WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Yes, I'm still here! Or back, depending on how you look at it. Follow me over the fold to a list of desperate but successful tricks to cutting down on the caloric intake of your food so you will feel fuller and have less of a calorie deficit whilst partaking in those foods you just can't stay away from.
The worst part about having a severe endocrine disorder is that calories IN don't equal calories OUT. Ever. So in the course of trying to find out what would make me lose weight I discovered some amazing tricks to making food cost less in terms of calories, and now you can benefit from my research.
GET RID OF THE SUGAR: In drinks, especially. I use Stevia instead. Yes, it's expensive. But it's getting less so, and the better natural food stores, like Trader Joe's, have Texas-grown stevia that is both delicious and affordable. If you like to drink DDT by all means stick with Splenda but Splenda HAS been known to increase your weight due to its ultra-palatability and what the chlorine does in your liver.. If you want the convenience of spoonable or packets, buy Truvia - made by Cargill, which is a tasty mix of a natural sugar alcohol - erythritol, and stevia rebaudiana bertoni. Stevia rebaudiana bertoni is the "tasty"stevia that doesn't have the very slightly bitter taste. For the discerning or wealthy among you, get Stevia rebaudiana bertoni direct from Vitacost.com in the large spoonable size and it'll last for well, months. Low cost highly available alternatives: mannitol, erythritol, and xylitol. Watch the xylitol for laxative effects.
GET RID OF THOSE EGGS: yeah, eggs are great blabbity blah blah. But for those of you who have dangerous levels of cholesterol (I have the opposite problem) tossing three eggs in a pan at breakfast time is not your best strategy here. You can use eggwhites for cooking, or use one egg with a yolk and two eggwhites for volume.
CHEESE CHEESE WONDERFUL CHEESE: If you are like me you worship cheese. But there's sodium-laden blocks of crap cheese and then there's real cheese. The best, lowest-calorie, and lowest sodium cheeses are better for you, and better. Rummage through the Safeway cheese bin for the Safeway brand of fresh mozzarella, get Cilienege fresh mozzarella balls - they melt just as good as those Kraft shredded cheese packs. Give cream cheese a try as a substitute for the saltier fattier cheeses. Mainlining cheese does very little for your waistline, so if you can't cut down on cheese, cut down on what's in the cheese.
WHERE ARE THOSE VEGGIES? Eat vegetables. Put them on your plate, mix them in with your stews and soups, just do it. Your bowels need it, and so does your bloodstream. If you are going to eat that pizza, put some onions and peppers on it. Onions are a blood-cleaning miracle food. Put onions on everything. And mushrooms. Mushrooms are the lowest calorie food enhancer going.
RICE: If you are a white rice fanatic, get a rice cooker and start putting wild rice and brown rice into it with your white rice, and get some vitamins into that rice. Brown rice has all the nutrients that white rice lacks. And you can, and do get used to the taste.
BEANS ARE YOUR FRIEND. Hummus, chili, frijoles, edamame.
Chili made easy: Buy a pound of red beans, pinto beans or navy beans. With a little prep time (say, 12 hours in a bowl soaking) and then two hours of hard boil and you have enough beans to feed an army for about 49 cents. Add a little meat, a big can of crushed tomatoes, a cup of chopped onions and five spices - chili powder, pepper, bay leaf, cumin and garlic powder, cook for another hour or two, and you have chili. And it's low in sodium.
I live in a body that refuses to accept nourishment, and I can do it. Some of these simple suggestions will get you out of the KFC line and give you a nice noticeable weight loss.*
*If you have a normal metabolism, that is.