Selfish Mom

3 pounds to go: time for a new game plan

Mar 12, 2012 Weight Loss

So my diet bet ends on Sunday. That gives me six days to lose three pounds. Yikes.

I proved during my last diet bet that I can lose a steady two pounds a week, plus a little more, using this plan.

Then, for this diet bet I tried to combine it with this plan. But I wasn’t motivated enough, so I decided just to try the Dessert for Breakfast part, without the super low carb/low cal days. But I still took Sundays completely off, which was a mistake. Without those 700 calorie days to balance it out, it slowed my weight loss down. And over all, while sticking to the Dessert for Breakfast plan was a whole lot easier than the low carb/low cal days, the weight loss was slower.

Combine that with five days at Disney World where I didn’t diet at all, and here I am, needing to lose three pounds in the next six days. Like I said, yikes.

So, for the next six days, I’m going hard core. 3 days of 1,400 calories, 3 days or 700 calories and 60 grams of carbs. And all the water I can drink. If I haven’t grown gills then I haven’t drunk enough.

I’m also starting the the BeachBody Power 90 workout this morning. Our new floor is perfect for it – carpeted, with lots of space. Hopefully that will kick things into gear.

I think that the Dessert for Breakfast plan is a good one, but my mistake was trying to do it on the 700 calorie days. After this diet bet is over I think I’m going to combine the two plans again, but not do Dessert for Breakfast on the 700 calorie days. But first, I have to get rid of half a pound a day.

Yikes.

I will not lose this bet.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: Dessert for Breakfast, DietBet.com, P90 workout, Weight Loss

Dessert for breakfast update

Mar 6, 2012 Weight Loss

So I will admit I’m a terrible case study. For one thing, I’m in on the experiment – knowing everything about my dessert for breakfast experiment surely changes it. And, I have no control group. If I were serious about this I would do the experiment for a month, then do a variation to see if there’s a difference. But I’m way too impatient for that.

What I can tell you is this: for the past three days I did not have a big breakfast, including something chocolaty. I had a normal breakfast. On Saturday I had pancakes with the kids. And while there was chocolate involved – my pancakes had chocolate chips in them – that only made up about 50 calories of my 300 calorie breakfast. So, too small, and not enough chocolate. Sunday I had a doughnut (sugary and chocolaty, sure, but less than 200 calories), then a big brunch a few hours later. And yesterday I had a 300 calorie breakfast, with no dessert.

All three days, my eating was off the map, especially at night. I went to town on leftovers and peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips in a way I haven’t in months. It was disgusting. I wasn’t even hungry much of the time I was stuffing my face!

Is this proof that my 600 calorie dessert-with-breakfast experiment is working? No. For all I know I just mentally gave myself a few days off and went back to my old habits. But whatever the reason, I’m back on the experiment. Why mess with something that’s working?

I just finished this morning’s delicious, diverse, 601-calorie meal (egg and cheese on a bagel, veggie sausage, blueberries, and a yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting), and we’ll see what happens. There are fewer than fourteen days left in this Diet Bet and I still have five pounds to go!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: Dessert for Breakfast, DietBet.com, Weight Loss

Diet Bet #2: My weight loss strategy

Feb 20, 2012 Weight Loss

Yesterday was the initial weigh in for the Diet Bet I’ve organized. We have twenty participants with a pot of $1,000! My husband was the first to join, which was totally shocking. He ended up being the only man. The next three people to join all live near me in Brooklyn, and I thought “Well, this will be easy. I’ll just deliver fresh baked goods to them every few days.” But then people started signing up from all over the country, and we even have someone participating from France! It’s a mix of bloggers, readers, tweeters, and personal friends who have nothing to do with my online life.

