by Kristen Carson

It was the summer of sister visits and beach trips and graduations. I had a lot to celebrate.

A little too much, in fact. By the time the parties were over, my stomach felt so packed, I couldn’t bend.

Women with overweight standing on scales isolated on white

I’d had enough. I walked into Jenny Craig and told the counselor that I wanted to undo twenty years’ worth of mistakes.

Thus began the summer of no ice cream.

Losing weight in the sunset of your 40s isn’t supposed to work. But within a few weeks, I walked across the parking lot headed for my weekly weigh-in, and wondered why my pants felt like they were going to fall off.

Gettin’ too big, that’s why. Time to buy pants in a smaller size.

That was nine summers ago. And the weight stayed off.

Here are a few ideas that helped me and might help you:

 

Choose a good goal.

So you’ve decided to lose weight. You’ve chosen your program and committed to their regimen of thin shakes and rice cakes. You’re going to tough it out until you reach your goal weight.

How do you intend to behave after that? When you imagine the reward at the end of the battle, isn’t there some part of you that looks forward tasting a brownie again? What will be your new normal?

If the new normal is just going back to the old normal, well, you know you’ll be putting the pounds right back on.

But do you really intend to survive on thin shakes and rice cakes the rest of your days?

My Jenny Craig counselor consulted her charts and quoted me a lovely goal weight. She also said things like, “Of course, you’ll want to switch out that chocolate milk you love so much and drink sugar-free instead.”

Chocolate milk

Well, let’s just wait a minute now. With all due respect to her diet-industry expertise, I was the one who had to live with the results. Were we talking a swimsuit-contest body here? Something that I’d have to eat nothing but salads just to maintain? Something that would require Biggest Loser, boot-camp level exercise? And sugar-free chocolate milk—are you kidding me?

I had reckoned myself to following her program for a few months. Beyond that, I was willing to drink my chocolate milk less often. I was even OK with watching portions. But I wasn’t willing to forgo it altogether.

So I made her a counter-offer, a weight I could live with, a weight that didn’t cut all the pleasure out of life.

I suggest you do the same.

 

Keep track of what you eat.

Keeping the pounds off means paying attention to calories consumed vs. calories burned. And paying attention means writing it down somewhere.

This used to mean memorizing everything in a fat paperback calorie counter. It used to mean carrying a little notebook. You’re probably too young to remember living that way.

Keeping track

Today, it means downloading an app onto your smartphone. My favorite is MyNetDiary, because it’s the most flexible with portions. I can add foods by the package, by ounces, or by grams. This is a handy feature. You’d be surprised how bothersome it is to convert measurement units when what you really want to do is eat your grapes and get on with living.

Another great app is CalorieKing, though this program is compatible only with iPhones and iPads.

MyNetDiary’s database of foods can be a little weak on restaurant foods. So I also keep FatSecret and MyFitnessPal on hand too, just for looking up the latest Panera sandwich or whatever.

 

Weigh and measure

Your food record won’t mean much unless you weigh and measure. I’m convinced that bad guesses about just how big that restaurant meal is are what put me in big pants in the first place. So now, unless I’m eating at a chain restaurant where the food prep is standardized, I carry a scale in my purse.

A scale?? you say. Aren’t you just the biggest oddball in your county?

nutrition facts - a diet concept

Actually, I’m surprised by the friendly reaction the scale provokes. I’ve taken it to hotel breakfast rooms, where the  ladies who stock the bagels and the orange juice tell me, “Hey, that’s a good idea!”  I’ve asked waitstaff for an extra plate, a small one for weighing things, and they bring it right away without a single smirk.

It’s great at home, too. Do you want to drag out the measuring cups to keep track of your bowl of Raisin Nut Bran? Or would you rather pop the bowl onto the scale, set it to zero and pour away?

I use the Oxo, but you can find others that work just as well.

 

Add up your recipes

Boy, has this gotten easier in the last ten years.Nutrition facts First of all, most cooking sites already publish nutritional values. But if they don’t, you can go here. It’s a little temperamental about certain packaged-food ingredients, but you can hunt around in the database and find what you need, or add it in yourself once the website has done what it can.

