Pat Barone

Since I first started on Twitter I had the good fortune to Twitter-Meet PatBarone. Although I doubt we will agree on everything, especially because I count calories and I don't think Pat does, I do believe she has an wonderful insight to our problems with food.

Today I visited her BLOG
http://stoprentingweightloss.com/ where Pat talks about that child in us. I recommend reading the entry. "We All Have to be a Parent Sometime!"

Pat is a professional and a celebrity in her field, I feel that the more light we can shed on this problem the more we can help others. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS this problem except a person who actually has lots of weight to lose and has done it!

This is my personal commentary on her entry.

I agree with Pat, childhood emotions will always come up. Every minute of our formidable years were filled with fear, sadness, loss, frustration, PAIN and much more. For those that think they didn't experience any of those emotions they are only fooling themselves. Unless an adult helped to soothe those feelings, the immature mind most likely had no idea how to deal with them. More likely an adult said "quit your whining, stop crying or worse. Many times a kid is given a cookie or candy to get them to stop and behave.
As an adult anything can trigger those childhood emotions. What is the solution?
Step One (imo) Remember you are the adult now and YOU can give that child the reassurance it needs. You KNOW as an adult that you are very capable so give your child an imaginary hug, love it up... tell your inner child that you can protect her/him .

Help your child it will never leave you it is YOU. Do it, because for love...you can do anything!

Who needs white flour when there are so many alternatives!

This is about food, not exercise.

"Eat about 1,600 calories a day, filling up on whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy monounsaturated fats."
That is from a gadzillion sites, it is the way to lose.
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Lately I am aware that people can vehemently resent anyone telling them what or how to eat, so please read this and take whatever you think can help you, my motive is to help. Why I feel compelled and so passionate about it is a mystery to me because I am so aware of that resentment.

OK here goes:

Make a treat a completely different food source than white flour, it will build your self esteem even more than help with weight loss. Every time you do THE BEST for yourself you feel better in every way. If you want cookies, get whole grain or sprouted-grain cookies sweetened with raisin or dates or even maple syrup, but no snack treat should be over 100 calories. Crazy for chocolate, it can be good for you, eat 70% or more dark chocolate even if it has some sugar content, organic chocolate will at least have organic sugar (no chemicals).Remember the 100 calorie Rule

There are TONS of the most amazing and delicious whole grain and sprouted grain breads out there, make sure you can find the calorie count on the bread. Whole grain Brown Rice pasta comes in every shape and size and I found brands that never get mushy or starchy. Eat Buckwheat, Quinoa, Red and Brown whole grain Rice. Eat Oatmeal, Ezekiel cereals, 12 whole grain cereals, just think 100% whole grain instead of white flour. Also use lactose free milk (no one who is over weight needs lactose sugar which is also mucous forming) Try sugar free natural Almond Milk for cereal.

Nuts and seeds are very high calorie, you could have a giant piece of fish instead of 6 nuts..but walnuts are so good for you, use low fat dressing and toss walnuts into your salad, I chop organic(so tender) RED cabbage into my salads for extra crunch. I toss leftover salad into vegan bouillon broth, chop green onion and if I want it to be hearty add some beans or brown rice, sesame oil, hot chilies (a seasoning example) for an instant soup with lunch or dinner. Leave out the starch and just toss any veggies you have in the fridge then puree it for a thick soup snack with about 50 calories for 2 CUPS and HEALTHY HEALTHY HEALTHY... and.....delicious if seasoned the way you love it. How about two cups of pureed (non starchy)veggie soup with a slice of whole grain bread with 1-TSP natural nut butter and either fruit or unsweetened jam it's under 200C, what a perfect snack at 10 am or 4 pm.

I buy eggwhites at Costco, I get 3 cartons there for the price of one at regular supermarkets...eggwhite omelets are the best thing in the world and 0-mg cholesterol. One white is 15 calories, 1 large whole egg is about 70, you can have 4 eggwhites for 60C. Toss/fill them with anything and everything you can dream off.

I also make pizzas out of the 12 whole grain tortillas right in the toaster oven. I eat potatoes, not often, but they are a whole food filled with nourishment, I like red skinned and eat the skin...it slows down the starch from turning to quickly to sugar...and...anything colored RED or darker is full of antioxidants.

I could go on and on and on. If you saw my FAVORITE list on Sparkpeople it looks like half a supermarket. OH and I try to eat Grapefruit at least 3 times a week, it has AWESOME cholesterol lowering properties.

