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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

The thing about healthy foods is, you can eat as much of it as you want. The thing about unhealthy food is, it is NOT a treat. Or an indulgence. Or something that makes you happy. Treat, indulgence, happy, these are emotional relationships. The problem is, the relationships are with 'food' that isn't really food. Think, doughnut. However little of it you eat, it is still unhealthy and so is the desire for it.

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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake
Wonder Bread is not bread, it's garbage. The only thing Wonder Bread is good for is feeding ducks.

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ORIGINAL: yourdarkdesire

You talk about weight training, and in your case that is something you need to avoid. Muscle mass weighs more than fat, so it will only make the scales go up. What you need to do is cardio....get your heart rate up. Start slow....five minutes a day and gradually increase. Is it going to hurt? Of course it is! Try taking a low dose painkiller 20 minutes before.

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ORIGINAL: yourdarkdesire

For toning, check out the 30 day Ab Challenge. It is a progression of situps, crunches, leg lifts and plank position. No equipment. No walking.

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ORIGINAL: ShaharThorne

Who said ebooks? I can DL them to my Keyboard with no problem (only got like 85 books on my Kindle).

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ORIGINAL: searching4mysir

Additionally, muscle is ACTIVE tissue, which means it burns more calories at rest and raises your metabolism.

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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

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I have to finish off what I got first. I don't believe in trashing food but using it up.

This is an example of what a psychologist would call self-sabotage.

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ORIGINAL: ShaharThorne


We tried Curves for a year. Instead of losing weight, I ballooned up to 326...their scales did not go that high.

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

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ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake

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I have to finish off what I got first. I don't believe in trashing food but using it up.

This is an example of what a psychologist would call self-sabotage.

Absolute agree with anything in your post, especially this bit.

I know it as the 'previous investment trap'.

It's the feeling that just because you payed for something, you have to finish it instead of wasting it, even though doing so will cost you a lot more in the long run than the calories did.

Eating after you fill up in a restaurant is a good example, as is insisting up the giant coke you got when you ordered whatever convenience food even though you're not thirsty, as is eating food just because it's free (party at the office) even though you're not hungry, as is going for the best value in terms of price/portion size.

All this stuff is stupid to do, because the real value of food isn't in it's price, it's in how well it does at fueling your body. Packing in an extra 500 calories just because you're financially invested in them will not save you money in the long run. You'll pay for it both in time, health, as well as monetarily trying to get ride of the weight later, just because you wanted to save a few bucks.

When food's not good for your to eat, whether it's the wrong kind of food or too much of it, it's not good for you to eat, period. Discarding it should be the easy choice instead of stuffing your face with it, because eating it WILL be more expensive in the long run anyways.

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ORIGINAL: AthenaSurrenders

While I agree with you in theory, sometimes there just isn't enough money to replace food without eating it.

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

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ORIGINAL: AthenaSurrenders

While I agree with you in theory, sometimes there just isn't enough money to replace food without eating it.

I agree with that too. I don't think that doing a total diet overhaul from one day to the next works for most people anyways. The first thing that needs to be brought under control is portion size.

Going from eating mostly junk food and deserts to eating only greens and grilled chicken in one day doesn't work. If you don't have a good sense of what you're eating, and why, and how much, to the point that you can start turning down seconds of your favorite junk foods because you know your body has had more than enough isn't going to get you anywhere.

The more you're aware of what you're eating, and what it's doing to your body, the more 'expensive' that extra piece of fried fish will start to look in your mind, and the easier it'll become to turn it down in favor of an extra portion of veggies.

So food can absolutely be used up instead of trashed, but it needs to be done not because of cost as a primary reason, but instead be seen as an opportunity to get more closely familiar with what the actual 'cost' of that food turns out to be.

Just finishing off what's left in the house in the idea 'I already paid for it and can't afford to waste it' to then attempt to switch cold turkey to a diet that you're neither familiar with, nor particularly like, will get you nowhere.

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ORIGINAL: Gauge

You can change any behavior when you are willing to make the choice and stick by the choice. When people tell me they want to quit smoking and they are "cutting down gradually" I have a hearty laugh at them and tell them they are doomed to failure. You either quit or you don't. Simple.

In the case where their food budget is as tight as it is, wasting food may well not be an option but you need time to understand and prepare for the change anyway, so finish the food you have and the next trip to the grocery store start on your new diet and don't look back. This is a lifestyle change and keeping crap in your diet so you think you will transition to healthier choices eventually just is a formula for failure. Stop the bad behavior, start the new improved behavior.

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

This isn't a matter of simple 'quitting eating bad food' it's a matter of 'learning how to eat good food'.

What a lot of people who are used to eating healthy underestimate, is that people who don't eat healthy don't know how to eat healthy, because of a lack of habits.
It's not a simple as merely having the willpower, it's a matter of learning new habits.

If you've been eating junk for 20 years, and you go to your grocery store once a week to get healthy stuff, what are you supposed to get? How much fruit, veggies and meat do you need for a week? How do you estimate the level of satisfaction a meal is going to give you, and the amount of seconds your body is going to want on the greens? Do you need to account for 2 cups of lettuce, or 4?

The worst thing you can do when switching diets is make your body go hungry, it will just make you more prone to 'cheating' by ordering yet more junk... the thing is, learning to cook, eat, and shop for healthy foods when you've been used for 20 years to use pop something from the freezer into the microwave takes time. It can take so much time that it makes your weekly hour long grocery trip suddenly take 4 hours, just because you suddenly need to read every label, and need to relearn all the basics from the start. Cooking and preparing food can take even longer. For somebody who hasn't truly cooked in a long time, just relearning the basics like how to not burn grilled chicken breasts can take a couple of tries.

If it was as easy as 'instead of this list of food, buy this list of food' and 'eat this instead of this' I would agree with you that it was matter of willpower, but it's that simple. Somebody who's been eating microwave dinners for 20 years, needs to learn by trial and error which healthy foods speak to them, and which don't. Switching to a list of food you hate isn't a long term solution, you need to relearn to like the food that's good for you.

Doing that, you do one meal at a time. If you switch from your comfort zone food to suddenly adding 10-20 hours a week in food prep, shopping and meal times on food you feel you don't like and doesn't fill you, you aren't going to last, not because you don't have the willpower to stick to it, but because human beings aren't designed to spend that much time actively engaging in an activity they despise doing, on something you SHOULD be enjoying.

Taking it one meal at a time, and one change at a time guarantees that the change can be implemented at a pace that's both realistic and sustainable.

Smokers quit smoking by cutting cigarettes out of their lives. People don't quit junk food by quitting food... they quit junk food by adding healthy foods in.

Doing that requires learning HOW to do that.