First day

I got sick today. It didn't stopped me from starting my diet.
First day goes fine. Just had my lunch. I fired eggs instead of boiling in olive oil, and had romaine lettuce instead of cabbage, I added few cucumbers and tiny mount of balsamic vinegar. Will see if those modifications will slow my weight loss. They made my lunch more enjoyable for sure.

Starting tomorrow

Today I slacked.  It was a day off. So we went out for lunch. I had nice burger. Had it healthy.  As much as burger could be healthy.   O well tomorrow will be coffee for breakfast.  No milk. Will have to kiss latte good bye for 2 weeks

Starting again

I am very frustrated.  I eat good and excercise every day. But I gained. Not sure if i am eating too much or it is just age. I am about 12 lb overweight now. I hope it is a muscle weight. But I have some imperfections I would like to fix. So I am going on Japanese diet starting Monday.  Will keep the progress here.
Today I am going to Pilates Boot Camp at Mind the Mat  #minthematchallenge
The best boot camp for civilized girls
 I lose about  700 calories in one hour.

First success

2 lbs off. I started at 134... had some fun on weekend ehehhhee. This morning I was 132.  I also took 1.5 Hour ballet class last night

Starting again

I got Victoria Secret swim suite catalog, very inspiring. I understand that all those girls are under 25. I never has and never will have body like theirs. The sad part: in my early 20s I was size 12. Now I am getting closer to 40, my metabolism slowing down. It is much more difficult to lose anything. I look pretty good for my age, but I would like to get as close as possible to VS beach body. What I have now: 133 lb of weight. I am exercising about 6-7 hours a week. Nothing extreme: ballet, jazz, yoga, pilates. Some crunches at home. People say that I need hard core cardio to lose weight, but I do not like doing it. I believe to be successful I need to do what I like, otherwise I will quit sooner or later. I brought weights to my office and do some weight “moves” actually it works , just 10 minutes here in thee,, those weights are getting too light, will have to buy heavier ones. I eat protein and good carbs, but my weight is stuck at 133. It is time for me to start my Japanese diet again. I am going back this Monday. My goal is to loose 10 lb. Will see if it is possible in my age,, today and tomorrow, I will enjoy brown rice sushi, wine, cheese. Today and tomorrow. Monday is a good day to start.

Phase 2

Read here about phase 2 of my diet.

Calories counting vs. meal plan.

Some nutritionists say: you can eat everything, only calories matter. If you stay in 1200 calories a day, you will lose weight. Others say: avoid fat, carbs, etc.. Then you will lose.
As an experienced weigh loser I say do both, I did and still do low carb and 1200 calories, combination of both works the best.

Weight loss: phase one

Read here about the first phase:

Weight Loss: Keeping it Off

Keeping weight off is just like sailing for me. Have you ever sailed?? To keep on truck you go a little bit to the right and the a little bit to the left. That’s how you stay on the course. If you go too much to the side, you need to adjust. For me keeping weight in limit is just like sailing. I get on scale every morning, if I weight too much, I adjust my diet to low carb, eat protein and veggies. Forget about sweets breads, pasta, even fruits for couple of days. Then my weight goes down, and I adjust back to more joyful eating. The key is not to go too far. Just to keep sailing in healthy weight.

Weight Loss - Method

I do not like to call it diet. Diet is usually short term temporary food plan. I call it life style or Method. Since my life style didn’t work really well for my figure, I had to change it. I studied many different approaches and came up with combination of few, which I felt comfortable with and it worked for me.
Read more

Weight Loss - Read the Label

Most of the prepared foods we buy in the supermarket have tons of unnecessary ingredients, which supposed to make it taste better. Let say tomato pasta sauce. It contains corn starch, corn syrup, other ingredients; I do not even know what they are. Or let’s say yogurt. You buy fat free yogurt, it should be healthy right? I am not sure why they insist to add starch and sugar everywhere. After a while, our taste is adjusting and if we try something more natural, it does not taste sweet enough. But you can train your taste to adjust back. And start to enjoy healthy food, without extra calories, starch and sweetness. Strawberries are sweet without corn syrup. Tomato sauce tastes great without corn starch. Sour cream does not need corn starch to be creamier, it is good naturally.

