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My Weight Loss Adventure By: Kelly Klaas Dec. 18, 2021 In the six month period from June 2021 to December 2021 I have lost about 68 pounds. I'm not finished yet but this is a huge achievement for me. I have learned some things along the way that I thought might be helpful to others who want to shed some pounds. I am not an expert in this field but this is just what worked for me. If you want to try the same thing or similar be sure to consult with your physician first! I am not selling anything. I am not pushing a particular weight loss program for sale or otherwise. This is just what worked for me. Losing weight is five percent inspiration, five percent action and ninety percent psychological. The first thing I had to do was get into the right frame of mind. I was sick and tired of not being able to bend over, not being able to tie my shoes, getting winded from climbing some stairs to say nothing about having to buy bigger and bigger clothes! I told myself I was going to do this and NOT FAIL! So I had to get into the frame of mind that I was going to do this and not back down. Believe me, after you lose the first few pounds you will be encouraged to continue. I am not a person who is always active. Now that I'm retired my hobbies are more relaxing and sedintary. I'm not a person who goes to the gym...EVER! And I'm not going to join a gym so I have to find something that I can do to keep the weight off without killing myself on the treadmill. During this entire weight loss adventure the ONLY thing I have changed in my daily routine is my eating habit. No exercising! I am not discouraging you from exercising. If that is your thing then knock yourself out. Certainly, exercising will help you lose weight faster and it's good for you. I just don't like to do it. In the past I have tried many weight loss programs. Most, if not all of them work. My problem was putting the weight back on after I was off the program. So losing weight is not something for which you get in the frame of mind for only a certain amount of time but rather it is a lifestyle change. I will be watching my weight for the rest of my life. But the longer it goes the easier it gets One of the big success stories for my weight loss has been a blue pill called Alli. It is available over the counter. It is a fat blocker. You can find out more about it HERE. Now I'm not telling you to start taking Alli. There are some precautions! Before you do anything of the sort check with your physician! I'm only telling you that it helped me lose weight. Another weight loss method I used was "intermittent fasting." This is when you limit your eating window each day to a certain amount of time. My eating window is approximately 11 a.m. until about 7 p.m. Sometimes the eating window is shorter and once in a great while a little longer. If you eat anything during the "non-eating" window then that can break the fast and you are back to square one again. There are many good videos on Youtube regarding "intermittent fasting." I encourage you to view some of them. My big meal is the evening meal where I eat pretty much anything I want and I eat until I am full. Around 7 p.m. when I am finished with the meal I have nothing else to eat until the next day at 11 a.m. or even later. It sounds difficult to limit your food intake like that but after you get into the routine it's not that bad. I do drink a lot of liquids but I am not a big water drinker. I use the fruit-flavored water enhancers to flavor the water like Mio...Tangerine Orange is my favorite. If I drink hot or cold tea I also use it to "sweeten" the tea. Works great! Mio does contain aspertame so just be aware. I'm not a coffee drinker. Coffee makes you feel hungry so you might want to consider backing off the coffee a bit. Here's how intermittent fasting works. After you eat your body gets a shot of insulin from the pancreas. Your body then lives off the food you just ate and glucose from that food. Your body does not use the "stored fat" as long as it can use the food in your stomach. The more times you eat the more shots of insulin your body gets. The more insulin you get the harder it is to lose weight. There is also a thing called "insulin resistance." Insulin resistance is a bad thing. Watch this video on it! Your body is not using the stored fat to survive but rather the new food you keep giving yourself. After a few hours when the new food is all digested then the body starts living off the "stored fat." You want your body to use that "stored fat" as much as possible. So the longer you go without eating the more your body uses that "stored fat" and you start to lose weight. Losing weight is all about calories. If you take in more calories each day than your body uses you are going to gain weight. If your body uses more calories each day than you consume you are going to lose weight. In spite of the many stories you hear about weight loss, that is the bottom line. So the object of the game is to get your body to use more of that "stored fat" instead of being able to rely on the new food that you may constantly be eating. One of the major failure stories of our society is the trend that the "low fat" and "no fat" food will be our saving grace. The problem is when your body does not get the fat that it needs it makes you hungrier so you eat more bad stuff to make up for it. So for our evening meal we enjoy pizza, steak, hamburger, frozen lasagna from Stoeffers etc. A certain amount of fat is GOOD for you in spite of what the anti-fat peddlers try to tell you. Your body actually survives on fat so when you limit that or cut it out of your eating routine your body responds with cravings for foods that may not be so good for you. And good non-processed meat is a good diet food because it is high in protein and it takes your body longer to digest making you feel full longer. To top it off, I usually finish a meal with an Adkins bar or some