Need to stop weighing myself daily

by | Feb 8, 2013 | How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

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Taking your body measurements around the neck, bust, chest, stomach, hips and thighs is always a good idea when we start any weight loss journey because as others have said the scales do lie.

The tape measure however doesn’t lie as much but the great thing is they seldom lie together. I do recommend also that people take a set of clothes that were snug when they first started the diet and try those on once a week to see how the fit is changing. You can also measure yourself once a week as well. 

I would normally recommend people measure, weight and see how loose the clothes are getting just once a week all on the same day but if you prefer to have more ongoing encouragement you can do all those on different days so you’re still doing each of them once a week but you’re getting an encouragement every two or three days, say.

So measure your weight on Monday, see how your clothes fit on Wednesday and jump on the scales on Friday or Saturday and don’t forget to keep a record of each one because that way you’ll see the numbers slowly descending and even though the weight may not be going down, you might find you’re losing inches and even though the inches may not be going down you might find that the fit of your clothes has got loser. I’m sure you get the picture.

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is a recent comment that I made on a forum post abut weight loss

Drinking tea

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

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Yes I’m a confirmed tea addict as well although for the last few years my first cup of the day is  normally coffee which I have with cream so no problems there but for mid morning onward it’s tea.

For me the best way to drink tea is nice strong tea with milk counted towards my daily carb content or wheat tea without milk. Then of course you’ve got all the different flavored teas and don’t forget infusions as well, one of my favorite is mint and licorice.

The bottom line is there’s no problem drinking any type of tea virtually, it’ what’s you have with it that can make the huge difference in the long run.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Here is the copy of the comment I made on the forum post about tea

Literally Watching While You Eat

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

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Yes other people do seem to be really really really really more interested in what we eat than what we are ourselves and they seem to enjoy pointing that out to all when we’re in the restaurant with them and there are many many reasons why they’re like that; some of you have already listed some, jealousy, envy, concern.

But we need to write down the concern into two types. These concerns for us that we may be doing the wrong thing which in their eyes will do us harm.

But there is also a concern for themselves that we may be doing the right thing and they may have to change their understanding of what is a good diet and of course many people really do fear change which remind me, some of you may have heard the old saying that “you never talk about religion or politics as that can lead to heated discussions” because people don’t like being told what to believe or how they should vote. One thing I found is that neither do people like being told what they should eat.

Anyway, I digress. As far as eating at restaurants goes I found two helpful little things that we can do. Whenever I go into a restaurant now I pick up the menu, scan down it, make a choice of one or two things, close the menu and put it down and say ” Yes I know I’m going to eat” whereupon everybody looks at you to say “Oh!”. So that then takes away their opportunity to try and  choose things for us because we’ve already made our choice which means that they get on looking at what they want to eat. Now once they are all engrossed with deciding what they want to eat, you can then return back to the menu if you want to just to confirm your choice or maybe decide on something else.

The other thing I always do is order first again for much the same reason, by getting in first and giving the serving staff my order, it does mean that the others in the party will probably have to go back and look at the menu to make certain that they’re ordering the right thing which takes away the opportunity for them to talk about what we’re ordering.

The next time you’re in that situation try those two little tips, you’ll find them very useful.

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is a copy of the recent comment I made on a forum post about dieting and social support

Indian Food

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

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I love Indian food but many of you are right.  Chefs do add quite add a lot of sugar in order to get the taste that their customers like.  Anglo-Saxons do have an undeniable ability to gain a sweet tooth very quickly.

The best way of getting a safe carb count on any dish like that is to make it yourself from fresh ingredients. Most Indian dishes are not hard to do although they may require a bit more time than many because meats in particular require marinating in the sauce but of course the great thing about making it yourself is you can swap in and swap out anything that’s not on your particular permitted list.

If you do want to eat out then it might be best to find a restaurant that you like and then have a chat with the chef and ask him to make the dish as close as he can as possible but without including any of the high carb ingredients.

We actually got to know the proprietor and the chef of our local restaurant who has it happened were husband and wife to the point where we were invited to their own home sociably. It was noticeable that the food they cook for themselves was vastly different to the food that they cook in the restaurant simply because they were cooking to traditional taste rather than commercial taste.

The good thing of course is to my mind anyway, the traditional taste was actually much nicer. But what that did mean is that when we ate in the restaurant as we would do so with other friends from time to time that I at least could have the dishes I like made in a way that didn’t cause me any problems whatsoever.

You will find most chefs of most restaurants will be open to the challenge of getting a unique taste from a more basic set of ingredients. Don’t be shy about asking them if they’re willing to do it for you.  Many of them will be that is of course if you don’t want to make it at home.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Here is a copy of another post I made on a forum post about Indian food

Sorry to keep asking questions

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

This is a copy of the comment I made I made on a forum post regarding low carb diet

 

Hi Myers728 ,

You’ve had some pretty good responses from all the previous posters.

You have what I have often term as “carb creep” which is where we more or less follow the diet as we are supposed to but we get to the point where we start to add things to it and little by little the actual amount of carbs that we’re consuming gradually creeps up to the point where we are no longer maintaining a steady level and we can flip flop in and out of ketosis.

Many people seem  to think that ketosis is like a switch, it’s either on or itself but it’s more like a valve  that can be fully opened or fully closed but also somewhere in between the trick is to try and maintain it as fully open as possible as much of the time as we can and to be frank the only way we can do that is to keep at or around the magic 20 grams, I say at or around because for some people, in fact make that most people, can be a little  bit more than 20 grams, some even up to 50 but for a few it can be a lot  less.

So just to reiterate whatever anyone else has said be vigilant about how many carbs you actually are consuming and  follow whatever plan you’re meant to be following to the tee without either adding anything in or taking anything away.

Hope that helps,

Mark

New study

by | Feb 5, 2013 | Food Choices, Low carb diet, Sensible Eating, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Another comment  I made on a forum post about a study on how a vegetarian diet can cut the risk of a heart disease

 

Hi Helena,

Thank you for the super post!

It does bring out one of the most glaring admission by people who do studies like this.

The simple fact is that vegetarians have made a conscious decision to control what they eat which often goes hand in hand with deciding to look after their health. For them that obviously involves not eating meat to a greater or lesser extent. But because they’re doing it to look after their health, they are probably taking other measures as well.

Most of the vegetarians that I know have given up smoking, drink in moderation, many of them though not all take vitamin and mineral supplements but an even larger number try and eat organic which means they’re not getting the whole raft of poisons in the form of hormones, drugs, pest control chemicals and so on that people who don’t make the decision to do something with their health will continue to get.

I genuinely think this is one of those cases where the unmeasured factors that I have just mentioned probably play a far greater role in the improved health of the ones who decided to look after their health than many people think.

Cheers,

Mark

 

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Link to the Oxford Study