Sunday Ramble - Happy New Me (And Maybe You) Part #2

Last week I shared how my weight had slowly crept up to over 300 pounds over the course of many years. Being heavy is nothing new to me. I have always battled with my weight. So when the combination of getting older, a sedentary new career, giving up the cancer sticks, and a health condition that does not allow me to work out strenuously, finally caught up with me, I was so large I could not squeeze my rump into public seats. 

I knew that I needed to get things under control, or all the good things that I had done (quitting smoking, giving up carbonated beverages) would be for naught. Once I got my mind set I then began doing two things differently. Yes, just two things. Here's what I've done over the past 3 months:

1-Eating portion controlled meals.2-Doing yoga daily.
Yep. That is it gang. No fancy shakes or purges, no starvation diets, no eating only twigs and spinach for a month. No drink additives or pills, and no silver bullet because there is none. You cannot eat 5000 calories a day and expect to stay slim unless you're a hockey player. Stop listening to the snake oil salesmen telling you that this powder or pill alone will have the pounds falling off of you. If that magic capsule really existed we would all be thin, now wouldn`t we?
Losing weight is hard. You will probably feel hungry when you cut back. Make no mistake. Yes, there are times that I am hungry, or at least I think I am. Truthfully, I'm not hungry, not really. I just want something. Yeah, you know what I mean: a little love in the form of a bag of Doritos or some Little Debbie snack cakes.
I now eat two portion control meals a day. I have been purchasing enough Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine meals for my lunch and dinner for six days. Both are quite tasty, low-calorie ways to enjoy foods that you love. The Lean Cuisine line has a macaroni & cheese dish that tastes exactly like my mother-in-law's homemade!  I'm now trying to incorporate more homemade food into my menu so I can slowly stop purchasing so many of the frozen meals. 

Breakfast is a bagel with cream cheese simply because that is the only thing that I can eat early in the day that does not make my GERD act up. Yogurt, fruit, Italian ices, and some delicious low-calorie snack packs of cookies or Special K bars are tasty desserts. I do not eat anything after 5 PM anymore except for Sundays, which I'll get to in a second. Not snacking after dinner also helps keep my GERD under control. I spend roughly twenty to twenty-five dollars a week on my meals and low-calorie desserts. If I stopped at McDonald's, a pizza parlor, or any other fast-food grease pit just twice a week I would spend the same amount if not more. I have to think that my arteries thank me for spending my money on better food. I know that my waistline certainly does! 
Sunday is what I call my 'Gluttony Day' where I cook a big meal like the one I used to cook  every day. We now eat at 1 PM on Sundays this way we can work off the calories before we go to bed. As a reward to myself, I have a small bowl of cereal for a Sunday night snack, either raisin bran or shredded wheat, to try to keep it healthy. As of this post, I have lost 26 pounds over three months. But, most importantly, I am slowly changing my eating habits.

The reason that I have one day to eat what I want is because, for me, if I forgo foods that I am craving for too long, I overindulge. So instead of gobbling down 6 slices of pizza I can have two slices if I crave it, with a side salad. My craving is met and I have still stuck to my goals. Also, I refuse to use the word "diet" because it has so many negative connotations. I much prefer to say that I'm making life changes. It just sounds so much better to my ears. 
I know many people will scoff at my weight loss saying it's too slow, that I should be losing more weight faster. For me this is a perfect way to trim down. If you wish to drop the weight faster, then by all means do something more drastic or dynamic. There are many people out there like me, who because of health reasons, cannot or should not be on radical diets or pounding themselves into foam at a Zumba class.
I'm not telling anyone they have to do what I do. That's not me. I'm just putting this information out there because several people have asked me what I'm doing to lose the weight. Feel free to use it or not, my friends. Next week, I'll chat a little about yoga, how I found it, what I'm doing, and how much progress I'm making since I started 3 months ago. I may also gush a wee bit about how much I love it, so be prepared.
To help me stay on track, here is something that I haven't seen in over three years, my wedding band fitting comfortably on my finger. The little things make the biggest impressions.