Tag Archives: Weight loss

Fresh breeze

earlymorning

It’s easy to get buried in a project or something you do for a long time. Obsessions get born daily, in fact, I am perfectly aware of how obsessive I can get sometimes. The upside is a profound experience. The downside – it’s time-consuming and takes the focus off everything else. Your mind becomes one-tracked.

I’ve recently been immersed in my private little project of losing weight. If you never had to struggle with this issue, count yourself among the fortunate ones. When I think about it, the issue has been a central one since my high-school days. Twenty years, more than half of my life. A low self-esteem and various, minor psychological defects resulted in my weight gradually building up to what started to really bother me in the past few years, not only because of my looks, but also because of health problems that my surplus weight brought into focus. So a few years ago I started exercising, on and off, trying out routines, diets, looking into different types of exercise. Of course, my weight has been fluctuating.

A few months ago I took the matter into my hands, for real. My husband and I implemented a “sweet Saturday” regime, which means that we are trying to eat refined sweets only on Saturdays. The first two weeks were hard – after that, we got into the groove. Speaking from my own point of view, I think it’s easy to do and it does wonders to your metabolism, your overall mood and it also helps weight-loss. I started exercising regularly. Not only once a week, or whenever I remembered to do so, but almost daily. And not only ten, but most of the time, thirty, forty, or even sixty minutes, or more. I combine exercise for abs with powerful cardio (Kari Anderson’s magnificent step routines or Mary Windsor’s “Fat-burning Pilates”, which is my recent favourite, because aside from making me sweat, it opens of my muscles and my back). Also, I’ve been trying to drop my intake of carbs. I’m doing my best to stay away from refined white flour, sugar, and fatty foods. We eat loads of fruits and vegetables. For breakfast, I tend to have just fruit and a café latte, if anything. For lunch, a light meal, salad, soup, or leftovers, in smaller quantities. I also discovered the “5:2” diet a couple of weeks ago and today I am doing my second fasting day – as hard as it sounds, I find it truly, really easy. I drink fluids, I know my body is losing toxins, and I know that in the evening I will enjoy my dinner a great deal.

The long and short of this is that I’ve been losing weight. Slowly but steadily. I’m down appr. six-seven kilograms since I started the “project”, three or four months ago. My goal is to drop appr. 9-10 more, and then I will have achieved my ideal weight. I’m feeling lighter, stronger, more agile, and I’m definitely loving the fact that patches of fat that have been constant for the last, I don’t know, ten years or so, are slowly disappearing. Clothes are looser than before, and I am slowly plucking up courage to fish out some jeans that I haven’t worn in many, many years.

The downside to all this is that in between the above and my translating work, which has basically taken up most of my brain activity since last December, I recently found myself unable to think of anything else than weight-loss, exercise, diet, calories, and everything pertaining to these subjects. And it started to disturb me. I am aware of the mechanics of obsession. I’ve lived through the entire process for more times than I can count, and even though, each time, I was able to receive something memorable from the experience, a spiritual moment, an insight, or a friend, I know that in the long run obsessive behaviour is emotionally, mentally, physically and socially unhealthy. So last night I looked at myself and the way I’ve recently become and I knew something had to change. I had to find something to take my mind off the weight-loss project.

The Universe came to my rescue. I met a few old university friends, whose company revived me and gave me a push into the right direction. One of them suggested a free online course community that gathers freely offered online college courses given by universities from around the world. A few days ago someone shared something very similar on Facebook. So this morning I looked into the two websites, and I’m happy to say that I already signed up for a course on psychology, and I’m looking at a few more. They are free, I do them when I have the time, and they will teach me something new, as well as broaden my recently significantly narrowed outlook on life.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

https://www.coursera.org/

So apart from enjoying the benefits of a gradually slimming body (naturally I will keep up the exercise and the healthy diet), I will be able to drop the obsession-factor. It’s a really lovely fresh breeze and it came at the right moment, in fact, it came when I asked it to come. Our thoughts create our reality – if there’s anything left for me to believe in, it is this. We help create our world. It’s big power, and a very big responsibility.

A healthy 7-day weight-loss diet that works!

