So what do you eat?

Whenever I learned someone had lost a great deal of weight - whether it was that I met someone who had done it or I heard it on the TV/radio or I was reading an article about someone's success, if it was done through gastric bypass surgery, I immediately lost interest because the surgery was not for me.  I'd immediately think, "Oh," and then I'd switch the channel/station or look for another article to read or if the person was standing in front of me, I'd congratulate them but I wouldn't ask any more questions.   

However, if they lost the weight the old fashioned way, by eating properly and exercising, I was desperate to know what they ate so I could eat the same and lose weight, too.  In just about every instance, they'd say, "I watched the calories."  Great, but what does that mean exactly?  I wanted details.  I wanted specifics.  I wanted to know products, foods, recipes, exact meals, how many calories a day they were consuming, etc.  I wanted to shadow them for a week to emulate what they were doing.  Rarely do people offer such important details though, they take it for granted everyone knows what they're talking about. 

It doesn't surprise me then when people now ask me the same questions I've had all along:  so what do you eat?  It's not enough to say, "I watch my calories" to someone who's obese and doesn't know how to eat properly, doesn't know proper portions, doesn't know how many calories they should eat.  We need specifics.  

Hopefully, I can provide some information in this section (particularly after I started working with Flaminia ("Fla"), my trainer) that will help people get the idea.  I only needed a nudge from Fla to point a few things out to me before I took off with it and ran on my own.  Now it's second nature to me to consider calories, serving portions, sodium, etc.  Once you realize what "watch the calories/eat healthier" means, it's so easy that it's almost ridiculous.  The hard part, of course, is its application to our daily lives.  I've also included a section in this blog called "Meal Ideas" which I'll be updating periodically.

In addition to "so what do you eat?"  I've also been asked if I "just" (there's the "just" again) deprive myself.  The answer to that is yes…and no.  There's no way I could keep eating the way I was for decades and lose weight so in that sense, yes, I'm depriving myself.  However, I eat whatever "bad" foods I want, just not nearly as frequently as before nor in as big a portion as before - although Fla always tells me I can't eat them at all.  We often have this argument: "I have to live, Fla!" and she says, "No, you don't."  However, I know me and I know I'm the sort of person that if I deprive myself entirely of something I like, then I start obsessing about that particular food and I'll binge to satisfy that craving which is why gastric bypass isn't for me.  During my self analysis, however, I realized that if I had what I wanted in moderation, it worked well for me.  I could still have what I wanted, I wasn't obsessing, and it wouldn't lead to binging.  With that said, however, I have to be very, very careful because, for example, if I bring pastries into the house, I won't be able to contain myself.  I have no self control when it comes to certain foods.  So for me, if I do decide to splurge on foods that are my weakness (like pastries), I can only eat one and not have any more in the house, such as when a package contains several servings.

For decades, I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and how much I wanted.  If I wanted to binge at night, I did even though I knew I shouldn't.  Afterwards I'd feel sick about it but it didn't stop me from doing the same thing the following night.  If I woke up at 3 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep, I'd go eat something out of boredom.  My true downfall though has always been cakes, pies, pastries, pastas, pizza, breads, and the like.  Anything with a flour dough is my favorite.  I don't eat candy and I don't particularly like chocolate, unless it's in a cake or pastry.  If you put a bowl full of candy or a box full of chocolates in front of me, I won't touch it and I'll forget it's even there.  After awhile I'll even throw it away if I can't find someone who wants it.  However, you put a piece of cake or a pastry in front of me, and it'll be gone before the plate hits the table - and watch your fingers, too!

Although I learned to cook as a child and I've always enjoyed it, my life was busy and stressful and I was usually too tired emotionally and mentally to worry about making a meal particularly because it involved buying the ingredients, making the meal, and then having to wash the dishes (I don't have a dishwasher) and clean the kitchen, too.  I didn't have the time or energy for that while working a full time job.  I lived alone so I could do whatever I wanted and I only had to worry about myself.  It was much easier to grab fast food on the way home or buy a bunch of processed meals (i.e., frozen meals) to pop in the microwave whenever I was hungry.  I could also boil pasta which was easy and tasty.  There was pizza and Chinese food I could order in, too.  For lunch, my social group at work would always eat out at restaurants or fast food.  No one in my circle ever brought their lunch.  Even on weekends I was too tired to cook because there were chores to do that I couldn't get done during the week, plus there was catching up on my sleep, too.  Fast foods and processed foods were so convenient and fairly cheap - although the cost to our health and bodies is exorbitant in the end.

As time passed, my weight ballooned and I just became more lethargic as the weight piled on.  I had no energy whatsoever and I became even more sedentary than ever before.  Even going out socially became a chore, it was easier to stay home.  In some ways, it's amazing I "just" got to 306 lbs. living the way I was living for so long.

As for my sweet tooth, I could bake a cake from scratch at any point and often did.  I didn't seem to mind cooking when it came to baking a cake!

