Weighty Decisions

I’m not sure there’s any way for me to return to the weight I carried when I was 30. Would I even want to? I just wish probable results were more quantifiable before you started.

With my weight climbing toward my personal high water mark, last week I answered Helaine’s call and began dieting. I’m trying something novel – eating less and better.

Actually, it’s a little more complicated. The pretzels and nuts, my own dietary crack cocaine, have been hidden. I am also attempting to eat a little better when I eat out. For instance, last week at Panera it was a salmon salad instead of a fat infused, carb-a-licious sandwich. Every little bit helps.

The first week is the easy week on a diet, because the results happen so quickly. I’m down over five pounds.

I wasn’t actually planning to write about this at all, except for a news story we had on-the-air tonight.

Epidemiologist Sharon Fowler, from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, presented research data on soda consumption to the American Diabetes Association.

“What we saw was that the more diet sodas a person drinks, the more weight they were likely to gain,” she says.

That finding was a big surprise, but it reflected what nutritionist Melainie Rogers saw in her work with obese patients in New York.

“When we would switch them on to diet soda off regular soda, we weren’t seeing weight loss necessarily, and that was confusing to us,” Rogers says.

I haven’t really had much diet soda over the last few weeks, but I do drink coffee and use Slenda to sweeten in. I’m guessing this is the same thing?

Back when I was really thin, I used to kid around about what turns out to be the conclusion reached here… but I was just kidding.

I’m not sure there’s any way for me to return to the weight I carried when I was 30. Would I even want to? I just wish probable results were more quantifiable before you started.

You know how Google will give you road directions to get to your destination? We need the equivalent for diets.

7 thoughts on “Weighty Decisions”

  1. I too am at the point where dieting must begin again. I had heard the issue about diet soda. I am not sure the same holds true for sweetened drinks, but I guess it’s good to stick with water or coffee without sweeteners. Let me know what you have been eating outside the house, as this is my biggest problem. Restaurant food seems to encourage overeating. During past dieting experiences, I have cut restaurant meals in half ,ate half and took the rest home. It worked for me in the past, but I can’t seem to get onto the diet train. Maybe if the weather warms up a bit I will not have the urge to eat fattening foods. Who knows…it can happen.

  2. It’s just not fair…. Why do carbs taste so good? If they told me the bomb is coming, I’m heading for Stop and Shop and sit in the coffee cake aisle…. and darn it, I LIKE my diet soda….

  3. Congratulations, it sounds like you’ve embarked upon the most sensible way to lose weight. It’s just as much *what* you eat as *how much* and *when*.

    I’m not surprised at all to learn that they’re starting to figure out a correlation between diet soda and weight. There may be no calories in the stuff, but all those chemicals can’t possibly be good for you.

    I only drink water and (unsweetened) tea, and I firmly believe that is as much responsible for the 50 lbs I have lost over the past 3 years as eating sensibly, healthily, and in moderation. And oh yeah, going for lots of long walks. 🙂

  4. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement and suggestions.

    I’ll give you an example of something I did tonight. I went to the diner and had a turkey, bacon club sandwich.

    Obviously, that’s not the best – I admit it. I was hoping there was salmon on the menu – but there was not.

    However, instead of mayo, I had mustard. Instead of fries, I had veggies. That’s probably 100 calories from the mayo and 200 from the fries. And, of course when I came home, no pretzels (my weakness).

    You have to cut back around 3,500 calories to lose a pound (which is why it’s so difficult to lose weight by exercising).

    Ten more pounds and I’ll be happy. Twenty pounds and I’ll be ecstatic.

  5. I think the diet drink info isn’t complete, yet, with too many variables to really say that diet drinks cause weight gain.

    I suspect that the sudden decrease in caloric intake by switching to diet drinks causes these folks to make up for that loss (and then some) by snacking or some other substitution of calories.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *