Why do I believe that? Because weight loss is complex, overwhelming, and difficult. It’s hard to dive in head first if you don’t necessarily know what’s happening or why it’s happening to you. There’s no shame in that, when there are industries who put forth lots of money to keep you confused. We all know that money outweighs and outdoes everything nowadays. This is no different.

I am an advocate of putting one foot in front of the other… in the direction in which you want to go. As long as you do that, you will always be moving toward your goals.

“Okay, it’s easy to talk the talk, but do you have any suggestions on how to actually do it?”

I hear you thinking it. Of course I do!

First, accept that failure is a part of your growth. Remember that you’re changing a lifetime of bad habits. You’re adding things to your daily routine that will change your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, and you WILL fall down. Even after well over a year at it, I STILL occasionally fall down. I don’t give up, I don’t tell myself that I can’t do it, and I certainly don’t retreat into food – the thing that got me to obesity in the first place – when I feel bad about falling short.

What I do try to do is remind myself of my goals, take a hard look at why I fell short, and try my best to address that “why.” For example. If I promised myself no cakes or candies, and I have a slice of cake at a restaurant, the question becomes, “If I promised that I wouldn’t, why did I do it anyway?” If the answer becomes, “I just couldn’t resist that picture of that cake staring at me throughout dinner!” then I have to rationalize with myself a way to avoid the temptation. For those of you wondering, yes, this was a real issue for me. How did I overcome? I stopped going out to restaurants until I could build up the ability to overlook the pictures, and learn how to say no quickly, and mean it.

Next, accept that you have to make some hard decisions. Not hitting the restaurants? That’s a HARD decision! Please believe I love my On The Border taco salad (1,700 calories, 124g fat, 2,620mg sodium), my Cheesecake Factory Vanilla Bean Cheesecake (870cals, 558cals from fat, 62g fat), and, well… some other stuff we don’t have to talk about here. However, my decision not only saved me money, but saved myself calories, as well. Hard decision accepted, reward gained.

Thirdly, resolve within yourself that the follow-through won’t be easy. If you can’t stop going to McDonalds after work; and you realize that it’s because since you take the shortest route home, you can’t help but stop in to help you suffer through traffic… what options do you have? Better yet, what options do you allow yourself? Sure, you can buy healthy snacks and keep them in the car, but what if that doesn’t work? Are you willing to take the extra 5 minutes in your ride to avoid the McDonalds? Can you do that for yourself, even though it’s hard? It might not be easy to see in the beginning, but you’re teaching yourself a plethora of lessons with that one action:

1. It’s ok to make difficult decisions for ME.
2. It’s ok to suffer for my own greater good.
3. It’s ok to push myself, because I am changing ME for the better.
4. It’s ok to take the harder route, because I will be stronger in the end because of it.
5. I am able to do this.

Remember that every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow, no matter how successful the endeavor is or is not. As long as you take something away from the situation, it was not in vain. As long as you take away something from the situation and grow from it, you are putting one foot in front of the other. As long as you’ve learned one more way to get closer to your goal of a healthier lifestyle, you’re well on your way.

Be happy, be healthy!

One Foot In Front Of The Other: Mentally Preparing For Weight Loss is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Self-Compassion: A Key Factor In Weight Loss
2. How Much Is The Weight Loss Industry Worth?
3. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality, overeating, weight loss

Q: I finally reached my numeric goal..You know the one you dream about. Problem is my body does not look like I thought it would. Even though I’m loving my new shape/body It took me over a month 2 loose the last 3lbs. I made a new goal for myself 2 be fit & fabulous at whatever weight. Just wondering how can you tell if you’re body is saying..”OKay Enough..This where I’m supposed 2 be”?

I have an answer, but I think it’d call for a lot of explaining.

For starters, I remember when I first started out and the first thing I said was “If I could get down to a size 16, I’ll be happy.” I thought that size 16 would mean that my body would look the way I envisioned a size 16 would look. I thought it’d mean I had a flat tummy, big thighs and the booty of a thoroughbred race horse. What I didn’t take into stock was the fact that my body chose to lose the way it wanted, which meant that my loss pattern didn’t reflect my “fantasy.” What I also didn’t take into stock was that my size 16 didn’t quite look as small as I thought it did.

I didn’t realize that the body I wanted was, essentially, far more fit than I was at my size 16, which meant I had to hustle to pick up some weights. Hell, for a while, I was lifting my daughter – then, age 2 – as a weight. (Between me and you, that’s how I taught her how to count!) I didn’t realize what that arbitrary number meant, and I didn’t know that the size would guarantee me nothing, especially considering the fact that there isn’t even a standard for what a size 16 measures across clothing stores.

When I talk about ignoring the numbers, I’m a huge proponent of that because I learned it the hard way. When I was 330lbs, I couldn’t see myself smaller than 250 and swore I’d be happy there simply because I didn’t even remember what my body looked like at that size… I just knew that I’d be smaller, and anything smaller than where I was was good enough for me. Besides, losing 80lbs felt like such a difficult task, that asking for more felt like asking the moon to bring me a slice of cheese.

Reaching my goals was awesome, but it was still perplexing (and, I won’t lie, a little disappointing) to know that my goal number didn’t, in fact, bring me my goal body. So, when I say the numbers shouldn’t matter as much, that’s a big part of why. They can’t guarantee you the body you want. I could be a size six and still be flabby in the tummy area with sagging arms, or I could be a fit size six with a much stronger build. So, first… let the numbers go.

Secondly, I always say this but I feel like no one hears me – it is much easier to lose weight in the beginning of your journey than it is near the end. Furthermore, the more the weight you have to lose in the beginning, the faster it will come off in the beginning. Why? Because the further away from “your normal BMI*” you are, the more the “unnecessary” weight you’re carrying, and the more likely it is that you’re eating more food than your body actually needs in order to maintain that weight.

Take my body, for instance. At age 24, 6′ and 330lbs, if I wanted to maintain that 330lb weight, I’d have to eat 3,009 calories a day on average. At 174lbs? You only need 2248. That’s almost an 800 calorie difference. Per day. It’s easy to create a caloric difference in the beginning if, barring any extraneous issues (like, say, emotional eating?), you’re 100+lbs away from where you want to be.

However. If you’re 170 and want to get down to 160? It’s a caloric difference of, like, 100 calories. It takes hustle and burn and all kinds of other sweaty verbs that I don’t like to use outside of the gym. So, to me, it makes sense that those 3lbs took everything you had. The smaller you’re trying to go, the harder you have to work and the less you have to eat. A person who weighs 100lbs (and wants to maintain it) eats considerably less than someone who weighs 120 and wants to maintain it.

Not only that, but you also have to consider that as you lose weight, the amount of calories burned doing any given exercise is going to shrink. A person jogging at 175lbs is going to burn considerably more than a person jogging at 145lbs. They’ve got 30 more pounds that they’ve got to manage in activity! So, if you’re going from 175 down to 145 and you’re doing the same activity for the same time period, you’re going to notice a slow down and experience a struggle. It’s going to feel difficult. It’s supposed to feel that way. I haven’t even gotten to the fact that if you’re building muscle too, you’ll have to continue your muscle development routine forever in order to maintain your strength gains.

I bring all of this up to say, those dream bodies don’t come easily. Having those dream bodies are different from simply being fit, and thereby require a-whole-nother level of effort. So, do I think the body has a “settling point” where it says “enough?” No, but I think our minds do; and I think we have a personal limit regarding how much effort we think we should have to put forth, how much food we should have to not eat and how much we are willing to change to get there. And if, for you, that tells you that you need to go harder in the paint, then get down to business. If, for someone else, that means setting a point where you tap out, then get-to-tappin’. Only you can decide what’s best for you, and as long as your health is in the forefront of your mind, you’re bound to be better for it.

Q&A Wednesday: Is This The Size My Body Wants Me To Be? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Fat And Size Acceptance?
2. Q&A Wednesday: How Weight Clings To (And Falls Off) The Body
3. Q&A Wednesday: Why Does Body Mass Index (BMI) Matter?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Body Image, calorie counting, weight loss

I’ve never read Push. (I know someone’s gonna get on me for that. I spent more time in music books than I did anything else. My bad.) I haven’t seen the movie Precious and probably never will, simply because I’m not a movie person. However, you cannot ignore the fact that something awesome happened last year, and that awesomeness manifested itself into Oscars, Golden Globes, Solar Systems, and whatever else Hollywood uses to pat itself on the back.

I’m inspired by the roller coaster ride that the Precious team has enjoyed. From thinking that the story could never be done justice on the screen, to winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. From thinking that plus-sized women – especially women of color… especially Mo’Nique  – could never be recognized playing “these kinds of roles,” to watching a very gracious and charismatic 26 year old be nominated alongside the Meryl Streep and the Helen Mirren… and watching Mo’Nique win that Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Really, do I need to go on?

