gtak:

Hi mommies! It is definitely difficult to follow a diet and even harder to count calories. Many of us end up yo-yo dieting, losing weight just to gain it back.


I am sure many of us would love to know how to enjoy eating and lose weight at the same time. Here are two small tweaks that we can make to do just that!

Lifestyle Tweak 1: Buy yourself a super cool water bottle and carry it everywhere you go.
I knew that having a healthy appetite for water would do me good. Firstly, it gives me the feeling of being full without any caloric cost (I hate feeling hungry as it makes me stupidly eat whatever is within reach. I want to eat food that makes me happy! Not old soggy sandwiches). Secondly, it manages my appetite. I have a serious appetite. Put food on my plate and I’d automatically polish the plate. I did not want to say to myself, “Hey, you can only eat half the plate!” If I ate only half the plate, it had to be because I couldn’t stomach anymore, not because I need to control myself to do so (It’s such a pain!). So, I decided that water was to become my best friend. I could have whatever I want, whenever I want. All I had to do before eating was to drink at least 250ml from my very cool water bottle that I had bought myself. Depending on your threshold, drink enough to feel a weight in your stomach. I found that doing so made me consume lesser willingly and I did not feel deprived of my food. I also had a tendency to order seconds. So if I wanted to make another order, I would drink another round of water from my bottle before making that order. The bottle has to be pretty aesthetically or be really cool functionally (e.g. has a super cool filtration system, has a special handle) so that you will want to carry it around in the first place. To help myself develop the desire to carry my bottle around, I got a nifty little water bottle bag (that has really nice prints) that fits both my bottle and my phone. It solved the problem of me having to hold onto my phone too.


Lifestyle Tweak 2: Market health foods to yourself!
I used to drink sodas that were loaded with sugar. Instead of cutting out soda from my diet, I focused on cultivating a desire to drink a healthier alternative – sugar-free, calorie-free tea. I chose that because I was ok with the taste, it was calorie-free and importantly, was conveniently available everywhere. I marketed it to myself by creating a tagline - “Oolong-cha, wash away the fats”. I chanted it whenever I saw it and shared it with my friends whenever they asked for my order, all in the name of fun. It became a great conversation starter too! I could have a soda whenever I wanted, but the tagline cultivated the desire for another drink and I gradually found that I did not want sodas anymore. You can even create a jingle and sing it! I have also created one for vegetables, “Vegetables, best brushes for my stomach”. I have digestion issues here and there so the image of vegetables brushing and cleaning my stomach powerfully guides me to eat loads of vegetables. Renaming your food also has a powerful effect on how you expect it to taste! I decided to incorporate oatmeal into my breakfast routine even though I have never tasted it and was told that it was yucky and only for the elderly. I did what restaurants do best – give your dishes a super fancy name. I named my breakfast “Grandma’s Warm Homemade Honey Oatmeal” and I have been enjoying my daily dose of honey, oatmeal, chia seeds and nuts in a very pretty bowl. So go on and be creative!

Please let me know if you found these tips useful! I'd be happy to share more easy lifestyle tweaks that we can make so that we end up enjoying our food, feel better about ourselves and achieve our weight loss goals! :imcool:

Edge07:

Less oil, less sugar and less carbo meals with daily 30min walk & jog in the park helps too....

xxmummy:

Totally understand...I cannot function when I am starving let alone exercise. Also cannot sleep when I am hungry so can't do the eat heavy-in-morning and light-at-night diets. If I eat salad for lunch, I will be so hungry that I over eat during dinner. So yep, finding a diet/exercise regime that I can sustain and fit my lifestyle was key to losing the weight. Jia you! :rahrah:

chloecube:

i am someone who cannot starve and fail when come to dieting.

my mood swing is bad when i am hungry
i certainly hope it works for me

chloecube:

xxmummy:

I managed to lose 10kg in 4 months early last year by doing the following:


1. Intermittent Fasting (lots of articles on this on the web. I did a daily one where I didn't eat between 8pm to 12noon the next day). Can drink water or drinks with no sugar during the fast. The concept behind IF is for your body to use the store of fats during the fasting period but not for it to go into starvation mode which will then lower your metabolic rate.

2. Portion Control. For the rest of the day I had 2 main meals (lunch and dinner) which were the usual home-cooked Chinese meal of rice, soup and stir-fry dishes. To control my portions, I scooped my rice (half a bowl) and some veg/meats onto a plate at the start of the meal. I didn't refill my potions so as to prevent overeating. This has become a habit.

3. Exercise. I dislike jogging, running and can't swim. So walking it is. Bought a pedometer and my target was to walk 10,000 steps a day. I walked at least 5 times a week in Bishan-AMK Park. Took about 2 hrs to complete 10,000 steps because I walked at my own pace, not brisk walking. Including other activities in the day, clocked about 13,000 steps a day.

