How I Lost 26 Pounds

Today I ate my sandwich (yes with two pieces of bread!) and my cookies, and still lost weight!

There are so many weight loss products on the market, it can make your head spin. Although I am sure, these products help you lose the rolls, but what happens afterwards? You know you can't sustain those dry rice cracker diets, or the "no carb" diet forever.  They may work in the beginning, but who wants to keep eating like that?  Where will you be one year later?

Once you have lost those 10 pounds fast, so that you could go to the reunion, now what?. Can you realistically keep up that kind of diet?. without gaining it back?.. For me, the answer is NO. Therefore, shouldn't we find a easier more gentler way to not only lose the weight but keep it off too?

More questions than answers right?.. Well, I can't promise you 10 pounds by next week so that you can go to that reunion, but I can tell you that this system WORKED for me.

Most of us have diet habits, ones that are hard to break, so why break them?.. If you like to have 2 cookies after lunch, than keep doing that, why punish ourselves?. Just change the brand of cookies. Find a good quality cookie (not the low fat kind, they don't always taste that great and tend to have more sugar) and really examine the calorie chart on the package. Find one that saves 30 to 50 calories for your two cookies.

Now this has not made you feel deprived at all right? But you say... big deal 30 calories! Now do this with some of your other foods.. and the results will absolutely amaze you!  I changed out the cheese on my sandwich for a lighter version, and many times I just change it for pickles, a savings of 200 calories.  Try switching out the mayo and use mustard instead.  A 100 calorie saving.

If you can find 250 calories a day by "exchanging" foods, then you will lose one pound in two weeks.  This may not sound like much, but you will have hardly felt the change.  I made most of the changes in my lunch, but you can shave calories off of any meal, 30 here 30 there, without sacrificing taste. 

If you do this on your most routine days, you will start to notice your clothes fitting a little better.  If you want to speed this up, then add a walk during your day, or walk the dog after work.  But for me, just switching the cheese on my sandwich for pickles, was enough to lose one pound in 2 weeks, and that was doing absolutely nothing else to the rest of my day.  I still ate dessert etc.  I just picked on the cheese in my sandwich (which is high calorie, you could try the lower calorie version instead if you must have cheese)

I then added walking my dog after work, and at the end of the month I had lost 4 pounds, and it really didn't feel like much of a change, I was still eating everything else the same.  For me it was the cheese.  But you can try shaving calories off of any routine meal.  You don't have to starve, just make a few tweaks, something you will like and stick with.  Then just forget about it, don't obsess..

Take some time next time you grocery shop, make a list of your most habit foods, and find some replacements.. good tasting ones!  Try switching the taste a bit, so you don't miss an item.  I found the pickles and mustard on my sandwich a great taste, and I didn't miss the cheese.  That was my only diet change, and a year later I am down 26 pounds.