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The Myths About Dieting - How I Lost Weight If you are like me, and most women are, you have been on a yo-yo diet for years. What’s so bad is that I was only about 15 to 20 pounds overweight (by someone’s standards, certainly not my own) when I began trying to lose weight. I am a 58 year old female with average intelligence and have worked outside my home for most of my life. I’m just like you. I try to eat right, I try to exercise as much as possible (actually I’m pretty much sedentary), I work to make a living, I have kids and grandkids and I am married. Now just to be clear - I AM NOT AN ‘EXPERT’. I’m just a woman living in this world just like you. If you even think you want to try anything in this article, talk to your doctor first. I will not be responsible for your health. All I can do is state my opinion. You can believe or not. Before the ‘diet craze’ began 30 some odd years ago, I would just walk to lose a few pounds. Or I would just cut out dessert for a month. When the weight came off I would go back to normal. When I turned 30 and had my last child, I had gained 56 pounds during pregnancy. After a few weeks I had lost 24 pounds. But most of my weight gain was in my thighs. I walked and cut back on my eating and was steady losing about 1 or 2 pounds every couple of weeks. When I got down to within about 20 pounds of my ‘normal weight’, it just seemed to stall. So, I did what you and millions of other women did and found a ‘diet plan’ that sounded really good. It was a ‘low fat diet’. I was faithful to it. The first week I lost about 5 pounds and was pretty happy. Over the next few weeks my weight would not budge.. I was starving to death and the weight just would not come off. What do I do? I look for another way to lose weight. This one promised to get the fat off by putting me on a ‘no fat diet’. So, here we go again. I lost a little weight, but I ended up binging. I wanted food. The weight piled back on, really fast, plus a few more pounds. I wanted Real Food. I gave up for a while and looked around at some other plans. The ‘Cabbage Diet’. I’m sure you’ve tried it. Very few calories. Lots of cabbage. Lots and lots of cabbage. Finally, it was more than I could take. Do you know I could not eat cabbage for a long time after that? Needless to say, anything I lost came right back. And I binged. Then there was the ‘low carbohydrate high protein diet’. The ‘high carbohydrate low protein diet’. The ‘vegetarian diet’. The ‘Adkins diet’. The ‘egg diet’. Almost turned me completely against eggs, and I love eggs. And, of course, the shake diet. I could never get past 3 days on that one. As if the diets weren’t bad enough, nearly everything you put in your mouth had some kind of study done on it and it was bad for you to eat. Crisco shortening was among the first fats to be censored by dieticians and research groups. Heaven only knows how that ruined my standard of cooking. Crisco shortening was a staple in my parents’ house growing up and a staple in my own house. I’ve tried every oil ever recommended, but nothing can fry up an excellent flavored chicken at home like Crisco shortening. And I’ve never been able to make a decent tasting pie crust with anything but Crisco shortening. Believe me, I’ve tried margarines, only the recommended ones. Oils, fake butter and even applesauce. Then the ’salad diet’. And, most certainly, the ’colon cleanse diet’. I guess I tried just about every diet ever offered. And all I did was gain weight. I cut out sugar and just could not tolerate substitute sugar. I’d rather eat and drink anything without sugar than to use fake sugar. It always left a strange taste in my mouth that was disgusting. So, there I was doing everything the experts suggested and getting fatter than ever. Fat, tired all the time and depressed about it. So, I go to my doctor and tell him how tired I am and that I want to lose weight and I’m all depressed about it. He runs tests on me. The only thing he could find was my blood sugar was a little over 100 and I might possibly have a bladder infection. So, here I am on medication for diabetes, cranberry tablets, antibiotics, high blood pressure medicine (because the diabetes drug causes high blood pressure), and another prescription drug that I don’t even remember what it was for. And since I am obese (215 pounds) he put me on cholesterol medicine. Then he tells me I will have to take these prescriptions for the rest of my life, if I want to live. And, to add insult to injury, tells me I am what I eat. He didn’t end there. He told me a whole list of things that I couldn’t eat anymore. No fat, no sugar, limited pasta, no soft drinks, no chocolate, beef only twice a week and servings only half the size of my fist, and on and on and on. That only depressed me more. He would have saved a lot of time if he had told me what I was allowed to eat. (Yep, he’s overweight, too.) Well, after testing myself and taking all those prescriptions and eating and drinking the way doc suggested for about a year, with no changes on my sugar readings and no weight loss, I decided to quit the whole mess. I decided to start eating the way I used to eat before the ’diet craze’. I decided if I was going to die fat, at least I would be happy. So, I started cooking the way I used to cook when my husband and I first met. With Crisco shortening, butter, sugar, white potatoes, beef, pork chops, fried chicken and a cake or pie on weekends. Honey, there is just nothing like good old home cooking. Of course, I had salads and vegetables and fruits, too. We now look forward to meals and are so satisfied. SATISFIED. Do you hear me? It has been years since we have actually been satisfied with our food. And guess what? My husband and I both started losing weight. Without dieting. Without pushing ourselves to exercise like crazy. Without the binge eating.. Without getting up every few minutes looking for something to eat or drink. We are satisfied. Here’s the secret. What I found is that we can eat anything that truly satisfies us and we get full faster and stay full and satisfied longer. So we eat much fewer calories. Even with the cake or pie on weekends we continue to lose weight. Oh, you just have to make some home made bread and put real butter on it. You could eat 15 slices of toast and diet margarine and never get as satisfied as eating just one slice of