I’ve got four weeks to lose seven pounds. I’m using the same basic strategy I used the first time around, when I lost ten pounds, but I’ve added an element: eating dessert with my breakfast. Don’t laugh, there’s actual science behind it! I wrote about it here. I’ve been doing this for over a week and I swear it makes a difference. I mean, I don’t know if the difference is because of the large breakfast or the dessert, but whichever it is, I’m not messing with success. The weird thing is, if I have to pick between dessert and something salty and fried, I’ll always pick the latter. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

So, here’s my weight loss strategy for the next four weeks, a combination of my low cal/low carb alternating plan, and eating dessert with breakfast to help curb cravings and appetite all day. I’m calling it The Sweets First Carb Lover’s Diet. (Yes, I realize you hardly get any carbs two days a week, but you can eat all the carbs you want for five days! Totally worth it!) Shout out to @dgmommyblogger for the “Sweets First” part of the name.

• Four days a week I eat 1,400 calories a day, with no restrictions on carbohydrates.
  • For breakfast on those days, I eat 400 calories of breakfast food and 200 calories of dessert – chocolate, brownies, whatever is around.
• Two days a week I eat 700 calories a day, and limit my carbohydrates to between 50 and 60 grams.
  • For breakfast on those days, I eat 200 calories of breakfast food and 100 calories of dessert.
• One day a week I eat whatever I want, with no restrictions on anything.

Today’s breakfast, for example, was heavenly: half of a giant bagel with cream cheese, veggie bacon, strawberries, and chocolate.

About a third of the way in to the plan I’ll be starting the Power 90 workout. I’m a little worried about how this will affect my weight loss in the beginning, but I’m going for it anyway. I’m not worried about getting so ripped that my muscles tip the scales (I should have such problems). I’m more worried that I won’t be able to sustain my eating plan with all that exercise. If I have to adjust, I will.

Just like during my last Diet Bet, I have a very ill-timed trip. I managed to keep control and lose two pounds while I was in Las Vegas for CES last month, but this one will be harder: I’ll be on a press trip at the end of this week to Disney World for the Princess Half Marathon. At CES it was practically impossible to find food on the show floor anyway. But Disney World? There’s food everywhere!

However, the last time I went with the kids I noticed that Disney World was making a huge effort to put healthy food front and center in the parks. At every store and stand, bags of grapes and packs of carrots were right in the front, by the register. So, I’ll do my best. I’ll probably also bring some Slim Fast bars with me, which really helped keep me on track at CES.

A few people wanted to join my Diet Bet after it had already started. Remember, DietBet.com is a free site and anybody can use it to organize a Diet Bet. Also, I’m sure I’ll be having another one of these to keep my momentum going, so stayed tuned for an announcement about the next one!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: DietBet.com, Disney Princess Half Marathon, Disney World, Power 90, Slim-Fast, Sweets First Carb Lovers Diet, Weight Loss

Dessert for Breakfast: Day 2

Feb 14, 2012 Weight Loss

So today was my second day eating dessert for breakfast. Or, I should really say, eating dessert with my breakfast, since tweeting about #Dessert4Breakfast caused at least one person to think I was just eating chocolate. Just to be clear, the plan that I talked about yesterday incorporates dessert into a large breakfast to help regulate ghrelin, which is a hormone that makes you hungry.

The theory is that satisfying your cravings in the morning lowers your levels of ghrelin for the rest of the day, making you more likely to stay on the wagon. Nobody’s claiming that eating dessert for breakfast will, in and of itself, make you lose weight. Supposedly, it’s the combination of eating a large breakfast (including dessert) and then limiting your calories for the entire day that makes you lose weight. So if you read the headline and thought you could just add brownies to your eggs and watch the pounds melt off, sorry to disappoint you!

It was hard to tell if it made a difference yesterday. This plan is all about making compliance with a diet easier, and no matter what you’re doing it’s hard to eat only 700 calories a day, which is what I’ve been doing twice a week. But, I will say this – eating a 300 calories breakfast yesterday, half of it KitKats, did not make it any harder to stick to 700 calories. It was the opposite of what I’ve been doing: usually on those low carb/low cal days I eat eight or nine tiny meals, trying to save enough to have a decent sized dinner. I was worried about eating that much of my food for breakfast, but then I didn’t even really think about food until 1pm, so there might be something to this.

