Smile-breaks
Of Treadmills ’n Carbs ’n Tiny Tiny Portions
“Your ideal weight is one hundred and twenty pounds.” Ohmigosh! I haven’t weighed a hundred and twenty since I was twenty. I was quizzing my doctor about how I could lose weight, because I’d been trying so hard for so long and getting absolutely nowhere.
When she told me my ideal weight is a hundred and twenty, the huge number FORTY flashed across my brain. Whoa! Almost forty pounds overweight! This is way more serious than I thought. All this time I’d been thinking I was a little – like maybe twenty pounds – overweight. And I’d been trying to do all the right things. Really trying.
It turns out I was completely on the wrong track. I was walking thirty minutes five times a week except when I had a really good excuse not to, and exercising for a few minutes in the morning except when I got up too late, and eating tiny tiny portions except when I ate Mexican food or dessert, and my weight just kept going up and down, up and down.
Now the doc tells me if a person walks thirty minutes a day five days a week for three months, that person will lose exactly one pound.
Yay! I can quit wasting all that time walking every night!
Then she tells me if I don’t eat enough, my body will think I’m starving it and it’ll start storing fat to keep me alive and I’ll get even fatter.
Yay! No more tiny tiny portions!
But there were other measures I was going to have to take, the primary one being exercise. Not mellow, walking-type exercise like I’d been doing. Intensive, heart-racing exercise like I hadn’t been doing. Thirty minutes, three times a week.
So how could I do that? Well, how about a treadmill? I can manage thirty minutes on a treadmill, ’specially if it’s only three times a week and I have a CD playing romping good tunes. It’s really tough getting off the couch to exercise five times a week, but for sure I can manage three times a week. I think.
And finally, if I was serious about losing weight, I would have to change my eating habits. I had always scorned the low carb Atkins thing. I just ate less. Smaller portions of pasta; one slice of toast instead of two. Figured that’d work.
Unh, unh. Doc said no carbs, or very low carbs, for a few weeks if I truly wanted to lose weight. Something to do with my age. Don’t remember exactly…
And snacks. I’d have to watch the portions on my snacks. She asked what I normally eat as a snack. I said peanuts. Well, it was the healthiest snack I could think of and I knew what she’d say about chocolate ice cream and strawberry cheesecake.
“How many peanuts would you say there are in one serving?” she asked. Gee, I never stopped to count.
“Fifteen,” she declared. Whoa! Fifteen peanuts wouldn’t even make a dent in my fist. Then she remembered it was almonds, her favorite snack, that are fifteen to a portion and since almonds are bigger than peanuts, she said thirty peanuts would be okay.
Whew! At least it would take me a while to count out thirty peanuts and while I was counting I wouldn’t be eating. Kind’a prolongs snack time if you have to count and measure and all that stuff.
Last night I counted out my first portion of thirty peanuts. The new treadmill arrived today. Bacon and eggs is becoming my breakfast of choice; salad my lunch of what-I-have-to-do-to-get-skinny choice. I’ll let you know how it goes. If it goes…