to a favorite healthy treat when I get home.

Fasting on Fast Sundays would always wreak havoc on me. I do better keeping my food intake steady.

Don’t quit.

Most people stop striving in life when things get comfortable. Ten pounds from your goal is comfortable.

Great health requires great food and great living.

Be excellent! And enjoy the massive rewards.

I'm in the same place. I was doing well, but I was on my summer vacation and allowed myself a few treats. Now I can't stop with the treats and I'm gaining some weight back again.

It's really difficult to accept that junk food is an addiction with me and must be treated as such. I wish I was someone who could just treat myself every once in a while and then stop again, but I'm not.

I can't control it. It controls me. My doctor told me that I must treat junk food in the same way that I would cigarettes. He said, "Can a smoker who has quit have just one, once in a while?" Nope.

But it's really hard, because every social situation revolves around food - birthdays, Valentine's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, anniversaries, funerals, house-warming parties, backyard barbecues, the boss treating everyone in the office to pizza, Christenings, movie theatres, weddings, wedding showers, baby showers, or just hanging out with friends in a restaurant.

It's endless. Everything is about food. And if you choose a specialized diet, good luck when you eat out. *sigh*

I think you’re remembering that times you were naughty more than the times you were nice. Remember that doctors die earlier than average. You get to be naughty, but budget your foods so you see your track record. You can’t just keep a goal like this in your mind. You need to see when you’ve been good.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Remember that doctors die earlier than average.

Um...no, they don't.

https://www.murfreesboropost.com/opinion/dr-kestner-do-doctors-really-die-earlier-than-their-patients/article_7da27f3d-23b5-5720-8b47-a51139297c2e.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11020591



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2018 12:42PM by ificouldhietokolob.

Diets aretem

Diets are temporary go for the life change. You have lost weight. Maintain the weight lose with the right foods. Remember portion control. Find a exercise group and enjoy lift.

I don't know how tall you are, but for a whole lot of women, 120 exists only in their fondest dreams.

Is there any way you could ease up a bit on all the restrictions and obsession without totally going back to the way you were eating before? It's no fun when food acquistion, preparation, and consumption take over your life. Could you try to buy mostly the right things when you do make it to the store, but don't stress out quite so much much if you need to make an occasional exception to your diet? For some it would be impossible. It's all or nothing for such people.

It's just a thought. You know better than anyone else what is best for yourself.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2018 09:56PM by scmd1.

>I’ve been following a dairy/gluten/soy/sugar/oil-free diet for >a few months and it’s helped me feel a lot better and has >helped ease my illnesses a lot

>Some days I’m tempted to just go back to eating like I did >before because it drains so much energy.

Hey, AnonLoggedOut - Surely you can see how these two sentences completely contradict each other! Consistently applied, your new eating habits have helped you lose A LOT of weight, and have helped you feel A LOT better and has eased chronic illnesses A LOT!

Yet, somehow, you are under the erroneous impression that you will save time, money, and energy by going back to your old eating habits. Nothing could be further from the truth! Imagine, if you will, carrying around a 120 pound backpack - in fact, you can perform this experiment right now in the comfort of your own home - find a backpack, fill it up with 120 pounds of "stuff" and carry it around for 24 hours. I bet you won't make it through an hour, let alone 24 hours carrying that weight you used to carry each and every day.

Now imagine carrying that exact same weight you lost for the rest of your life! You will be completely exhausted and drained of energy every day. You will increase stress on your back, hips, knees, and feet - after a few years you may need knee and hip replacements. The amount of unhealthy food and large portions it takes to gain this weight will wreak havoc on your health. You will spend an inordinate amount of time and money at the doctor's office and hospital, paying for medications, surgeries, and wasting money on quick fix weight loss schemes and products. Eventually, you will develop diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and brain diseases to go along with your skeletal degeneration. And you will have to pay for all of that in time, energy, and money.

Expand your culinary tastes and choices to add excitement and variety to your diet. Learn how to store your fresh foods so they keep longer thus reducing trips to the store and saving time and money. Eventually it will all become second nature, and part of your routine, and our life will no longer be centered around food... it will be centered around enjoying a healthy life!

By all means, stick with the healthy diet!

https://inhabitat.com/6-ways-to-keep-your-fruits-and-veggies-fresher-for-longer/

Damn, you scared me silly.

Can I sign you up as my life coach?

Haha..Sure!

OP is down TO 120 lbs. That's not how much weight she lost. She didn't mention total weight loss.

PollyDee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Imagine,
> if you will, carrying around a 120 pound backpack
> - in fact, you can perform this experiment right
> now in the comfort of your own home - find a
> backpack, fill it up with 120 pounds of "stuff"
> and carry it around for 24 hours. I bet you won't
> make it through an hour, let alone 24 hours
> carrying that weight you used to carry each and
> every day.
>
> Now imagine carrying that exact same weight you
> lost for the rest of your life!

Man, you’re following this thread super close.

scmd1 - Thanks! I completely missed the "to" in the the OP's statement. However, no matter how much the OP actually lost, the backpack experiment would still be applicable as carrying around even as little as 10 to 15 pounds all day would result in a significant depletion of energy.

I agree with some of the posters that, depending on the OP's height and bone mass, 110 lbs may be too thin. I am 56 years old, am 5'5" and weigh 128 lbs and wear a size 4/5. 128 is the exact weight I should be according to a reliable BIA scale.