Anyway, I do feel bad being so pushy about white flour and sugar, I know even the healthiest eat it...but I can guarantee you they do not have MY weight problem, I spent over 20 years not eating it and stayed nice and thin, I only added a wee bit to my diet and gained all that weight...I KNOW I CAN'T EAT EVEN A DROP. I also know that people who have trouble losing and are food USERS need to give up every drop of food that converts too quickly too sugar in their body.

Please keep in mind, I am not perfect, but it's not because I deliberately tell myself it's OK to eat this, it's because I am slipping and not caring about myself at that moment, I just have the BIG LIGHT flashing in my head that says EAT IT, WHO CARES and I CAN JUST RETURN TO NOT EATING IT TOMORROW.

If you take anything from this post..try to just take this: Avoid foods that convert to sugar too quickly, they are depressives because your blood sugar will rise quickly and drop quickly leaving you tired and feeling low. They are addicting, you like the feeling when your blood sugar is UP so you will want to eat more of it. And if you are overweight it will continue to be stored as FAT, please help your liver, it does not need to store more fat on your body.

Also remember once you know the truth about food and your body, everything you do that you are aware is not good for you is one more spike in your self worth.

"THE SCALE"

I gained over 60 pounds by not weighing myself for about a 7 year period. I did not gain it quickly, it was so gradual, possibly under 1 pound per month. So now I weigh everyday, every morning, I allow for a 1-to-3 pound fluctuation and get very excited when the scale goes to a new low. Lost 50 pounds this way.

I cannot trust myself to not gain gradually. When you gain only 1 pound a month it can take 2 years before you change your clothing size especially if you are like me and like stretchy clothes.

Yes not losing can affect me emotionally, but that is also part of my healing process...to not focus on my body size or weight, to focus on eating properly. So even though I am often disappointed if I'm up that 3lbs I take it the right way...and realize that I ate too much salt, had too many stupid snacks and LEARN what I'm doing wrong.

I realize that being in denial about why the scale is not moving downward is a big enemy of my changing my way of eating for life. I've made that scale my good friend, who is honest and keeps me aware.

Time for new friends or no friends?

YEP!!! Losing weight is isolating. We have to put so much focus everyday, every hour on re-programming ourselves so if we can prevent outside forces from interfering with that focus we sure do avoid people.

I've recently noticed that I don't like the people in my life that much since I've been changing. I also find I took too much comfort in other people's problems so now it seems I am best friends with a bunch of whiners and complainers. Oh I am the first to want to rescue someone but.. it seems these people do NOTHING else but complain to me about every little thing!!!

Having said that, I do know that I MUST get out and create some new friends, people who are like me, not the way I was. People who have changed themselves and know the hardship of losing weight and mostly those who bravely want to face a new life as a normal sized person.

I will never be cured of my eating disorder, I see that now that I've been fighting with food for over 40 years. Yes I managed to keep my weight off for over 20years but then at the rate of about 8 pounds a year I managed to gain 60+ pounds...still unbelievable to me how that happened, but it did.
I also became more and more reclusive, was embarrassed by the way I looked and didn't feel I fit in. I also didn't want to hang out with overweight people because it was also too horrible to know I was just like them and the one thing I have learned is the overweight people are a million times more critical of body size than thin people. Oh thin people are critical, but not as much as those of us that need to lose.

The catch in all this is we need to be social, we need to get into life and interact with people. We need to enjoy and dance and sing and mostly have a ball with our delicious sense of humor!!! Sure we can laugh and whoop it up here on our computers but what happens in our other world?

We are in a war with our old selves and even when we win the next day is a new battle. Every day we need to sharpen our weight loss tools, hone our skills and go forward into battle with that slippery slope that can slide us right back to where we just do not want to be. So not only do we have to be alert when we are alone we also need to be on guard of the "social life" that is full of the food and people that will make us lose the battle.

It's now time to clean house of the people who are really no good for me. This will be tough! If I was an addict I couldn't spend every day with people who are doing drugs right in front of me...the same goes for these Emotional Wrecks in my life. I am going for emotional good health and will have to leave a few people behind so that I can survive. I am not selfish, I just need to let go of the comfort I have knowing that these people NEED me as long as I listen to them whine. Who knows maybe I will be doing them a favor.

I am going to try to rebuild a new social life and have lots of ideas how to do it.

