YouTube - Sugar: The Bitter Truth

 

 

I expect many have already watched this video or at least heard about it. Being new to Atkins, however, made me search for new information on low-carbing and I’ve only just recently discovered this. For those that don’t want to sit through the hour and a half I will explain in basic terms:

Fructose causes the same effects in the body as alcohol. Obviously not the brain effects, else it would be illegal – but the effects within the body. Cirrhosis of the liver, Diabetes and Addiction to name a few. Fructose does something else though, it actually stops the body from feeling satisfied from food, and therefore makes the person consume more calories than they need. More fat gets stored in the body from fructose consumption than fat. A high fructose diet is therefore a high fat diet… the video concludes that fructose is a poison. Soda is virtually a can of beer.

He does say though, that fructose consumed in its natural form isn’t detrimental as long as its the whole food because it contains fibre which protects us from the negative effects of fructose. Whole foods also naturally limits us from consuming too much fructose.

Since fructose is in sugar, HFCS and many other sweeteners I have given up the notion that I will ever consume anything with sugar in it again. I know that on Atkins, sugar is not allowed – but I was hoping that one day I could have maybe a serving of something with sugar in it, but now I have lost my appetite for it. If sugar really is the cause of weight gain I want nothing more to do with it.

Next week – Can you have your cake and eat it too? Maybe…

See you next week.

Thinspiration or Fat Acceptance?

On my previous (failed) attempts at weight loss I often looked for ‘thinspiration’ to continually keep me motivated throughout my weight loss journey. How I ever thought this would work I will never know!

We get constantly bombarded with adverts, magazines and films which throw scantily clad skinny women in our faces all the time! If that’s all it took to motivate me, then wouldn’t I be slim right now?

Granted, seeing photos of slim women IS a trigger to want to lose weight. Simply because it makes the viewer feel bad about being themselves and want to make a change into being the women in the picture. But its only a short term motivator because its side effect is making us feeling bad!

Feeling bad all the time is not a good long term motivator. Therefore, this week I decided to hunt for something that would motivate me and make me feel good at the same time. I ended up having a brainwave. I need to feel good about being myself right now – this means Fat Acceptance.

Fat Acceptance doesn’t mean I have to give up my goal of weight loss – I can accept the way I am and still move forward. After all if you’re a grade 1 Saxophonist you need to accept that before you can move on to grade 2 – if you deny you’re at grade 1, wouldn’t it be more difficult to get to grade 8 (which would be your ultimate goal)?

My ultimate goal is to be a size 8. But if I constantly look at skinny models and make myself feel bad all the time, my goal becomes more urgent. I won’t be able to ‘wait’ to be slim, I’ll want it NOW…. RIGHT NOW and all diets will be too slow and hopeless.

Fat Acceptance however, reminds me that its MY fat body that will get me to where I want to be. Accepting my body now, doesn’t mean that I won’t love my body even more when I am slim. Fat Acceptance will help me accept my body and enjoy the journey of losing weight, rather than stomping my feet saying I want it NOW.

So on my search for Fat Acceptance I found some great films to watch.

Don Juan DeMarco, starring Johnny Depp is about a man who believes he is Don Juan DeMarco the greatest lover in the world – he has an unusual view of life. I thought it was a great film and did help me feel better about myself while making me laugh at the same time.

Shallow Hal, starring Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow is about a guy who is pretty shallow when it comes to women. He is hypnotised and made to see the inner beauty of women and ends up falling in love with a 300lb woman. I’ve steered clear of this film for so long believing that it belittled fat women. Although there are a lot of fat jokes and tits and ass shots it actually has a great message and makes you feel bad for putting so much importance on looks. I felt a lot better about myself after watching this film also.

Baby Cakes, starring Ricki Lake is about an overweight girl who falls in love with an attractive practically married ice skater. She uses her charm and other skills to try to get her man. Although I’m completely against cheating it was a nice film for us larger ladies to feel good!

Hairspray, starring Ricki Lake is about an overweight aspiring dancer who manages to make it on TV. I only watched this after seeing Baby Cakes and its more about racism than weight issues, but its a feel good film nonetheless.

I could watch these films over and over so they will be great to keep my attitude in check while losing. If you have watched any good films along these lines comment below!

Next week I’ll be delving into positive thinking and what may be the real cause of weight gain. See you next week :-)

Great Weight loss Tools

This week I have lost 6lbs which is great. Onward toward my goal, hopefully.