There is something really powerful and refreshing here. While there are people who have their concerns about details within the movie (which don’t mean much to me, since I won’t be seeing it), I can only give credit to one thing. The fact that this climate, in this day and age, allowed for a movie like Precious to be funded, screened, lauded, awarded and successful. Forget what you think about “fat Black chicks.” That movie made $47 million dollars in only 200 theatres (if you take a peek at this chart, you’ll see movies who made $70mil but were shown in thousands of theatres) – there was clearly success to be had regardless of how few people were willing to give it a chance.

That’s not enough, though. Collectively as a nation, we need to be able to tear you down and rebuild you. So… let the attempts to tear down Miss Sidibe commence.

Howard Stern and that genius sidekick of his, Robin, lose their freaking marbles calling Gabby “the size of a planet,” and loudly proclaiming that she could never get another part because Hollywood simply doesn’t write for fat Black broads. I mean, that’s putting it bluntly, but it’s still a hell of a lot more polite than Stern’s original words. I’m not really sweating Howard Stern.. no one should. People who like him tune in to hear him say “what everyone is thinking” in the most crass and disrespectful way possible. It’s how he gets down. Big whoop.

This, for some reason, was the straw that broke my back. Some scammy acai berry magic elixir sellin’ company (y’all know how I feel about anything “magic“) tries to capitalize off of Sidibe’s attention by “leaking” a letter supposedly sent to her representatives about their fake-concern for her health. For the purposes of my rant, the letter is typed out for you below:

Dear Ms. Sidibe,

After viewing the recent pictures taken of you strolling around Santa Monica earlier this week, we at [website redacted] have decided we can no longer sit back and keep our mouth’s [sic] shut! Obesity is a major epidemic in the United States, and we would like to help you rid yourself of this terrible affliction. Life doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s time to prove Howard Stern and all of your naysayers wrong! We, along with Oprah agree that you DO have a bright future ahead of you in the entertainment business, and the only way you can reach your goal of someday winning that Oscar is by being active, fit, and most of all, healthy!

Thousands of people around the world say that [company name redacted]‘s Acai berry products help them live a healthier life that is full of energy and vitality. [redacted] has taken Acai Berry one step further by combining Acai extract with a combination of nutrients that help with weight-loss, increasing energy levels, and antioxidants that help promote healthier looking skin.

[redacted] would like to offer Ms. Sibide [sic] a ONE YEAR FREE SUPPLY of [redacted] in return for her glowing testimonial after she sheds her unwanted pounds.

Please get back to me at your earliest convenience with your or your representative’s shipping address so that we may ship out your first month’s supply.

Best Regards,
Total Jerk
CEO scammycompany

That last part might be my addition, but the rest of the letter is real. This is where I blew my lid.

First of all, I’m not gonna lie. I can hear it now. “Create a letter offering Si-bi-de – oh, it’s Si-di-be? Who cares! You know who I mean – some of our product for free, and send copies of the letter to the major gossip outlets. Tell her all she has to do is agree to promote for us, and she can have the supply for free. At best, she says yes. At worst, she says no and we still have all the publicity. Can’t fail!” That’s smart marketing… even though it’s rather vulture-like.

However… telling her that losing weight is the ONLY way she’d ever win an Oscar? Is that what this country is coming to now? That we believe that someone with stellar, outstanding, amazing talent would get passed over for recognition simply because they’re “fat?” That’s what we support and perpetuate? Is our collective self-esteem and respect for our peers that poor? Even more so, is that what we want to perpetuate? We don’t want to change that? Can’t change that?

Sigh.

Do I think Gabby is overweight? Yes. Do I think she’s unhealthy? Of course I do. Do I think that my opinion is important enough for her to care what I think? Not at all. Does any of this have anything to do with the amazing talent this woman has? Absolutely not. It makes her human. And I’d stand to believe that her “visible imperfection” made her that much more real in her portrayal of an… imperfect person. A real person playing a real role. How… unique.

I’m not even going to get on the fact that the letter repeats that motto that the fitness and weight loss industry LOVES to beat into our heads… that a magic little product will magically make us healthy. ‘Cause health is as easy as being skinny. ‘Cause being healthy is the same as being skinny. I mean, I don’t need to go there on this site, do I?

Nah.

My eyes kind of just glaze over when I have to face people’s need to talk about Gabby’s weight. Do we… need someone to know that we feel some kind of way about someone’s body? Are we getting some kind of satisfaction from highlighting someone else’s flaws? Is it just open season on people, nowadays? Or do we feel that we are so above criticism that we can say whatever we want about others… since, clearly, the same couldn’t be said about ourselves?

Like I said in the beginning… I don’t care, and I wish more of you felt the same way, too. I support Gabourey as a very incredible and witty personality, and I wish her the best (apparently.. thanks to Showtime, she’s already on her way). My time is better invested in me and making myself a better person, than expelling energy on people that don’t know me or give a damn what I think.

Update: Robin Quivers, the aforementioned sidekick on The Howard Stern Show, wrote for The Huffington Post just so that she could honestly “explain” her and Stern’s comments… without all the snark and crudeness required while on air. Maybe I’m just too much of a cynic to give it any weight, no pun intended.

In an effort to end this rant on an uplifting note, I present you with the best thing to come out of a celebrity’s mouth in a long time:

“I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don’t like myself, there’s no reason to even live the life [...] They try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life and then I got this role and now I’m awesome, but the truth is that I’ve been awesome, and then I got this role.” – Gabourey Sidibe

Amen.

My Thoughts on Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. My Thoughts On Dr. Oz’s 6 Meal Plan
2. Q&A Wednesday: My Thoughts On The Master Cleanse
3. A Few Thoughts on Cravings, Deprivation and Indulging

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-fat society, blackness, celebrities, fatophobia, media, mentality, weight loss

…the scale.

Oh, the horror.

As I’ve said… I’m a proponent of “fit,” not thin. So… I make a big deal about lifting weights. I mean.. a big… big deal.

I get e-mails asking me if I’ve mourned my lost curves, and the reality is that no, I didn’t have to hold a funeral survice for my curves. I’ve still got great ones. I work hard for ‘em, and I love what my hard work has produced.

Truthfully… the scale feels like a car crash in slow motion every time a weight lifting woman steps on the scale. The pressure to continually see the numbers decrease coupled with the desire to actually build muscle in a respectable fashion is… difficult to handle, to say the least.

That being said… let me offer up Exhibit A:

You'll just have to deal with my 'fro... long time readers already know how I am with my hair. LOL

I weigh more in the picture on the right… than I do in the picture on the left. Why?

Muscle!!!

Listen…. if you are a weight lifting woman, let me tell you something. A cube of muscle that is an inch tall, an inch long and an inch wide…. weighs almost twice as much as a cube of FAT that is an inch tall, an inch long and an inch wide. If you don’t believe me? Visit a butcher at a grocery store and ask them. Think of the last time you chopped a chunk of fat off of a piece of meat, and think of the last time you chopped a chunk of muscle off of a hunk of meat. You and I both know which weighs more.

So, as a weight-training woman, why would you torture yourself with the scale?

In the comparison photos above, there’s almost a 15% difference in my body fat. Yes: My body fat, on the left, is approximately 38% on the left; on the right, it’s approximately 22%. That means that approximately 22% of my weight is comprised of fat. I’m okay with that progress, because I’m still progressing.

And speaking of progress, just because I know some will want to see a real comparison…

No, I don’t mourn the curves I had… ’cause I’m still perfecting the curves I’ve got!

As someone who is serious about her weights, I’m abstaining from the darn scale. Who’s with me?

Photo Proof: The Stupid Scale Doesn’t Matter is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Refuse To Be A Slave To The Scale
2. Q&A Wednesday: Why Does Body Mass Index (BMI) Matter?
3. Rapper, Fat Joe, Loses 100lbs: “Scale Couldn’t Even Measure My Weight”

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 63 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: body fat percentage, fat loss, scale, weight lifting, weight loss, weight training

Rapper FAT JOE has no idea how much he weighed at the height of his health woes because no scale was big enough to read his poundage. The Lean Back hitmaker earned his stage name from his portly frame, but he is now showing off a slimmer figure after adopting a strict new diet and exercise regime earlier this year (11). Fat Joe has since shed over 100 pounds (45 kilograms) – but the hip-hop star confesses he has no idea how out of control his weight had become. He tells WENN, “The scale wasn’t big enough. I would say (I was) 400 pounds (181 kilograms). If not 400, close to 400.” The 41 year old, who previously admitted he was scared into the drastic image overhaul after seven of his friends suffered fatal heart attacks in their 30s, now weighs in at 260 pounds (117.9 kilograms) and insists he’s quite happy sticking to his new healthy-eating plan. He says, “I don’t find it hard (to diet). I’m addicted to food and I love to eat, but I don’t find it hard at all… It’s like a crackhead; a crackhead just hits rock bottom and they realise they don’t wanna smoke crack no more (sic), you know what I’m saying? So I just said to myself, ‘I don’t wanna be overweight no more (sic), I don’t wanna be outta shape, I don’t wanna be at risk of passing away and stuff like that so I gotta do the right thing.’” And the rapper is convinced others battling weight issues can succeed too – they just have to start slow. He adds, “I’m Fat Joe, you can’t tell me that it’s too hard. Can’t nobody (sic) tell me it’s too hard. I’m Fat Joe, the king of food. The self-proclaimed king! If I can do it, anybody can do it. “Be more active. I would say just walk. If you’re a heavyset person, you’re not gonna be able to jump or run around or do crazy stuff, so just walk… for 20 minutes, 30 minutes with your headphones on, get your little walk on, walk with your friends and that’s it. Thirty minutes. Try your best to stay away from the rice, the bread, the pasta, because that’s not our friend.”