Today will be a much better gauge. For breakfast I had half a small bagel with scrambled egg and cheese, a hash brown with ketchup, a bunch of grapes, and 3 fun-size KitKats. The whole thing was 602 calories of yumminess. Since breakfast is my favorite meal, I’m really liking this.

I already know that dinner will be about 450 calories, because I know what I’m making (cappelini pomodoro with garlic knots, because nothing says Valentine’s Day like garlic), which leaves me enough for a small lunch and snack. We’ll see how it goes. But really, this is the kind of thing that has to be tested long-term. The study I based it on lasted for 32 weeks. To be honest, I hope to be at my goal long before that. But if this works, maybe it would be a good way to help me maintain! A girl can hope, right?

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: Dessert for Breakfast, DietBet.com, Weight Loss

Dessert for Breakfast equals Weight Loss?

Feb 13, 2012 Weight Loss

So far in this quest of mine to weigh 140lbs by October (my 40th birthday) science has served me well. I read about the effectiveness of eating low carb/low cal two days a week, and rode that train to a 15lb loss. Science told me it would work, and it did, so now I’m inclined to be science’s bitch.

I read this article a few days ago and it really got me thinking. Basically, there was a study where half the participants ate a 300 calorie, low carb breakfast, and the other half ate a 600 calorie breakfast, including a small piece of chocolate cake. All participants ate the same total number of calories per day, 1,400 for the women and 1,600 for the men.

What they found was that eating the bigger, desserty breakfast helped people feel full and satisfied all day. After sixteen weeks, all of the participants were doing about the same – they had lost an average of 33 pounds. Then, they told everyone to try to stick with the program, but if they felt hungry they should listen to their bodies. Over the next sixteen weeks, the dessert for breakfast people stuck with the program and lost an average of 15lbs more each. The smaller breakfast people? They gained back an average of 22lbs!

The key seems to be a hormone called ghrelin, which makes you hungry. Eating the bigger, sweeter breakfast apparently caused the participants to have lower levels of ghrelin for the rest of the day, making it easier to stick to the plan.

Unfortunately there’s a flaw in this study you could drive an Entenmann’s truck through. I’m no scientist, but why didn’t they have a third group, also eating a 600 calorie breakfast, but without the cake? Because now we don’t know if the key was simply having a larger, more carb-heavy breakfast, or if the dessert actually made the difference. But, I’m willing to suffer through weeks of dessert for breakfast just in case that’s the key. :-)

Now, I don’t like to mess with success, and I’ve had a lot of success with my diet plan. So I’m not giving up on that, I’m simply working the big-breakfast-with-dessert in to the mix. It goes against my instincts. Since my will power is at its weakest in the evening, I tend to eat light all day and save up as many calories I can for the last third of my waking hours. But…science! Science is telling me that might not be the best way to go.

This will be easy to incorporate during my 1,400 calorie days, but I wasn’t sure what to do on my 700 calorie days. I mean, if I eat a 600 calorie breakfast, I’m pretty much done eating by 9am. So, since today is a 700 calorie day, I’m trying to cut their plan in half. I had a 300 calorie breakfast – much bigger than I’ve been doing – and made half of that dessert.

It may turn out that this simply won’t work on my 700 calorie days. If that ends up being the case, I’ll only do it on my 1,400 calorie days. We’ll see!

Also, just a reminder that I’m starting my own DietBet this coming Sunday. $50 and a desire to lose weight gets you in! Details are in this post. We’d love to have you!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: dessert, DietBet.com, Weight Loss

Want to lose weight? Have $50? Join my DietBet!

Feb 12, 2012 Weight Loss

I wrote a lot last month about the DietBet.com blogger challenge that I participated in. I’d already been dieting and had lost 15 pounds, but my motivation was flagging. Even though I was getting solid results with my diet plan, I needed an extra kick. I got that from DietBet.com: I lost ten pounds in four weeks!

