Official Weight Loss Club Thread

[Muffie's Mom]

That's a good idea - just make sure whatever change you make at each meal, you continue doing thereafter.

Way to go!

[Muffie's Mom]

Start easy, with a food diary. Use a chart or a journal to write down everything you eat or drink every day. Write down the date, the time of day, and about how much of every food or beverage you ate and drank. Be complete and honest. Stick with the food diary. This is the most important thing you can do to make your eating habits better.

Weigh yourself every week on the same scale. Use a tape measure to measure your waist. Keep track of your weight and your waistline, because improvements in weight or waist measurement can reduce your risk of getting diabetes.

Set goals that you can keep track of. For example, "Lose 15 pounds" or "Lose 3 inches off my waist" in the next six months. There is no diet program that works for everyone. One approach is to start with what you like and make small changes to see the effect on your goals.

You might look over your food records for the past week or two. Write down the fat and calorie counts of all foods and drinks. Use this list to plan a few diet changes. You can set goals for what you plan to change in the next week. For example, "Keep my daily calories below 1,500" or "Find healthier substitutes for five foods with the highest fat or calorie counts."

Look on the internet for any program that has to do with diet organizing.

[Muffie's Mom]

Go slowly. If you are moving toward your goals by making just a few changes, that is great. Keep it up. If you are not moving toward your goals, make a couple more changes and see what happens.

Review your progress with your doctor. Bring your food diary to each office visit. Ask for tips and answers to your questions. Let the doctor know what problems you are having.

Don't stop eating all of the foods you like. That isn't a good plan for a long-term change. Eat smaller servings of the high-fat, high-calorie foods you love, or eat them less often, or try healthier substitutes.

Avoid too-large servings by measuring your food portions. If you do this every day at home, you will get a good idea what a half cup of mashed potatoes looks like. This will help you when you eat at restaurants.

Plan carefully for eating out. Plan ahead, be the first person to order, and be assertive about getting just what you want. You might let the other people you are with know that you are trying to eat healthy foods and would appreciate their support.

Try to notice and change food and eating cues at home and work. Eat only in one room in your home. Pay attention to your food--don't eat while you are watching TV or reading.

[Muffie's Mom]

Try different foods. Check some cookbooks out of the library for new recipe ideas. Once in awhile, let yourself have a week when your only goal is to maintain your weight. Some people change their calorie or fat limits over the week. For example, they might eat only 1,500 calories Monday through Saturday and let themselves have 2,000 calories on Sunday. Take an exotic cooking class with a friend to pick up interesting food ideas.

[Muffie's Mom]

Everyone slips off their plan from time to time. Figure out what triggered your slip, and plan how to avoid that trigger the next time. Don't just make excuses though. Get back to your plan at the next meal.

[Muffie's Mom]

Carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and grains should give you the bulk of your calories. For optimal health, get your grains intact from foods such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole-grain pasta, and other possibly unfamiliar grains like quinoa, whole oats, and bulgur. Not only will these foods help protect you against a range of chronic diseases, they can also please your palate and your eyes.

Until recently, you could only get whole-grain products in organic or non-traditional stores. Today they are popping up in more and more mainstream grocery stores. Here are some suggestions for adding more whole grains to your diet:

Start the day with whole grains. If you're partial to hot cereals, try old-fashioned or steel-cut oats. If you're a cold cereal person, look for one that lists whole wheat, oats, barley, or other grain first on the ingredient list.

Use whole-grain breads for lunch or snacks. Check the label to make sure that whole wheat or other whole grain is the first ingredient listed.

Bag the potatoes. Instead, try brown rice or even "newer" grains like bulgur, wheat berries, millet, or hulled barley with your dinner.

Pick up some whole wheat pasta. If the whole-grain products are too chewy for you, look for those that are made with half whole-wheat flour and half white flour.

[Muffie's Mom]

Bad carbs tend to be heavily refined and do not hold much nutritional value in the body. Some examples of bad carbs include:

- cookies

- cakes

- syrup

- pies

- sugar-sweetened cereal

- white bread

[Muffie's Mom]

Simple carbohydrates are bad for lifestyle changes. The main example of a simple carbohydrate is sugar. So choose low-sugar foods, (especially low-sugar drinks) and eat more natural foods instead of highly processed food.

Complex carbohydrates are not bad for lifestyle changes. In fact they are very good foods. They are medium-calorie food but they fill you up!

