The Fight of My Life

[elenasaur]

That's really awesome that you're trying to do that Sky!

Personally, I'm 15 pounds past where I want to be, and the prospect of the Freshman 15 is looming over my head and causing considerable terror.
I'm going to try to be relatively healthy this year, but it's harder when you don't cook for yourself.

Something that I read though, is that you should avoid eating things with more than three ingredients. However, I know that is super hard, so instead I've been trying to eat things with no more than three ingredients I can't pronounce.

Good luck!

[Scarygothgirl]

I have that spoon!

[Skytteflickan88]

So I fell off the wagon. Had one glass of Dr Pepper. I planned on drinking the whole (big) bottle, but thinking about my mom's, dad's and your disapointment made me stop.

Good news is that I gave the rest of the bottle to my dad, the hard candy and marshmallow I had in my flat (we just drove down to my university town where I live).

Hard to give up the marshmallows, since I had forgotten that I had them. But I can drink my hot chocolate without them (not giving up on the unhealthy hot chocolate mix tough, that's staying).

[Scarygothgirl]

Don't worry Sky, relapse is a part of recovery. The first few weeks are always the worst because you're in the routine of eating/drinking sugary things when you're hungry/bored. Once you get yourself out of the routine it's a lot easier to avoid doing so.

[Billie Erin]

The fact that you managed to stop yourself shows great self-control Sky: well done you should be proud. *Karmas*

[Eric]

Sky, besides this, it sounds like you've been doing really good. What you're doing is hard, so a few mistakes are to be expected. Don't let one glass of soda get you down.

[outofphase]

^^They've all got it right Sky. The fact that you stopped means something, you can't forget that.

[drusillacakes]

I meant to reply to this earlier but needed to find time to write it all out. I applaud you for taking this step to change your life. I feel for you Sky as I was a chubby kid, and I still struggle with keeping weight under control now.

How do you feel about flavored seltzer? I think it's a great alternative to soda, and you still get the fizz. I stopped drinking soda a few years ago after hearing about what it does to your teeth (it wears down your enamel). They used to show these really gruesome ads on TV about cola-- a steak immersed in it and watching it break down over time. On the few occasions that I let myself drink soda, I get a headache. The only kind of soda I will have a little bit of is root beer, and/or ginger ale. Tea is also really good. Green tea is wonderful and I don't put sugar and milk in it either, but if you can find agave syrup, it's a great alternative sweetener. It's sweeter than sugar, so you use less of it, and it doesn't cause your blood sugar to spike... hehe... Spike... distracted... um... where am I? Helping Sky... okay. Back on track.

And yes, don't let one soda bring you down. The fact that you restrained yourself shows a lot of dedication. Candy is hard. I love my sweets too. (I don't call myself cakes for nothin'). I think if you incorporate more yummy, healthy foods in your diet, it'll make you crave the junk stuff less. Hummus is delicious, with some whole-wheat pita or cut up vegetables. Whole grain toast with nutella is good too. There's this book and blog that I like called Hungry Girl (http://www.hungry-girl.com/meet/index.php) which has some great recipes for swapping ingredients if you like to cook. And even fi you don't, there's this great recipe for chocolate brownies which might sound kinda gross, but actually was pretty tasty. It was regular brownie mix and 1 can of pumpkin puree. I didn't even taste the pumpkin, but you save on cholesterol and added fiber to the brownie. Elenasaur is right too about those ingredient rules. Another thing to consider is, if the food contains ingredients that a 3rd grader can't pronounce, then it will probably make you feel like crap. (I'm sure the ingredients in brownie mix isn't so great, but at least they're healthier than regular brownies. Maybe you will find a mix with more natural ingredients if you like brownies?)

Exercise is always hard, but baby steps. I always miss my bus and have to walk for 15 minute to the train station. Coincidentally, it takes forever for the return bus to arrive on my way home, so I end up walking home from the train station too… so there's 30 minutes of walking! It's possible to get a little bit of exercise that way and then work your way up. Good luck! I'm rooting for you.

[Skytteflickan88]

Thanks for the support guys.

@ drusillacakes

I have no clue what seltzer is. *googled*

Looks like a kind of c-vitamin pills I usually disolve in water, and tastes great. Which reminds me that I need to buy that.

I don't like cooking, but I can't eat junk food forever and eating hot dogs and yogurt and similar simple-to-make food items won't hold in the long run, so I'll check out that site.

And as soon as I can, I will give you karma for the Spike distraction line. I feel yá sister! He's hard to not, mmm, Spike... what were we talking about?

[GLORificus]

I have had problems / fluctuations with my weight since a young age, and seeing as everyone is different, I cannot guarantee the methods I used will be as effecitve in your case as they did in mine.