In the two weeks since the DietBet has been over, I’ve been finding it harder to stick to my plan, and this is a plan that I like! No matter how well a diet works, motivation is key. And if simply losing weight isn’t motivation enough, perhaps the thought of losing money and losing face will be. So, I’m starting my own DietBet. You bet the other participants $50 that you can lose 4% of your body weight in four weeks. Just about anybody can join – you just need to meet the following criteria:

• You must be at least 18 years of age. DietBet.com says you have to be at least 13, but I don’t want to get involved with getting parents’ permission.
• You must have a PayPal account. I’ll be holding on to your $50 during the bet, and unless you know me personally and want to walk some cash over to my house, I need you to PayPal it to me.
• You have to have access to the same, reliable way to weigh yourself at the beginning and end of the bet, and you have to send me a picture of the weight on the scale. This can be your own scale, a scale in a mall, a weight-loss facility (I’ve heard that some Curves and Weight Watchers will let you weigh yourself; that’s up to you to negotiate, but I’ll give them a thank you in a post if they do), any place with a good scale.
• You have to accept my invitation to the DietBet and fill out your profile online.
• You have to agree to everything I’ve listed in this post and anything I email you privately.

In return, you get:

• Entry into my DietBet, which will run from Sunday, February 19th (initial weigh-in) to Saturday, March 17th Sunday, March 18th (final weigh-in).
• Support of fellow DietBettors, or possibly good natured competition. I have no idea. Depends on who joins. :-) I know I tend to do better when I’m competitive than when I’m supported. Fellow bettors can share tips and successes, pictures, websites, and ask for encouragement, all on a closed message board.

At the end of the bet, everyone who meets their goal will split the pot of money. If everyone meets the goal, you simply get your money back, minus a bunch of weight! If nobody meets the goal (which will NOT happen!), you all get your money back.

Some things to know:

• Any rules that I make supersede the rules on the DietBet.com site.
• Official starting and ending weights will be based on the scale you weigh yourself on. If it weighs to the nearest half pound, that’s the weight that will be recorded. If it weighs to the nearest fifth of a pound, that’s the number that will be used.
• The amount of weight you need to lose will not be rounded. In other words, if you need to lose 7.7lbs, that will not be rounded up no matter what decimal your scale weighs to. Keep in mind, the more accurate your scale, the less “buffer weight” you will need to lose to ensure that you make your goal. I didn’t realize that the site automatically rounds to the nearest whole number. I’m not sure I like that!
• You can keep your weight private from the rest of the group if you want – you can make that choice on your DietBet.com profile – but I have to know your weight. I promise I will keep that info absolutely private, and if it makes you feel any better, I don’t hide my weight on my profile, so you’ll know mine.
• You have to weigh yourself both times under the same conditions, same time of day (roughly), etc. As for clothes, we’re going to use what DietBet.com calls “Airport Security Attire” – clothes on, belts and jewelry off, pockets empty, shoes off, no outerwear or purses.
• You have to wear something similar to both weigh-ins. For example, you can’t wear heavy jeans to the first one and shorts to the final one.
• Don’t cheat. Don’t drink five glasses of water before your first weigh in. That’s just douchy, and karma will get you for it.
• While I will be entering your starting and ending weights on the site, you have the option of entering other interim weigh-ins that you do yourself. These weigh-ins are not “official” and are up to you.
• DietBet.com is not a diet plan – how you lose weight is completely up to you.
• DietBet.com is free to use – the only cost is the money you’re betting.
• The site has a rule that you can’t participate in another DietBet less than sixty days after finishing the previous one, unless you weigh less than when the last one ended. This is done to prevent people from becoming professional DietBettors, gaining and losing weight for profit. Well, I can’t absolutely guarantee that I won’t have gained back a pound or two by the 19th. So you have to be willing to look the other way on that rule and just believe that I’m not a weight-loss grifter.
• While I did work with DietBet.com last month, that contract is over. I’m not being paid in any way to administer this DietBet. I simply need the motivation!

So, are you in? You can leave a comment on this post, or email me. Tell your friends, get your spouse and your mom to join – the more the merrier!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 8. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: DietBet.com, Weight Loss

The DietBet Blogger Challenge: we’re all winners

Feb 2, 2012 Weight Loss

[DietBet.com has given me the opportunity to participate in a blogger competition with the chance to win up to $5,000 for meeting a weight loss goal. The following post is part of my participation in the program. I am not a doctor, or a nutritionist, and following any advice I post is done at the reader's own risk.]