I also want to mention sodas.  For more than 30 years, the only liquid my body ingested was diet sodas.  The only water I drank came in my coffee that I drank throughout the day.  I didn't like anything else.  The idea of drinking plain water was incredibly boring to me.  I didn't understand it when people drank so much of it, how could they?  It has no taste!  It's not satisfying.  When I saw people walking around with a bottle of water in their hands, I would think, "How pretentious!"  I could easily drink a 6-pack of sodas in one day because, after all, this was the only liquid I was really ingesting other than coffee.  I was hooked on the carbonation more than the taste of sodas.  The only reason I drank diet sodas versus regular sodas was not for any dietary concerns, it was because diet sodas weren't as sweet.  Ironically, I've never liked sweet drinks.

In 2010, one of my doctors told me I had to give up sodas.  I was heartbroken!  I had always heard that sodas are fattening, but I was already fat so who cared and I didn't really believe it anyway.  This doctor, however, explained to me just how bad sodas are for the body overall - regardless of consequences to weight.  I went home and researched it online some more and I decided she was right, I needed to cut sodas out of my life.  I was already having enough medical issues as it was.  What sodas do to our bodies is horrifying, plus caffeinated beverages are diuretics - i.e., they cause fluids to be excreted from our bodies in the form of urine which acts in dehydrating the body.  How my organs didn't shut down after so many decades of drinking only sodas and coffee is beyond me!  No wonder my skin was always dry and my elbows were crusty, I was always dehydrated!  

In any case, I don't know how I did it, but I gave them up cold turkey.  It was hard though because I still craved the carbonation.  I love carbonation.  A couple of years after giving them up, I tried some again but they tasted like dirt to me so now the idea of drinking a soda grosses me out.  I can't believe I used to drink them all the time for so long.  What's interesting though is I didn't lose weight by giving up sodas.  If I did, it was only a couple of pounds.  I guess I was eating badly enough where giving them up made little difference.

What I drink now is plain water and lots of it.  On a good day, I'll drink more than 12 glasses.  On a bad day, I'll drink about 6.  My average is 9 glasses a day.  I'm never without a bottle of water, especially when I leave the house.  Now I'm the pretentious one!  I also drink seltzer water which satisfies my craving for carbonation.  My doctor said plain seltzer water is perfectly fine (i.e., no syrups or sugars in it). I got a SodaStream machine which I love.  I use it all the time.  My particular model has different settings for the level of carbonation, and the maximum setting is perfect for me.  Every two weeks or so, I exchange the empty canister with a full one at a minimal cost of $15 (for 60 Liters) and I'm good to go.  The nice thing is that I don't have to contend with cans anymore like I did when I was buying sodas by the truck full.  I don't have to go to the recycling center anymore either. They sell different flavored syrups for your homemade seltzer water but I find these to be disgusting.  Instead I might splash a little fresh lemon juice, lime juice, or orange juice.  Not too much, just enough to give it a slight taste, but mostly I like it plain with ice.

So by the time late 2012 came around, the only dietary change I had made to that point was to give up sodas two years before.  I was still eating fast foods, processed foods, pizzas, pastas, cakes, breads, etc.  And, of course, I wasn't exercising either.  The weight was not dropping below 300 lbs.

In late 2012, I joined Weight Watchers ("WW") and now I was on limited points/calories per day.  I decided the only way I was going to make it was to cook my own meals because then I could control what went in them.  I've always enjoyed cooking and now I had the time so I had no more excuses.  I think I'm a good cook, at least people who eat my food tell me so, but I'm not a Chef.  The distinction, to me, is a cook follows someone else's recipes whereas a Chef creates them.  That's okay, being "just" a good cook was fine with me (although I would love to be like Chef Gordon Ramsay!  I love the guy!).  

One of the things that always dissuaded me from starting a weight-loss program before is that I thought I had to eat bland, boring foods to lose weight.  I like to eat and I like to eat tasty foods, and I'm fortunate in that I like a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and foods so the idea of eating bland, boring food for the rest of my life was not appealing in the least.  I used to tell myself that I had spent my entire life eating whatever I wanted and now it was time to pay the piper for the rest of my life and suffer by eating bland, boring foods.  Sometimes I thought I would rather stay fat and enjoy my meals instead of the alternative. 

I thought this because it's easy to track, say, a 6-ounce piece of poached chicken and 1 cup of white rice, but what about when these two things are in a recipe with a bunch of other ingredients, how do you track that?!  In the olden days, cookbooks didn't come with nutritional values for each recipe the way they do now.  Before the internet and Smart phones, there was no Google to research ingredients and their nutritional values either.  You had to look this information up in food books that listed their values and usually you needed several books because not all foods were listed in just one book.  It was tedious, time consuming, and very boring.  It could take an hour to figure out just one recipe's nutritional values (or points for WW) per serving and that's assuming the ingredients you were using were listed in one of those food books.

