Tag Archives: Overeating

August 8, 2012

Diets Don’t Work!!

By Angie Bullock

At least not for me.

I mean, they work temporarily, but clearly they don’t work long-term. Even if the “diet plan” is called something else (“this isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle change”), I’m still changing my eating habits in a way that isn’t going to be permanent, so let’s just call it what it is = diet!! ;-)

So, I’m not going to diet, because it doesn’t work for me!!!

Of course, it’s not like I have any better ideas right now, other than what I blogged about last: logging my food so I’m just more aware of what I’m putting into my mouth. I’ve used MyFitnessPal.com in the past, and it’s a fine site, but after using Lose It! for a couple days, I like it better. It syncs well with my phone (and I like the mobile app better than the MyFitnessPal mobile app) and it also syncs with the gadget I’m really wanting to buy to help me be more active, in general: a Fitbit Ultra*.

*Quick sidenote: If you know me at all in the real world, y’all know I’m a technology junkie. I’m also very competitive and I am the most competitive with myself. So, a wireless activity tracker that has Wifi seems likes the perfect motivator to be more active!

Ok, back to the food issue. I had considered signing up with Weight Watchers again, but in the end, I’m just no longer willing to spend money on a diet, because it’s literally cost me thousands of dollars over 10 years to realize that diets don’t work, and I’m just throwing money away to temporarily lose weight and eventually just gain it back again.

I would love to hear from those of you who have had long-term success with this gluttonous battle. I am just basically at a loss as to where to go next, although I’m excited to start the 12-week Made to Crave study, since the book was awesome, but the study has a 6-week Action Plan study to go along with it!

Success stories anyone? I could use a little encouragement that this demon is possible to overcome!! :-)

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dieting, Gluttony, Prayer, Weight Loss

August 6, 2012

Sad and Powerless

By Angie Bullock

Well, the fact that I haven’t posted a blog post in a really long time has got to clue everyone in at how maintaining my weight loss is going. :-(

It’s truly alarming to me the rate at which I can gain back weight when not paying attention at all. Clothes now don’t fit. Confidence is gone. I give it to God; but I keep taking it back. It is not well with my soul.

How many times have I written that I believe the key for my personal success in this journey is moving? God knows I will give him the diet, but He wants me to stop sitting around and get in shape. I feel like since I haven’t truly been willing to do that yet, I haven’t been able to maintain success with food either.

So, today I started using a new website (Lose It!) and mobile app to track my food. Honestly, it’s not so much about how many calories I eat, exactly, but about being aware of what I’m putting in my mouth. I so have a tendency to take it to either extreme – dieting like a mad woman and losing weight like a fiend, or simply not caring and eating whatever I want in any quantity I want (read: fully succumbing to gluttony).

I am starting slow. I am not diving in to any grand diet plan. I’m taking this first week to just be aware of what I put in my mouth and track it (which, by nature, makes me eat better). I’ve alrady been putting my Zumba DVDs to better use and have been having some friends over for “class” twice a week (which is actually fun!!). I’ve been using the community pool and swimming more and yesterday morning I started exploring some of the beautiful neighborhood trails in our new neighborhood (oh, and did I mention that we started eating out constantly because we were packing/moving/unpacking and just never stopped?). But none of that is doing me any good when it’s not consistent and I’m eating fast food regularly.

But this time, probably the most important component for me, is that I’m not doing this alone this time. I have friends who are sharing this struggle and we’re going to do it together. I bought Lysa TerKeurst’s Made to Crave Ministry Kit awhile back and today I finally opened it. It’s a 12-week DVD study that really unpacks the things, and goes even further, than the book I’ve already read and talked about, Made to Crave.

Included is the Made to Crave Devotional, which I have not yet read. The very intro itself is what prompted this blog post and really all I wanted to share right now, but of course that would have been cryptic on its own. ;-)

I also know what it’s like to feel sad and powerless in this battle to get healthy.

I want to lead Jesus girls on a journey that will help them find a stick-to-itiveness and a lasting want-to that taps into something much more powerful than the surface desires of wanting to weigh less and wear a smaller size. We need to tap into this power because the battle we face isn’t just with sugary, fatty or salty foods. There is a spiritual battle going on. It’s real. And it’s amazing how perfectly the Bible gives us specific ways to find victory with our food struggles.

Even for girls like us who don’t crave carrot sticks.

Can I get an Amen? Can I also get some prayer for this journey? I really want to see it through to the end, for once in my life, and I can’t do it alone.