Miracle Weight Loss Cult

In a waiting room in a hospital I struck up a conversation with a big man who felt the need to tell me that he was going to have gastric bypass surgery. He was there waiting for news of a family member who was only 54 and had suffered a heart attack. He told me that many of his family died young because they were so overweight and that he didn't want to die young too. He said he had lost 150 pounds twice and twice gained it back and now he felt there was no other solution.

It was his enthusiasm that triggered this new observation on my part. He was so enthusiastic, like he found a panacea, a cure, a miracle cure and I suddenly felt really badly for him. I took it upon myself to tell him what I thought and I guess I kind of burst his bubble, but I believe I gave him the best advice he will ever have.

He never took into consideration that his cravings and obsession with overeating and eating horribly wrong food would not end because he had surgically shrunk his stomach. He really didn't want to face all the info out there about what people have gone through gaining their weight back after the surgery. He really didn't think about the restrictive diet he would have to be on either. This was the best advice he will ever have, that he needs to be sure he really faces that he will have to eat properly after the operation and make sure that he is positive that he can do it otherwise he is going into this half blind to the facts. I asked him what made him think that if he lost all the weight he wouldn't go back like he did twice before. He admitted that he didn't want to think about it, that he just wanted to lose weight.

Now this was my observation: It was his enthusiasm, it was just like all the enthusiasm I have seen with others and felt myself throughout my life everytime a new pill or new miracle diet plan comes out. It is not just enthusiasm it is like a trance, it is a self-brainwashing. We belong to a self made cult!!! It is the Miracle Weight Loss Cult. We want to believe in a miracle cure so badly that when some Marketer comes along with a "diet"we just automatically turn off all our reasoning and blindly go forth following our new Saviour!

My conclusion: Never forget that losing weight requires a whole lifestyle change, not just a "diet". What is the point of starving yourself or eating packaged food if you can't do it for the rest of your life? What is the point of getting a gastric bypass (the sure fire way to lose weight) if you don't change your eating habits. Get out of the Weight Loss Cult, there is NO miracle... there is only YOU changing yourself for life and make it a change that makes you happy, that is do-able for life!!!

Good Carbs vs Bad Carbs

After YEARS of studying the subject regarding the balance of carbohydrates, fats & proteins in our bodies I've concluded that how our physical chemistry turns food into energy is very complicated but the way we should eat is very simple. According to all the info out there we need a substantial amount of carbs daily and we've heard repeatedly that there are good carbs and bad carbs.

The simplest way to understand this good carb vs bad carb is to fully understand that the longer it takes for our bodies to convert carbohydrates to sugar/glycogen the better.

Processed food like white sugar or white flour converts much faster than a whole grain or whole fruit and vegetables. The reason is that the whole grain is complex and the body takes much longer to digest it and break it down. I know that it's elementary, but here is one step further in the process:

Insulin: In the most simplest explanation, Insulin is a BRILLIANT GENIUS hormone that reacts to our blood glucose/sugar and then it knows what to do with it. Insulin is secreted/made when it receives this blood sugar then its function is primarily to send it to the liver to be stored as glycogen(similar to alcohol)..too much insulin (from too much blood sugar) and the liver then stores it as fat! That is the reason that sugar causes obesity when it's so low calorie per tsp.

The release of Insulin should be nice and slow and in spurts...so the Complex unrefined unprocessed carbohydrates allow for this to happen. Too much sugar in the blood in ANY form can cause the production of too much insulin which the liver will then store it as FAT or lipids. Lipids are also the fat that over time can clog your arteries. So even too high of GOOD carbs can be bad for people if they have too much other sugars charging their blood stream creating insulin.

Diabetes is when this Insulin hormone is out of whack either because of hereditary(most likely) or something else. I bet it makes sense now that when a Diabetic changes their sugary/bad carb intake they lose weight even if they don't decrease their calorie intake.
And one more thing...Insulin is so important for so many functions including our brains that it is so wise to look after it by feeding it good healthy whole grains and avoiding all processed food.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you found out that you could lose weight, feel great and not be hungry simply by being considerate of your Insulin Hormone and eating only NON processed food. Your liver will love you too, it really hates being force fed all this sugar and constantly storing it as fat.

So much happiness by just giving up BAD CARBS.

Posting about my weight loss experience

The "Lights" go ON!

I always had a weight problem but kept in total control by never eating white flour or sugar and ate only healthy natural fats. Around the age of 45 I started to go off my way of eating just a teeny wee bit here and there...a little sugar, a little flour, a little butter...and I knew I gained...but only 5 pounds that year. Within in a few years I saw that I was gaining at a rate of about 5-6 lbs a year. I went into DENIAL and stopped getting on the scale.