I wanted to share with you my tools I use for my weight loss:

Firstly I use Milife. Milife is not free its £110 and then £10 per month after. Here is their website http://www.milife.com

For a great calorie and carb counter as well as motivation I use Livestrong. Its free. Here is their website http://www.livestrong.com

I also use the tracker on the Atkins website since, it helps keep me motivated with the Atkins side of things. They have a community website you can join (free), where you state which Atkins phase you are in and track your weight and carb intake. Here is their website http://community.atkins.com/index.jsp

Since I have the Atkins New Diet Revolution book 2002, I also regularly frequent the Atkins diet Bulletin boards here: http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.com/

With all of these sites metric and imperial measurements are not always accessible so this conversion site is essential! I use online conversion.com. Their common weight conversion is here: http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_common.htm

and common height conversion (which I don’t use as much) is here: http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm

Although it seems like it might take a long time to visit all these sites, I have them in my favourites bar across the top of my browser so they are quickly and easily accessed. It then only takes me a few minutes to track my calories, exercise, weight and carbs in the trackers I use.

Next week I’d like to talk about inspiration and motivation for weight loss.

See you soon!

del.icio.us Tags: Livestrong,Atkins diet,Milife,weight loss,fat

Herniated Disc Pain

Technorati Tags: Milife,Atkins,Atkins diet,weight loss,fat

On my second week of Milife I accidentally sneezed and threw my back out. I think the exercise regime may have slightly weakened my back and now I can’t even walk. I’m so disappointed that this has happened to me especially so soon in the program. I know the program said to only do 30 minutes a day and warned me that I was doing to much. But the program only saw that I was going from 0 minutes to an hour and a half. When really I was going from an hour (which was my previous exercise routine) to an hour and a half.
I think the problem was when I tried some martial arts. I really love martial arts and I wanted to add it into my routine. But I think it was this that may have weakened my back slightly. And then the fateful sneeze…
In desperation for some weight loss I kept up the exercise (albeit somewhat less than before) and after an initial improvement to my back I took things too far and threw it out again!
I was panicking… the scale was going up and I didn’t know how to lose weight without exercise. What do I do?
I decided to turn to the Atkins diet. My Dad and Gran are diabetic, I know that this is my fate too if I don’t keep up with the weightloss program. I had an old Atkins book in the attic and got my hubby to fetch it so I could do the Atkins PROPERLY this time. No cheating – I can’t afford to now.
Well, even though I am bedridden and eating I have so far lost 0.8 Kilos in 3 days. I’m really pleased. I can’t wait until I am ready to exercise again (when I do I will take it slow and do lots of core work). Because with Atkins and Milife how can I lose OR should I say how can I NOT lose!!
Next week I will be posting an update and giving you all the great tools I use to track my progress. See you soon!!

My First Week with Milife

Technorati Tags: Milife,Weight loss,fat

I had to wait only a few days for my package to arrive. I had already got to know the website quite well and was looking forward to getting started.

So why did I choose Milife? I wanted at first to get a personal trainer, but the one I had chosen was fully booked, so while I was waiting I decided to sign up to Milife and give it a go as a last shot at weight loss on my own. I have 80lbs to lose so I have a long way still to go.

Inside the pack was a set of scales, a miband (which is like a wrist watch), an installation CD, a bluetooth USB device,  a food diary, a recipe book and a calorie counter book. There were also batteries for the scales, and a charger for the miband device. This whole pack cost me £100 plus £10 for postage and packaging. But the cost is something that spurs me on – no one wants to waste £100, so I have to work hard to make sure I don’t which is great motivation!

The whole thing took a couple of hours to set up… but it was really simple. First I put my miband on charge for 2 hours. I put the batteries in my scales, and put the CD in my computer. The CD installed the necessary programs and then asked for my charged miband which I had to wait for. Once it was charged the set up took no time at all. I paired the miband with the scales so they could communicate with each other. After that all I needed to do was install the USB bluetooth device so my miband could communicate with my laptop.

Easy! When I wake up in the morning I hop on the scales, I tap my miband and the miband records the reading. When I’m next on the laptop which is usually after exercise, I sign into Milife from the icon on my desktop, tap my miband and then wait for all the information to be loaded up onto the web. This only takes a few seconds. The miband records all my movements and any weight readings I had that day. I wrongly assumed that the miband would actually calculate the calories I had burned, but it doesn’t do this although it would be great if it could. Instead it records your movements on the scale of low activity to very high activity. The only readings which count towards your activity goals are the moderate to very high activity levels.

On my first week I decided to choose the weight loss program. I was given a calorie target of 2000 and was told to aim for 30 minutes of activity a day. Well I ended up planning 390 minutes for that week – that’s 6 and a half hours. The program warned me not to do too much, but I was really motivated since I got my new wii fit, skipping rope – and I was looking forward to starting a good weight training regime.

After my first week I managed to get in 398 minutes of exercise and I was really chuffed. According to the scales I lost 1.5Kg – I know this isn’t quite true since I first weighed myself in the middle of the day fully clothed (I usually weigh myself first thing in the morning).

I am worried that my weight training regime may skew the scales so I’ve invested in a body fat calculator which should come round about next week.