This group includes potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, beans, cereals, most vegetables and fruits. These carbs are wonderful for everyone, including those changing their way of eating. Experts recommend we eat 55-60% of our calories from these carbs.

Note: Don't ruin carbs by adding fat, like rich sauces, oils, or other high-fat toppings like butter, sour cream, or mayonnaise. These calorie-dense add-ons turn good carbs into diet-killers.

Hope all this gives you something to think about. If necessary, copy and paste and print from Word.

[Muffie's Mom]

Eat plenty of fruit and vegies — at least two servings of fruit and five of veggies each day for adults.

Eat plenty of wholegrain cereals.

Eat LEAN meat, fish, poultry and/or alternatives such as legumes and nuts. They’re good sources of protein.

Limit saturated and trans fats. They definitely increase your risk of heart disease.

Include fat-reduced dairy foods and/or alternatives in your diet. As well as being a good source of protein, dairy foods are the richest source of calcium in the Australian diet.

Choose foods low in salt.

Don’t eat too much sugary food.

Drink plenty of water.

[Muffie's Mom]

Here's the simplest answer: white flour, refined sugar, and white rice. More broadly, any food made primarily of a carb that has been processed in such a way as to strip out ingredients that hinder quick and easy cooking. Why are refined carbs a problem? Easy: They digest so quickly that they cause blood sugar surges that lead to weight gain and other health troubles.

Here I'll give you ways to avoid troublesome carbs while still getting the fuel you need for good health. Carb-counting meets common sense, right this way...

Tell the waiter to hold the bread. At almost every restaurant, your meal starts with a basket of rolls, breads, and crackers made from white flour. If it's not put on the table, you won't eat any. Or, if you really need something to nibble on, ask if they have whole wheat varieties.

At Chinese restaurants, ask for brown rice, and limit how much you eat to one cup. In fact, some Chinese restaurants have started offering to swap a vegetable for the rice in their combo dinners, knowing that many people are on low-carb diets. At home, always cook brown rice instead of white. Brown rice hasn't been processed and still has its high-fiber nutrients.

Instead of bread, use eggplant slices to make a delicious sandwich. Broil two thick slices of eggplant until brown, then add mozzarella and tomato, olive oil and basil to one slice. Top with the other slice of eggplant and broil again until the cheese melts.

Wrap your food in lettuce leaves. Yes, skip the bun, tortillas, and bread slices and instead make a sandwich inside lettuce leaves. You can go Mexican with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, salsa, and chicken; Asian with sesame seeds, peanuts, bean sprouts, cut up green beans, and shrimp with a touch of soy sauce; or deli style with turkey, cheese, and mustard.

Break yourself of your old spaghetti habits. Almost everyone loves a big bowl of pasta, topped with a rich tomato sauce. The tomato sauce couldn't be better for you; the spaghetti, however, is pure carbohydrate. While spaghetti is fine to eat every now and then, for those sensitive to carbs or wishing to cut back on their noodle intake, here are some alternatives to the usual spaghetti dinner:

Here's the easiest choice: Switch to whole wheat pasta. It is denser than traditional pasta, with a firm, al dente texture similar to what you'd get in Italy.

Grill vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, and onion and slice them into long, thin pieces. Mix up and pour your spaghetti sauce over the vegetables for a delicious and immensely healthy meal.

Substitute spaghetti squash for the pasta. Boil or microwave the squash until soft, then scoop out the seeds and pull the strands of squash from the shell with a fork. Top with your favorite sauce and a grating of real Parmesan.

Try healthy whole grains as a replacement for pasta. Spaghetti sauce goes better than you'd expect on brown rice, barley, chickpeas, and such.


Cut up 1-ounce portions of cheese and divvy up 1-ounce portions of nuts into tiny snack bags. Now you have a handy snack at the ready.

Eat potatoes boiled with the skin on. The effect of potatoes on blood sugar depends on how the potatoes are prepared. No need to unspud yourself completely! Also, new potatoes tend to have fewer simple carbs than other types of potatoes.

Eat lightly of the new low-carb products. More than 1,000 low-carb products were introduced in 2003, but the FDA has yet to publish any guidelines as to what "low carb" really means. Instead, many new "low carb" foods are to carb-cutting what "low fat" cookies were to fat-cutting: just a new way of pitching foods high in calories and low in nutrient value. In fact, Consumer Reports found that many packaged low-carb foods are actually higher in calories than their regular counterparts. For instance, a serving of Keto's low-carb Rocky Road ice cream has 270 calories, almost double the calories found in many regular ice creams and twice as much fat.

