Diet soda

Dally wrote:

You misunderstand what "go low carb" means. It means practice portion
control while still being sated. It's easier to do by making wise food
choices. Carbs aren't bad or evil, they just blow your calorie budget
too easily while still leaving you hungry.

Well, to be fair, the people who were offering this advice didn't
know what it means either. To them it simply meant eating a few as
carbs as possible, while eating all the bacon, cheese, salami, and eggs
they felt like. I do understand that protein rich foods tend to be more
filling, thus a person might eat less, but this isn't what my friends
were promoting.

I do believe that the low carb lifestyle is perfectly sustainable,
if done correctly. It's not for me, though. I would be much, much more
inclined to become a vegetarian than go low carb. I probably eat less
than a pound of meat of week now, though from time to time I do have a
blow out of barbeque ribs, a big hamburger, or some such.

Bingo. The obese patients get indignant and leave if you discuss their
weight with them.

In the bad old days, I wouldn't get indignant, but I wasn't real
cooperative either. I regret it now.

--
Annie

As of 07-14-06: 258/188/140 Standing at 5 foot 4.

70 pounds lost. 48 left to go. Started February/07/05

Come visit my weight-loss web site, Annie Takes Off.
http://webpages.charter.net/lenny13/DietFrontPage.html

*Grin* that's a challenge if I ever saw one..

;o)
Will~

"Andy" q wrote in message ...
"The Historian" wrote in
oups.com:


Andy wrote:
But if you're not on a
diet, I'd make you a to-die-for cayenne fettuccine with chicken in
alfredo sauce, to prove a point. LOL!

OK, when do I come over?

Neil, not on a diet, but making a lifestyle change.
385/309/220


Neil,

Very funny! When you reach 219 I'll make it for you!

Andy

"Annie Benson Lennaman" wrote in
message . ..


Dally wrote:

You misunderstand what "go low carb" means. It means practice portion
control while still being sated. It's easier to do by making wise food
choices. Carbs aren't bad or evil, they just blow your calorie budget
too easily while still leaving you hungry.

Well, to be fair, the people who were offering this advice didn't
know what it means either. To them it simply meant eating a few as
carbs as possible, while eating all the bacon, cheese, salami, and eggs
they felt like. I do understand that protein rich foods tend to be more
filling, thus a person might eat less, but this isn't what my friends
were promoting.

I do believe that the low carb lifestyle is perfectly sustainable,
if done correctly. It's not for me, though. I would be much, much more
inclined to become a vegetarian than go low carb. I probably eat less
than a pound of meat of week now, though from time to time I do have a
blow out of barbeque ribs, a big hamburger, or some such.

Bingo. The obese patients get indignant and leave if you discuss their
weight with them.

In the bad old days, I wouldn't get indignant, but I wasn't real
cooperative either. I regret it now.

I think we've all been there... "Huh, yeah,I'll try and lose a few lbs"
you're only ready when you're ready.

Will~

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:46:59 -0500, wrote:

"Sudden Disruption" wrote:

Yes, diet soda may tune up your sweet tooth, or leach your bones, but
if so they are minor factors compared to the effect of CALORIES on your
body.

I used to drink 3 cans of Mt Dew a day

I now drink 2 cans of diet Coke a day

I realize that diet soda is probably not good either
but like above my reasoning was that the calories form
the Mt dew were worse than the diet soda effects

I was really "hooked" on Mt dew. No kidding.

I'm *amazed* at how addictive that stuff is. When we were doing
public lan parties people would should up with cases and cases of the
stuff and be guzzling it throughout the weekend. I even saw a guy
show up with a camelback full of the stuff and he kept it topped up
throughout the weekend.

When we did lan parties at my house, it would be potluck and folks
would show up with the widest array of crap food- hostess cakes, bags
of candy bars, doughnuts, every kind of junk food imaginable,
basically. Energy drinks and sugar soda was the norm, and by the end
of the weekend we'd basically feel like the floor of a movie theater.

I've been encouraging people who want to come to my lanparties to
switch over to cold cuts, veggie trays, diet sodas and water and it's
helped a lot. I'm the only one with a weight problem, but everyone
acknowledges that we're all better off.

At some point I will give up diet coke as well and
start with green tea.

