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As I've mentioned I've been trying to make some life changes recently. More importantly I'm on a diet. While I've not been very strict, I have been trying to watch what I eat.

Last week Food Lion had some major deals on Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice meals. I'm a sucker for prepackaged diets that require only mindlessly pressing a few buttons on the microwave. Some of them have been downright good, but many are awful. I love the Paninis. But my favorite diet food I came across was these 90 calorie (a package) rice cakes dribbled in chocolate mint. Oh these are perfect! Especially when you have a sweet buzz. These things are greatest scientific invention of the century.

Also good are the fat free pudding, and the lo-cal yougurt. Healthy Choice's steamer bowls are excellent, but their chicken parmigiana was downright horrid.


I'm always looking for great diet foods. I use to be able to make fat-free nachos back when you could get Fat-free Kraft cheese. I actually can't find it locally.

I'm also very fond of the wheat tortillas I can get at Wal Mart. Very tasty without all the bad stuff.

I can also do a fat free spaghetti, and fat-free pancakes but now a days we all try to steer clear of the carbs.

I'm quite certain there are other new diet foods out there, its just that everything is so expensive.

Dear Lord yes, I have never understood how they take out expensive ingredients and then raise the price!

I have found however that the best diet food is still no calorie all water iceberg lettuce garnished with a whole can of any vegetable (or frozen vegetable if you prefer) with just a tad of vinegar, or iceberg lettuce with a whole can of any fruit as long as it it packed in juice and not syrup. For lunch I toss in a handful of croutons and for dinner the croutons are replaced with a half cup of fat free cottage cheese. In between I eat apples. Lots and lots of apples. You will lose weight, get all your vitamins and minerals and have none of the digestive system problems that some diets cause.

Does it get boring: yes. But after a week of this regimen you can take a few days of a more normal food choices as long as you don't go over board. I usually just have the regular deserts rather than the packaged diet desserts because they just aren't as good I don't care how much I try to tell myself they are. So why waste calories on something you have to "try to like? Have the real thing just less of it and on one of your "normal foods" days.

I stayed relatively thin for 25 years on this regimen. Then at the grand old age of 40 I vowed never again to go to bed hungry and blew up like the Goodyear blimp. At some point in life you simply stop fighting God, or gene, or whatever. Do I like being fat? Hell no! But I';m still me; there is just a whole lot more of me is all. BB

That's not healthy at all. Brenda!!!

Here's the thing, you need meat, you need carbs, and you need veggies. .... Well or atleast I do. If not my brain goes foggy. I find I can't think straight. Can I function? Yes. Am I zombie? Yes.

And everytime I try a diet that says "one single thing forever" I hate it. I enjoy eating, I enjoy different flavors, and more importantly I'm firmly aware by the age I am now, that when it comes to dieting, no matter what I say.... when it comes down to it, my self-control is not what it should be.

My parents were on Atkins for years and while they did lose weight momentarily, I've seen their health actually decline because of it. I don't mind being a few pounds overweight, but I've let myself go these last few years, and it's time for intervention.

Luckily for me, I'm still at the point in my life where I can eat anything I want, and I wont gain a fraction of a pound.

IgnoranceIsBliss wrote:Luckily for me, I'm still at the point in my life where I can eat anything I want, and I wont gain a fraction of a pound.

Wouldn't that be nice.

Liv, Every other day you eat normal, which means meat potatoes pasta and even deserts (the real kind). What you are actually doing is counting calories on a two day schedule rather than on e day at a time. Fewer calories one day gives you more the next day the n you go back to fewer again. It just allows for those little slips where you overeat on some things that means you went off your diet. If you have the extra calories available because of the iceberg days then you don't go off your diet.

It is also very important that you keep a record of every thing that goes in your mouth. Even a stick of gum.

Now understand you are getting diet advice from one who is morbidly obese at this point in her life. But, I stayed at what Weight Watchers claims is my normal weight of 135 to 145 for 25 years and the above is how I was able to do it without going around craving all the time. On the "eating" days I even had really big NO NO's like fudge and brownies. (just one small piece!) Or when I was going to a party or family reunion with all the wonderful stuff where the women all try to out do each other, I would do two iceberg days in a row giving me even more lee way to sample the goodies on the third day.

Actually overeating was not really a problem either because of the iceberg days your body thought it was full much sooner on less food.

And believe it or not, after awhile I found that I often preferred having the iceberg salad food even on the normal food days. It is really not the same thing over and over because you can use so many different fruits and veggies on the lettuce. It's just that the lettuce is most of it flavored with the fruit and veggies. Iceberg lettuce is like tofu, a filler that takes on the flavors you put with it. You have to think out of the box and not just what is normally called salad stuff. Yep, I have even had 1/4 cup of melted ice cream on my big bowl of iceberg. 50 or so calories and you are filled up for three hours! and you have had that No No ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate are lousy. The best are the fruit flavors.

I will tell you this: Lose weight before you are 50 and keep it off because at 66 I can not lose weight short of total fasting. The above no longer works for me even if done 5 days a week. Metabolism changes and your body conserves calories like crazy. Calories in the form of fat on hips, belly and chins.

I am grateful for one thing: I like nice, pretty clothes and always have. Because there are so many of us "queen sizes" out there they are making pretty clothes in humongous sizes so you don't actually have to wear tents. Tho be careful because they may make huge bikinis but rolls of fat .....well, yuck! Stick to one piece bathing suits Put some kind of fabric over the skin is the rule. Also buy and use a lot of tanning lotion where ever skin shows. Tanned skin is more appealing than the fishy white (ugh!) I even had a light tan in the winter that just got darker in the summer. Tanning lotion and not sun!!

One day with luck and in your lifetime they will develop a pill that allows you to eat and still lose just like those damned skinny minnies do. BB

I can vouch, that this isn't the pill.

Dieting is really difficult especially if it contains food that you don't really enjoy eating. But we should not get disappointed because there are thousands of healthy foods intended for us that really taste great. We just patiently go to supermarkets and browse for those foods. If we are fond of fast foods, we can try the Quiznos' Flatbread Sammies which is all less than 250 calories.