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dieting, Exercise, Gluttony, Prayer, Weight Loss

May 12, 2012

A Month of No Carbs

By Angie Bullock

Well, I’m a little over a month into The Metabolism Miracle plan, which includes almost no carbohydrates for the first 8 weeks.

That being said, I don’t necessarily feel like I’ve been as successful in eliminating them as I have tried to be. The reason is restaurants. We’ve eaten out quite a bit (and we took a 3-day mini vacation to Galveston Island last weekend (I don’t recommend it, by the way) that had us eating almost every meal in a restaurant) and even though I made choices that appeared to be carb-free when ordering, I don’t believe they really were. I think these restaurants are not only packing in salt to epic proportions, they are also hiding sugar in items that wouldn’t have it if you were to make them at home.

No wonder they taste so good…

Why do I feel this way? Two reasons.

#1. When I’m eating strictly at home and have my carb intake solidly under control, I have virtually no cravings for carbs and sweets. Often, shortly after eating a meal at a restaurant, I start to crave sweets/dessert items. That can only mean that I’ve ingested enough carbs to cause an over-production of insulin, thus giving me cravings.

#2. I weighed myself before leaving for vacation last weekend, because I wouldn’t be home the morning of my completion of 4 weeks. I was down 10.6 lbs. I weighed myself a day and a half after we got back, and my total loss was now only 9.4 lbs. Now, I’m sure I put on water weight from eating a month’s worth of salt/sodium in 3 days, but I did wait until I was home a full day and I drank a lot of water, hopefully to shed it.

So, now that we’re back, I am going to do my best to minimize how much we eat out over the next 4 weeks. I really feel like I should add at least 1 week onto my 8 weeks, but we’ll see. I haven’t yet taken my measurements again (which I am supposed to do after the first month), so I’ll do that this weekend.

Anyway, just wanted to check in and let you all know that even though I haven’t been posting much lately (it’s been mostly because we were on vacation, getting ready to go on vacation, and I was sick for more than a week leading up to that. Blah.), I have been sticking with it and plugging along. And, 10 lbs the first month is nothing to sneeze at, so onward we go!!

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! :-)

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dieting, Metabolism Miracle, Weight Loss

April 16, 2012

Ready, Aim, FIRE!

By Angie Bullock

Today, I want to talk about and take aim at one of my absolutely favorite things: SUGAR.

Anyway you choose to say it, I love sugar. I heart sugar. Sugar makes me smile. Sugar lifts my spirit. Sugar tastes good.

But, I’ve been noticing a “war on sugar” brewing lately and I’ve started hearing more and more about just how bad this stuff is for you. And just how much I love it actually seems to back up exactly what I’ve been hearing about it, unfortunately. :-(

I mean, I understand completely how it can make you fat if eaten in excess – I mean, duh, right? But what I’m talking about is more than that. This is stuff about sugar actually being toxic, addicting in a manner similar to drugs and contributing to many diseases.

The weekend before I decided to research, and then purchase, The Metabolism Miracle, I saw a commercial for that weekend’s upcoming 60 Minutes episode and how they were going to talk about sugar. Something stirred and I immediately told the DVR to record it.

It sat on the recording for a good week before I actually watched it, but this weekend, I finally did. Not only did it back up everything I read about sugar in The Metabolism Miracle, it took it even further.

Instead of trying (and probably failing!) to explain the information from the program, I figured I would just share it with you. The video is the entire clip about sugar that ran on 60 Minutes and is about 14 minutes long. If you’re interested in being healthier (and I fully believe we should all be intentional and conscious about how we’re taking care of our bodies that are temples for the Holy Spirit), I suggest taking a short 15 minutes out of your day to watch this. Even if everything isn’t completely true or you don’t agree with everything presented (I actually don’t), we still all know that sugar isn’t GOOD for you and it’s not going to make you healthier or skinnier if you eat it. ;-)

Now, whether or not you believe sugar is nearly as bad for you as these sources (and they’re far from the only two sources that claim massive health issues arising from sugar), and whether you believe I am anywhere near qualified to personally vouch for any of these things, one thing that I do personally know to be true: when I’m not eating sugar, food tastes better.

Another blog that I follow recently said something like this, and I completely agree: “it’s easy to miss the natural sweetness of a strawberry when you’re eating Oreos“.

I remember when I was doing SlimGenics, a diet very low in sugar, I found myself telling my hubby (and others) that I believed my tastes had actually changed, as I was finding foods that were previously only “ok” to be just fabulous and taste much better than I remembered. I was actually enjoying healthy food. Then I went back to eating foods that were high in sugar and all of a sudden, those healthy foods were no longer all that appetizing. Now, only about a week into The Metabolism Miracle diet (almost completely devoid of sugar at all), I am again enjoying food more, in general, and as promised in the book, I am not craving sugar.