Binky wrote:

I've been encouraging people who want to come to my lanparties to
switch over to cold cuts, veggie trays, diet sodas and water and it's
helped a lot. I'm the only one with a weight problem, but everyone
acknowledges that we're all better off.

It certainly helps if you can surround yourself with a community of
people with similar values regarding food and exercise. So bringing
your friends a few steps along your journey is a great idea. But don't
fall into the trap of thinking that you can't behave the way YOU want to
behave because no one else does. Food is intensely personal. You could
have food allergies, diabetes, be fasting for religious purposes... the
list is endless and really no one else's business. Don't feel pressured
to eat what everyone else is eating.

Regarding diet soda, it's not great, but not an immediate threat.
You've got enough changes to do, there's no harm in saving this one to
tackle another day.

You said you need to lose "a lot" of weight. Where do you stand now?
What's your story?

Dally
244/165/155

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:11:11 -0700, Binky wrote:

This may have been addressed-

I drink (what seems to be) a lot of diet soda- sometimes as much as
2-3 cans a day. I drink 64-96 ounces of water in a day, I don't start
hitting the soda until after I get home- What kind of impact does
this have on weight loss? The only thing on the nutrition info is
35mg Sodium.

Browsing the messages it sounds like most people drink just iced tea
or water with their wegiht loss regimen, but the soda may be a tough
one for me to give up

BTW- Just found this group, and it's inspriing me to try and get my
nutrition under control.

Thanks in advance

FWIW, I drink a whole lot of Diet Pepsi -- generally 4-6 24 oz.
bottles a day -- and have done so throughout weight loss and
maintenance. I don't think this is at all good, and have tried to cut
back but haven't been too successful. But my reasons have nothing to
do with weight loss or maintenance -- it's just too much caffeine (and
probably too much artificial sweetener, though I don't really worry
about that) and is dehydrating (I drink water too, but not enough).

So my thought is that giving up diet soda might be good for you but I
wouldn't count on it having an effect on your weight loss. Others
might advise differently, though. I've read of studies suggesting
that people who drink diet soda are more likely to be overweight, but
of course this immediately raises "chicken and egg" questions.

Chris
262/130s/130s
started dieting July 2002, maintaining since June 2004

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 14:52:49 -0400, Dally wrote:

You said you need to lose "a lot" of weight. Where do you stand now?
What's your story?

A couple weeks ago I went in to see the doctor about a flu that was
going around, and I weighed in at 407, which is the heaviest I've ever
been. Breaking the 400 lb. mark was heartbreaking to me, but I kind
of laughed it off a little. My doctor scribbled out a quick script
for my sniffles and wanted to talk seriously about my weight problem.
The only problem was that he really only wanted to talk about weight
loss surgery, and gave me a referral to a surgeon.

History-wise, I've always been heavy. I broke 200 lb. while I was
sitll in middle school. I'm unwilling to analyze what happened there,
because I didn't know any better, and I'm not willing to blame my
parents. I went into the military after high school. I had to get
down to 250 for that, and I did it with Nutrisystem. I consider it a
success and the only nutritional education I'd had up to that point.
Throughout my time in the Army I struggled significantly with my
weight, so much so that I was relieved when I eventually left (for
reasons other than my weight) in 1991.

Didn't really bother trying to control my weight after that and I've
been on a slow increase ever since. I never really actively denied
responsibility for gaining so much weight, but it's pretty easy to
keep my head in the sand for a variety of reasons.

I had mixed feelings about the doctor visit- my doctor is a very thin
guy, and generally does not give me easy outs, so secretly I was a
little happy (You mean I don't have to change my habits? Awesome!),
but it was also a place I never wanted to be. My wife wanted to
change doctors. My Mother and Father were supportive, but didn't like
the idea of weight loss surgery. Most of my friends were supportive
of my but didn't express much of an opinion.

I approached the problem logically. First, I'm not taking options off
the table. I gave myself three main options:
1. control my own intake and excercise
2. Some sort of weight loss program like Nutrisystem
3. Surgery

I won't go through my decision making process, but it came down to
picking the first option as the easiest to get started with, selling
it against the other two (if this fails, I have to do one of the
others and I don't want that, so I'm motivated to make it work).
Finding this newsgroup was a big part of helping make that decision,
and I imagine it'll play a role in helping me stick to it. I know my
friends love me, but I doubt they'll tell me what I need to hear in
it's unvarnished form the same way you guys will.

