How to Lose Weight

I recently saw something on my friend, Rachel's Facebook. "New studies show that people who are overweight, are usually vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D causes a certain enzyme to create low sugar which gives a feeling of hunger. So before starting a diet, check out your vitamin D, and fix it. Also, don't starve yourself, because you'll be so hungry, that you'll eat too much. Also, before you eat try to smell the food, scientists say that the aroma of the food gives a signal to the brain that u r eating it, and you'll eat less. Try to chew as much as possible, so eating will take longer. The longer you eat, the better, and the less hungry you are."

When my friend wrote this, she tapped into how I try to eat, when I'm actually trying to "diet and excercise." If your body doesn't get the nutrients it needs, your metabolism will slow down. When I am trying to get in the right amount of good nutrients into my system, I find that I am reading package label and mentally bargaining. If I am trying to eat between 1,000 and 2,000 calories, but get at least 100% of the nutrients I need, junk food becomes out of the question. "WHAT? 100 calories for THAT little cookie and NO nutritional value??? OMG, I can't AFFORD that! I need those calories to make my nutrient levels."

Another thing about losing weight is the question people often ask of whether they should diet or exercise. People feel it's too much to concentrate on both. For me, they feed off of each other. Another incentive for not wasting calories comes from seeing how much work it takes and having this to consider when I'm making my food choices. "WHAT? 100 calories for that little cookie? That's TEN WHOLE minutes of walk jog on the tread mill!!" Suddenly, that cookie doesn't sound so tasty anymore.

Of course, there are times when I stop caring all together... I gain weight because I eat whatever I want and I figure I will deal with it later. This is BAAAAAAAAD. When I'm gaining weight, it actually takes a while before it hits me because I get used to seeing a small me and as I'm gaining weight, it creeps on and I don't realize how big I've gotten. I recently was looking at a big picture of myself from this summer. I was in the same picture as a girl I think of as "bigger than normal size" but not really ya know FAT. I was horrified to realize that I was really about the same size as her, yet I thought of myself as normal size,maybe a little bigger but, I hadn't realized how big I had gotten.

I'm happy to announce that I was able to run 2 miles on the treadmill the last time I went to the gym. Unfortunately, I'm sick so that was over a week ago (May 5th). My time is really high, but now that I'm running the whole two miles without walking, I'm going to stay with that and creep my speed up until I reach my goal. When I reach my goal, I'm going to add distance at the same speed: 2.1 miles... 2.2 miles... and so on. I want to get to be able to do a four mile run in about 40/45 minutes. I find that concentrating on a "run time" goal helps get me through those time periods when the scale doesn't move and I'm still not getting any clothes that are too small. Usually, between all three goals, one of them gives me nachas.

In closing, speaking of clothes fitting, this Shabbos I wore a top and skirt that haven't fit me in over two years. It's so exciting. It's like getting new clothes without spending the money! It's better than hand-me-downs because there isn't that "someone else's germs" factor or creeping thoughts that these goods were somehow "less than" which would be why someone may had given them up. I'm getting my own clothes back that were "lost to me" and I'm getting them because I'm accomplishing something.