You are correct sir, I often tell people I am not dieting ... this is my way of life ... it is my Food Life Style! Plus for me is I don't drink / smoke so win-win there.
For the artificial sweeteners and etc we still clear of them and then some. My dad developed cancer and after reading several reports, consulting with 7 different oncologists, weeding out the BS information and misinformation, I can tell you sweeteners are bad. If it has to go through a factory just be edible, we don't buy it or eat it. We have farmer's markets and home canning that does a lot for us.
I lucked out that my wife is super supportive and already eats pretty healthy.
My nephews and niece hate coming over as they say my pantry sux! No cookies, no chips, no junk food ... then they ask me if I'm poor. I keep macadamia nuts, almonds, cashews, dehydrated fruits, local raw honey, etc in the pantry, tons of veggies and fruits int he fridge and if you saw my FREEZERS a lot of meat.
Live strong and eat BBQ
For the artificial sweeteners and etc we still clear of them and then some. My dad developed cancer and after reading several reports, consulting with 7 different oncologists, weeding out the BS information and misinformation, I can tell you sweeteners are bad. If it has to go through a factory just be edible, we don't buy it or eat it. We have farmer's markets and home canning that does a lot for us.
I lucked out that my wife is super supportive and already eats pretty healthy.
My nephews and niece hate coming over as they say my pantry sux! No cookies, no chips, no junk food ... then they ask me if I'm poor. I keep macadamia nuts, almonds, cashews, dehydrated fruits, local raw honey, etc in the pantry, tons of veggies and fruits int he fridge and if you saw my FREEZERS a lot of meat.
Live strong and eat BBQ First, congrats GMDGeek you look fantastic.
Here is what I did a few years ago.
For processed foods, my feeling was that I didn't want anything with ingredients that I couldn't pronounce or purchase in a regular grocery store. I tried to stay away from artificial ingredients as well. For example, if I was going to commit to having something sweet with sugar, I would own it and have the product that contained real sugar, I would just eat less of it. My personal, non scientific, probably wrong opinion is that artificial chemicals, sweeteners, stabilizers etc do more harm and good to our bodies.
The processed food industry also manipulates the ever loving **** out of those products to maximize the ratio of salt/sugar/fat so that you keep eating more and more without feeling full. Read the following book if you have time, its an eye opener: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar-fat
All that said, below are a few tips that worked for me (30lbs over the course of a year)
- Mental attitude is important. Don't think of this as "oh man, I'm never going to be able to have that slab of chocolate cake and rack of ribs again". You will, just less of it and not as often (in the beginning anyway).
- You're not dieting, you're changing your lifestyle. You should be in this for the long haul.
- Exercise and lots of it. Jogging 5 miles a day, 5 days a week was/is the goal for me
- Drinking less alcohol and only on the weekends
- Cutting out snack foods (pretzels, chips, cookies etc)
- Cutting out snacking between meals.
- Scaling back desserts to only a few times per week and even then, a low cal ice cream bar or an ounce of good chocolate (I have a sweet tooth)
- Cutting out soda (diet and regular) and switching to seltzer and/or plain water.
- Get a side salad instead of fries with that burger
Thats for day to day living. Everything in moderation though
For me personally, I now have the will power to every now and then have that 6th or 7th beer and extra half rack of ribs as long as I get back on the wagon the following Monday.