We might have to start calling him “Fit Joe” if he keeps this up! I take issue with his “food addict” comments, but love everything else about this. Here’s to being healthier, dude. I’ll raise my glass [of water] to that any day.

Side note: He’s 41?!

Rapper, Fat Joe, Loses 100lbs: “Scale Couldn’t Even Measure My Weight” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Woman Loses 300lbs “The Hard Way,” Crowd Goes Wild
2. Photo Proof: The Stupid Scale Doesn’t Matter
3. Refuse To Be A Slave To The Scale

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: celebrity weight loss, fat joe, success stories, testimonials, weight loss

Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?

That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising.

The research suggests that giving ourselves a break and accepting our imperfections may be the first step toward better health. People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic. Preliminary data suggest that self-compassion can even influence how much we eat and may help some people lose weight.

This idea does seem at odds with the advice dispensed by many doctors and self-help books, which suggest that willpower and self-discipline are the keys to better health. But Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field, says self-compassion is not to be confused with self-indulgence or lower standards.

“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent,” said Dr. Neff, an associate professor of human development at the University of Texas at Austin. “They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.”

Imagine your reaction to a child struggling in school or eating too much junk food. Many parents would offer support, like tutoring or making an effort to find healthful foods the child will enjoy. But when adults find themselves in a similar situation — struggling at work, or overeating and gaining weight — many fall into a cycle of self-criticism and negativity. That leaves them feeling even less motivated to change.

“Self-compassion is really conducive to motivation,” Dr. Neff said. “The reason you don’t let your children eat five big tubs of ice cream is because you care about them. With self-compassion, if you care about yourself, you do what’s healthy for you rather than what’s harmful to you.”

I cannot express enough how important this concept of self-compassion truly is. It’s why I say “I don’t diet.” It’s why my plan for developing a strong sense of body image includes thinking of how I’d treat my four year old daughter if I caught her saying the same things about her body that I used to say about mine. It’s why I don’t believe in “cheat meals.”

When it comes to weight loss, self-compassion – instead of negative talk and chastising oneself for lacking “will power” – is the key because self-compassion allows for us to make mistakes and, thereafter, learn lessons from those mistakes. Even in the days when I was eating 7-layer dip for breakfast, I knew I was wrong but I allowed myself to make the mistake and accept what consequences would come from it… and I never ate it again. Not “I never ate it for breakfast again,” but “I never ate it again. Period.”

Self-discipline might be the way to weight loss, but the missing factor in everyone’s understanding of self-discipline is that people who have never had self-discipline have to learn it somehow. It’s not simply “the frontal part of the brain region that fat people have never tapped into.” It is a learned trait… and that learning has to start somewhere that doesn’t include “going cold turkey.”

The article goes on from here:

A 2007 study by researchers at Wake Forest University suggested that even a minor self-compassion intervention could influence eating habits. As part of the study, 84 female college students were asked to take part in what they thought was a food-tasting experiment. At the beginning of the study, the women were asked to eat doughnuts.One group, however, was given a lesson in self-compassion with the food. “I hope you won’t be hard on yourself,” the instructor said. “Everyone in the study eats this stuff, so I don’t think there’s any reason to feel real bad about it.”

Later the women were asked to taste-test candies from large bowls. The researchers found that women who were regular dieters or had guilt feelings about forbidden foods ate less after hearing the instructor’s reassurance. Those not given that message ate more.

The hypothesis is that the women who felt bad about the doughnuts ended up engaging in “emotional” eating. The women who gave themselves permission to enjoy the sweets didn’t overeat. [source]

This is why I don’t believe in “cheating.” If I’m changing my lifestyle, what “good” does it do to create a lifestyle for myself where I have to “cheat” myself (because that’s the only person being cheated, here) in order to be successful? That’s a fail. Period.

I will admit, though, that I think there’s something missing from this entire conversation: people feel an inability to exercise restraint with food because, more often than not, they’re dealing with processed foods that alter their ability to “eat just one.” The fact that I couldn’t control myself when it came to certain foods was something that’d cause me to beat myself up a little bit, too. I can admit that.

See? That’s an example of self-compassion. My admitting that I wouldn’t have been able to control myself or lose my weight if I were still around processed foods? That’s me being compassionate to myself, being sympathetic to my shortcomings… instead of acting like my shortcomings don’t have to be acknowledged because some mystical mental power should exist to save me (and then calling myself an idiot, a loser and a failure for not being able to tap into it.)

I really want to read up on this and come back to it, but I’m especially interested in what everyone has to say about this study. How compassionate are you to yourself? Do you beat yourself up over food woes or missing your workout? Let’s talk!

Self-Compassion: A Key Factor In Weight Loss is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. “Weight Loss Is For People With Low Self-Esteem”
2. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story
3. Making Foolproof Weight Loss Resolutions For The New Year

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dieting, emotional eating, lifestyle change, mentality, self-compassion, weight loss

Not so.

When it comes to sugar, the truth is that because sugar can come from so many different sources, a manufacturer could easily split the sugar source up into six different places, and all of them be in small enough quantities that they’re not large enough to be listed in the first five ingredients on the label. Not only that, but what’s the likelihood that you would even be able to identify the sources of sugar on the label? I mean, while we all know what “high fructose corn syrup” and “corn syrup” are, are you familiar with “sorghum syrup?” What do you know about “treacle?” “Acesulfame potassium?”

Here’s an example of what I’m referring to, here:

Because my investigative journalism yielded pretty crappy photography, I’m sure you can’t read that. Nevertheless, I still got notes: That says “sugar, wheat, corn syrup, honey, hydrogenatd soybean oil, salt, caramel color, soy lecithin.” How many different sources of sugar can you spot?

Let’s try another one:

The list reads: “Whole grain corn, corn meal, sugar, corn bran, honey, salt, brown sugar syrup, caramel color, trisodium phosphate, natural flavor, vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) added to preserve freshness.

A while back, Fooducate created a list of the different names that sugar uses to hide in our ingredient lists. The list is pretty exhaustive, but in my mind it was short a few names. Below, is that list compiled by Fooducate, with additions by me.

• Acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K) / E950 -
  marketed as Sunett / Sweet One (artificial, 0 calories)
• Agave
• Agave Nectar
• Aspartame – marketed as Nutrasweet (artificial, 0 calories)
• Barbados Sugar
• Barley Malt
• Barley Malt Extract
• Beet Sugar
• Blackstrap molasses
• Brown Rice Syrup
• Brown sugar
• Brown sugar syrup
• Buttered Syrup
• Cane juice crystals
• Cane sugar
• Caramel
• Caramel color
• Carob syrup
• Castor sugar
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Corn sugar
• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids
• Crystalline Fructose
• D-mannose
• Date sugar
• Dehydrated Cane Juice
• Demerara sugar
• Dextran
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Diastatic malt
• Diatase
• Ethyl maltol
• Evaporated Cane Juice
• Evaporated Cane Syrup
• Fructose
• Fruit juice
• Fruit juice concentrate – ANY juice concentrate – “grape juice concentrate,” “apple juice concentrate,” “pear juice concentrate,” “orange juice concentrate,”
• Galactose
• Glucose or glucose solids
• Golden sugar
• Golden syrup
• Granulated sugar
• Grape sugar
• High-fructose corn syrup (or HFCS)
• High-maltose corn syrup (or HMCS)
• Honey
• Icing sugar
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Malt syrup
• Maltodextrin
• Maltose
• Mannitol
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Muscovado sugar
• Neotame
• Organic raw sugar
• Panocha
• Powdered sugar
• Raw sugar
• Refiner’s syrup
• Rice Syrup
• Saccharin
• Saccharose
• Sorbitol
• Sorghum syrup
• Sucralose – marketed as Splenda
• Sucrose
• Sugar
• Syrup
• Treacle
• Turbinado Sugar
• Xylose
• Yellow sugar

There’s also the list of sugar alcohol extracts:

• xylitol
• glycol
• glycerol
• erythritol
• threitol
• arabitol
• ribitol
• mannitol
• sorbitol
• dulicitol
• iditol
• isomalt
• maltitol
• lacitiol
• polyglycitol

Hmmm… am I missing anything else?

