Posts by textheavy

Original Post by healthymadison:

Use saran wrap and make it touch the entire open surface of the avocado.

I too LOVE them.

Eat almost a whole one a day.

This works for me too.

I cut it in half, take out the pit. Eat one half and then cover the other half (still in the skin) with plastic wrap so that it is directly touching all green surfaces, even down in the pit depression.

I'm guessing a little lemon juice would make this work even better.

Luckily, I can get my hands on small avocados, each about 180 Calories for the whole thing.

Original Post by gc77584:

thanks for catching that - for some reason I had grams on the brain

and this forum won't allow me to edit the original post; or rather, I can get to edit but there's no option to post after editing, only another edit button and a preview button

Yes, the "Edit Post" button is the one you click when you are done editing.

Completely unintuitive, and in fact, completely mislabeled. But what can you do?

It sounds like you've identified the problem and solution, you just haven't acted on the information.

You have two goals: losing weight and finding someone to be in a relationship with.

For every hour you spend with your pal, you are undermining two goals, so you can think of in terms of every hour you spend with your pal is setting you back two hours from the things you want in life. 

You use the term "pal" rather than friend. This seems appropriate to me. A friend would be on board with your goals and encourage you to do what it takes to achieve them. I'm guessing this pal encourages you to hang out and have drinks after work. 

I'm sure I'm reading too much into this, but is it likely that your pal would feel worse about herself if you suddenly started feeling better? Maybe not, but that's a classic problem. 

btstars has a good point. Your pal could join you for something more healthy after work. A 45-minute walk relieves stress, and you feel better afterwards. It also suppresses your appetite.

I don't know the details of your work and relationship, so I'm not going to suggest too much, but clearly you have to change the after-work drinking ritual in order to make progress in the areas of your life that you want to change.

Good luck!

Finding time in my daily schedule to exercise. 

The actual weighing of food for logging isn't easy, but I can deal with it. 

I don't even know if I would count a real potato dug up out of the ground as a vegetable. Technically "vegetable" is not a scientific category, so you can use it however it feels right to you.

If you want it to be a vegetable, then it's a vegetable. Just like ketchup.

Two or three hours at the gym a day and you are eating less than 1000 Calories?

Your body probably thinks you've been thrown into some kind of slave-labor camp and has cranked your metabolism down to the point where it clings to every calorie it can get for dear life.

10 years of subscriptions to New Scientist plays a big part in my knowledge about health science and nutrition.

I lived in WI for a while. I also moved away weighing over 300lbs. It's a hard place to eat healthy!

Here's what I would do myself:

Chicken Fajita Salad or Steak

Sauteed onions and peppers, hard shell tortilla bowl, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream and cheese with grilled chicken breast or steak.

I would order that, ask them to serve it in a regular bowl--I don't have any self-restraint around the fried-tortilla bowls--and have them leave off the diary.

Then I would ask for extra salsa--the kind they bring with the chips--and use that instead of dressing, since it usually contains no oil.

As for the ubiquitous basket(s) of chips before the meal, I would take out a specific amount at the beginning and eat only those I'd taken for myself. The constant reach into the communal chip-basket becomes automatic and next thing you know you've just eaten 700 Calories in chips alone.

Then when it was time to enter my food log, I would estimate the weight of the chicken (guessing around 150g) and veggies. Then I would add in about a tablespoon of oil, since I don't know how much was used in sauteing the onions and peppers. Of course, that would all depend on how things looked when they came out of the kitchen.

Good luck, and try to focus on the occasion and not the food!

PS...

Doh!

I completely missed the fact that you are a vegetarian, even with all the commotion about it.

It's frustrating how few restaurants in the Midwest offer vegetarian options.

I'd just go with the taco salad and have them leave off the meat, tortilla shell and diary (as above). And still use salsa instead of dressing for flavor.

Someday these places will catch on to the fact that not everyone eats meat.

I also don't wake up hungry.

I can't recall a single time when I woke up and wanted to eat immediately.

Most days I cook a breakfast for myself and bring it to work, then eat it about 30 minutes after I get in and settle down. That's about three hours after my alarm goes off.

Maybe you just need to allow for the fact that you don't get hungry until later in the morning and plan your big breakfast for when you are hungry. Is it possible to do that?

I stir-fry a lot because it's much faster and easier for me personally, and I enjoy the flavor and texture more. This means I get more satisfaction from my food.

I am careful to measure out the amount of oil I use. I record the oil calories separately.

Even with a non-stick pan I use a little oil because you can't get the same browning and flavor without it.