Should you remove sugar from your diet completely? Well, that’s up to you. I know that I don’t plan to never eat sugar again, but I can promise you this: in conjunction with trying to maintain a far healthier lifestyle, long-term, combined with my new-found knowledge on sugar (and I plan to continue researching), I will be reserving high-sugar foods for infrequent special occasions. I will also be much more cognizant of the amount of sugars (and hidden sugars) that I put into my body (and feed my son)!

What about you? Do you have any thoughts or experiences directly related to sugar? I’d love to hear about it!

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Slimgenics, Dieting, Weight Loss, Gluttony, Metabolism Miracle

April 13, 2012

So Much For Day 4!!

By Angie Bullock

Well, today is Day 4, the day that I was supposed to wake up feeling better than I have in a long time; energized and not hungry. So much for that!! :-(

Backing up to yesterday, everything was going great until about 4:30, when we decided to stop at a park so Zach could play a little bit. He ran ahead and went straight for the equipment and by the time I caught up, he was climbing up a tower on the back of the structure and I decided I wanted to get a picture of this. I pulled out my phone and hit the camera app and hopped down into the mulch-filled playground area and almost immediately said “Ouch“!

I looked down at my big toe on my left foot (I was wearing flip flops) and saw a little ant sitting on top. As I moved my foot to try and shake him off, I must have disturbed the mound, because all of a sudden, these little fire ants were all over my foot!!!

A human leg three days after coming in brief contact with a fire ant colony.

It was at this point that the pain of multiple fire ant stings/bites started to hit me and I began to panic. I jumped up into the grass, literally jumped out of my shoes and pretty much freaked out until I got these little beasts off my foot (I don’t even want to know what I must have looked like! LOL!).

Of course, it was too late… the damage was done. :-(

The redness surrounding the immediate bites was rapidly spreading, so we grabbed a very adamant “I-don’t-understand-why-we-have-to-leave-we-just-got-here” 3-yr old and headed to the H-E-B down the street. My foot was on fire, so I sat in the car while Mike ran in to ask the pharmacist what I should do. He emerged with Benadryl and Neosporin + Pain Relief. The pharmacist said to take the Benadryl ASAP, which I promptly did – I took two tablets.

We then headed back towards our house and realized it was about dinner time, so instead of heading all the way home and back out for the errands we still had to run, we decided to stop at T.G.I. Friday’s for dinner.

I got the Sizzling Chicken & Cheese entree and substituted the mashed potatoes for broccoli and Mike and I split the classic wedge salad with blue cheese dressing that came with his entree. I figured that was a pretty safe bet for being carb-free, as the entree was literally just chicken, cheese and peppers.

By the time we left, I had pretty much launched into orbit from the Benadryl (I don’t know if I’ve ever taken it before) and Mike had to drive. I couldn’t believe how spacey, loopy and just all-around wiped out I was. I barely made it to our next destination without falling asleep.

We got home around 7:00 pm and I literally went straight to bed. I did not want to fall asleep that early, because I knew I would be up way too early this morning, but I was pretty powerless to fight it. I was out.

So, I woke up this morning around 3:30 am and my foot was stinging, so I got up to put some more Neosporin on it. I tried to go back to sleep, but yeah right, who was I kidding? I found my way downstairs at 4:00 am, made some coffee and sat down on the couch and chatted with Mike (yes, he was already up, which is not unusual).

Here’s the bummer; I was STARVING. I mean, really, really starving. To the point of being somewhat nauseous. I actually felt a lot more like I did on Day 1 or Day 2, but this is Day 4! The day that my body has depleted the glycogen stores and I feel great!

I didn’t know if it was the fire ant toxin or the benadryl or what, but clearly something threw my body out of whack. :-(

I ate breakfast at 5 am and it barely did anything to curb my hunger – I had to have a snack by 7 am. It was at this point that I decided to look up the nutritional information for the entree I had at Friday’s. Oh. My. Gosh!

There’s 39 grams of carbs in that entree!? From what!? It must be the marinade on the chicken, which likely means that I ingested a fair amount of sugar… putting me all the way back to square one (not to mention the 1,100 calories, 65 grams of fat and 3,660 milligras of sodium!). Sigh…

I’ve actually felt better as the day has gone on, but I am now pretty sure that I won’t feel this fabulous Day-4 feeling until Monday… :-(

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dieting, Exercise, Metabolism Miracle, Weight Loss

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