Hide and Seek: Sugar Hiding In Your Ingredients List is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Q&A Wednesday: High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Table Sugar
2. Photo: If You Wanted To Escape McDonalds, Where Would You Have To Hide?
3. On Enabling Myself: Hiding Junk Food Around The House

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, ingredients list, nutrition labels, reading labels, sugar, weight loss

Pasta - a favorite "carb up!" dish for runners!

Q: I have been working out consistently since January and have went down one size. I work out for an hour (cardio and strength training) at least 5-6 times a week. But here lately, my hunger has increased alot. I don’t know if it harmones or what. Is this normal? Should I eat more?

A: You have to think about what you’re doing when you take in food and when you execute an activity.

Food isn’t about all this emotional, lovey dovey stuff that we evolved humans have attached to it. I mean sure, food can have emotional attachment (like a positive – or negative – memory) but that’s not what it’s for. It’s our primary source of both energy as well as nourishment. Plain and simple.

When you eat, you take in energy. Ever heard of calories? A calorie is a standard measurement of energy – chemistry classes told me something about kilocalories and kilojoules… but if I admitted that then I’d also be admitting that my teachers were right in telling me I’d need this information some day and that would just be… disastrous. Anyway.. I’m off track a little bit, here.

A calorie is a standard measurement of energy. In order to get through your entire day, your body burns energy (read: calories) in order to maintain your daily functions. We’ll call this the Basal Metabolic Rate, the rate at which your body burns energy without any extra activity at all.

This puts food intake in a whole new perspective. When you eat 100 calories of broccoli – mmm, broccoli – you’re ingesting 100 calories worth of fuel that the body stores for later use – actually… let me put that in a different perspective – when you eat 600 calories worth of french fries, you’re ingesting 600 calories worth of fuel that the body stores for later use. If your body only burns 1500 calories a day without you engaging in any extra activity, then you just ate half of your intake for the day…. and anything that you eat beyond that 1500 calories is stored as fat.

That being said, its just as important to fuel any extra activity as it is to fuel your basic daily functions. If you’re trying to starve yourself, your body will catch on sooner or later and your metabolism will slow down – not simply because there’s no food coming in to burn, but more specifically because the body recognizes that there’s not enough energy coming in to fuel the activity you’re engaging in… thereby causing your body to work against your efforts to burn fat.

There was an article in Time Magazine a few years back titled “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” that brought up this issue… saying that exercise doesn’t work because it increases your appetite.

Um, it’s supposed to increase your appetite!

If you’re burning a ton of energy at any given time, the body is going to notice that! It’s going to outright demand that you stuff your face with something to replenish the energy you’ve burned! Of course it will! It only makes sense. It doesn’t want to starrrrrrve, it doesn’t want to be limited in energy. It wants to have a balanced supply of energy in preparation for the next famine. It’s going to try to compel you to take in more energy. That’s its job.

The reality is that as you engage in more cardiovascular activity, the body is going to realize this and its going to trigger ghrelin – the hunger hormone – to act a complete fool. No, seriously. I’ve come home and felt that ravenous feeling before… and felt further justified in eating “half of what I burned” because “I burned so much.”

So…. if that’s the problem, what is the solution?

Let’s think, here. If you simply decide to go into cardio and not eat afterwards… as in, go straight to bed after cardio, you’re going to wake up pretty groggy. Double negative points if you decide to skip breakfast, as well.

Clearly, you have a death wish… or an overeating wish. Same diff.

What do I do? I simply go ahead and eat afterwards. Why the hell wouldn’t I? Suffering through hunger pangs isn’t a badge of honor. If you decide to eat something before a cardio session, you’ve got the energy you’ll need to dive head first into your workout. When you crash in your blaze of glory, you’ll need to replenish what you’ve lost… and that demands that you eat.

This is why eating clean and keeping your calories under control throughout the day is so important. You simply cannot unnecessarily gorge out during the day because “I’m working out later… its cardio day” only to be shocked and confused about what to do when you experience actual hunger pangs. That kind of mentality might work for when you’re trying to maintain your weight, but as far as losing weight? No, you won’t be successful that way.

It’s an extremely delicate dance, and there’s no simple answer in here anywhere. You’ll have to find out what works best for your height and weight combination, but realize that even that takes time. I’d try to play with keeping up my regular intake every few hours, but focus the bulk of my daily caloric intake around my cardio sessions. That requires planning – heaven forbid – but weight loss requires a conscious and concerted effort… and your body will, without question, thank you for it in the end!

Q&A Wednesday: Working Out Makes Me Hungry! Help! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: appetite, Cardio, exercise, hunger pangs, weight loss

1. You may have started off counting your calories, but became so disappointed and surprised that you gave up after a few days;
2. You may have said you don’t want or need to know your average daily calorie count, and decided not to participate;
3. You may have not only started your counting but kept up your counting and still are;
4. Or, you may have started off counting and became so disappointed that you immediately started changing your daily diet to try to meet your daily calorie and weight loss needs.

credit: cogdogblog

As long are you don’t fall under number two, I don’t care where, exactly you fall. The reality is that those numbers you collect – be it from two days or twelve – play a monumental part in our ability to maintain and lose weight.

I’ve written about the hard numbers before, but I’d like to get into a little bit more detail about it, today. If you’ve never read my post about the basics of calorie counting, you might want to check it out.

The facts stand as follows:

• Our bodies burn a set number of calories each day based on our height and weight.
• A body carrying more weight than average is going to require more food than average to maintain that weight.
• A body carrying more weight than average is going to require more food than average to gain weight on top of that weight.
• A body carrying less weight than average will require less food than average to maintain that weight.

To put this into action, let’s use a 27 year old female who weighs 170 at 5’8″ with a sedentary lifestyle as an example.

If we plug those numbers into one of my favorite calculators, it says that she burns approximately 2,173 calories per day. What this means, is that in order for her body to manage all of the functions it needs to handle, it will burn 2,173 calories. The body will pull those calories either from the food she eats, or the fat stores in the body.

In order for her to not gain or lose any weight over a one week time frame, she’d have to eat approximately 2,200 calories. That’s what you call a maintenance count.

In order for her to gain a pound in a week, she’d have to eat an extra 3,500 calories worth of food. (Remember, 1lb = 3,500 calories.) Aside from the weight of the actual food still in her system (that is, if she doesn’t go number two regularly), if she eats, on average, 500 calories over her maintenance count each day, she’ll gain a pound.

In order for her to lose a pound in a week, she’d have to cut 500 calories from her maintenance count. So, if she made sure her average daily calorie count never exceeded approximately 1,700 calories, she would lose a pound of weight (not including the weight of the actual food still in her body, because she should be going number two regularly.)

Note: If she wants to burn two pounds a week, she can step it up in the activity department and burn approximately 500 extra calories a day – either through running or swimming or even walking – and knock out another 3,500 calories in a week. But we’re not talking about exercise just yet – that’s for next week. So for this example, she’s not working out.

So we’ve covered the obvious basics, but here’s where we go wrong.

Say she works her tail off, and gets down to 148, but decides she wants to drop down to 140. Okay, now we’ve got a goal. This is great. She keeps up her same routine – eat healthy every day, weigh herself on Saturday – because obviously it’s working for her.

Except… it stops working for her.

All of a sudden, the weight loss slows down. It’s almost two weeks before she even sees a pound fade away. She starts getting discouraged, and starts to feel like she’s ready to give up.

This is where we go wrong.

When we lose 22lbs like this, we HAVE to go back to start. What did I say at the start?

To put this into action, let’s use a 27 year old female who weighs 170 at 5’8″ with a sedentary lifestyle as an example.

If we plug those numbers into one of my favorite calculators, it says that she burns approximately 2,173 calories per day.

A 20lb weight loss alters how many calories our bodies burn in a given day by over100 calories! A woman who is 5’8″, weighing in at now 148 pounds, doesn’t burn 2,173 calories each day – she burns 2,025! If she’s counting to make sure she eats 1,600 calories each day,that’s only a 425 calorie deficit! That’s not enough to burn a pound every 7 days, it’s enough to burn a pound every 9 days. Meaning there may only be two Saturdays in the month where she sees any progress on the scale, depending upon where those nine-day markers fall.