Nowadays, however, with the internet and recipe builder programs, it's a breeze.  I suddenly realized that I could make anything I wanted (within reason) without being limited to bland, boring foods.   When I cook, I like to try everything:  Mexican food, Asian food, Mediterranean food, etc.  I like everything except really spicy foods only because my stomach says, "I don't think so!"

When I joined WW, I wasn't sure what I could or couldn't eat, but I wanted to make the most of my daily points.  I spent hours looking through cookbooks I've collected through the years and searching for recipes online trying to find those I could make to get the most buck out of my daily points.  I spent days inputting old recipes into WW's recipe builder program (just the ingredients) to get the points per serving.  The nice thing is that fruits and vegetables were 0 points, with few exceptions, which made tracking these on WW easy.

I got some WW cookbooks which are great because the points (and nutritional values) are already listed, and I bought a couple of vegetarian cookbooks to get ideas for side dishes so I wouldn't be limited to eating salads every day.  Although I like a wide array of vegetables, I'm not creative enough to come up with ideas on my own.  As for fruits, I like a huge variety so these were never a problem. 

Although I was still eating frozen dinners and fast foods, I cut back on these considerably.   Whenever I did eat these, I'd check the points I had available beforehand to make sure I ended the day without going over (or going over too much).  I started thinking in terms of points, such as, "If I eat this Big Mac for XX number of points for lunch, then I won't have enough points for dinner." Once you start tracking what you eat, you realize how much you've been eating all along.  Portions are suddenly smaller than what you've been accustomed to, certain foods are too "expensive" for your daily points allowed and must be only consumed infrequently or not at all.

How do you figure out what's a serving portion for a recipe that doesn't have that information?  Simple.  Figure out how many calories are in the entire recipe, then divide that into various portions to see which will give you enough food to eat with the lowest calories possible.  In other words, let's say you have a recipe that contains 2,500 total calories.  If you split the quantity into 4 equal portions, each portion is equal to 625 calories (i.e., 2,500 calories divided by 4).  If you split that into 6 portions, then the calories per serving drop to 417 calories each, and 313 calories each if you split the food into 8 equal portions.  It's all about playing with numbers and compromising.  You also have to consider how many calories you'll have for the rest of the day after eating a particular meal.

My meals could be anything:  short ribs, roasted chicken, roasted turkey, pork chops, vegetarian dishes, etc.  Every portion I ate was tracked.  I was still eating cakes, pastries, pies, pizza, pasta, just not nearly as frequently as I had in the past and my portions were smaller when I did eat them.  I was still having a glass of wine with dinner.  If I didn't have the points available that day for whatever "bad" food I wanted, then I'd save it for another day.  I could still bake my banana nut bread, just not all the time and when I ate a piece, I had to measure/weigh it to make sure I was staying within points.

Regarding wine, this is a perfect example of how much I had been overeating for years.  I bought big wine glasses a while back and I used to fill them more than half way when I had a glass of wine.  I used to drink wine frequently throughout the week with dinner or after dinner.  When I started with WW, I learned that one serving of wine is only 5 fluid ounces (100-120 calories, depending on the wine).  When I measured 5 fluid ounces into my favorite big wine glass, I realized I had been drinking a heck of a lot more than one serving every day!  Suddenly my big wine glasses seemed enormous for the amount of wine I could put in them.  This was the epitome of my eating habits all along.  On a side note, alcoholic beverages are linked to breast cancer in women.  The more drinks we have, particularly in one sitting, the risk increases exponentially. So drinking wine less often was beneficial all around.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day although there are others who say no, it isn't.  Some people say eating breakfast is a must, and now some are saying no, it's better to fast in the mornings.  Regardless of what the reality is, I was never a breakfast person.  I hated eating in the morning.  The only thing I wanted was my cup of coffee with milk (no sugar since I don't like sweet drinks).  On rare occasions I would have toast or a bagel, but mostly it was just the coffee.  If there were pastries or cake in the house, that was a different story, then I would have some with my coffee.  Mostly, I rarely ate breakfast.  It was probably because I was binging late at night so when I woke up in the morning, I wasn't hungry.  In either case, I didn't grow up eating breakfast and so I never got used to it.

Once I joined WW, I tried really hard to eat breakfast every day and for a while I did.  I'd have cereal because it was easy or I'd throw some oatmeal with milk in the microwave but I didn't really like oatmeal.  I bought a bunch of different cereals so I wouldn't get bored.  I might fry an egg sometimes for breakfast, but mostly I didn't eat anything and resorted back to my coffee/milk only for most days.

For snacks in the afternoon or after dinner, I usually had fruit or I'd make a smoothie.  Most fruits were 0 points so the only thing I had to track was the milk.  I never used sugar in my smoothies just because the fruits were sweet enough.  Sometimes I'd have a yogurt instead.

Because I had been eating so terribly for so long, the minor changes I made worked like a charm and I was able to lose about 50 lbs. within 8 months.  At that point, however, I got stuck on a plateau that would last 16 months.  During this plateau, I gained/lost the same 15 lbs. over and over again, but I could not drop below the 50 lbs. to save my life.