Frankly I've *never* written any of this down, nor have I really
talked about my weight issues with anyone. Now that I think about it,
most of my friends probably believe I've come to terms with being so
big and just accept it.

Gah- this post is already too long. Maybe I should start a blog, this
seems like it would make a great first entry

Binky wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 14:52:49 -0400, Dally wrote:


You said you need to lose "a lot" of weight. Where do you stand now?
What's your story?


A couple weeks ago I went in to see the doctor about a flu that was
going around, and I weighed in at 407, which is the heaviest I've ever
been. Breaking the 400 lb. mark was heartbreaking to me, but I kind
of laughed it off a little. My doctor scribbled out a quick script
for my sniffles and wanted to talk seriously about my weight problem.
The only problem was that he really only wanted to talk about weight
loss surgery, and gave me a referral to a surgeon.

History-wise, I've always been heavy. I broke 200 lb. while I was
sitll in middle school. I'm unwilling to analyze what happened there,
because I didn't know any better, and I'm not willing to blame my
parents. I went into the military after high school. I had to get
down to 250 for that, and I did it with Nutrisystem. I consider it a
success and the only nutritional education I'd had up to that point.
Throughout my time in the Army I struggled significantly with my
weight, so much so that I was relieved when I eventually left (for
reasons other than my weight) in 1991.

Didn't really bother trying to control my weight after that and I've
been on a slow increase ever since. I never really actively denied
responsibility for gaining so much weight, but it's pretty easy to
keep my head in the sand for a variety of reasons.

I had mixed feelings about the doctor visit- my doctor is a very thin
guy, and generally does not give me easy outs, so secretly I was a
little happy (You mean I don't have to change my habits? Awesome!),
but it was also a place I never wanted to be. My wife wanted to
change doctors. My Mother and Father were supportive, but didn't like
the idea of weight loss surgery. Most of my friends were supportive
of my but didn't express much of an opinion.

I approached the problem logically. First, I'm not taking options off
the table. I gave myself three main options:
1. control my own intake and excercise
2. Some sort of weight loss program like Nutrisystem
3. Surgery

I won't go through my decision making process, but it came down to
picking the first option as the easiest to get started with, selling
it against the other two (if this fails, I have to do one of the
others and I don't want that, so I'm motivated to make it work).
Finding this newsgroup was a big part of helping make that decision,
and I imagine it'll play a role in helping me stick to it. I know my
friends love me, but I doubt they'll tell me what I need to hear in
it's unvarnished form the same way you guys will.

Frankly I've *never* written any of this down, nor have I really
talked about my weight issues with anyone. Now that I think about it,
most of my friends probably believe I've come to terms with being so
big and just accept it.

Gah- this post is already too long. Maybe I should start a blog, this
seems like it would make a great first entry

I think it's interesting the way we can not notice when the moment comes
that we ought to eat less and exercise more. A slender friend once
asked me, "didn't you notice you had to buy bigger jeans?" Now I look
back and marvel that I didn't heed any of those warning signs.

Unlike you, I'm not so slow to blame my parents. ;-) I used to think I
was fat because of genetics, but now I know that my parents just plain
old didn't know how to eat. They honestly had no idea, and to this day
continue to be blissfully ignorant of nutritional concepts like glycemic
load, phytonutrients and macronutrient ratios or portion sizes. It's
all greek to them. All they know is that they hate eating at my place
because my serving sizes are so tiny compared to what they're used to
eating.

You just don't know how to eat yet. It's okay, because you can learn.
It's not awful to eat within your calorie budget. It just takes a bit
of planning and awareness. If you screw up, no big deal, just try to be
more aware next time. Obesity is completely reversible for someone like
you, who woke up and decided to do it.

One of the things that helped me a lot when I first got started was the
simple exercise of just writing down everything I ate. Not measuring at
first, keep it simple. Just write down what you ate, when. If you feel
like adding a note, add a note. THIS might be a good place for a blog.
In fact, I have a food and exercise blog. It's deathly boring to
read, but serves as a way for me to do this same exercise. It's really
illuminating. I found out that I eat more when I got to bed late the
night before, and that I tended to snack at specific times.