Or just enter ingredients into MyNetDiary, click “create recipe” and it’ll do the work for you. Added bonus: it often tallies up the serving weight. This comes in handy when you’re eating up leftovers and it’s hard to tell just what 1/8 of that casserole is.

 

Find an exercise you like

Trying to hit your happy spot will be so much easier if you’re moving around. And it needs to be something you love to do. We’ve already talked about all those Biggest Loser contestants, climbing fake cliffs and running courses fit for a Navy Seal. Maybe all that work gets the trainer off their backs. But when it comes to an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in which exercise has to compete with life, how do these people summon the will for the Iron Man feats?

I’m pretty sure they don’t.

Maybe you’re a swimmer. Great!  Maybe you’re a hiker. Congrats! Maybe you’re a runner. Wow–my hat is off to you! Maybe you just want to get on the treadmill and watch movies. That works too!

Maybe your body hurts or won’t do what you want it to do. No judgment here.

I’m just saying that if you can move, keeping the weight off will be easier. If you can love it, you’ll stick with it.

Cheerful couple friends running in park

If you’re reading this, you probably haven’t invested in a FitBit. I haven’t either. But at the very least, I suggest you buy a pedometer and see if you can increase your daily steps by a couple thousand. I’ve been through a lot of them–dropped them, broken them, worn them out–until I found this brand.  And you can use these tricks to increase your daily steps.

I once lived in a town where, no matter where I drove, I saw the same woman striding down the sidewalks in her sneakers, her arms loaded down with her shopping bags. The natives told me her name was Walking Wanda. I wonder how many steps she totaled up on an average day.

My goal is to become my town’s Walking Wanda.

 

Be mindful

So, if you’ve figured out the reasonably disciplined amount of food you can eat, but you worry that you’ll never feel satisfied. I suggest you try some mindful eating.

You’ve probably already heard that it takes 20 minutes for your brain to register satiety. One trick is to put your fork down after every bite and don’t pick it up again until you’ve finished chewing.

This app can help you stretch out that meal or snack. Use your twenty minutes to really taste and enjoy your food.

Eating

Build in some indulgence

I once invited a friend to dinner. She caught me recording my food and told me her own weight-loss journey. She successfully slimmed down on a program of protein bars and lean meals. But that was years ago. She was back in her big-girl dresses. She hoped to get back to the program someday but . . . when can a person summon the will for all the strictness?

“Did you ever get any time off?” I asked, “for, like, Thanksgiving?”

“Oh no! Never anything like that! No, you follow it all the time.”

Well, there’s your extra 45 pounds.

Life happens. It brings us birthdays, Christmas, vacations and great restaurants. Do we really want to live through all that without tasting some of the great dishes that pass under our noses?

Years ago, my son lost weight on a program that allowed one day off per week. If the rest of us ate cakes and cookies, he saved a portion to eat on his free day.

I adopted his keep-a-stash trick. If my husband brings home Oreos, I may not eat any today, but I’ll set a few aside and fit them into my plan somewhere.

Sometimes my stash is just a bunch of numbers, a little calorie fund that I can draw from when it’s time to let loose. I’m talking an extra 300 calories for date night. Or maybe 3,000 to spread between December 1st and January 1st.

 

Does it work?

My weight goes up and down by two or three pounds, but stays pretty steady.

Will it work if you’re fighting glandular problems or side effects from your medications?  I can’t say. I’m no expert on that stuff.

But you can give it a try.

For me, the choice lies between eating like a kid (and accepting an increasingly uncomfortable and unwieldy body) or setting a reasonable goal and exercising reasonable diligence.

You worked hard for that new body, the one that cost you a summer of no ice cream. My wish is that you can enjoy your success for years to come.

 

Kristen Carson is the author of The Boxford Stories. She currently resides near Indianapolis. She and her husband are the parents of four adult children. Carson’s stories and articles have appeared in Chicago Parent, Indianapolis Monthly, and Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought. Visit her at kristencarsonauthor.com.