Progress Update: 14 kilos down, 26 kilos to go.
On 31 December 2012, I set my New Year's Resolution: To lose 40 kg's in 12 months. Today, 2 months after I started, I am happy to report that I'm 14 kg's lighter already.
I've found the dieting very easy, but finding time to exercise very hard. I find that I make a hundred excuses a week for why I spend my time doing anything but exercising. To make life easier, I've decided that exercising at home must be the answer - an exercise machine is on its way to me and I'm hoping this will make the difference.
A Carrot On A Stick
But something has actually already happened that I think will help me staying on the right path with my diet. My best friend, Anna, bought a pair of Jimmy Choo boots a while back. It turned out they were a bit too small for her feet... and luckily for me (please pretend I just expressed myself less selfishly), my feet are a size smaller than hers!!
Anna gave me the boots and I couldn't have been more excited (they are the most beautiful boots there ever was)... and here is where the carrot comes in: The boots are of the knee high kind and at my current weight, my calves will not fit in to them at all. For this reason, I have put them on display in my bedroom as a constant reminder that if I stick to my diet, these beauties will be on my feet (and calves) at the end of the year. Thank You, Anna... I Love You and I Love Jimmy Choo!
My Low Carb Diet
My diet of choice is a low carbohydrate diet. A low or no carbohydrate diet greatly limits the amount of carbohydrates you eat. I picked the low carbohydrate diet because I read that leaving carbohydrates out of your diet suppresses hunger... and it truly does! The fact thyat I am never hungry, has made the beginning of this diet journey as easy as I had never dared hope for.
Carbohydrates are found naturally in rice, grains, most vegetables and all fruits. Many processed foods contain carbohydrates also, as do pasta and bread in large amounts. So what can you eat on a no- or low carbohydrate diet, you might wonder.
Here's a list of some great ingredients you can eat as much as you want of on a low carbohydrate diet:
All meats, poultry, fish and seafood.
Many green vegetables are low in starch. These include lettuce, spinach, cabbage, asparagus, broccoli, green beans, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, peppers, onions, eggplant, artichokes and mushrooms.
Eggs, double cream, butter, sour cream, full fat cheeses, ricotta, full-fat cottage cheese, olive oil, coconut oil, most brands of mustard, full fat mayonnaise, sugar-free salad dressings, soy sauce, pesto, stock cubes or gels, spices and many herbs.
Pork rinds, pork crackling (like Mr Porky's... Mmmm!) and low carb tortillas.
If you choose this diet, my advice to you is really to focus on what you CAN eat, rather than what you CAN'T eat. The low carbohydrate diet offers you protein and fat with no limits. There are so many different low carbohydrate diets and most of them offer supplement products like bars, snacks, shakes and soups, but a completely free (other than the food cost, of course) low carbohydrate diet, where you add your own common sense and taste in food, is more sensible in my opinion.
I Cheat!
Another tip I'd like to share from my own diet journey - one that I couldn't do without: I CHEAT!! Once every 7-10 days, I have a cheat day. And I mean A DAY, not just a cheat dinner or snack. I time this day so in coincides with something I'm doing where I know it would be great to be able to eat whatever I like, like a dinner at friends or when I'm taking my kids shopping and a trip to Pizza Hut would be a fun finish to the day. So these are days I can look forward to when I am eating my 3rd dinner of "Bolognese, hold the Spaghetti" and the days where I get to eat all those snacks, sweets and treats I've fancied during the diet days.
If you like, you can follow my progress on The Healthy Online and find great low carb recipes too.
<
>