My weigh-in and my best weight loss advice

First the weigh-in:

Weight April 10:  168.8

Weight April 17:  164.8

Loss for the week:  -4.0

Total loss:  -74.6

I credit the success of last week to one thing:: NO ADDED SUGAR

It's been six weeks since I've eaten a Weight Watcher ice cream bar or anything with added sugar. Removing sugar from my diet has completely changed my life.

I know this won't work for everyone because:

a.) not everyone is addicted to sugar.

b.) for those people that are truly addicted to sugar, you might not be willing to give it up.

If you have a problem with binging and eating massive amounts of food at one sitting, if you love sweets, and candy, cookies, cake and ice cream are your trigger foods, then you probably have a problem with sugar.

If you want to become normal and live a life free of that insatiable desire for more sugar and more food, then I strongly suggest you start right now and ban added sugar from your life. It's in everything so it takes a little work to eliminate it from your diet, but it's not that difficult.

Start by reading the labels on everything. I was shocked by some of the places I found sugar hiding. Remember my frozen bell peppers that had corn syrup in them?! Weight Watchers products are some of the worst offenders for hiding added sugar in what they promote as a "healthy" snack. Read the ingredients on their snack bars. Several of their products list the first ingredient as sugar, sand the second ingredient as corn syrup.

For me, eating things with added sugar brings on strong, almost uncontrollable, insatiable cravings. Sometimes I had the willpower to fight it, most often I would cave in and eat the entire box of whatever it was I thought I could eat just one. There were times when I ate an entire two-pound box of See's chocolates, or a box of six Weight Watcher ice cream bars, or an entire cake in one sitting (yes, I did this). Even as little as six weeks ago I bought a package of six dark chocolate 100-calories bars at Trader Joes. I know better. I ate the entire box in my car before I even got home.

That's when I realized I had a problem. That's when my weight, on March 2, reached 181.2 pounds (from my low of 154 last summer). I was freaked out, depressed, and realized I was less that twenty pounds from the 200-pound mark. Fortunately, I realized drastic times required drastic measures.

I'd just finished reading The End of Overeating and Change Your Brain Change Your Life. Both books talk about sugar and how some people (not all) have problems with sugar. This also includes fructose, the sugar in fruits.

I recently read an article regarding fruit. Although it's really good for us, with necessary vitamins and minerals, too much of it isn't good for us. When eating five to seven fruits and vegetables a day, it really should be five to seven vegetables and fruits a day. We should be eating more vegetables than fruit (I was doing the opposite). I've gone from five fruits a day to two or three maximum.

I'm not sure which book recommended this, but it's old advice that I've recently incorporated into my daily life. My snacks are always a complete snack. For example, I try to never eat just a piece of fruit. I always add some protein. A few almonds, an ounce of turkey, a small piece of cheese, some Greek yogurt. Something to make me feel satisfied. Never just a carb, but always a carb and a protein.

My night time binges have practically stopped. Sometimes if it's late and I'm truly really hungry I'll have a Greek yogurt and a tangerine, or something similar. Usually around three Points. Then I floss and brush my teeth (again, which annoys me and usually will stop me in the first place). This has been recommended by many people, but now it's a habit for me. Once my teeth are clean, it puts up a red light in my head. No more food. I'm done for the day.

A word about artificial sweeteners

Yes, I eat artificial sweeteners. I've tried everything. Stevia, Agave syrup, Truvia, Xylitol, Splenda. I always come back to the Splenda. It has the fewest calories (zero) and the least offensive taste. I'd rather not eat it, but I can't eat things like Greek yogurt without some sort of sweetener. I can't afford the added calories of honey and maple syrup.

I figure at this point in my life, a few more chemicals in my body aren't really going to matter. Perhaps if I was twenty I could get more into the clean eating routine. Let's face it, I'm 54. I've probably eaten enough chemicals in my life to kill a laboratory full of lab mice. A little Splenda in my diet over the next 20 or so years I have left is probably not going to kill me. I usually only eat one packet, sometimes two, a day.

Picture

Sorry, no picture of my hair. I'm not liking it very much, and I'm going through a phase where I don't like how I look. Maybe it's because my hair is too blond, or maybe it's because I'm almost 55 and the wrinkles seem to be jumping out at me when I look in the mirror. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll pass. I'm just not feeling photogenic and not in the mood to have my picture taken.

About my lack of posting

I can't believe I let a whole week go by and didn't post. I'm not sure what happened or why. I started several posts, but just didn't publish them. My goal this week is to post every day. Even a short post just to let every know I'm still alive and more determined than ever to get to goal (by my 55th birthday in 16 weeks!).