Losing weight

[Epic Monstrocity]

Well, I've decided to start losing weight about a month ago.
I'm already seeing results.
Mind you, not much, but I am.
These are what I have against me.

-Both parents are overweight.
-Family eats out a lot.
-Pressured to eat junk.
-Busy life.
-Living in the south of the USA.

Despite what you think, I believe it is harder to eat healthy in the south than anywhere else. Why? We fry EVERYTHING down here. Now, This is what I'm doing.

-2000 calories and Right portion sizes.
-Exercise 30 minutes a day
-'I'm bored?' Turn on music and start dancing.
-Hydration.
-Cutting out MOST sweets.

Diet failures for me were these;

-Boring
-Craving sweets
-Lose motivation.

I've learned, for me, That it isn't smart to cut out sweets all together. So I replaced a lot of them with Fruit. Or, if I REALLY want something, I'll count it against my calories. Maybe work a little harder when it comes to working out. I found out dancing is a great thing for me to do. I've made a playlist of Dance Central and Just Dance gameplay, and I dance with it. This is how I was doing before.

-No exercise.
-Eating whatever and how much I please.
-Drinking soda and candy as meals.

I've learned, Sedentary life isn't good. It doesn't make me feel good either. There's nothing like exercising, and being able to fit in Jeans that I couldn't wear a few months ago.

Your thoughts?

[Cherrytini]

You can do it! I know you can.
Living in the south would be quite tempting with all that fried food, but do you eat things like soups and gumbo? If you could get into eating rice meals and chicken gumbo's they are healthy and still a fairly easy thing to find in the south. Watermelon is good, I eat it all the time even though it is kind of pricey where I live it's so good for you and really gets rid of those sweet cravings since it's loaded with natural healthy sugars. You could replace your cupcakes and sweet cakes with cornbreads, one of my favorite indulgences is johnny cake, the cornbread with a tiny bit of maple syrup on it. Fried meats can be healthy too depending on what oils you fry them in and if you remove as much fat as possible, all skin should be removed from chicken and use sunflower oil and grape seed oil instead of vegetable oil when frying.

Butternut squash that is baked is very tasty and you could also mash this, or eat it next to mashed or baked sweet potato instead of having old fashioned regular starchy potatoes. Squash also makes a great soup ingredient. Do you have a crockpot/slow cooker? One of the best ways to lose weight is on healthy stews.

You can indulge in your home southern style cooking and enjoy meals with your family by making a few healthier changes to preparations and cooking. I'm not sure what kind of food you like or what you are used to, I'm just giving some examples to try and help! biggrin

[WOAHBONER]

You're doing great :] Make sure that you vary the type of exercise you do, or your body will become too acclimated to it and it won't be as effective. Good luck!