For all of you struggling with extra weight like I do, here is a diet sent to me by my friend Lory (so if you wanna thank anyone, thank her!). I am doubtful of diets, I have tried plenty, and none worked for me so far. This one is relatively easy, even for those of you who like to eat in abundance. It only takes a few days to start feeling the effects of this wonderful diet; trust me, I have tried it and this is the first diet that ever really worked for me!

Sacred Heart Memorial- Cardiac Unit for Fast Weight Loss

Vegetable soup recipe

3 tomatoes
2 large tins of crushed tomatoes
vegetable stock (according to taste)
1 bunch of spring onions
0.5 bunch of celery
2 cans of green beans (410 grams each)
2 green peppers
2 carrots

Chop all vegetables into small pieces, combine all ingredients, add salt, pepper and stir well. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes, and simmer until vegetables are tender. Add water if necessary or to make the soup thinner.

For drinks: unsweetened juices, tea, coffee, cranberry juice and water- drink plenty of water.

DAY ONE

Soup and fruit (except bananas).
Eat any fruit except bananas, and soup at least once a day.

DAY TWO

Vegetables and soup and jacket potato.
Eat as much as you like of fresh vegetables, preferably raw; try to eat leafy green vegetables. Stay away from dry beans, peas and corn. Eat vegetables with the soup. At dinner, reward yourself with a jacket potato and butter. Don’t eat any fruit!

DAY THREE

Eat all the soup, fruit and vegetables you want today. Don’t have te jacket potato.
If you have eaten as above for three days without cheating, you should have lost between 5-7 pounds or 2-3 kg.

DAY FOUR

Bananas, skimmed milk and soup.
Eat at least 3 large bananas and drink as much skimmed milk as you can today. Eat as much soup as you want. Bananas are high in calories and carbohydrates as is milk, but you will need the potassium and carbs today.

DAY FIVE

Beef/chicken, tomatoes, and soup.
You may have 10-20 ounces (300-600 gr) of beef or chicken if you prefer, without its skin, and 6 tomatoes. No potatoes and make sure to eat soup at least once today.

DAY SIX

Beef, vegetables and soup.
Eat as much beef or chicken and vegetables as you want today. You can even have 2 steaks with leafy green vegetables. No potato and eat soup at least once a day.

SAY SEVEN

Brown rice, vegetables, fruit juice, soup.
Eat as much soup as you can today. For dinner, eat brown rice with vegetables, raw or steamed.

If you have not cheated on this diet, by the end of day 7 you should have lost 10-17 pounds (4.5-7 kg). Inactive patients will lose less. If you lose more than 15 pounds or 6.5 kg stay off the diet for 2 days! Then you can start again from day 1.

This is a 7 day eating plan and can be used as often as you like. It is a fast and fat burning diet, its secret is that you will burn more calories than you have taken in. If correctly followed, it will clear your system of impurities and give you a feeling of well-being as never before. After the process, you will begin to feel lighter by at least 10-17 pounds, you will have an abundance of energy. Continue on the plan as long as you like.

NO ALCOHOL, SUGAR, WHITE FLOUR ON THIS DIET.

Personal notes.

I usually have fruit for breakfasts on this diet, on day 4 I have bananas for breakfast and some time during the day, I drink some natural yogurt (I prefer it to milk). I have a capuccino with no sugar daily. I have done this diet twice already, I have cheated a little both times: had some salami, cheese, and had more than 1 potato on day 2, steamed and spiced with parsley and butter. I have plenty of salads, in fact, as much as I can. I eat fruit every day, even on the day it says no fruit. For the meat, I had chicken both times, grilled and spiced with a lot of things. Despite all the cheating, I have lost 4-4.5 kilos in two weeks and I feel fresh and energetic. It is the first diet that really works! The soup is delicious and I don’t feel deprived of anything: I don’t miss bread and I don’t miss the energy loss sugar usually induces in me… One last remark: I have done 45 minutes of Pilates every morning for these past two weeks, on weekdays, have taken a break from exercise on the weekends.

Good luck, and if you succeed, drop me a note so I can be happy with you!