If you know me you know that I’m not a rah-rah kind of person. So I don’t mean that we’re all winners because we all lost weight. No, all seven of us literally won the DietBet.com blogger challenge. We all lost at least 4% of our body weight in four weeks! I personally lost ten pounds during the challenge, which puts my total at twenty-three pounds lost since October, more than 11% of my total weight gone! It feels good.

Since I’m giving half of my winnings to charity, The Fistula Foundation will be getting $350 to help women in developing countries who are injured in childbirth get the surgery they need to be healthy and productive again. I’m really glad that I could contribute to this worthy cause.

DietBet.com really kept my motivation up during the challenge. And as much as I would’ve liked to be the only winner and keep the entire pot of money for myself and my charity, I’m happily amazed that we all did it. The seven of us together lost sixty-seven pounds in four weeks! That’s pretty amazing.

So where to go from here? I’ve decided to start my own diet bet to keep the momentum going! I know myself: if there aren’t a lot of short-term goals along the way, I’ll get overwhelmed by my over-all goal of losing 65 pounds by my fortieth birthday in October.

So, who’s with me? It works like this:

• Each of us puts in $50 before the Diet Bet starts (you must have a PayPal account)
• The Diet Bet will start on Sunday, February 19th and will run for four weeks
• The goal is to lose 4% of your body weight in those four weeks
• You have to find some place to do your first and last weigh-ins (same scale, same conditions, similar clothing, etc.)
• Everyone who meets the goal splits the pot at the end!

The DietBet.com site – which is free to use – provides a leaderboard and private message area for the participants. We can post pictures, support each other (or not!), share tips, etc. It’s going to be fun, and hopefully we’ll all be a little healthier by the end.

If you’d like to participate, just let me know in the comments and make sure your email address is correct, so that I can get in touch with you before the start of the bet!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 17. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: DietBet.com, Weight Loss

One month later, almost 9lbs gone!

Jan 31, 2012 Weight Loss

[DietBet.com has given me the opportunity to participate in a blogger competition with the chance to win up to $5,000 for meeting a weight loss goal. The following post is part of my participation in the program. I am not a doctor, or a nutritionist, and following any advice I post is done at the reader's own risk.]

So tomorrow is my final weigh-in for the blogger challenge over on DietBet.com. I’m feeling good about it. I needed to lose 7.7 pounds in order to meet my goal of losing 4% of my body weight in four weeks, and as of this morning I’ve lost 8.6. Whoo-hoo!

I really believe that DietBet.com helped me through this last month. There were times when I wanted to go off of my eating plan, but the thought of losing face in the blogger challenge – and losing money! – kept me going. There are a million diets out there, but the key to every single one is motivation.

DietBet helped motivate me in other ways, besides just the bet. The seven bloggers participating were able to talk to each other on DietBet.com – to celebrate little victories, share tips, and threaten to send cheesecakes to each other. There’s a leaderboard to track everyone’s progress (and if it you don’t want to reveal your actual weight, it just shows how close you are to your goal).

You can also share a link to your public profile, letting people follow your progress and leave you messages. And again, you don’t have to share your weight publicly – you can opt to just show your progress.

No matter what happens tomorrow, all seven of us lost weight, and that’s something to be proud of. But I’m a little worried about what happens after tomorrow. The DietBet came along at exactly the right time, when my motivation was started to go down. Once I don’t have that hanging over my head, how will I keep going?

I’m thinking of starting another DietBet, that’s how! I still have more than forty pounds to go until I reach my goal, which is to weigh 140lbs by my 40th birthday in October. Why 140? Because the last time I weighed 140 (more than ten years ago) was the last time I remember being happy with my body. I don’t need to be skinny, I don’t need to wear a bikini. I’d just like to go clothes shopping without getting disgusted and discouraged.

A huge thanks to DietBet for getting me a lot closer to that goal!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 17. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: DietBet.com, Weight Loss