After each successful stride in your journey, you must reassess your metabolic rate, be it for an athlete or a couch potato. You have to know what your body is doing, and you have to remember that as your size changes, your capabilities change. Remember, being conscious is a MAJOR part of not only losing weight, but keeping it off. My favorite line is “If you never eat it, you don’t have to worry about burning it off.” But you have to know what you’re eating in order to know whether or not you should be eating it, right? That’s why I calorie count!

The Math Behind Weight Loss Plateaus is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. How Much Is The Weight Loss Industry Worth?
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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, clean eating, dieting, Healthy Eating, metabolism, nutrition, overeating, weight loss

You know, I just knew up and down that I wouldn’t have to write about Gabourey Sidibe again. I just knew that she’d ride off into the sunset, preparing for her next upcoming role.

I just knew it.

Of course, I was wrong. (Hey, it happens.) HappyAboutThis found these remarkable little snippets – you should check out the link yourself, but I’m going to paste the important part, beneath:

“When asked for a picture, the less-than-enthused newbie star could barely crack a smile. One photo-seeking fan said jokingly, “that’s all you’re going to give me,” to the pouty Precious. Gabby responded, “you’ll get what I give you.”" – Source: Gabby Sidibe: Not So Precious – FishbowlDC

“I was thrilled to spot her at a table laughing uproariously with the man sitting to her right. “I know you’re having a good time and I’m sorry to interrupt,” I began. My next sentence didn’t come out because Sidibe shouted over the din, “Yeah, come back in five minutes!” Thinking she was joking, I laughed and pretended to walk away. When I noticed that the look in her eyes meant she was serious, I walked back to her and said, “I just wanted to congratulate you on your nomination. I thought your performance was spectacular. I even wrote a column about it.” After wishing her good luck, I rejoined my friends.”

Back at the table, I sheepishly related the incident to my colleague Jo-Ann Armao. “Oh! She’s horrible,” Armao said in her wonderfully blunt way. She told me that she saw Sidibe at the pre-cocktails and told her that she’d seen “Precious” three times (an amazing emotional feat that only adds to my awe of Armao) and that she thought Sidibe’s performance was “incandescent.” What was Sidibe’s response? “I guess I should say, ‘Thank you.’”

At the MSNBC after party, the partner of a “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” producer said to me, “Look! There’s Gabby Sidibe. I’m going to ask her to take a picture with me.” I warned him, “She’s mean.” To which he said, “I don’t care. I just want a picture.” I didn’t see what went down, but the dejected fan came back and said incredulously, “She said no.” – Source: Precious Little Time – Or Grace – For Fans – Washington Post

You know, I don’t love the fact that Gabby is essentially peeing in her own chair, to be crass – no one else has to sit there, but you… so why go out of your way to make it unpleasant? Can you effectively use the media to your advantage? Of course. Is that the better move for you? Absolutely. However. Neither they, nor you, are entitled to or guaranteed anything. Ever.

And I know I’m late, but I needed time to really think about what made me angriest about all of this before I wrote.

So having said that, can we break down the media’s response to Miss Sidibe’s alleged attitude?

First of all, let’s face it – nobody was checking for Precious. The media didn’t give a quarter-damn about the movie until all the awards started springing up. An Oscar-nominated film with plus-sized dark-skinned African American women playing the leads?

“OMG WTF!!!!1111!!11 That’s not gonna sell on the cover! System overload!”

An Oscar nod forced them to pay attention. So, please. Anyone who thinks the media didn’t originally begrudingly give them shine… is foolin’.

Secondly, I feel like I’ve been seeing articles like this far too often, where people cannot separate Sidibe from her character. She’s got to shuck and jive to get y’all to see that she ain’t Precious. Is Hollywood and its ilk sooooooo far removed from Black women – plus-sized Black women at that – that they cannot understand that Gabby (and any other woman who may resemble her) is NOT Precious? That she is NOT the young girl with this forlorn past of painful trauma? That she’s not “the girl hiding from her life in a bucket of chicken she stole from a KFC?” Or is it that people subconsciously are trying to excuse her “weight problem” (because, let’s face it – Hollywood doesn’t love excess… or hell, any weight on anyone) by assuming she must be the girl hiding from her life in a bucket of KFC?

C’mon, son.

Can someone tell me what they expected from Sidibe? Why it’s so easy for Capeheart and crew to write such gossipy drivel? “Ohhh, how dare she? After I went out of my way to laud and support her and that movie-that-no-one-supported? After I went out of my way to come up to her and tell her how awesome I think she is?” Entitled much?

News flash: Plenty of plus-sized Black chicks do awesome things and have their own sensible level of self-esteem and value of self because of it. They don’t need anyone running up behind them to tell them how good they are… and they certainly don’t need to be “thankful that someone else noticed” their amazingness.

Would proper etiquette dictate that Sidibe should’ve been as sweet as honey in response? Yes. Is she the first Oscar-nominated actress to choose to not be as sweet as honey? Doubtful. Were they so shocked that the “fat Black chick” (sorry, blame Howard Stern for that quote) wasn’t the happy, jovial Black friend that we just can’t get enough of in movies lately? I’d suppose so. Were they offended that this…. less than… would dare ignore the power of ME? The all-powerful media writer who can destroy small careers with a single keystroke? Does she not know how many people I can reach out and touch with my little website? Does she not feeeeeeeeel… my POWER??!?!

Seriously, they need to get over themselves. Once I realized that Capeheart is the dude I watch on Morning Joe every now and again, I was even more disgusted. Blow enough smoke up a writer’s behind, and they start feeling like someone owes them something.

Why am I so cynical about the media and their treatment of the Precious crew? Again, from HappyAboutThis:

Obviously these reports of Gabby being ridiculously unkind for no reason are disturbing. But what stuck out to me was the fact that both posts carried some sort of strange reference to Gabby’s weight.

The first line of the first Media Bistro post was “So, who was the weekend’s biggest (no pun intended) disappointment so far?”

The first line of 2nd Media Bistro post was: “Wow! FishbowlDC wasn’t alone when we gave “Precious” star Gabby Sidibe a GIGANTIC (no pun intended…okay, that’s a lie) thumbs down.”

No, really. So not only did you begrudingly pay attention to her at all, but when you did and realized you wouldn’t be fawned all over and granted favor for doing so… you run to your website to whine as payback? And to top it all off, you sneak in fat jokes? That was what you were waiting on all along, right?

What kind of spiteful, petty, narcissistic, mean-spirited, cruel and insensitive people are we dealing with, here?

Then, the cream on your coffee – Capeheart compares this instance to his time spent sitting next to Queen Latifah… because it totally makes sense comparing someone with 20 years in the game to someone 26 years old.

Oh, wait – they’re both “fat Black chicks who should be grateful for media attention.” My bad, I forgot.

Don’t take my lack of comment on Sidibe’s alleged behavior as condoning it. I’m a firm believer in positive energy and karma (I am a hippie, after all) and I think people should be mindful of that. I’m simply still not convinced that we’re getting the whole story – that there isn’t a little yellow journalism going on as an excuse to finally call a “fat Black chick” exactly what [they think] she is. Just like the video clip of her supposedly handing back flowers to some dude? He gave them to her as he asked her, “Should I call you Gabby or Precious?” Seriously?

In my mind, I’m giving Hollywood the finger. All the amazing Black actresses that get no shine, no love and no support. So many of the popular mainstream movies with primarily Black characters usually include some Black dude in a chick suit. You get one that you’re outright forced to pay attention to, and when she’s not grateful for your attention… you repay her by slipping fat jokes into your self-important drivel? No love.

How Dare You, Fat Black Chick, Treat Me This Way?! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 26 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-fat society, celebrities, epic ranting, fatophobia, gabourey sidibe, media, mentality, weight loss

Q: Is calorie counting the only way to lose weight?

A: Is it the only way to lose? No. Of course not. Is it my preferred method? It’s helped me to lose over the weight and keep it off for a few years, now.

We have to define a few things, here, in order to make sure that we’re referring to the same concepts.

Firstly, there are tons of ways that people “lose weight.” People mindlessly cut out entire food groups, avoid certain food items and stick to merely fruits and veggies all without counting a single calorie… and if that works for them, that’s awesome.

That would never work for me, and I know that. You’ve just gotta know what works for you.

For me, I had no previous knowldge of what to expect from certain foods in regards to nutritional content. I didn’t know that I should expect a tablespoon of butter to have more calories than the veggies I was putting it on, so to be more mindful of how much I used. I didn’t know that the mayonnaise I was putting on my bread had more calories than the bread in and of itself. I didn’t know that the bread on my sandwich was often more calories than the contents of that sandwich.

I didn’t know that the breading on my fried chicken was often more calories than the chicken itself. I didn’t know that the oil I fried my chicken in was more calories than itself. Hell, I didn’t know that I could enjoy the chicken without the breading or the oil… but the shock that came from the caloric breakdown of my fried chicken compelled me to learn how to enjoy it without either.

