When It's Time to Do a Diet Makeover - And Some Helpful Suggestions

When I was growing up I wasn't taught how to eat correctly. I was served the correct variety of foods from the different food groups. But as with everything in our family, I was just expected to know how to eat right without any explanation. My mother's and grandmother's idea of diet food was a hot dog wrapped in a slice of bread. That was not helpful.

Since I was a skinny minny my entire childhood until I left high school my mother was constantly pushing food at me until I began to develop in high school. Then she started carping on my being fat and shoved the wrapped weenies at me. In other words, I had lousy eating habits with no understanding of proper nutrition, which caught
up with me when I sustained a back injury my senior year and I had basically stopped growing. I ballooned from a size 12 to a size 26 in a bit over a year and had an extra 100 pounds to deal with.

I got my first diet from my doctor. It was a proper diet. However, it had way more food than I could eat and even what I did eat caused me to gain more weight. I set it aside and started looking around.

This article is about signs that you need to makeover your diet and some helpful suggestions on how to do that.

Signs that you need a diet makeover:

1. I'm now having difficulty fitting into my regular clothing.

2. I'm faithfully on a diet and I'm gaining weight.

3. I'm careful to stick to my diet and exercise routine and the weight and inches aren't moving.

4. I keep losing and gaining back the same last 15 to 20 pounds.

5. I have to keep using an instant-diet to get me back on track, because my normal diet just isn't keeping me on track.

Suggestions that have helped me in my diet makeover:

For points 2 and 3 I found that I was on the wrong diet, that I was eating too much. I cut way back on what I was eating, in fact I cut back on how many meals I ate and limited access to snacking and grazing. I learned to limit what I ate and when I ate it. I split my dinner in half, eat half of it for dinner and the other half 3-4 hours later. I also worked at finding some activity that I like more and am more inclined to want to do on a consistent basis. I like to walk, so I got an elliptical, parked it in front of our TV which I watch while I walk.
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For points 4 and 5 I found that my problem was two things, 1-I needed to change the proportions of what I was eating. I had to cut out more of the starchy carbohydrates and add more protein to my diet. 2-I had to get more consistent in how much exercise I get every day. I wear a pedometer all the time and find if I can walk at least four miles per day or at least 28 miles per week I can keep my weight from creeping back up those extra 15-20 pounds. I also found that if I strictly limit my sweet intake to no more than 200 calories a day, preferably closer to 100 calories I have better control over my weight. My weight fluctuates less.

For point 1, early in 2009, I needed to go on a trip. But because of the last trip in 2008 which was partly to one of my cousins and was between Thanksgiving and Christmas, she wanted to make sure that I didn't die of starvation. HA. I gained between 5 and 10 pounds between her meals, the mint truffle kisses and eggnog and no longer fit my regular jeans.

I got some replacement jeans in the same size, different brand with an eased sizing so that my head wouldn't go into a dither and cause me to get discouraged, while I went out and did my job, Then I worked at taking the weight back off. Which I did get off because I became more consistent in watching what I ate and how much I was walking. I'm back into my original jeans.

Then it was coming back up to Christmas and the eggnog and those Hershey's Mint Truffle kisses, I discovered what to do by accident. I wasn't eating the solid part of my breakfast for an unrelated thing and also not snacking at night and I found that by doing so I gained absolutely nothing through Christmas even though I still drank the same amount of eggnog as the year before. I also limited the kisses to two kisses per serving if with a dessert or four as the dessert.

Sources:

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