Losing It

Weight Loss Reality

Via TVGuide:

NATURAL DOWNSIZING: Have you ever fantasized about what The Swan would look like without all of the apocalyptic overtones and Amanda Byram? NBC is betting you have. According to Variety, the network has greenlit production of The Biggest Loser, an eight-episode reality series in which plus-size contestants compete to see who can achieve the most spectacular physical transformation — without going under the knife. "People will have to work to get healthy," says producer Ben Silverman. "There are no short cuts." (Unless you're really freaky looking, in which case a little nip, tuck and suck will be allowed.)

Enjoying the big life...

...a little less. A victorious two pound loss for week one of Diet-to-go. Went to a party Saturday night and only had two beers (but also had a couple of to-die-for appetizers that were in no way healthy). Sunday, another day we are not currently using the service, was healthy with the only bad food being half a fried soft-shell crab...oh but it was so good.

05.20.04

Another on-program day completed. I came in at 1450 calories. I added a salad and a small piece of chocolate to my day - that was it.

Lunch yesterday was a pretzel roll with ham salad. I toasted the roll before putting the salad on and it was pretty tasty. Not as good as a DuClaw turkey melt but hey, it was under 400 calories!

05.19.04

It has been a while since I even dared us this system that I came up with way back in December. Yesterday I was good on calories but got no workout in. Now, to ease into time for that too....

Farm Animal Diet

Recently I've started to see No Pudge Fudge products showing up in the grocery store complete with the bright pink pig on the front. The fat free brownie mix provides a way to get that chewy chocolatey goodness without the guilt. My friend tried them and thought they were great..I have yet to give them a try.

But first, there was Skinny Cow providing us with all kinds of yummy frozen treats. I love the ice cream sandwiches are are the perfect 130 calorie treat for a summer night. They come in lots of flavors and I'm a big fan of foods that are already portioned out into individual servings so these are perfect. They recently added a line of low-carb options as well (low carb is taking over!). Slightly higher in calories they have about have the carbs and only 3g net impact carbs.

But what are Net Impact Carbs? I decided to do a little research to find out more. The first place I looked was the Atkins Website. Since the Atkins diet centers around a low-carb lifestyle it was the obvious choice and I did find some useful information:

At Atkins Nutritionals, we specially formulate our products to taste great while minimizing the impact of carbohydrates on your blood sugar level. We do this by understanding that not all carbohydrates behave the same way in your body. While most carbs–sugar is the best example–are digested and turned into blood sugar, other carbs behave differently. Some are digested by your body but not turned into glucose and some carbs–such as fiber–are not digested at all and pass through your body as waste....We use certain carbohydrates in Atkins products and avoid others. Instead of using sugar in any of its forms (glucose, fructose, lactose or maltose), we rely on sweeteners such as sucralose (marketed as Splenda®). We also use glycerine and sugar alcohols such as maltitol as sweeteners, as well as polydextrose, which is also a bulking agent and serves as a source of added fiber. Fiber, glycerine, maltitol and polydextrose are carbohydrates that have a minimal impact on blood sugar.

Okay, so net carbs are what are left after the carbs our body just can't digest are "passed" right? Well, not exactly. Fiber is not digested but the other carbs still are-they just don't cause the blood sugar levels to rise as much or as quickly which may help keep that extra fat away.

So, do we even even need to count the calories from those non-net carbs if we are watching calories, not carbs? Can we still gain weight and fat from those carbs?

For some answers, I turned to a no-bull article about net carbs on Outside Magazine's website. He point out in reference to the idea of subtracking fiber and other non-digestable carbs from the total carbs:

Critics of this new math say that all of the above are still carbs, and any carbs ingested in an environment of elevated blood sugar will be stored as fat whether or not those carbs were guilty of raising the blood sugar themselves.

Next, I went to my favorite source for health information, WebMD. A search on their site for "net carbs" brought back lots of results including an article that explains more about what low-carb really means.