I was doing well on my WW points so I didn't understand why my weight wasn't budging.  I was working out and sometimes ended the week with points left over so how is it that I was no longer losing weight?  I didn't understand it.  I had never been perfect on WW and I still lost weight so why wasn't it still working for me?

And then came my blue-haired tormentor, Fla….

By the time I allowed Fla to rule my life, I had been on a plateau for 16 months and I had "only" lost about 40 lbs. in almost two years (after regaining 10).  I had resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be the most I was ever going to lose.

Fla had me sign onto MyFitnessPal.com ("MFP") and both put me on 1,500 calories a day.  When you open an account with MFP, it'll ask you for your age, gender, etc. and then based on that information, it sets your maximum daily calories as well as goals for the rest of your daily nutritional values.  As you lose weight, you can choose to update MFP by inputting your new weight (I didn't) and your daily nutritional values change accordingly.  I, for one, kept the values the same throughout.  The only thing I changed was my sodium goals because MFP said my daily maximum was 2,300 mg, but from everything I've read, a woman over 50 should only consume up to 1,500 mg a day.  The nice thing about MFP is that you can change most, if not all, nutritional goals yourself if you want.  

As I explained in "It HAS to be the food!" Fla pointed out to me that I had been eating way too many calories a day and it was deceiving because I was dealing in WW points, not calories.  Because I was working out more than ever before once I started working closely with Fla, I could still eat about 1,700 calories a day and still lose weight steadily.  I didn't track my exercising specifically on MFP, but Fla and I agreed that 200 extra calories for my level of activity at the time was reasonable - although she didn't want me to use up the 200 extra calories at all.  I tried very hard to stay on 1,500 calories a day, but I didn't worry about it if I went over because I was more active.  It wasn't that I was eating bad foods either, a banana (100 calories) could throw me way over.

Tracking is the key.  No matter what I ate (whether on WW or MFP), I tracked everything.  My Smart phone which I used to always forget about so the battery would run out, suddenly became my best friend.  It was with me at all times, even in the house.  If I couldn't find it, I'd panic.  I used it to scan products at the store or products in my kitchen, I used it to input what I was eating when I was out and about, I was constantly checking my points (on WW) or calories (on MFP) to see what I had left.  On those occasions when I ate out and didn't know the nutritional values, I estimated the best I could by researching the foods on the internet with my phone.  Tracking at first was tedious and time consuming, but I resigned myself to the fact that this is the only thing that is going to work for me so I have no choice.  I know several people who absolutely refuse to track what they eat because they say it's just too annoying and horrible to do all day, every day and they just don't have the patience for it.  These are the same people who tell me they envy what I've accomplished as they keep gaining weight while I've been on my weight-loss journey.  Yes, tracking is awful, but it's a must for me.  After some time, it became second nature to me and now I can't imagine not tracking what I'm eating.  If you took my tracking away, I'd be lost!

Regarding tracking, I've kept it simple.  I only worry about calories foremost and I keep an eye on sodium from time to time.  I periodically check my other nutritional values (carbs, fat, protein, etc.), but it's mostly out of curiosity.  If I try to be good on all of them at the same time, my head will explode.  Ironically, as I become more discerning about my calories, the other nutritional values fall into place, too.   As for the "food groups" where they tell us we have to eat so many servings of this food and that food EVERY day, I don't pay attention to that either.  It's hard enough to deal with calories, let alone worrying about how many servings I had of something per day.  As long as I have vegetables and fruit on a regular basis, then I'm happy.  It's still an improvement from my diet pre-journey.  Remember, my motto nowadays is to do better, not be perfect.

In late November 2014, I started giving Fla my food diary for her review.  She immediately saw the trouble areas.  Because I had so many points (i.e., calories) available to me through WW, I was taking the liberty of eating "empty calories," meaning foods that provide no nutritional value at all.  Also, fruits and vegetables were not being tracked because under WW, most are 0 points, but MFP tracks everything.  Once you start tracking all vegetables and especially fruits, your caloric daily balance starts diminishing rather quickly.

These are some of the suggestions that Fla made to me right off the bat:

Breakfast:  I had to eat breakfast every day, especially if I was going to work out in the morning.  She told me no matter what, I had to eat something before our training sessions.  As I started working with Fla and becoming more active while reducing my food consumption overall, I soon realized that I had to eat breakfast every morning because I was actually hungry not long after I woke up.  Now breakfast is my daily routine.

Protein drinks:  she suggested I start drinking protein shakes after we trained, to rebuild muscle and for a good source of protein.  The powder made by Dymatize (Elite) that I bought at GNC is 130 calories for one scoop.  I wasn't crazy about drinking powdered drinks because they usually tasted chalky, but it was actually pretty tasty (if mixed well) and this was my snack on those days we trained.  See "Products" for a photo of the packaging.

Cereals/oatmeal:   get rid of all cereals.  They're loaded with sugar and they're not healthy.  It's a better use of calories with oatmeal because it's healthier and fills you up longer.  When I joined WW, I really didn't have to go through my pantry, but now I did.  I threw out all the cereals I had and started eating oatmeal instead.  I grew to like it.