Weight Loss: Japanese Diet

My friend gave me print out of this diet. Russians call it Japanese. I am not sure why. There is nothing Japanese in this diet, but I still call it this way. This is flush diet, it worked for me every time I used it. I’ve lot up to 14 lb in 2 weeks on this diet. Larger I was more I was loosing. In average it is about 10lb of weight loss. The theory is that this diet also speeds up your metabolism. I am not a doctor, cannot prove if it is or it is not. I know some people ( with slight weight problem) who claim that they did that diet for 2 weeks and then kept result for at least a year, eating exactly the same as they were eating before this diet. Read more here

Weight Loss: Traveling and Eating Out.

I was traveling this week. It is so hard to be good, eating out. Unless very expensive eating out. If you go to really expensivesteak houses or seafood restaurants it is pretty easy. You get nice cut of beef and veggies. Small portions for lots of money. But if you go to cheaper places: fun starts. Everything is fried. After one week of eating out I cannot stand smell of fried food. You go out for lunch. You order salad. Sounds healthy right? Salad should be healthy. I am wondering why many places insist to load up salads with calories, and carbs, and fat. They add chips, tortilla strips, bacon, pepperoni, potatoes, onion rings, nuts covered in sugar, ham, and lots of cheese into salad. We have to be really careful what we get, and what we eat. I’ve seen 1000 calories salads without dressing. Also be careful with dressings. Chipotle offers pretty healthy salads, but if you add dressing, which is really yummy, you add about 300 calories and tons of fat and crabs into your salad. I always prefer oil and vinegar. Or I get dressing on the side. And add just a little bit, for taste. I learned not to like salads swimming in dressings. In St Louise I was pleasantly surprised with one restaurant, called Blueberry Hill. It is really a nightclub. Chuck Berry is going to perform there next week BTW.. I wish I could be there. They also serve lunches and dinners. We went there for lunch. It didn’t look like a great healthy restaurant. Not expensive at all. I ordered salad. They brought nice portion not too big, not too little, mixed lettuce (not just iceberg), radishes, celery, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, just a hint of cheese, couple of slices of eggs, grilled chicken, and yogurt and dill dressing on the side. Yummy and healthy. I was very impressed.
In another place, very expensive, modern fusion, tapas. Small portions and all. I ordered artichokes hearts, they brought those deep fried. I just do not understand why they insist to get something that naturally taste really good and fry it to death. You cannot taste any artichokes there, just fried breading. Not to mention million calories breading and oil are adding to dish. Hey were also served it with dipping sauce.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve sinned during my traveling. I ate staff I shouldn’t be easting. As a result I gained a few, I need to lose those few. I weight 134 Lb now. Will post my progress.

Weight Loss: Scale.

You do not need any fancy scale, but you need one. Many doctors are saying do not do it everyday, I do. Every morning I get on my scale to see what I can eat today. If my weight goes up, I adjust my diet, to avoid carbs. If it goes down I enjoy some bread or cookies. It is only one way for me to stay in the same weight.

Dieting and Traveling.

I am visiting St Louis. I’ve sinned during traveling before, I’ve sinned this time. I had fired pickles, I drunk OJ in the morning with eggs and bacon, I had little ice cream in the zoo. It is very difficult to avoid food I am not supposed to eat during travel. I decided for myself to kinda relax and just try to do my best. I am surrounded with temptations: fried food everywhere, chocolate indulgence cake was served last night after dinner. I had tiny little bite, it was really difficult to stop but I stopped. I do not have scale here. I hope to keep my weight down. Will check when I come back.

Weight Loss: Finding my way.

