Losing Weight: 5 Tips

Katherine here.  I'm postponing work emails (I grade papers this year--enthralling documents created by CDE--eek!) and the next step in doing our taxes.

Since I've just lost about 7-8 pounds, I thought I'd share my current five best weight loss tips.  It's important to note that I haven't been a "big" girl since I was in tenth grade so weight loss is pretty much constant maintenance for me.  I gain and lose the same 5 pounds over and over again.  It's not impressive to the outside world, but from my end, it's a bitch.

I gained more than my usual five pounds the last round--foot injuries ended step classes and running and all I can say is never, ever trust the advice of a clerk at Boulder Running Company.  I run in Newton's from Boulder now and I'll tell that story another day.  My feet and I are doing much better.  The turquoise shoes are pretty cool too.

I've lost the 7-8 pounds and just in time.  The one and only pair of jeans I could wear has basically disintegrated.  I lost the weight just in time.  My jeans are arranged by my weight.  It looks like I have a lot of jeans, but no more than 2-3 pair per poundage-range.  Two pounds can make a difference in which jeans I can choose to wear.  Sad, but true. I realize there is little sympathy for my situation.  I haven't been losing this same five pounds for the last 50 years without realizing that.  I'm just saying it's hard to do.  That, and I no longer have any jeans left in the top poundage range.  I'm not yet sure if that is good or bad news.

Enough.  Here are my current five best tips for weight loss.  I do well if I adhere.

1.  I stop eating sugar (we don't do sugar replacements either) and beef for the most part.

When it comes to the sugar side, fruit is fine.  Nothing with refined sugar.  I love ice cream.  I stop having ice cream.  I have desserts when my mom comes to dinner and sometimes at restaurants, but that's it.  Mom assures me sugar is an important "food group" and it never pays to try and outwit an 86 year old when it comes to food groups.

I stop eating beef for the most part.  Unfortunately, I was raised on beef and I love it.  I love other proteins too though and losing weight shifts my focus to what we're really eating when it comes to meat.  I end up doing a much better job with veggies and fish (a challenge for me) when I pay attention.  I never have too much beef consciously, but when I look at what we're cooking,  I discover we have more beef  than we want to or should have in any one week.

2.  I look at a pound of hamburger.  It's best when they clump it on some white butcher paper at some upscale place.  A pound of hamburger is large.  There is no one place on my body you could take a full pound out--I would be disfigured, not thinner.  The visual image of the hamburger sitting on the butcher paper is good for me to keep in mind.  A pound is a lot to lose and I never underestimate how tough it is to lose just one pound. Losing five pounds (five mounds of hamburger) is huge.

3.  I get on the scales once a week and wait a month before I get on at all.  I tend to gain muscle because I also increase activity and that adds weight at first.  I've had the same belt for years.  It lets me know where I stand.  If I move the buckle stop a notch, time to try the scales.  If the scales are good, it helps me. Best to wait.

4.  I increase my activity.  I go to the gym more and try something different.  This time it's just been going more often.  I've also been running better although I still have a long way to go.  I'm actually working at it again though.  I like the lifting and the walking.  It's the hardcore aerobics that challenge my mind and aging body these days.  Running is circles on the track is only minimally better than running on a treadmill and it seems the weather and my timing for outdoor running just are not in synch.   I think I have to realize that activity has to be artificial (gyms) more than the natural approach I would prefer (hiking in the Tetons) when I try to lose weight.  I'm pretty tired of regimen, but it really helps if losing weight is more than talk.  Adhering to a regimen is the first way I can tell if I'm just wishing to lose weight or if I'm ready to do something.  Basically, I start going to the gym more regularly.

5.  I understand that ANY change takes twelve weeks.  I don't care if you are trying to stop smoking, get over a lover, change a habit, or shift your life from Miracle Whip to Best Foods Mayonnaise--it will take 12 weeks to dent the process if it can be done.  I've been trying to learn to hang up my coat for years and I'm beginning to think I'm genetically indisposed to that change in habit, but I'm not sure I've ever really gone after it in a true twelve week period the way I have weight loss.  If I am going to lose 5 REAL pounds, I start by looking at the calendar and seeing where I will be in twelve weeks.

Sisyphus rolled a rock up a hill eternally.  It's basically the same thing.  Sisyphus beat Zeus by embracing his punishment and smiling in the face of the gods.  I win if I can do four things for twelve weeks.  I'm just glad my "fat" jeans survived until then.