Eggs:   use egg whites instead of the whole egg particularly for breakfast.  While on WW, I used to buy the cartons of egg whites once in a while, but I never used them because it kind of grossed me out, and eventually I had to throw them out because the packages had expired, but I decided to try them again after Fla's recommendation.  For months now, I go through two large cartons of egg whites a week because my favorite breakfast now is 1/2 a cup of egg whites (67 calories) with a couple of tablespoons of salsa, particularly mango/peach salsa (25 calories for 2 tablespoons).  I eat this almost every breakfast because it's easy, tasty, and low in calories.  I often throw in a fruit, too, or maybe a yogurt.

Milk:  at the time I was drinking whole milk (150 calories for 8 ounces) or 2% milk (140 calories for 8 ounces).  Fla wanted me to switch to unsweetened almond milk (30 calories for 8 ounces) or unsweetened coconut milk (45 calories for 8 ounces) because they're much lower in calories.  I tried these but I hated the way they affected the taste of my coffee.  As I told Fla, "Nothing can get in the way of my morning coffee!"  Her response was, "It's up to you how you use up your calories.  Would you rather use 30 calories on 8 ounces of milk or 150?  It's up to you."  At one point, I had eight different cartons of milk in my fridge trying to find the lowest caloric one I liked.  I finally settled on unsweetened almond milk vanilla flavored for my smoothies and protein drinks, but for my coffee, I switched back to regular milk but compromised and made it fat free (90 calories for 8 ounces).  I had found a soy milk I liked that was low in calories, but then I read that processed soy products are linked to breast cancer so I gave up all soy products.  There's a lot of contradictory information out there regarding processed soy products and to me it's not worth the risk so I gave up soy products as much as possible.  Unfortunately, soy seems to be in EVERYTHING, including supplements.

Yogurt:   at the time I started working with Fla, I was eating a delicious, creamy yogurt that was also 260 calories per 6 ounces.  She suggested non-fat Greek yogurt.  There are tons of choices out there and after trying various types, brands, and flavors, I settled on a couple of brands I liked that contain half the calories as my previous choice.  (I list these under "Products.")

Peanut butter:   Although I always liked peanut butter, it's never been a favorite of mine.  I used to buy the jars and they'd sit in the fridge until I had to throw them out because they expired.  Suddenly, I was craving peanut butter day and night.  Fla said it was because we were doing more cardio and my body was craving the fat.  Whatever the reason, I couldn't get enough of it.  I could literally sit there and eat the whole jar in one sitting if I allowed myself.  Suddenly, I was constantly buying jars of peanut butter like never before.  At 190 calories for 2 tablespoons, that's a lot of calories for such a small amount of food.  Imagine, 6 tablespoons which is not that much quantity-wise equaled 570 calories!  That's a full meal's worth.  She suggested powdered peanut butter that is only 45 calories per 2 tablespoons.  I bought some and used it in my protein shakes, smoothies, and oatmeal.  I didn't even know they made powdered peanut butter, but it tastes and smells like the real thing.  I met my craving without blowing my daily caloric allowance.  After several weeks, I didn't crave peanut butter anymore although I still throw some of the powdered version into one of my protein shakes for prosperity.  See "Products" for a photo of the packaging.

Get rid of empty calories (foods with no nutritional value whatsoever), for example:   wine, crackers, chips, pastries, pasta, tortillas.  Because I had so many points available under WW, I was consuming a lot of these empty calories every day.  Now that I was on limited calories, I drastically reduced the consumption of these, although I didn't give them up completely.  Wine I still drink, but not nearly as often as before.  Crackers I can't have in the house or I'll eat the whole box in one sitting.  With chips, I can control myself, but I opted not to buy them anymore because I rather use those calories for something more filling.  Forget pastries!  Pasta, which I used to eat many times a week, now I eat maybe once every couple of months, if that.  What I switched to is making pasta out of zucchini and yellow squash.  They sell this little gizmo that spiralizes them into long strands like spaghetti and I sauté them with a little bit of oil, garlic, and sun dried tomatoes and that's my new pasta dish.  As for tortillas, I've replaced them with butter lettuce leaves when I make tacos.  See "Meal Ideas."

Breads:  if I'm going to eat bread, she said, use whole wheat bread which is healthier and lower in calories.  Unfortunately, I don't like wheat bread, never have.  I like white bread.  LOVE white bread.  I tried various brands of whole wheat bread and I just didn't like any of them.  So I switched back to white although I compromised by not having it often and by finding the least caloric white bread I could find.  Before I'd go through a loaf of bread in a week, now a loaf lasts me forever.  Many times I have to throw it out because it's gone bad.  I love French bread and would have it regularly, but I only eat that once in a great while now.