sort of "breakfast bar" that may contain chocolate, caramel and peanuts to quench my sweet tooth. My first meal of the day, around 11 a.m. or even later, usually consists of about 3 oz. of lightly salted peanuts and maybe an apple or some celery or a carrot. I may also have a house salad with some ranch dressing and call it good. It really doesn't take much to satisfy your stomach and if you can wait 30 minutes or so you will find that you are just as full as if you had eaten a full meal. And when I do eat this snack I try to stay away from breads or sweets like doughnuts etc. I am on a quest to lose at least 85 pounds and probably more. But if I look at it as EIGHTY FIVE POUNDS that seems like a huge amount to lose and I will get discouraged and quit. So instead of looking at EIGHTY FIVE POUNDS I am going in 10 pound increments. So if you start off at 250 pounds and you want to lose 50 pounds, your first goal should be 10 pounds or even 5 pounds. The smaller increments keep you from getting discouraged. But if you set a goal of 5 pounds and achieve it in a few days then you will be encouraged to continue. Once you lose that 5 pounds then your next goal is to lose 5 pounds more...or 10, whatever you feel comfortable with. And before you know it you will be down 25 pounds and then 50. Some experts tell you not to weigh yourself every day as that too is a recipe for discouragement. However, I do weigh every day because if I'm heading in the wrong direction I want to know about it as soon as possible. I invested in a good beam-type scale instead of using the old typical spring-type bathroom scale. The beauty of the beam scale is that once you weigh you can leave all the indicators where they are as a reminder as to what your weight is. Another nice thing about the beam-type scale is that you can get on and off several times and it still gives you the same answer unlike the typical bathroom scale that varies up to several pounds each time you get on it. The beam-type scale is not totally necessary but it is helpful for me. I weigh the first thing in the morning after my bathroom visit and I try to wear the same clothes or similar every time. You will be surprised how much a heavier item of clothing can influence the weight. Water weight can make a big difference. It is possible to gain 5 pounds or so in a couple days by water weight. The best way to rid yourself of the extra water weight is to drink more non-caloric liquids (water!). I know...doesn't make any sense does it? But if you put on a few pounds over the course of a couple days be assured it's probably water weight because you would have to eat more than your are capable of in a short amount of time to put on that much actual fat weight. Don't let water-weight discourage you. Men typically lose weight easier and faster than women. I am finding that I lose an average of about 10 pounds per month or 2.5 pounds per week. That does vary somewhat depending on many factors. Weight loss for women may not be as dramatic. Typically, women need about 1600 to 2000 calories per day to maintain weight and men need about 2500 calories. I know...it just isn't fair! But that's the "weigh" it is! I also recently read that a 185 lb. man burns about 600 calories just sleeping. A bit less for women. So if there was a case for napping more I suppose that would be it! You may want to lose weight so you will look better or have more energy or just feel healthier or all of the above. These are all good reasons. But did you know that every pound you lose means FOUR pounds less pressure on your knees? Every pound of weight you gain means your body has to produce SEVEN MILES of blood vessels to carry your blood that your heart has to pump! Conversly, each pound you lose means SEVEN MILES your heart doesn't have to pump your blood. So if you lose 50 pounds that's 350 miles less your heart has to pump your blood! Are you on blood pressure medication? Losing weight may result in less medication. CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR FIRST! Experts say a 1 lb. box of cubed butter is the approximate weight and size of a pound of fat. So if you lose 40 pounds then your body has lost the weight and mass equivelent to 40 of those boxes of cubed butter. Imagine piling those up on your kitchen cabinet. That's a LOT. You know how heavy a 40 lb. bag of dog food feels when you carry it from the car into the house. Well, if you are 40 lbs. overweight that's what you are carrying around with you everywhere you go! I recently carried an 11 pound item up from my basement and thought about how heavy that felt. So far I have lost SIX of those 11-pound items! One of my concerns is keeping this weight off permanently when I reach my final goal. The first thing I will do is stop taking the Alli pills because the label recommends not to take them for more than two years. Besides, I don't want to have to rely on a pill to stay at a healthy weight. My plan is to continue to watch the food I eat and to continue the intermittent fasting. I also plan to weigh myself every day so I can keep track of the ups and downs. I hope it's as easy as I am trying to make it sound. We shall find out I guess. I may be adding to this diatribe over time as I think of more things to add or as I progress in my weight loss quest so check back often. I will put the updates at the bottom so you can scroll down on occasion to see if there are any updates. UPDATE 12/19/21 Don't discount the benefits of losing just a few pounds of excess weight. The minute you start losing the weight, even a couple pounds, your body responds positively. If you just lose a pound you have already eliminated 7 MILES of blood vessels and capilaries that your heart doesn't have to pump blood through. Losing just 5 pounds eliminates 20 POUNDS of pressure on your knees. It all adds up. Good luck with your weight loss adventure. If you have any questions that maybe I can answer you can email me at kelly@ K7SU.com. |