Calorie counting, to me, forced me to study labels. I learned where I could expect the largest quantities of fat. I learned where I could expect to find high levels of sugars. I learned where I could expect to find high quantities of salt. I learned where there were too many chemicals, not enough fiber, and virtually no nutritional offerings. I suppose that calling it “calorie counting” really doesn’t do it any justice when I did more than count calories, but calorie counting was the vessel through which I learned to understand food.

It became even easier when I branched out and began to cook on my own. Not only can I estimate how many calories are in a fourth of a cup of flour, but because I cook so often, I know how many calories are probably in that cake… those cookies… that cupcake. I know how many calories are in a 4oz piece of chicken, a few tablespoons of typical frying oil (or peanut oil) and the flour (and possibly buttermilk) used to fry it.

Calorie counting also freed me. It allowed me to learn how to learn to develop a balance and plan for social events when I can. If I know I’m going to have a day where I’m dining out at a fabulous restaurant with a in-house baked chocolate-raspberry lava cake that I know I’m gonna want? I can better prepare myself by eating differently during the day. Calorie counting freed me from feeling like I had to fear food and what it would/could do to me. Calorie counting helped me accept what I was eating, and helped me learn how to balance the calorie-heavy with the calorie-light.

For me, calorie counting was more than merely counting the calories. I learned food in a way that allowed me to branch off from calorie counting and to a more knowledgeable and comfortable form of eating to not only fuel myself, but enjoy myself in the process (“the process” being cooking, plating, dining and overall enjoying the time spent with my family.) I don’t have guilt or apprehension about what I’m eating. I know exactly what I’m eating and can accept what that brings to me – either a challenge of balance, or the comfort of knowing I don’t have to bother.

As I often say, with losing weight, it’s often about everything except food. In fact, the food is often the last thing it’s about for a lot of people. Once you get down to the brass tacks of it all and begin to learn to understand food again, you can, in fact develop a sense of what it’ll take for you to both live healthily and lose the weight. Doesn’t feel like it should be that simple, but it has been for me and that’s what I often promote here.

Q&A Wednesday: Is Calorie Counting The Only Way To Lose Weight? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined
2. Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
3. Q&A Wednesday: I’m Desperate To Lose Weight! Help?!

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Post tags: calorie counting, weight loss

I’d like to offer up five big reasons why you might be hitting a brick wall with your weight loss.

1. You’re eating too much after you workout. This was something I REALLY had to remind myself about, and became a better woman for it. Working out doesn’t give me carte blanche to eat how I want. It shouldn’t be looked at that way when I’m trying to lose weight. Working out doesn’t provide me with a “cushion” to fall back on if I overeat. It’s considered a known fact that people come out of a workout session sweaty and starving. What am I eating to replenish? Am I stopping by McDonalds drive thru, or do I have some grapes or a slice of cantaloupe waiting for me at home?
2. Are you a little too indulgent when it comes to the good stuff? So, you’ve finally done it. You’ve got a workout routine, you’ve slowed down on the junk food, and you’re only buying healthy/organic/[insert other fitness buzz word]. But wait? Have you merely replaced one vice for another? It may be organic, but that doesn’t mean that the caloric value is better. It especially doesn’t mean that just because the caloric value is smaller, that it’s ok to have 3 or 4 servings. If the “healthy” peanut butter is 20 calories less than the “regular peanut butter,” that doesn’t mean you should have more than you were originally getting! It might even mean you should start shooting for less.. since sometimes (especially with nuts) the more organic versions have the original fat values in tact, and can sometimes have more fat grams in them. To make matters worse, if that organic version has more sodium in it, it’s that much more likely to cause you to maintain water weight (which is usually a result of a high-sodium diet.) Talk about tripping yourself up.
3. You’re not drinking enough water. Here’s a neat little tidbit I picked up in my reading. The body burns fat whenever your internal temperature is increased. The more water you drink, the more able your body is to heat up. Remember, water is a conductor of heat and electricity – it makes it easier for heat to pass through it, thus making it easier for your body to heat up to do what it needs to do. Do you drink enough before your workout? Better yet, do you drink it afterwards? To tie in with the first point, if you’re drinking too many calories, you might be counteracting your body’s ability to burn calories… since you keep drinking so many!
4. You’re not hitting the potty enough. Where’s the fiber? For every meal that you take in, you should be releasing just that much. That’s right. Considering now that you know that, how far behind are you falling? Even more so, how much do you estimate you have stuck inside of your system? I know people who get such a small amount of fiber in their daily diet, they may not hit the potty at ALL in one given day. Trust me when I tell you, if your plate weighs 2lbs when you sit it down to eat, rest assured that you are adding at least a pound and some change to your weight. Add the fiber, already!
5. You’re doing better than you thought. Here’s another neat little tidbit I’ve picked up in my reading. Muscle weighs as much as [if not more than] fat. Yes, yes, this is true. You might’ve picked up just as many pounds in muscle as you might’ve lost in fat. This is a good thing, though! Why? “According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns.” See how that works? So yeah, you might’ve gained a pound of muscle, but when you get your eating habits back together.. you will absolutely reap the rewards of having it!

I won’t lie – I’m facing this right now. I’ve been stepping up my calisthenics routine at home, and while I’ve lost a total of 12 inches between my upper/lower waist, hips, and thighs… I’ve only lost 12 lbs. 12! It’s hard to not let it get me down, which is why I focus heavily on what I look like, and not what I weigh. I suppose I need to re-read what I wrote about being a slave to the scale, eh?

How about it? How did you manage to fight your plateau? How did it affect you? Let’s hear it!

What other reasons are there why we might hit a brick wall?

Did I Just Plateau? Why Am I Not Losing Weight? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Losing Weight and Losing Identity
2. Big Love: Dating While Losing Weight
3. Losing Weight Makes You Hate “Fat People?”

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Post tags: myths, plateaus, weight loss, workout tips

A restaurant lists the calorie counts for its patrons... I love it!

Every so often, I get into this debate with people who reject the concept of “calorie counting” outright. And while I’m the type of person who believes in understanding someone’s viewpoint before I make a decision about it either way (because there is a difference between understanding someone and accepting their opinion as right), I’m not going to make it easy, either.

The very first series I wrote on this site was about my experiences with calorie counting, and it’s a process that’s very near and dear to my heart. Before I explain my experiences with calorie counting and my own personal stance, I think it’s fair to explain the concept of intuitive eating. I think, as you read along, you’ll discover what my real thoughts about intuitive eating actually are.

I know, I know… no one loves wikipedia. I’m quoting it anyway:

Intuitive eating is a nutrition philosophy based on the premise that becoming more attuned to the body’s natural hunger signals is a more effective way to attain a healthy weight; rather than keeping track of the amounts of energy and fats in foods. It’s a process that is intended to create a healthy relationship with food, mind, and body. Intuitive Eating, just like the many books available today, goes by many names, including non-dieting or the non-diet approach, normal eating, wisdom eating, conscious eating and more.

I think that’s a pretty solid definition.

I think I’ve said enough on this site that implies that I am anti-dieting. I don’t believe in restrictive rules that I can’t abide by, thus resulting in my incessant need to “cheat.” I don’t believe in the “health obsessed, yet still unhealthy culture” in our country today.. that takes advantage of people’s confusion about weight loss and wellness. I don’t believe in society’s need to idolize sickly looking women (and by sickly looking, I mean not fit, just thin-for-the-sake-of-being-thin). I don’t believe in perpetuating the idea that you have to buy every book or every trendy fad fitness toy to be healthy… especially when all it’s gonna do is collect dust until you donate it to Goodwill. I just… I reject most of what popular culture tells me about wellness, food and weight loss. That part of the intuitive eating philosophy, I accept and advocate.

I’m also big about developing healthy relationships with food. I support conscious consuming. I don’t support using food to self-medicate. Or hiding food. Or using food for any reason other than fueling the body and enjoying the experience. A lot of us don’t even realize that we have unhealthy relationships with food because we’re not even conscious of what we’re doing when we do it. We just.. consume.. feel better.. and move on to the next issue. Wash, rinse, repeat.

However, people who support intuitive eating also have this tendency to reject calorie counting as a faction of that “health obsessed, yet still unhealthy” culture that we have. Weight loss programs abound, that restrict you to a certain amount of calories, as if calories are the key indicator of weight loss success or failure. (Countless posts here will tell you.. they’re not.) Without proper focus, it can absolutely become obsessive. Supporters also believe it puts too high of a priority on calories… as if a calorie is a calories is a calorie, and it doesn’t matter where they come from so long as you’re under X number.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that. I think they are great philosophies. I also think they’re thoughtless, slightly privileged and a little disconnected from the reality that calorie counting can provide… because while I am an intuitive eater now, I got here through calorie counting. And because of that, because these people want to pit the two against one another, instead of using calorie counting as a means of maturing into intuitive eating, calorie counting wins out for me.