Olive oil:  although it's a healthy oil, it's also 120 calories per tablespoon!  I used to use it on everything liberally which piled on the calories.  Just think, 3 tablespoons (which is not that much) is 360 calories and that's before you even consider the other ingredients in the recipe!  OUCH!  So whenever I could, I switched to cooking oil in a spray can.  Fla recommended coconut sprays (0 calories) but the thing I don't like about coconut oil is that it has a low burning tolerance, meaning it doesn't take much heat to get it smoking.  Different oils have different burning thresholds.  So I use canola oil in a spray can (0 calories) whenever possible, for example, to fry something quickly like my breakfast egg whites.  Whenever I have to use olive oil, for example for sautéing, I use as little as possible while not ruining the recipe. 

Nuts:  Fla told me that nuts are a better choice for snacks than say, crackers.  Although nuts are high in calories, they're very healthy as long as you watch how much you consume.  It doesn't take much to overdo the calories with nuts though.  Before I never ate nuts unless they were in a cake or muffin.  Now I buy various types of nuts and when I want a quick snack, I'll grab a few.

Protein bars:   she recommended Kind bars or Quest bars.  You can buy them at GNC and Kind bars are everywhere now, even Starbucks and grocery stores.  I always keep a few Kind bars in my purse in case I'm running around town and I get hungry.  It works well in quenching my hunger quickly, especially if I'll be home in a couple of hours when I can eat a regular meal.  They're high in calories (about 200 calories per bar), but they're filling and healthier than say, chips, crackers, or fast food.  Plus they taste good.  See "Products" for a photo of the packaging.

Starbucks:   I used to drink lattes regularly, like almost daily, but Fla said no more Starbucks!  She pointed out that depending on the milk they use and the size I get, the lattes are high in calories.  A grande latte with regular milk is 190 calories, and with non-fat milk, it's still 130 calories.  So instead of drinking these regularly, I get them infrequently.  I like my afternoon coffee and if I'm running around town, but will be home soon, I forgo Starbucks and make my own coffee so I can control the calories.  I probably drink Starbucks now once a week.  Fla doesn't monitor my food diary anymore because I've gotten the hang of it, but I swear, every time I have a Starbucks latte or a piece of cake (even when I've been good for weeks), she decides to ask me, "So what did you eat today?"  The woman has a radar when I eat bad foods.

Juices:  I love orange juice, especially in the morning.  These are loaded with sugar and apparently store-bought juices can also have arsenic from what I've read.  Even fresh-squeezed juices have a lot of sugar.  It's better to eat the whole fruit because with juicing you remove the insoluble fiber which slows down how our bodies process the sugar contained in that food.  I used to buy cartons of orange juice every week, but now I only have fresh-squeezed orange juice once in a great while, like maybe once a month.

Carbs:  She told me to eat most of my carbs during the day, not in the evenings.  This suggestion is hard for me to follow because most often I don't know what I want for dinner until the time comes around.   

Sodium levels:   once I got a handle on the calories, Fla pointed out to me how much sodium foods have, particularly processed foods, fast foods, and restaurant foods.  Even if the calories aren't too bad, the sodium will often be outrageous.  When I started watching my sodium, too, my levels had been off the charts!  A woman over the age of 50 should consume no more than 1,500 mg of sodium.  I was eating twice or thrice that amount every day!  (By the way, MFP showed my daily sodium goal to be 2,300 mg but that amount is for everybody else.  From what I've read, a woman over 50 should consume no more than 1,500 mg a day.  The nice thing about MFP is you can change your nutritional value goals, too.)

You have to read the labels and make sure you understand the serving portions on those labels because they can be deceiving.  An example is with canned tomatoes which I use for cooking all the time.  Comparing canned tomatoes is a trip.  Some brands' labels list the nutritional values for 1/2 cup whereas other brands list the values for 1/4 cup so it's a bit deceiving if you're not paying attention to the serving portion when comparing products.  In all recipes I've made, the smallest amount used is 14 ounces, but most of my recipes use 28 ounces.  When you calculate the nutritional value for 14 ounces, let alone 28 ounces, the sodium is off the charts.  For example, with a canned tomato brand that is 110 mg sodium for 1/4 cup (i.e., 2 ounces), the sodium totals 770 mg for 14 ounces and 1,540 mg for 28 ounces!!!  And that's just one ingredient for a particular recipe!!!   I'm still looking for low sodium canned tomatoes with not much luck. 

Soy sauce is another killer.  I love Asian foods and a lot of recipes use soy sauce.  I thought I was so smart because I bought "37% less sodium soy sauce."  Then I did the calculations and nearly choked.  For the brand I got, 1 tablespoon = 575 mg of sodium!!!  Some of my recipes call for 1/4 cup which means I'm adding 2,300 mg of sodium before I add any other ingredient.  And this is for the "37% low sodium" version.  Good grief!   As I mentioned above under "milk," processed soy products are controversial.  I Googled "recipe soy sauce substitute" and found a few that are pretty good.  They use beef broth and spices and the taste is good enough for recipes.