The way I handled that was to plan on snack at those times. Heck, why
fight myself? The goal was to work with what I had.

Have you been keeping any sort of food journal? Have you found anything
interesting yet?

Dally

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:11:42 -0400, Dally wrote:

I think it's interesting the way we can not notice when the moment comes
that we ought to eat less and exercise more. A slender friend once
asked me, "didn't you notice you had to buy bigger jeans?" Now I look
back and marvel that I didn't heed any of those warning signs.

God- talk about a HUGE (no pun intended) subject: the neurosis of
getting fat. I think you hit it though- the difference between SEEING
the signs and HEEDING the signs. Why do we decide not to take action
when we see what's happening? I'm betting that question sets the
tenor for a lot of the threads in this newsgroup.

Unlike you, I'm not so slow to blame my parents. ;-) I used to think I
was fat because of genetics, but now I know that my parents just plain
old didn't know how to eat. They honestly had no idea, and to this day
continue to be blissfully ignorant of nutritional concepts like glycemic
load, phytonutrients and macronutrient ratios or portion sizes. It's
all greek to them. All they know is that they hate eating at my place
because my serving sizes are so tiny compared to what they're used to
eating.

Well, maybe when I was 12 they could have done things different, but
it's harder to use that as an excuse for being overweight at 30. My
parents eat pretty well now compared to when I was a kid, and I know
they're concerned about my weight. They should have thought about
that when they were feeding me all that meat loaf and Kraft dinner
back when I was a kid

You just don't know how to eat yet. It's okay, because you can learn.
It's not awful to eat within your calorie budget. It just takes a bit
of planning and awareness. If you screw up, no big deal, just try to be
more aware next time. Obesity is completely reversible for someone like
you, who woke up and decided to do it.

Well, I've been through a few programs with varying levels of success,
so I'm aware of things like tracking my calories, keeping a food log,
keeping up my protein intake, all of that sort of thing. The gap
between knowing what to do and actually doing it has been the
difficult part. I'll probably be asking some questions about tweaking
my eating plan (a term a prefer to "diet") in the next few days.

One of the things that helped me a lot when I first got started was the
simple exercise of just writing down everything I ate. Not measuring at
first, keep it simple. Just write down what you ate, when. If you feel
like adding a note, add a note. THIS might be a good place for a blog.
In fact, I have a food and exercise blog. It's deathly boring to
read, but serves as a way for me to do this same exercise. It's really
illuminating. I found out that I eat more when I got to bed late the
night before, and that I tended to snack at specific times.

Y'know, just the act of logging my intake has, in itself, motivated me
to reduce my intake. When I'm thinking about hitting the drive
through, knowing that I'll have to log the meal makes me think twice
about it. Starting with *just* logging the food made it not seem so
daunting to start some new habits.

The way I handled that was to plan on snack at those times. Heck, why
fight myself? The goal was to work with what I had.

Have you been keeping any sort of food journal? Have you found anything
interesting yet?

Well, my intake wasn't as bad as I thought for the few days I've been
logging so far. During the week, if I avoided fast food I found it
pretty easy to stay under 2000 calories. this last weekend I found it
a constant struggle to keep from overeating. I stayed under 2000
calories on Sunday but I was pretty hungry.

Fast food is my big problem. Tasty and easy. I spend a lot of time
driving around during the day, and it's a lot easier to just hit the
drive through than actually plan my meals around my daily
appointments. This I've known for a while and will definitely be my
biggest challenge. I haven't had to face it yet, since I've only been
at it a few days, but we'll see how it goes at the end of this week.

Dally

Binky wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:11:42 -0400, Dally wrote:

I think it's interesting the way we can not notice when the moment comes
that we ought to eat less and exercise more. A slender friend once
asked me, "didn't you notice you had to buy bigger jeans?" Now I look
back and marvel that I didn't heed any of those warning signs.

God- talk about a HUGE (no pun intended) subject: the neurosis of
getting fat. I think you hit it though- the difference between SEEING
the signs and HEEDING the signs. Why do we decide not to take action
when we see what's happening? I'm betting that question sets the
tenor for a lot of the threads in this newsgroup.