When I first realized that my problem was not only how much I was eating but what I was eating, I struggled a bit and had to start from scratch. For me, this meant that I completely dropped processed foods and – because I was missing the processed dishes I was eating – had to learn how to cook. Some people take the insulting stance of “you should know that eating a cupcake is not healthy,” but it’s not that you should know it is unhealthy.. it’s about knowing just how unhealthy it is.

I developed a love of cooking, because I realized just how much fun it could be to experiment and actually succeed with a well-put-together dish. And with every dish, I learned what each ingredient contributed to the dish. It taught me to be mindful of just how much fat I was adding to a dish (by way of oil, butter, cream, avocado, nuts, whatever) while still seeking to create a flavorful dish. I learned that I needed to be mindful of a “tipping point” in my dishes: sure, I can recreate the flavors in my favorite restaurant pasta dish… but did I really want the size? Did I really need the size?

I calorie counted everything in my baking, and learned where I could pare down the sugar and excess fat while still enjoying myself. And in baked goods where I learned just how calorie-heavy they were… I learned that I couldn’t eat them often – or at all, for that matter.

While I was doing all of this calorie counting, something was happening to me that I didn’t recognize at first, but I’m eternally grateful for after the fact. All of this experimenting with real ingredients as opposed to processed foods allowed me to redevelop my own sense of being full. That’s right – a lifestyle that relied on food that originated from dust and, within my insides, turned back into dust and failed to fill me… thus compelling me to eat more and consume more calories… altered my ability to eat intuitively. It worked against my intuition, and caused me to disconnect from it. It caused me to lose my ability to connect to myself and my body. I suspect I’m not the only person that has ever had that problem.

Being a calorie counter – as well as an amateur cook – allowed me to learn how different foods make me feel inside. I learned how foods with a lot of fat are much higher in calories and are supposed to fill you up quicker. I learned why there’s a difference in how I feel after eating my cheesecake vs someone else’s cheesecake… which taught me to stop eating someone else’s cheesecake. I learned.. I learned… I learned so much from my experience with counting calories that, if I had just bypassed it for the sake of “trying to become an intuitive eater,” I wholeheartedly believe I’d still be flailing about and clueless, almost 110lbs ago.

Why can’t we have both? Is the risk associated with calorie counting soooooo great that we cannot instead focus our energies on developing a healthy program that nurtures calorie counters into people who become more conscious of the contents of their dishes and better able to listen to their bodies? Why is wellness always all or nothing, especially when overlooking the middle usually results in a lot of people being left in the dust? And, let’s face it – some people want to lose weight. Is there something so wrong with that? They should be allowed to understand their bodies and how to better control the weight those bodies carry. (Or do we fear that allowing healthful discussion about “how to lose weight” implies that people need to lose weight? Isn’t it easier to just work to fix that mentality?)

In closing, I offer up a polite suggestion. Instead of railing against calorie counting… take the stance that, for those of us who don’t come from some grand understanding of “you’re an idiot if you don’t know that a cupcake isn’t healthy,” it is a way to learn just how unhealthy some things are. Understand that it helps us quantify just how bad our decisions are and can be if we aren’t conscious and careful. Understand that it helps us realize that each food we put into our bodies should serve multiple purposes – not just “be yummy” – because our bodies have needs… and our bodies try to tell us what they need, if we’re able to listen. You can’t make it from the first floor to the second without walking up a few steps… and for me, calorie counting was those steps.

So.. if I have to choose? Calorie counting. All day.

The Calorie Counting vs. Intuitive Eating Debate is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Understanding Calorie Counting: What is it? Calorie Counting Defined
2. Understanding Calorie Counting: Creating Your Calorie Goal and Being Honest About It
3. Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: calorie counting, cheating, dieting, food relationships, Healthy Eating, intuitive eating, mentality, stress, using food to self-medicate, weight loss, wellness

Keep the puppy, toss the panties?

Y’know, women have really deep emotional connections to their panty collections, sometimes. We’ve all got that one pair that just makes us feel so sexy and jazzy. Some of us are even determined to make everything match – the outfit, the shoes… right down to the skivvies.

I see y’all.

Y’all know how I know this? Back in undergrad? I used to work at Victoria’s Secret. I know the emotional attachment women have to their undies. The push-up bras, the (literal) boulder-holders, the women who buy their bras in a certain size because they swear they could never be a size larger than that size… yes, I know all of y’all. I just… I know.

I used to struggle to fit into Vickie’s stuff even though I was, technically, much too large to actually fit it sensibly. To be honest, a lot of things fit me funny back then, so I just assumed it was because of my size and never gave it a passing thought. I had an employee discount and damn it, I was gonna use it.

Needless to say, my collection is extensive. Garters (a personal love of mine), garter belts, hosiery, corsetry (from Frederick’s of Hollywood), push up bras that hoisted my goods up to the high heavens, and my undies? I mean, let’s just say that there very well might be a sailor’s hat in my stash.

I’m just sayin’. The collection is serious business.

Now… there’s a big container rolled so far deep under my bed, just because I cannot bear the pain.

See, when you go through a major weight loss, you realize that all your favorite outfits will have to go away. I mean – we’re not talking about taking it to a tailor. We’re talking… it has to go bye-bye. I mean, I had a pair of favorite jeans, but those jeans were a size 24, though. I could fit my entire body in one leg of those, now.

People prepare you for the “Oh, you’ll have to make adjustments to your wardrobe” thing, but never “Hey, you’re going to have to toss your bras and panties, too!” You don’t get that message!

It was so funny to watch in my progress photos – knowing that I was, for a long time, wearing the same size underwear… and they eventually started fitting more and more differently. Eventually you pick your panties up, place them around your hips and realize that because of the weight you’ve lost, the distance between the top of your booty and the front of your pelvis has shrunk… so now, even though the elastic might still be able to keep them around your waist, the part that covers your goodies? It’s sagging. Thoroughly.

Think about it – you know how your mom always tells you to wear clean underwear? Y’know, just in case you get hit by a car and the ambulance drivers will see your dingy undies? Well… thanks for the insight, Mom, but you could’ve told me about baggy undies, too.

And bras!!!! Awww, man… I used to be a 42DD – do you know what size I am now? Let’s just say… with the way my body lost weight? I’d need something like a negative triple A or something. I no longer have a rack to hoist high to the heavens with a push-up bra.

I mean, let’s be honest, here. In the grand scheme of problems I could have, I’m in a privileged position to be complaining about losing my “drawz” instead of something far more important, but it’s something that people should prepare themselves for.

And while I’m complaining about things that no longer fit the way they used to? Let’s talk about shoes and feet. My feet shrank. In some shoes, the size difference felt like a ton. In others, it was just enough to cause my feet to slide around a bit. But c’mon, man – I love my high heels. Slippage is enough to cause Erika to take a tumble. No thanks.

But really, think about it – if there’s less weight that your feet has to balance, they’ll probably become less wide. If you’ve experienced any kind of spreading, they’ll probably shrink the long way, too. These are things to – unfortunately – consider.

What does this mean for any woman considering major changes to her body? It means that although many of us love to shop and snatch up new things, we need to remember to set aside a few dollars for replacing our favorite silkies…. and maybe a few gel inserts for our favorite shoes as we make our transition.

Me? I’m pretty un-fancy, now. Sports bras and cotton skivvies until I’ve settled on a size – in both the bust and the booty.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having a pair of lacy size “S” stringy things hiding in this house somewhere, though.

What am I forgetting, y’all? Bras, panties, shoes… what unplanned shrinkage did you experience?

R.I.P. To The Panty Collection… And The Bras… And The Shoes… And… is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 52 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bras, panties, sex, shoes, wardrobe, weight loss

All I keep thinking, as I glance at their plate, is “Oh, really?” I’d never say that, though. I kind of just smile and say “Wow, well…hey!”

This video is why. (You don’t have to click on their links in the video – the site actually looks kinda spammy, even though the video is awesome.)

So…for all you people who swear that people only need to “move more” in order to lose that weight? Stop lying to people, and stop lying to yourselves. That’s why I write so much about food – if you think that you can eat calorie-heavy dishes and “just burn it off” at the gym… you’re sorely mistaken. Weight loss is, at least, 85% diet. If you never eat it, you never have to worry about burning it. It’s just that simple.

Here’s to making better decisions!

Why You Can’t Just “Burn Those Cookies Off” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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Post tags: burn it off, exercise, weight loss, working out

I know, I know. For some reason, it seems like you can never escape booty talk.

“I need to do something with this booty.”

Not even just her hips, but her thighs - that's hard work!

“My booty is perfect – I don’t want exercise to ruin that.”

Listen for long enough, and you’ll eventually hear “I need to get off my booty and do something.”