Fast foods:   no, no, no, no, no.  Fast foods are bad, bad, bad!  Fla pointed out to me that even if the calories are reasonable on a particular item, the sodium content is outrageous.  Whenever I took Mitzi, my mother's dog, to the park, I'd always stop by McDonald's to get lunch.  It used to be a Big Mac and fries, but when I was using WW, I made it a chicken wrap (no fries) because they're quite tasty and not too bad on calories for fast food.  Then Fla pointed out the sodium and it's outrageous so I stopped getting them.  Now I stop off at a market and get a pre-packaged salad, use the dressing that comes with it sparingly (or not at all), and a piece of fruit.  It's a much healthier choice.  I used to eat fast foods almost every day, then when I started with WW, I'd eat it about once a week or every other week.  Now I don't eat fast food at all.  Whenever I go to a drive-thru, it's to get a bottle of water or an unsweetened ice tea.  I can't remember the last time I had any fast food at all.  Whenever I go through the drive-thru, I always expect to see Fla leering at me at the other end.

Processed foods:   I must admit my ignorance here.  I often heard the term "processed foods," but in all honesty, I had no idea what that meant exactly (nor did I ever care to know) until I started with WW.  What did they mean by processed foods?  The way I see it now, processed foods means everything that's not a fresh/frozen vegetable or fruit, eggs, or protein like beef, fish, poultry.  Technically, even milk is processed and so are canned vegetables and canned fruits.  The longer the list of ingredients on a package, the more processed the food is.  It particularly relates to boxed foods.  In any case, I always had frozen dinners in my freezer for those days I didn't have anything cooked and I was hungry.  Although these are great in a pinch, they're loaded with sodium even when the calories aren't too bad.  I used to eat these all the time, then when I was on WW I cut back and since I've been on MFP, I don't eat frozen dinners at all.  I can't remember the last time I had one. I, do, however, use canned vegetables and canned fruits, but the sodium is incredible, even when the can says "low sodium," so I try not to use them often. 

Eating out while running errands:   when I started working closely with Fla, I realized that when you're out and about, if you get hungry, there's really nothing healthy out there.  I knew fast foods were out there (how could I not, they were part of my daily diet), but I hadn't realized just how many there are on every street!  Trying to find something healthy is nearly impossible. If I plan ahead, I take food with me, but usually I just grab my purse and take off and then I realize later that I'm starving.  Now what?  What I do now is I look for a market and I go where they have pre-packaged salads.  The dressing that comes with these is a killer so I use it sparingly or not at all.  I also grab a banana or apple and then that's my meal.  Of course, the requisite bottle of water because, you know, I'm pretentious now.  

Sometimes I grab a pre-packaged sandwich at the market instead or I go to Subways to get a 6-inch turkey sandwich.  I try not to eat sandwiches frequently, but sometimes I have a craving for them.  

At a couple of markets I frequent, they also have a fresh sushi bar where all sorts of rolls are made daily on the premises (California Rolls, Dragon Rolls, Hawaiian Rolls, etc.).  Sometimes I grab a package of these and it's the perfect meal when I don't feel like having a salad or a sandwich while I'm out and about town.  Also, I've found that when I scan the UPC bars using the MFP scanner on my cell phone, the nutritional values come up automatically for most of these packages.
  

Eating in restaurants:  If it were up to Fla, I'd never leave my house because she hates it when I go out.  When I tell her I have plans to go out, she'll say, "Oh, no.  I don't like that."  If I tell her that, God forbid, I have a couple of lunch/dinner dates in the same week, she'll grab her head and exclaims, "No, no, no!  They're messing with my personal project!"  (Fla calls me her personal project.)  But in all honesty, it always scares me when I go out to eat because I never know if I'm going to lose all self control when I'm at the restaurant.  What I do now is if I know what restaurant we're going to, I check their menu online the day before and I spend time analyzing the nutritional value for everything they serve.  I'll pick out something reasonable and when we get to the restaurant, I don't look at the menu, I just order what I decided to get the night before.  Sometimes this information isn't available online (or the restaurant no longer serves what I want) so I do the best I can once I'm there.   

The problem with eating at restaurants is the calories and sodium levels will be very high no matter what you order.  Don't be deceived in thinking that a salad is healthier because the salad dressing will negate that.  If you actually look at the calories of the dressing, you can see that many times a burger will have less calories.  Two tablespoons of salad dressing can be 150-200+ calories and two tablespoons is nothing, they often pile on the salad dressing.  Even when I eat well at a restaurant, I always blow my calories that day.  As long as it happens once in a while, that's okay.  I try to space out my lunch/dinner dates so they're not all bunched up in the same week.  Also, I compromise by eating smaller meals the rest of the day.

No matter where you go, when you eat out, the calories are higher and so is the sodium.