I slowly saw my weight creep up, from about 280 in college to 300, then
310, 317, etc... and eventually I reached 385. I knew what to do; in my
case my self esteem was so low that I simply accepted that I didn't
deserve to be thin. I don't feel that way now. :-)

Unlike you, I'm not so slow to blame my parents. ;-) I used to think I
was fat because of genetics, but now I know that my parents just plain
old didn't know how to eat. They honestly had no idea, and to this day
continue to be blissfully ignorant of nutritional concepts like glycemic
load, phytonutrients and macronutrient ratios or portion sizes. It's
all greek to them. All they know is that they hate eating at my place
because my serving sizes are so tiny compared to what they're used to
eating.

Well, maybe when I was 12 they could have done things different, but
it's harder to use that as an excuse for being overweight at 30. My
parents eat pretty well now compared to when I was a kid, and I know
they're concerned about my weight. They should have thought about
that when they were feeding me all that meat loaf and Kraft dinner
back when I was a kid

OK. In my case, it's no one's fault but my own. I've always been an
overeater.

You just don't know how to eat yet. It's okay, because you can learn.
It's not awful to eat within your calorie budget. It just takes a bit
of planning and awareness. If you screw up, no big deal, just try to be
more aware next time. Obesity is completely reversible for someone like
you, who woke up and decided to do it.

Well, I've been through a few programs with varying levels of success,
so I'm aware of things like tracking my calories, keeping a food log,
keeping up my protein intake, all of that sort of thing. The gap
between knowing what to do and actually doing it has been the
difficult part. I'll probably be asking some questions about tweaking
my eating plan (a term a prefer to "diet") in the next few days.

That's fine. It's part of what the newsgroup is here for. Just make
sure you actually follow whatever plan you have chosen.

One of the things that helped me a lot when I first got started was the
simple exercise of just writing down everything I ate. Not measuring at
first, keep it simple. Just write down what you ate, when. If you feel
like adding a note, add a note. THIS might be a good place for a blog.
In fact, I have a food and exercise blog. It's deathly boring to
read, but serves as a way for me to do this same exercise. It's really
illuminating. I found out that I eat more when I got to bed late the
night before, and that I tended to snack at specific times.

Y'know, just the act of logging my intake has, in itself, motivated me
to reduce my intake. When I'm thinking about hitting the drive
through, knowing that I'll have to log the meal makes me think twice
about it. Starting with *just* logging the food made it not seem so
daunting to start some new habits.

The secret of logging your intake isn't so much to track it as to force
you to think about it in the first place. I still remember my first
attempts; during them I discovered my "light" eating was about 4000
calories a day. That soon changed. :-)

The way I handled that was to plan on snack at those times. Heck, why
fight myself? The goal was to work with what I had.

Have you been keeping any sort of food journal? Have you found anything
interesting yet?

Well, my intake wasn't as bad as I thought for the few days I've been
logging so far. During the week, if I avoided fast food I found it
pretty easy to stay under 2000 calories. this last weekend I found it
a constant struggle to keep from overeating. I stayed under 2000
calories on Sunday but I was pretty hungry.

2000 calories is too low for someone at 407. I do 2500 myself - or at
least I try to. I often run a couple of hundred over. And I'm still
losing weight on it.

Fast food is my big problem. Tasty and easy. I spend a lot of time
driving around during the day, and it's a lot easier to just hit the
drive through than actually plan my meals around my daily
appointments. This I've known for a while and will definitely be my
biggest challenge. I haven't had to face it yet, since I've only been
at it a few days, but we'll see how it goes at the end of this week.

Make sandwiches or wraps at home and keep them in the car. They will
taste better and be better for you. Baring that, pick up some energy
bars and use them instead. I prefer the sandwich instead, since it's
more filling. Include a banana or apple with it.

What sort of exercise do you take? When I started, I barely managed 7
minutes on a recumbent bike, and had trouble walking a city block. Last
night, I did 40 minutes of upper body lifting, 20 minutes on the bike,
and 20 minutes on the eliptical trainer. If you just try to change
yourself through diet, you are setting yourself up for failure, in my
humble opinion. Like many, I've been there, and have 'done' that.

Welcome to the group, Binky. While you are here, search for posts by
Matty, a super-sized individual who became less of a man and more of a
man at the same time. He went from 500 pounds to about 250!

Neil
385/307/220