I knew I had ballooned way beyond any weight I had ever been. By now I had stopped weighing myself for years...the truth would have been too much to bear, besides I was really trying to lose and couldn't imagine that I wasn't losing and it had to be impossible that I was still gaining.

It had to be impossible because I hardly ate! Well, what I mean is I could go for 2 or 3 days eating very little so that I could have that BIG MEAL without worrying about gaining. Eventually I would eat very little during the day so that I could have that BIG dinner with my husband. Because I ate so little, I knew I could add on that extra butter in the mashed potatoes, fry the fish in lots of oil and no problem with all that salad dressing, butter in the peas and on fresh crusty bread and of course my icecream for dessert was SUGAR FREE so that meant I could eat some YUMMM chocolate. Potato chips as an evening snack, were ok, cause I knew I would hardly eat "tomorrow". (did I mention the second helpings?)

I had no idea who that woman was in the mirrors or in the reflection in store windows. Whenever there was a photograph of me I had to believe it was the angle of the shot that made me look 3times bigger than anyone else...I had to believe it.

In retrospect, was I depressed? Was I under extreme stress? Answer YES, but today...the root of my sadness still exists and the cause of my extreme stress has never been resolved. The truth is: only when I had momentary sanity about how big I was did I have any real hugely deep emotional distress!!! If I was an emotional eater it was mostly because I was in HELL about gaining so much weight.

I often asked for thyroid tests. Both parents needed thyroid meds and it was just a matter of time that I needed them, I was sure! I read every word on Thyroid symptoms..each word was ME, but tests always came back that I was within normal range. My blood sugar was normal, my Cholesterol normal...so WHY WASN'T I NORMAL!

The worst was I became so tired, could hardly move, seriously...could hardly move! A friend told me about a Naturopathic Doctor who (get this) worked 3 blocks away from my home and I made an appt. I was looking for the blood work to tell me why I was so big...and why I was so tired. This is the honest truth...I stood on the Dr.'s scale backwards so that I wouldn't know how much I weighed. How's that for DENIAL?

After much blood work she put me on a Thyroid Support, my thyroid was in HIGH normal range and there is proof that high normal can be too high for some people. I did not get Thyroid Replacement meds because I just do not need them! Period! Thyroid support is just some herbs that help feed the thyroid to do it's job.

OK, here is what the Dr. did do! (By the way she is a young magnificent beauty who is Tops in her field-I do have THAT kind of luck) The Dr. made me write out everything I ate for 7 days...that is when she said I wasn't eating enough and the blood tests showed that I was in starvation mode. When you are in starvation mode you do not automatically convert to burning mode when you eat! You are still in starvation mode which means that your body is going to STORE whatever you eat for when it will be in starvation mode again. It stores it as FAT.

OK- she got me off all processed food. Had me on a food plan that made me eat 3 meals a day with real food snacks between meals. The bulk of my meals became fresh vegetables. She still reminds me how I was positive I would gain eating so much and argued with her. By the way I asked her to let me know when I lost 20lbs then I would look at the scale. When I did, I WAS SHOCKED. I had obviously gained almost 80 lbs over the years since I was 45.

I don't expect to weigh what I did in my 20's to 40's, I'm 5'9 and was model thin at that time. Now my skin is getting pretty wrinkly and so I will be happy to be heavier by 15 lbs.

I've lost about 55lbs at this point in time by EATING. ( I don't do enough exercise, but am trying)

The light is "ON" that I am the type that must always beware of Food Land Mines..some people can eat a piece of cake, I am taking my life into my hands if I even have a taste! I can not let my Emotional Attachment to food to ruin my hopes for myself and there is no question whatsoever it has total potential to be the start of my road to ruin.

If I have proven anything at all to myself it's that a person can lose weight at any age..at any size...but..they first must once and for all change their ways. No it's not the hard part! The hard part is not giving up. The hard part is really facing that deep emotional depression that comes with being powerless over food, the hard part becomes so easy(for the most part) when you start to lose by eating right!!!

I am an advocate for not eating processed food, for not eating at night and for planning, counting calories by weighing and measuring. It may not be the way you want to lose, or the way you have lost...but if you are like ME, it is the only way!

Fast forward to today...I am not perfect, I have my screw-ups but I am so HAPPY! As long as I don't let myself get too hungry I can make the right choices. And I eat a LOT, all day!