warm home made bread with real butter melting on it. I just want to savor every bite. So I end up eating slower, not because that’s what the experts say, but because it tastes so GOOD and is so SATISFYING. Since eating the ‘old fashioned way’ we have gradually been eating less. I’m not having to buy as many groceries. We don’t crave sweets and chips and fast foods anymore. We don’t even want to go out to eat. I want to pass on to you a conversation my dad and I had. Now this will blow your mind. About a year ago my mom was trying to add more fiber to their diets because ‘someone’ claimed that Americans do not get enough fiber in their daily diets. Dad just could not stand to eat some of the foods mom said was good for them. I told dad that according to some experts we need more fiber to stay fit, live longer and be healthier. This is what he said: The kind of fiber that is pushed at us is in the form of grain. Grain makes you fat. If you are a rancher and have a bunch of feeder calves to get ready for slaughter, you put them up in a pen and feed them grain. When the calves reach a certain weight they are ready to be slaughtered and processed for the meat markets. So, why do you want to feed me grain when you say you don’t want me fat? He makes a point. My husband and I have always grass fed our calves, only giving them feed to keep them coming up in the pen so we can catch them when we are ready. And the meat is wonderful, without all that fat you get in store bought meat. Note: Just today I read that grass fed beef is better for you. Researchers have found that grass fed beef contains Omega 3 fatty acids that are good for your heart. Guess what? It’s okay to eat pork rinds. It’s okay to eat chocolate. The kind of fats in them can actually raise your good cholesterol. Remember when pork was all but outlawed for people who were on diets? Now it’s called the other white meat. And cheese. I could write volumes on cheese. What is that yellow stuff made out of? Milk. What is that fake stuff made out of? Just read the ingredients on it. Preservatives make up a good deal of the description. I love cheese. The real cheese. The kind made out of milk. The melt in you mouth kind of taste that fake cheeses can’t even begin to imitate. Now ‘they’ have found that cheese is good for you. Imagine that? Now let’s discuss soy. You know, the fake meat. The answer to a dieter’s prayers. That nasty tasting stuff that stinks. It even looks putrid. Man alive, how I hope they find that soy can run in cars like gasoline. My last diet had me eating soy nuts. There is nothing tasty about them. They are not satisfying. They are downright horrible. Don’t you think? Chemicals: That is what the experts have been suggesting that we eat for the last 30 something years. Look at all the diet products out there. They are chock full of chemicals of every kind. And preservatives. How can chemicals be better for you than real food? That last diet I tried had foods listed in it that I had never heard of. I tried to find them in my local grocery stores and even asked some of the managers where I could find them. Some I found and most I didn’t. Then when I tried the recipes, well, what can I say. Yuck, yuck, yuck!!! Who dreams this crap up? WATER. What a load of crap we have heard about water. You must drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day. You must drink at least 10 to 12 glasses per day to lose weight. You must, you must , you must. Let me tell you what the kidney specialist told my husband and me when my husband was in the hospital recently. I had been pushing my husband to drink more water. His ankles were swelling up. I just knew from what the diets and news media had said that he needed more water. The specialist blew that theory to pieces for us. He said that most people get enough water from the foods they eat. If they get thirsty they can drink anything they want, coffee, juice, tea, soft drinks, anything. It doesn’t have to be water unless that’s just what you prefer. You should only drink when you are thirsty. Do not force liquids. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He said lots of people get water logged from drinking too much liquid. It can actually make you sick. Now, I just want to say that this article is my own opinion from my own experiences. You should talk this over with your doctor if you decide to do any of the things in this article. Make sure you are under a doctor’s care if you think you should try any of this. I will not be responsible for your health. This is what I do: Breakfast: Hardly ever before 10:00 am. 2 eggs, 2 toasts, coffee Or 3 scrambled eggs, coffee Or Omelet, coffee Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, soft drink Or Steamed vegetables with butter Or Bologna and cheese sandwich Dinner: Steamed vegetables with butter, meat, bread In between I ‘snack’ on milk and fresh fruit Every weekend I bake a pie or cake. Before we started ‘eating right’ we could eat sweets every day for every meal and just feel hungry all the time. Now we don’t even eat the whole cake. About half of it wastes. We eat the pies, but they are fruit pies. Our appetites have diminished and so have our waist lines. We eat the foods we love and feel SATISFIED. We don’t constantly look for something to eat anymore. We are Happy. Now that’s how I lost weight. I was doing the right thing 38 years ago, but I got impatient and started that crazy diet craze. How I wish I had used my common sense….. Good food, and plain old will power. By the way, I have some more free reports on other subjects. They may not be right for you, but give them a look and let me know what you think. In fact, I send out a newsletter occasionally about various things. If you would like to receive it just send a blank email to ClintonDietNoNo@aweber.com . OK? And save this email address in your contacts list. Thanks for your time and hope you enjoyed it. Best of Life to You, Nancy Clinton http://ClintonProfits.com - Make money from home with my free website already set up for you http://ClintonProfits.blogspot.com - Learn about what I have learned about http://dcc1025.forexrobot.hop.clickbank.net - Trade on the money market on autopilot ClintonForexAR@aweber.com - Newsletter for trade on money market on autopilot ClintonProfits@aweber.com - Newsletter for Learn about what I have learned about
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