Excercise was one of the things I despised without a doubt. Movement, getting sweaty, the works. Nothing of that nature was gonna happen. I knew I was being a litterbug by polluting my body with various toxins (transfats mostly), and had quite a few health issues around the years of 12-14, when my body began developing.

I was self concious about the way people percieved me, and began to drink some "Health Drinks", SlimFast being one of them. The label claimed to keep my hunger down, and "supplement" a meal (which by NO means do I reccomend) but it kept me up in vitamins. I eventually got over my whole "fear of sweat" and began working out for brief periods of time, but doing things I enjoyed. Swimming, volleyball, and roller derby. Within 2 years, I went from 150 to 122. This was the hardest thing I could do, going in and out of high school regularly (nearly failing sophmore year due to abscenses which were usually because I was sick), but I felt accomplished. Sure, it took me pushing myself hard to feel comfortable in my own skin, but it was an accomplishment that was needed.

Even now, I'm still fluctuating in terms of weight, but I feel that I'm healthy, and getting comfortable with the size I am now. Once you're to the point you think you're healthy, key is staying there. I have used a stragedy which is quite easy, and is quite effecitve. I take favorite foods (caramel apples, chips doused with hot sauce, pizzas) and portion them to the point where I'm full, and am saving the rest for leftovers.

Good luck, sweetie. I wish you all the best.

[outofphase]

I think I need to give up fast food. I don't even eat that much of it, maybe once a week if that but I feel so sick after. :/

Learning to cook is hard at first, but once you get a few things down pat you can customize them to make them awesome.

[Scarygothgirl]

When I go to uni and have complete control over what I eat I plan to only eat things where I know exactly what the ingredients are. Unfortunately I took chemistry A-level so I know what a lot of random ingredients are...

During lent last year I made the decision to fast during the day. So I only allowed myself to eat after dark, and took vitamin suppliments to help. During that time I found myself unable to concentrate on anything, constantly dizzy and very irritable which made me snap at my friends and become unpleasant to be around. Now I'm probably going to do it again next year, but I thought I'd include this just to point out how it's a bad choice to cut out food altogether. I also managed to put on weight doing this (I imagine due to the whole metabolism thing).

[forgottendreamer]

Hey, congrats on making the first steps. I'm a bit late on posting here but i've been a bit busy of late with trying to organise my life. I've always been a bit overweight and untoned, so that's where I am heading for at the moment. I do a weight session every second day and a swim every other day, usually leave myself a day to rest. I haven't been for several days, and have been eating quite bad food but i'm really keen to get back into it all. I've always had a really bad self esteem issue so i've decided that I want to look the best I possibly can and see how I feel from there. I plan on eating lots of veggies, fish, chicken and that sort of thing, cutting down the sweets and the softdrink and just being more active.
Have to force myself to drink more water too!
So you know that there are a few of us out here trying to make ourselves look and feel better. All the best

[elenasaur]

Congrats on doing so well, Sky.

Your Dr. Pepper lapse reminded me of another health fact I learned.

Drinking just 1 glass of soda a day can cause you to gain up to 10 pounds in a year.

I'm still working on that. I have terrible teeth, and I know soda is terrible for you, but so far the best I've been able to do is switch to diet. So it's still terrible for my teeth, and diet soda isn't actually that good for diets... Baby steps, I guess.

[Billie Erin]

^^^ Ok forgive my Britishness here but we don't call anything "soda" here. So I'm all confuzzled. Do you mean just fizzy drinks? Like Coke and 7UP and Sprite and stuff?

[Eric]

Aug 31, 2010 12:11:42 GMT -5 Billie Erin said:

^^^ Ok forgive my Britishness here but we don't call anything "soda" here. So I'm all confuzzled. Do you mean just fizzy drinks? Like Coke and 7UP and Sprite and stuff?

Yeah, fizzy sugary drinks like Coke and Sprite are soda. Also known as soda pop, pop or soft drinks.

[outofphase]

whoa. my mind was just blown whole. once again I thank you Billie for broadening my horizons. soda = fizzy drinks. that one's goin in the dictionary....

[Skytteflickan88]

It took me a while to learn too. I had to google images and everything before I got what soda was. And apparently non fizzy sugary drinks can be called lemonad, even if they don't have lemons in them... Right?

[whitecandy]

I always thought soda was just cream soda or something similar, I didn't know it extended to all fizzy drinks. You learn something new every day!

Well done on only having the one glass of fizzy drink Sky, that shows huge self control and you should be so proud of yourself.

[Talkie Toaster]

We usually call it Soft Drink here