No matter what, this topic always comes up. And while I can’t help but be tickled, I’m also a little saddened by it.

More often now, I wind up having fitness-based conversations with people who “knew” me before and “know” me now, only because they’re trying to poke and prod at my understanding of what I want for myself. Much like the people who insisted that I “should be trying to get a man” instead of focusing on myself, I get people who want to talk to me about my booty.

Let me explain – I had a “giant booty.” I mean, giant. I was a size 28 – I didn’t have much choice except to have… a “giant booty.” And while in some circles a booty that large is “just wrong,” in other circles a “giant booty” is something similar to carrying a pot of gold on your back down the street. Everyone’s looking, wondering if you’ve got more in yours than they’ve got in theirs, if yours is better than theirs, wondering if they can get what you’ve got. And depending upon who you’re talking to, it might be worth just as much AS a pot of gold, for crying out loud. I’m sure you know what circles I made sure I stayed in, then – the ones that made me feel better about me and my,well.. giant booty.

As a woman, my weight is supposed to concentrate closer to my hips and thighs – it’s supposed to help protect our reproductive system. The extra fat keeps your eggs and various other goodies warm. (This is where the notion that “women with larger hips are better child birthers” or whatever comes from.) And while I cannot completely share the history of every bloodline in existence and how their bodies adapted to their environments… I can certainly share mine.

As a woman of color, I was blessed with being predisposed to a curvaceous, well-built figure. Meaning, if I treat my body right, the curves have no choice but to come. As my ancestors come from a place where countless generations built their muscle in certain places to help their bodies do what they needed to do to tend to their villages, my bloodline adapted – full hips and an ample busom to help me deliver and care for my children; strong calf, booty and thigh muscles; powerful neck and shoulder muscles. As a woman, I was built to be… well, built. Well built, to be exact.

And in a society where everyone makes money off of making life easier, I have to go out of my way to maintain that… build. I don’t have to work as hard as my ancestors in order to accomplish basic daily tasks.

January, '10

Somewhere along the line, any “giant booty” became acceptable. And as women, I often wonder if we ignored the fact that our frames were increasing because we were getting compliments on our derrierres. I mean, we were still getting complimented – we must be doing something right, right?

Let me mention a few important things that have to be a part of any resolution to be healthier:

First, just as being skinny is not an indicator of good health, neither is being or having fat. There’s no way around that – there is very little in the way of physical appearance that can gauge a person’s health. While we can talk about anorexics and the “super obese” as exceptions, the vast majority of us don’t fall on either end of the spectrum – we sit closer to the middle. So no, “getting a bigger booty” doesn’t mean “you’re doing something right.” It means you’re doing something, but “right?” I can’t call it.

Secondly, again – we have to stop basing our judgments of ourselves on what other people say or think. Thinking that I don’t have to “do anything” because other people like “how I am” is just an excuse to not consciously think about “how I am.” Almost like it’s putting the responsibility of “thinking about me” onto other people. Can I really trust other people to think about me in a way that’s best for me? If I could, I might’ve never been so overweight in the first place. Ownership. Gotta take it.

I had a lot of thinking to do. When I think about myself, am I happy with what I have? Regardless of your weight, I hope you are. You are you, and you should be happy regardless of what you have. But take it a step further – am I healthy? If not, am I willing to risk “what I have” to claim my health?

Lastly, and this is most important – our bodies are complex. With as many muscle groups as there are… you think you can’t build and rebuild and rebuild what you’ve got? You can do just about anything with your body if you commit to it AND commit to you.

Let me talk about my booty for a minute. When I started losing weight, the very first thing I lost WAS in my gut and booty region. I was so happy about the gut that I didn’t recognize that my booty was slipping away. Not until I started weight lifting that I realized it was deflated! Gone. Vanished. The case of the disappearing booty. I was gonna have to hire a PI and put out an APB for it.

So.. I had to do something. I mean, some serious body mapping. I had too much fat in my thighs to have an actual curve to my booty at the point where it met my thigh. I had a spare tire that was hiding the slope from my back to my booty. I needed to actually build a booty of muscle… which meant no more crease between my booty and my thigh, causing those saddle bags. I had work to do.

Since I was already burning the fat, I needed to work on rebuilding. Booty and thigh exercises on deck. And please believe, the squats are necessary. It is absolutely possible to rebuild yourself a fit booty – one that sits high, curves just right, and doesn’t cause skin to fold and protrude at the hips. If the fat was going to melt away, it needed something to conform to, in my mind. So, off I went muscle building. It’s working well for me.

All of this is to say… I need to make sure that I don’t cling to someone else’s perception of what I “should” look like, especially when that perception would bind me to an unhealthy lifestyle. I need to not believe that I can’t rebuild something like a booty in a much healthier way than cornbread and sweet potato pie. I need to resolve to be comfortable with who I am, and understand that wanting something else for my body doesn’t mean that I believe something is wrong with who I am. And lastly… a fit booty is a thousand times better than a booty I got through unhealthy means.. ’cause I worked for it, earned it and deserved it.

Who else out there is working on their fit booty? Let’s hear it!

(You might also want to check out my post on belly fat!)

How To Build A Fit Booty is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: The Booty
2. Q&A Wednesday: Does Sex Really Make Your Booty Big[ger]?
3. Victoria’s Secret Models, Runway Walking and Booty Paint

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2010. | Permalink | 57 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blackness, Booty, mentality, weight loss, workout tips

Many thanks to everyone who waited patiently during the server outage. My apologies to those who subscribe via e-mail, who’ll be receiving the Q&A a day late.

Got some questions today about exercise, snacking and, well… weight loss.

Moderation: You're Doin' It Wrong

Q: What’s the quickest and safest way to lose weight?

This one is probably a whole post in itself… but there is no quick way. No matter how many pills, programs, and ad campaigns tell you otherwise… there is no quick way. In fact, the quicker the method, the more likely it can kill you. The more likely you will gain it back. The more likely it won’t work at all, and when you complain about it? They’ll just tell you “Ur doin it rongz.”

Trust me on this one. Weight loss through a quick, easy and “effortless” method has something like a 90% chance of coming back. The quickest way to healthy, long-lasting health and weight loss is through addressing what brought you the problem in the first place: your eating habits and your activity levels.

Q: Can you give leg workout exercises for those of us who are considered “pear shaped”? In the past, my thighs became bigger when performing lower body workouts. I’ve been told to lift heavy weights in order to fatigued the muscles. Thanks!

Well, first, let’s talk about why your thighs became bigger with your lower body workouts. Weight lifting/strength training builds muscle. You put your body through stress (the actual exercise); your body, in return, responds by building muscle to help make that exercise easier. So, you develop muscle that will help make this regular rigorous exercise easier for your body to handle. (Your body is extremely efficient at making things easier… it likes easy. Note that this is sometimes a problem!)

So, yes. Your legs would grow larger with the workout. The problem with this is that for those of us who are trying to tone up and tighten up a figure, we don’t want things to get bigger. We want them smaller!

If you want to go smaller, conventional wisdom says to slow down on the strength training. Not stop, slow down. Use that time and energy and put it into a more rigorous cardio workout. If there are no other issues with your diet or your overall health, I think you’ll slowly, but surely, see the progress you’re looking for.

Q: Can you give us a few quick snacks for late night hungries?

Hmm… snacks, you say?

I keep grapes in the freezer. They’re harder/take longer to chew, light in calories and actually taste pretty good. I also keep peanut butter pretzels in the pantry (divided up by portion, mind you) so that I can give myself a little something after my workouts that won’t interfere with my sleep. I also make little sandwiches – a slice of bread folded in half with peanut butter, or my strawberry preserves that I’ve made. Those work well, also. Shoot, you could also give yourself a couple cuts of meat, some honey mustard and a slice of bread, too. My all time favorite, though, is a glass of water and a shower. That’s not sarcasm, either. Usually by the end of both, I’m no longer hungry. If I am, then I hit one of the options above.

Q: For weight loss-is more cardio better? How much cardio daily is recommended for weight loss?

Aerobic exercise – also known as cardio – is a great way to burn calories, but the best thing for weight loss is addressing your eating habits. If you don’t put “it” in your mouth, you don’t have to burn “it” off!

As for how much, go until you feel like you can’t go anymore. If that’s five minutes, that’s fine – because then you’ll know that next time… you need to try for six!

Keep those questions coming, and I’ll have ‘em ready for next week! Have thoughts? Let me hear ‘em in the comments!

Q&A Wednesday: Pear-Shaped Figures, Cardio, and Snacking! is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Overcoming Cardio Fear
2. Q&A Wednesday: Snacking and Packing Lunch For Little Ones
3. Study: Cardio Beats Resistance Training In Belly Fat Battle

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: exercise, Fad Diets, fat loss, pear shaped figures, snacking, weight loss