Time for a Little Famine!

Wow!! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas season! We ate wonderful food, visited with friends and family and had a lot of fun...  When I stepped on the scale this morning, (YIKES!!), it registered that we had been feasting a little TOO well!! So... time for a little famine! Or a lot of famine.. no, I think a little famine will do.

I'm a big believer in portion control.. that is my main method of weight control. But when the scale is reading really high, (like it is right now), I resort to a little famine. I know they say don't skip meals, but honestly, that is the quickest way to lose pounds fast, and it's not going to kill you to be a little hungry. I actually LIKE the feeling you get when you skip a meal or two. You can actually FEEL your body getting thinner... and NO! I'm not some crazy lady living in the burbs! Okay, maybe just a LITTLE crazy. But try it! Once you ignore that first hunger cry your stomach goes quiet, and you won't feel very hungry at all. I usually only skip two meals in one day max, a couple times a week. Usually it's breakfast and lunch, because I have a family and we always eat dinner together. After fasting two meals, I eat a normal dinner. No seconds (that's the hard part). Drink lots of water. Eat slowly. Enjoy every bite. (oh, and cut out the sodas.. really, they are just extra calories you DON'T need EVER, and the diet ones will probably be found to cause death any day now!)  USUALLY we reserve our dessert indulgences for the weekend or special occasions, but one thing we do most nights is to grab a small handful of chocolate chips, and eat them one at a time, letting them melt in your mouth slowly. This one handful is shared by my husband and I. So it's not too many. There is always a special occasion right around the corner, so really, on the "normal" days, surely we can curtail the sweets a bit.

If you can eat your big meal mid-afternoon and have just a very small snack for dinner it's even better! If you can manage to feel hungry during the day for a bit and go to bed a little hungry at night, you will really drop the pounds fast. Mix up your fasting days with your eating days and your body will never go into starvation mode. It works! My husband lost close to 60 lbs this way and I lost 25. When we were seriously dieting we ate a lot of grilled chicken salad for dinner,(we might need to revisit that plan for a few weeks). But as long as you practice portion control you can eat most things in small amounts and still lose weight.

An alternative to fasting two meals a few days a week, is to just eat smaller portions for two meals. By small, I mean ONE SMALL bowl of cereal for breakfast (not THREE), 1/2 sandwich or a bit of soup for lunch, or skip that and have just 2 spoons of crunchy peanut butter. (Crunchy is better, makes you feel like your really eating, and it is oh soooo good. I do this a lot because it's fast, no hassle and yummy). Then eat a regular sized dinner meal. REMEMBER, NO SECONDS!

I do exercise. I'm not a professional athlete and I don't kill myself EVER,  but I do enjoy walking a lot and a LITTLE running and have recently added weight training for bone health.  I try to get at least 30 minutes of walking/running five days a week, and a lot of days I'll add an afternoon walk as well. It's just good for you to be active. It feels good, gets the blood pumping, elevates your mood. There is no downside to walking. Unless it's cold, and icy and ... well, just walk anyway... it will do you good.

One word of caution for women, please be sure and get enough calcium, vitamin D and green leafy vegetables in your diet to prevent osteoporosis. It's nice to be thin, but not at the expense of your bone health.