It is crucial for success to find your own way. Let’s define success. For me success is to lose weight to the point I feel comfortable. And then keep the result for life. As I mentioned before, to achieve this, I needed to change my life style for good.
I spend couple of months trying different staff.
First I thought to become vegetarian. To get into that slowly I decided to cut off red meat first. I failed miserably as soon as I’ve seen nice filet mignon with blood on the plate.
I tried to cut off portions. Didn’t help me any.
After lots of researching I finished with 2 options: low fat or low carb.
I am a carnivore and a carb addict at the same time, the choice was difficult. I’ve studied few methods and came up with my own ( really combination of few) that allowed me to eat healthy, lose weight and still enjoy my life.
I went with low carb. Let me explain. If I went with low fat, I would have to cu off lots of food I really like to eat, like eggs and bacon, like cheese. With modifies low carb version I can eat pretty much anything at least healthy version of anything. Many people think that low carb means to eat only fatty food and no fruits or bread or pasta. It is true for some methods. I didn’t like those because I like fruits and I believe that fruits are good for us.

Weight loss: Meal Schedule.

During my weight loss journey, I figured out that it matters not only what we eat but also when we eat it. In Russia we say: eat your breakfast your self, share lunch with friend and give dinner to your enemy. This is very true. I you want to eat something that your method does not allow, eat it for breakfast, then you will have no or minimal impact on your routine. It does not mean you can do it all the time, but as an exception, this trick works pretty darn good.
Russian people in general have a little different meal schedule. They have breakfast, dinner and supper. They eat the largest meal (like dinner in the US) for lunch. They do not call it lunch they call it dinner. At night they have light supper. This meal schedule works very well for weight loss routine.

Weight Loss: Second Strong Motivation

I was breastfeeding my daughter until she was about 11 months old. She just lost interest at some point. I was visiting my mother in Russia. My husband was in Ukraine. My mother offered for me to leave my daughter with her for few days, and go to visit my husband, just to spend weekend childfree. It was a great idea.
We went to Crimea. We stayed in the nice hotel on the beach. First time in 2 years, not pregnant… baby was safe with my mom… Romantic weekends by the sea. It was not Summer anymore, but weather was nice enough to walk on the beach or sit and listen to waves. It was really nice out there. We were sitting on beach reading book aloud. He was sitting I was lying down, head on his knees, reading book aloud. Very romantic! Then I had to move. He told me, that I was moving like a walrus or a seal.
It was it! The second huge kick into my fat butt.
Next morning I has salad for breakfast and went to swim in the pool. Well it was strong motivation, it took me couple of months to find my way. At this point I also figured out that my husband will most likely become ex soon. I do not know what thought kicked me better: his comments, or realization that I will have to go on dates again. But something did it. I started seriously searching for my method.

Weight Loss: My Lemon Pie Story.

To start dieting again I needed very strong motivation. I think most of us went through the process of going in and out.
For me the process started with understanding of need to lose weight.
Admitting to myself that I needed to lose weight.
Finding excuses why I could do it later.
Trying to diet and then finding another excuse: holidays, party, birth day, traveling etc..
I tried different methods.
I was trying to cut portions. I decided, I would eat everything, but will go with smaller portions.
At the time I was stay home mom, so refrigerator was dangerously too close. Yes I had smaller portions but was eating those more often, so as a result, I probably was consuming more food.
I really love lemon custard pie. I make it from scratch. Just love it. I was baking that pie and eating very tiny pieces. Tiny piece would not do any harm, right? By the end of the day I realized that I finished the whole pie.

Weight loss: After Pregnancy.

There is a mystery, I still do not understand, how it works. I was pregnant, baby inside, surrounded by waters… water supposes to be heavy. I gave birth. Baby was more than 8 pounds, plus water, plus other stuff. I was hoping for at least 10-15 pounds off. I was 3 pounds lighter after giving birth. Mystery. Some lucky people are losing weight just by breastfeeding,. Not me. I could not lose an ounce. Somebody explained it to me. In my case, my body was trying to collect more fat just in case for hunger, so I would have enough supply to feed the baby. I am not a doctor. All I know that I could not go extreme again, extreme diet while breastfeeding could not be healthy for the baby.
I tried to cut calories, cut fat, eat super healthy. Nothing worked. When I was cutting calories, I even started gaining.