Here's some good tips - may want to print these off.

[Muffie's Mom]

Never let yourself get too hungry. Eat every three to five waking hours, and eat only until you're satisfied but not stuffed. You should never reach the point where you feel ravenous. Not only is that a recipe for overeating, but your body will want sugary, quick-to-digest "bad carbs" to quickly satiate your need for fuel.

Instead of eggs and bacon, try low-carb versions of cereals. For example, the Nature's Path cereal line offers all the benefits of whole grains without the "problem" carbs found in added sugar, Atkins cereal, OR Hi-Lo made by Nutritious Living 9n Greenwise section at your grocery store. Another option is low-carb, high-fiber muffins and breads (spread with no-sugar-added jams or nut butter).

At the movies, skip the popcorn. Popcorn isn't a bad food, but it does happen to be a simple carb with little other nutritional value and, when bought at the theater, is often drowning in salt and fat as well. Better movie snacks are small bags of nuts or seeds and fresh or dried fruit. Just sneak them into the theater in your purse or a backpack.

Mix up a sweet dessert. Combine nonfat cream, unsweetened cocoa, sugar substitute, and ice in a blender. Or mix mascarpone and sugar substitute with whipped cream and a hint of lemon zest.

Make your own quickie low-carb pizza. Lightly toast a whole grain, low-carb tortilla and top with chopped tomatoes and shredded, part-skim, mozzarella cheese. Season with salt and pepper and return to the toaster oven until cheese is melted and bubbling.

Make french fries with turnips. Missing those fries with that bun-less burger? Cutting turnips into sticks and tossing with olive oil and salt. Bake at 425°F for 30 minutes, turning frequently. Voilà! A crisp side dish with none of the fat of frying and far fewer carbs than from potatoes.

[Jaspermom]

Originally Posted by Muffie's Mom

I went to fatfree.com and they do have a lot of recipes. I'll have to check them out!

Glad, where do you want us to put the recipes? Have you started a thread for that or want them PM'd or what?

I was just there, and I see that some of you have already started posting to the thread!! Nice job!

Here it is!
http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/sho...ealthy+recipes

I have noticed that although these are great recipes, there are ways to make substitutions in these recipes as well to make them even healthier! Anyone who wants to kick in SUBSTITUTION SUGGESTIONS, quote the recipe and suggest away!

Thanks for posting your recipes!

[Muffie's Mom]

Come on - let's hear from some other people as to how they are making changes.

Love to hear from anyone making Lifestyle Changes (not dieting).

[Muffie's Mom]

Keep the flavor without the burden of excess sodium by cutting back on condiments that contain salt and sodium, substituting herbs, spices or vinegars.

A mistake some cooks make is to omit salt without adjusting for flavor loss. One teaspoon of salt contains about 2,000 milligrams of sodium, an amount close to the Dietary Guideline for an entire day (2,400 milligrams) for a healthy American. Cutting the salt in half on vegetables, meats and main-dish items is a reasonable start. Or, go for broke and omit all of the salt.

Either way, try these ideas for enhancing flavors:

Add chopped fresh herbs.

Try dried herbs. Rub them between your fingers to release the flavor-packed oils before adding them to recipes.

A splash of balsamic or other flavored vinegar can boost something that's ordinarily bland.

A sprinkle of ground spices such as cumin, chili powder, curry powder or cinnamon — or a blend — can enhance many dishes. Try these with sweet potatoes.

Squeeze fresh lime or lemon juice onto foods for a new flavor dimension.
Remember, dried herbs will retain their potency for about 6 months if stored in airtight containers at a cool room temperature. If your spice rack is displayed over the range and the bottles were a long-ago wedding gift, consider replacing them.

[Muffie's Mom]

Instead Of Use
1 cup of butter in baking - 1 cup applesauce
8 ounces of cream cheese - 8 ounces of yogurt cheese
1 cup crème fraiche - 1 cup yogurt cheese made from lowfat or nonfat yogurt
1 cup heavy cream (in recipes, not for whipping) - 2 teaspoons cornstarch or 1 tablespoon flour whisked into 1 cup nonfat milk
1 cup sour cream - 1 cup lowfat cottage cheese + 2 tablespoons skim milk + 1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup fat for sautéeing - 4 cups low fat stock, fruit juice or wine and sauté until liquid evaporates
1 egg - 2 egg whites
1 cup oil or fat for basting - 1 cup fruit juice or low fat stock