Moderation

If you are looking to get healthy or lose a few pounds or transform your life whatever
you will go looking for something to help
and get an overwhelming amount of information
remember I am old
OK not THAT old but I have been around diets and dieting people all my life
I remember my mother bemoaning her middle aged body
upset that she was not as thin as she was when she was young
and she would go on a diet
remember the Grapefruit diet?
my mom was a huge fan
remember Tab?
she drank TONS of that
Rice cakes were new ish when I was a kid
mom would crunch on those things like crazy
she would drop about 10lbs feel great and give up
why?
she would get hungry
she would get bored

fast forward 15 years
my mother in law and father in law went on a diet together
at this time Atkins and South Beach diets were HUGE
MIL chose South Beach for them
FIL started working out
MIL cooked
after a while
they got bored
good news on that one they did not get hungry just bored

NOW if you read stuff on diets the "fads" are Paleo eat like a caveman diet and of course all things gluten free
I see various friends eating plates full of food no grains no potatoes locally grown veggies (which where I live means no veggies because very little grows well here)

all I can think when I see this is
where is your portion size?
if you do not pay attention to portions you can indeed get fat eating ANYTHING even grass fed beef
I think it would take more spinach than anyone could ever tolerate before they got fat on it however the sodium content of spinach is pretty high for a veggie so I guess you would retain a lot of water

THIS is where moderation comes in
those that know me will be shocked to hear ANYTHING moderate coming from me
I am an all or nothing kind of gal
jump in both feet
damn the torpedoes etc etc

but moderate eating
foods YOU like
ones YOU can eat for the rest of your life
even the occasional treat
by occasional I do not meant once a week for ME occasional is once a month

So yes
I will have bread
YES I will eat some pasta
but remember 2ozs of pasta is a lot less than most people thing

THIS is where the food scale comes in
THIS is where knowing your portions comes in
THIS is where logging food comes in

if you are not keeping track of it how will you know?
will I have to track my food forever?
NO eventually I will be able to stop
eventually I will be in maintenance
I will be able to eat more than I am now that I am in weight loss mode
but for now because I am still working on this
I will be obsessive about it
I will be a slave to those numbers
is it hard?
yes
but it is becoming habit
the reinforcement I get from my results has been fantastic
55lbs gone
inches in the last month alone I have lost 8.5 from my body
wearing a size 14 for the first time in 25 years
feeling GREAT

THAT makes the work worth it it only takes a few minutes each meal
I can handle that