So the above is a good sample of the suggestions Fla started making after reviewing my food diary.  Little adjustments here and there, some compromising, and being more cognizant about calories on my part made all the difference in the world.  You have to do your homework on foods, products, etc.  That's why I said several times that eating right is time consuming.  It is.  There's a lot of research, reading, computing, tracking, measuring and weighing foods, etc. (not to mention the actual cooking part) especially in the beginning when it's all new and confusing.  It can be daunting, but if you stay with it, it'll get easier as it starts making sense and the payoff is incredible.

When I started with WW, grocery shopping became incredibly time consuming because I spent so much time reading labels, comparing products, trying to find those items that had the least number of points per serving thanks to the scanner app on my cell phone.  I remember once that by the time I got to my car with my groceries, I realized I had been inside the store for almost 2 hours!  Once I figured out what products I could have, shopping for groceries became much easier. 

Then when I started working closely with Fla and I had to tweak my eating habits once again, shopping for groceries became time consuming again because now I had to look at not only calories but sodium, too.  Once again, I found myself spending hours at the store reading labels and comparing products.

When you start thinking of daily caloric allowances, and you realize the hard work it takes to burn those calories, you become more discerning about what you consume and suddenly it doesn't seem worth it to eat something bad.  For example, often at the market I'll gravitate to the baked goods section (don't tell Fla!) looking for something sweet to eat (remember, these are my downfall), but what ends up happening is I'll pick up a package of, say, cookies and the calories for one tiny cookie will be something like 240.  At that point I start thinking, "240 calories for this tiny cookie???  That's like an hour on the treadmill!" and then I put the package back and I walk away.  On the rare occasions when I did give in and I bought the package, I started to become obsessed at having that food in the house so I'd have to throw it out into the trash can outside for fear that I might eat it all in one sitting.  There are certain foods that I just have no self control over, even today, so it's best if I don't bring them in the house, especially in bulk (i.e., a package that contains several of them).

Since we're talking about calories, I also want to mention this:   although it is true that one calorie is the same no matter what the food, the huge difference lies in how our bodies process those calories.  In other words, for example, if you had to choose 160 calories of nuts or 160 calories of crackers, the healthier choice is the nuts even though both servings are 160 calories.  It has to do with how our bodies process food and whether the food contains nutritional value.  There's an excellent documentary titled "Fed Up" that explains this concept better than I ever could.

What works for me best is to track foods before I eat them.  For example, if I plan to eat a steak for dinner, I figure out how many calories it'll be for the steak (depends on the type of beef and weight) as well as how many calories the sides will be.  Then I check my caloric balance on MFP to see if I have enough calories for that dinner.  If I don't, I have something else for dinner and I'll save the steak for another time.  It's all about tweaking and compromising.  You do not have to deprive yourself completely of the foods you like.

I also want to mention skipping meals here.  When I was on WW this time around, the only meals I skipped were breakfast most days only because I didn't like eating in the mornings, not intentionally to lose weight.  Since I started working with Fla, I have not skipped any meals except for when I was sick for a few days with a stomach virus.  Even when I'm not hungry, I'll have something to eat, whether it's a yogurt and fruit or maybe a protein shake, but I always eat something.  Skipping meals doesn't work and it's bad for your body. My self-imposed official weigh-in day is Saturday morning and there are times it crosses my mind on Friday night to skip dinner so that the scale will be kinder the next morning.  It's an old habit from the old me.  Now it's a fleeting thought that is immediately replaced with, "That's ridiculous.  The scale will say what it'll say.  Now, what's for dinner?"

The first week with Fla when I started tweaking my food intake, I lost over 5 lbs. and within the first month, I lost a total of 14 lbs.  I had lost 40 lbs. on my own before joining Total Woman and meeting Fla in August 2014.  By August 2015, a year later, I had lost another 75 lbs. for a total of 115 lbs. 

Tracking, tweaking your diet, being more conscientious about calories DOES work.  It's time consuming to eat properly, it's a lot of hard work and it's a (very) slow process, but in the end, it's worth every second of it. 
  

The other thing I noticed that happened with me is this:  when I was seeing relative success, especially when I was on WW before I hit my 16-month plateau, I wondered if I could continue doing it for the long term or whether I'd start to revert back to my old habits that would slow my progress.  I wasn't thinking of giving up, it was more a concern that I'd slow down because I lost my momentum in the future.  However, the opposite happened.  Not only did I continue, but as I saw greater success when I started working closely with Fla, I became newly motivated time and time again and wanted to keep doing better still.  As I said, I'm a visual learner and I saw it like this in my mind's eye:  

In order to start my journey, I walked into a dark tunnel.  I had no idea where it would end, if I'd ever get there, or what was inside, but I started walking one step at a time, proceeding one week at a time.  I had no idea how long it was going to take or if I'd fail in the process.  Sometimes it was frustrating and I fell or was too tired to continue or I was faced with obstacles, but I didn't give up.  I kept plodding forward.  Then one day I saw a light far away which showed me the end of the tunnel existed.  I knew I was heading in the right direction and I started running for the exit.  Even though I didn't know how long it'd take me to get to the end, I knew it was there and I wanted to get there as fast as possible.  

That's how I visualize my journey so far.