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Diet Update #3

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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5 Comments

  1. Lori

    I think I might remove the word “cheat meal” or “cheat day” from your thinking. If you plan it in, it isn’t cheating and then you won’t have any guilt associated with it or so much difficulty with the other days (IMHO).

    You could also try just increasing your carbs a little bit closer to 100 and see if that is enough to keep the creep from coming back. It’s always trial and error to find out what works well.

    Those Pacific soups are pretty good, although I have to warn you that their regular soup line can give you really bad breath LOL!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I agree with you. I’ve always been against the concept of a cheat meal or a cheat day. Just like I’ve been against the idea or concept of a diet and severely restricting–I don’t think it works. How I lost the weight before was eating whatever I wanted just in moderation and according to my calories for the day. I never felt restricted or denied things I wanted and it was easier for me to stick with it. I find this current diet very restrictive (especially considering fruit and vegetables — which are HEALTHY — are considered “Bad” because there’s carbs in them).

  2. Eilonwy

    As they say, individual results may vary . . . but I find healthy carbs relatively easy to keep a lid on (i.e. stay in my calorie range), but when I slip into unhealthy carbs, which for me is almost always sugar in one delicious form or another, I have a lot more trouble both staying with my plan and returning to it when I’ve wandered. So, a small serving of rice or pasta with dinner is something I can sustain, but once I start allowing myself a dessert here and there, I want too many of them too often with way too much force. I don’t count carbs, per se, but obviously they are leaping way up on any day I have dessert.

    I give myself “holidays” rather than “cheat days,” but I’m struggling to figure out how often I can have them. I’d like to have a couple “holiday treats” a week, but I’m frustrated with how that’s working out. I may need to bite the bullet and try having a “holiday” just once a month (several sweet treats across the designate day) and then go right back to severely limiting added sugar. I did that for awhile, and it worked great, but I wanted to work toward a more natural, less regulated approach to eating. I’m not there yet.

    And I’m wondering how much of the issue is seasonal–so many treats are on offer from Halloween through Christmas. Maybe this time of the year is just bound to be more challenging.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Interesting! I like the idea of a holiday instead of cheat day. Like you, I don’t know how often is ok.

      This is a very challenging time of year to do a diet. I wanted to try and lose some weight before the holidays started because I knew it would be extra challenging. I knew I couldn’t sustain a low card diet through the holidays, but I thought if I could just make it to Thanksgiving and lose a few more pounds, I’d be good.

  3. Andy Parsons

    Hey, looking great 🙂 I’m on a weight loss diet as well so i can relate.
    It’s 6 weeks for me now and not that many pounds dropped, but I’m trying the slow approach of being just like -20% of calories loss with plenty of cardio, but recompensating myself with eating more of tasty food 🙂

    Good luck to both of us!

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