"Their rationale is that the glycerin and the sugar alcohols do not raise blood sugar as quickly or as high as the regular carbohydrates," says Heller, who is a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center. "Though this is true, they're choosing to ignore the fact that they still have calories."

They go on to say that consumers really need to read the labels on items since there is no legislation currently about what can be called "low-carb". But yes, those calories do, in fact count. They wrap it up with:

"During the low-fat craze, people ran out and bought low-fat Snackwell cookies," says Lindner. "Well, guess what? They have the same number of calories as Oreos and Chips Ahoy, and you're not going to lose weight if you keep eating those. It's the same thing with the low-carb products. They essentially have as many calories as the things they are meant to replace, and you're not going to lose weight if you don't eat fewer calories."

A while back I had something similar to say! Oh, and the irony of the WebMD article is that while I was viewing it, the ads on the page were for Low-Carb Total cereal.

Boxed Lunch

Day two of the new meal plan and both of us are suprising satisfied with the offerings.

Last nights dinner of personal-size chicken pizza with steamed broccoli and a tiny piece of angel food cake with some sort of strawberry glaze was quite tasty, and filling, in fact. Rather than heating up the pizza in the microwave we pulled out our pizza stone which helped to crisp the crust. My plan of adding a yogurt, salad, and skinny cow ice cream sandwich worked out perfectly bringing me in at 1586 for my calorie count. My goal is to stay around 1600.

Day One: prepared meals

We finally broke down and decided that we need help with our food. As in, we cannot be left to our own devices to actually cook a health and portion correct meal. The past six months have been a blur of Burger King, Popeyes, and Papa Johns. I feel gross, I look gross: you are what you eat.

Realizing that the rest of my life is not likely to slow down, I had to come up with a way to improve our eating without resorting to frozen meals, and without having to go to the grocery store (I just don't feel that I have the time-or that I want to spend my little free time that way). I had remembered a girl from my diet support group trying DietToGo a while back and commenting that the food was actually pretty good.

I brought up the possiblity of going with a "meal preparation" service to my husband and he seemed interested. We looked at the menus and the prices to determine what would best meet our needs. He was looking for healthier eating, I was looking for that plus weight loss. We both really needed CONVENIENCE!

We decided to dive in. After a brief chat with a customer service rep we were scheduled for the 5 day, Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner plan. That way we can still go out on weekends as we typically do, but during the week are are covered.

Here's how this works:
On Tuesdays and Fridays you pick up your meals. By only getting a few days at a time the meals can be fresh and not frozen...a big plus. Your credit card is automatically charged for the meals, and they just assume you want to continue week to week until you call and cancel or change your plan.

Last night was our first pickup. I headed out to the fitness center that acts as a distribution point (about 10 minutes from my apt). I go in, let the staff person know I'm there to pick up my meals, and sign a sheet to say I got them. That's it. Two big bags (one for me, one for the hubby) and I head back home. I'm a big fan of anything in kit format so I was absolutely fascinated by the packaging. Everything for your entire meal is in one package. For example, this morning's breakfast was two pancakes rolled around blueberries and a small soy sausage patty. The small container of syrup was included. Everything you need for your meal is included (except plastic cutlery which I would suggest they add). Breakfast and lunch can be enjoyed cold or warmed up. Dinner is usually something you microwave (they come in a microwave safe bowl).

Breakfast was yummy and although I was concerned about getting hungry before lunch, I made sure to drink lots of water and before I knew it-it was lunch time! Lunch was tuna salad, a cup of fresh fruit, and a small roll. Again, it looked like a small meal but the tuna salad was pretty filling and the fresh fruit tasted great. I did bring my own yogurt for an afternoon snack. I'm on the 1200 calorie meal plan and plan to subsidize with about 300 calories a day of my own. The meals don't have much in the way of veggies...I guess to avoid people feeling like they are eating like rabbits so I plan to add a salad with dinner, a yogurt as an afternoon snack, and some sort of treat for dessert (I love skinny cow ice cream sandwiches).