I didn't do IF when I started my diet regime only Portion Control and Exercise. I find that IF helped me to lose the kilos faster. For me, all 3 worked hand in hand to lose that first 10kg. Have maintained weight so far, have to lose the next 10kg this year!

hi xxmummy

u are :udawoman:
10kg is a lot!
losing 1 kg is already a feat for me
i will try your method and hopefully it will work on me
so far, i have been running and walking every alternate days, each run is abt 3-4km
so far, my weight is still the same as i still eat as per normal. no cut down nor diet.
i guess i have to work on your first point which is the IF

xxmummy:

I managed to lose 10kg in 4 months early last year by doing the following:


1. Intermittent Fasting (lots of articles on this on the web. I did a daily one where I didn't eat between 8pm to 12noon the next day). Can drink water or drinks with no sugar during the fast. The concept behind IF is for your body to use the store of fats during the fasting period but not for it to go into starvation mode which will then lower your metabolic rate.

2. Portion Control. For the rest of the day I had 2 main meals (lunch and dinner) which were the usual home-cooked Chinese meal of rice, soup and stir-fry dishes. To control my portions, I scooped my rice (half a bowl) and some veg/meats onto a plate at the start of the meal. I didn't refill my potions so as to prevent overeating. This has become a habit.

3. Exercise. I dislike jogging, running and can't swim. So walking it is. Bought a pedometer and my target was to walk 10,000 steps a day. I walked at least 5 times a week in Bishan-AMK Park. Took about 2 hrs to complete 10,000 steps because I walked at my own pace, not brisk walking. Including other activities in the day, clocked about 13,000 steps a day.

I didn't do IF when I started my diet regime only Portion Control and Exercise. I find that IF helped me to lose the kilos faster. For me, all 3 worked hand in hand to lose that first 10kg. Have maintained weight so far, have to lose the next 10kg this year!

worried_mum08:

anyway to back track to this topic again,.. it maybe true that commercial products that sold off the shelves proven effective ?? for losing weight, but how sustainable is it? are we really losing weight as in the excess fats in our body, are we building up body muscles? are we at the same time increasing out metabolism rate and antioxidant level?

On top of that, of the $$ that we pay for the other big brands of cosmetics etc, how much real ingredients are we getting? how much fillers are added into the products we get?
Though direct selling may seem that the distributors are getting payouts, but y not check out the ingredients and contents before deciding?
Isn't buying products off the shelves and counters contributing to the different levels, layers of merchants, distributors, manufacturers and even packaging and advertising?
if we can benefit from real good prodcuts, at the same time help others, why not?

correct me if i am wrong

scang:

worried_mum08,

The question will be is the high price to reward the distributors of the product, or is it to really help those that needs the help?

To put it in another way, there are out there both direct selling products as well as other products that are clinically proven and effective in reducing (weight loss) and managing weight (weight management), but at a fraction of nuskin products.
In this case, the target is very much the consumer who needs it, but at the same time, rewarding the distributor who helps the consumer. And nuskin can't change their compensation system, simply because it is a legacy system. changing it will simply result in many existing distributors leaving the company.

so it is very much for consumers out there to figure out, what effectively is the target of those nuskin products? the consumers who really need it, or to incentivise the distributors of those product?

It is well known that as much as 50% or more of the amount paid goes to the people, esp. those higher up. so out of the $2k+ paid for the product, $1k+ goes to the distributor, which effectively means the product is way below $1k, since it needs to manufacture + R&D +company needs to earn + bulk shipping.

So it is not the direct selling model that is wrong, but the compensation system. Let the consumers out there be the judge if you would like to pay $1k to whoever recommends you the product.

scang:

worried_mum08,

The question will be is the high price to reward the distributors of the product, or is it to really help those that needs the help?

To put it in another way, there are out there both direct selling products as well as other products that are clinically proven and effective in reducing (weight loss) and managing weight (weight management), but at a fraction of nuskin products.
In this case, the target is very much the consumer who needs it, but at the same time, rewarding the distributor who helps the consumer. And nuskin can't change their compensation system, simply because it is a legacy system. changing it will simply result in many existing distributors leaving the company.

so it is very much for consumers out there to figure out, what effectively is the target of those nuskin products? the consumers who really need it, or to incentivise the distributors of those product?

It is well known that as much as 50% or more of the amount paid goes to the people, esp. those higher up. so out of the $2k+ paid for the product, $1k+ goes to the distributor, which effectively means the product is way below $1k, since it needs to manufacture + R&D +company needs to earn + bulk shipping.

So it is not the direct selling model that is wrong, but the compensation system. Let the consumers out there be the judge if you would like to pay $1k to whoever recommends you the product.