I got tired of being hungry all the time. I hated it. Always having to find a decent healthy snack… which is work, honestly. So I changed my diet so I didn’t get hungry any more. I feel so much better.

Cooking is work, so if you tell yourself that you’ll take 2/3 of that ridiculously calorie-laden restaurant meal home, you can later be lazy and not cook two other meals.

If you cut your portions to a reasonable size, you can be lazy and have your own leftovers, or better yet, not have to shop as often.

If you cook big pots of healthy bean or split pea dishes, you have heart-healthy food for the week.

After years of slowly gaining, I finally lost a lot of weight. I started out by doing some reading about hunger and was surprised how simple that was. I kept thinking, why didn’t anyone ever tell me this before? Sugars and the resulting insulin production cause hunger. Also social cues cause hunger, but not real hunger (learning to differentiate is good). You can turn off hunger by eating a bite of something fatty (spoonful of peanut butter, or 1/2 oz of cheese) and waiting 20 minutes. So, now if I do get famished, I do that before cooking, by the time I sit down to a meal, I just pick at it. Also, when you think you’ve eaten enough, but still want to eat more, set a timer for 15 minutes and then see if you really are hungry. If you start a meal with a bit of fat, when that hits the bottom of your stomach, you will cease to be hungry.

Also soluble fiber is critical for insulin management. Every meal needs lots of it, i slows absorption of consumed calories and avoids the insulin spike. So lots of veges with every meal. And pasta only el dente, overcooked pasta is like eating white sugar for your body.

So for me what worked was: no simple sugars (absolutely NO high fructose corn syrup–that stuff is terrible for you), lots of vegetables with every meal, lots of beans and split peas, and only really small portions of complex carbs. After the first week of adjustment, it was lazy to keep doing it since I felt so much better, feeling crappy again would have been like work.

These are all some very inspirational people. Which is what I need daily.

Thanks

I also agree on debt being easier than weight. It’s something I’ve meant to write about lately, but it’s not like I really have any answers for it either. I’m making a lot more progress with my debt than with my weight. Hopefully I can find a way to get the weight moving like the debt is.

I’m pretty excited about (finally) eliminating the last of my credit card debt. It’s a wonky feeling! :0)