It's struck! The dreaded midlife metabolic slowdown has finally tapped me on the shoulder with its meaty hand. I managed to elude it until past 50, but no more.
When we moved to Visalia almost ten years ago I was 44 and could eat pretty much as much as I wanted. Ice cream three times a week was not unusual. I walked the golf course pretty much every week; that was my primary exercise. My weight had not varied much in many years.
All of a sudden I got on the scale about six months ago and had put on 15 pounds. I've not been golfing much for a few years now, but I've been running three times a week and lift weights three others. I could feel the paunch around my belly button and old pants didn't fit.
So it's been watch the diet very carefully since. It was a help to have our daughter Jeanette visit over Christmas for nearly a week. She's now a vegan and gave us some pointers. She also prepared some recipes that were pretty good.
So it's a lot more fruit, salad and exercise, a lot less starch, meat and dairy these days. Dessert? What's that? Still, the pounds are stubbornly hanging on and refusing to budge.
Whose idea was this wretched turn of events? I don't recall signing up for this! What do you mean meat loaf isn't on the list? There's got to be somebody to lodge a protest with about this. Hello? Hello?
4 comments:
All stuff you may have heard, but it's helped em tremedously.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan. It's a simple mantra but it helped. Find your inspiration, write it down on a post it, stick it on the fridge (I put it on my debit card, I don't think I've looked in my fridge in four months).
To lose weight I cut out HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). If it was any of the first ten ingredients- it was banned from my house, and still is.
Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. I don't mean a feast to rival those of the 5 year olds on Maury, but something healthy, balanced and with protein. Your body establishes its metabolism with in the first few hours of the day. If it recognizes that yes, there's a positive intake of food, it'll boost your metabolism, thereby increasing your energy and burning off fat stores. If you starve yourself you're a.) more likely to binge later, b.) have less energy throughout the day and c.) your body will hoard every ounce it gets thinking that you're starving.
I used those three pieces of advice alone and lost twenty pounds for my wedding in May. It's personal experience, but it's the best I can offer.
I've since deviated from that (writing this just now I've realized I had a bottle of water, a trail mix bar and a piece of ravioli- not quite balanced) and I feel like crap.
OH yeah- do reps, not weight. I'm sure you know that.
The high fructose corn syrup is a biggie. That junk is in almost everything. Jeanette alerted us to that and we assiduously read the labels.
Not only will cutting out the high fructose corn syrup help with the belly, but in the long run, it'll probably help you avoid diabetes as well. That's the new epidemic on the horizon.
Yay! I'm so glad that my visit has affected you in a positive way. I'm taking to heart what you said about drinking berry juice, but it's so hard to find at a reasonable price!
But you have learned well, grasshopper. If one thing alone could echo in your mind, I'm glad to hear the villainous ways of high fructose corn syrup are resonating.
From my research, I can also recommend eating more greens. Collard, kale, romaine, you can't go wrong! There are so many ways to prepare them and they're full of vitamins. Even if you take multivitamins, know that it's always better to get your vital nourishment from whole foods. Vitamin supplements should just be insurance that you're getting them in your system at all. Also instead of eating two or three big meals a day, have many healthy snacks or mini-meals throughout the day. In turn, scale back your portions a bit for your sit down meals (especially those calcium depleting meats!) and up the veggies portions. Whoever said the protein had to be the star!
Lastly, just keep in mind that on a healthy diet, it does take more food for you to feel full, so plan ahead. By doing the mini-meals thing, you're getting ahead of your hunger so you don't have to binge come meal time where you're more likely to over do it on meats and carbs (and carbs are not the enemy, they just shouldn't be what one relies solely on to feel satisfied.)
Whew! Sorry, it's just so nice to have someone taking an interest at the same time that I'm getting serious about this stuff. I'll be sure to send over some recipes that I think you might enjoy. I just made a lightly spicy eggplant dish that I think is going to become a staple meal for me. Yum! Happy eating.
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