I have to admit that there have been quite a few things that changed around the area since I’ve last weighted myself. And even if most of them seemed like good things at the time, they have all put their amprents on my body. I am now…not just fat, but very fat , with a belly that makes me feel quite ashamed of myself. I tried to keep various types of healthy diets and even stayed hungry for days, just to manage to lose a couple of those pounds that are expecially visible now that the summer is almost here and the war weather is making me sweat and get tired very easily, all because of the extra pounds.

Unfortunatelly, nothing really worked and I am still feeling heavy and unhealthy. I have read the thoughts of many people that say they are happy being fat, that they can live with it and are not affected in any way by it. But I find that very hard to belive, as there are many things the extra pounds interfere with. And I’m not only talking about being ashamed of my figure or not fitting into last year’s wardrope, I’m talking about obvious health problems and the fact that fat people usually don’t feel healthy, just like me. There are times when I am overweight but I must be somewhere within some limits, because I don’t feel the burden of all the unwanted pounds, but other times is just need to start another healthy diet because I am feeling ill again.

But, this time I think that other activities were the ones that made me gain all this weight. Things that I never given the proper importance at the time and that have almost nothing to do with eating. At least not directly, because they’ve managed somehow to interfere with the pound gaining process. After spending a few days reflecting on this, I have managed to list the most important stuff I belive to affect my weight:

• I have work in a way that doesn’t require me to move much
• I don’t have to leave my office at all
• I am usually stressed because I;m always in debts
• I had to work hard on choosing a good buisness prototype that works
• I faild again to create a lot of profit because I focused on helping others
• I usaully give money to family, and this means more money problems
• I do not talk to others about my problems
• I always eat more than one portion, which means I have huge meals
• I do a lot of extra office tasks, and it’s killing my time
• I usually feel the need to eat something sweet and istead of eating fuits I eat chocolate and such
• I’m in my 30’s so if I eat like in the 20’s I’m sure gonna get fatter, as the methbolism is slower now
• I am not an angry person, so I don’t feel the need of working out intenslely just to let out all the hate
• I’m pesimist and tend to have lots of self distructing habits, like eating a lot and often

So, I’m tring to blame my 210 pounds on all these factors. I am planning a trip to the seaside in the late summer, July or August, and I decided to set a realistic weight loss goal, that I intend to achive only by healthy eating and daily excercises. So, till August, 40 pounds. That’s more than easily achivable with any diet, but I’ve decide to try a non-invasive one, that won’t mess up my methbolism more that it’s aleady messed up: I’ll be eating non-processed food in any quantities, and only eat something cooked, like a soup or something at lunch. I’ve heard only best recommendation about this alimentary program, so I’ll be giving it a try.

Dining Out On A Diet

Well I can tell you that dinning out can be a real diet disaster. It happened to me so many times that I can’t even keep count. It’s virtually impossible not to go over the proposed calories for one meal. And when you think about it, will you really give up on something everyone else is having and instead choose boiled potatoes and lettuce salad? It’s highly unlikely to eat something healthy in a restaurant, even if at home you would feel able to eat the very same thing and will not feel disadvantaged in any way if you do so. But dinning out is much more complex, it is not only about the food, but it can become only about the food when you have to focus on NOT eating.

My regular going out night is something like this: my friends choose a restaurant and I go along with the choice. My main problem each time is that I end up going to places in which I have no idea what they will be serving, so I can’t plan ahead the things I’m going to eat. For example, one time I went to an Italian restaurant, and I had no idea what so ever about the Mediterranean diet they cook by in Italy.

I was of course tempted to choose the grilled fish, but then I saw it’s served with fires, which weren’t a good choice. Mushrooms were another choice, but they are usually too well fried in olive oil. It’s very hard to find an aliment that is not overcooked and not filled with various sauces. If I were just an occasional dining out guy, then I could’ve eating almost anything, pasta or other meals, because a one time mistake doesn’t count that much.

But since I am a frequent dinning out person, I was in desperate need of tips for dinning out on a diet. The first important thing is to be very careful when you choose a meal. There’s no point in choosing something that you can not eat later, when it’s served, because you realize that food is full of fats and carbs.

A woman in my office told be that one of the best tips for dining out on a diet that she could give me is to eat in a Japanese, Thailand or Vietnamese restaurant because these restaurants server coconut milk which is very high in saturated fats.

One of the common sense tips for dining out on a diet is the fact that the menu is telling you subtlety what to choose. If you see names like crispy, fried, burnt and such then it’s clearly that those foods are too cooked and also fried in oil. I had to start building up courage and ask for things I wished, even if they were not on the menu. Most restaurants will not turn away clients just because they want to eat a combined or alternative meal. In fact, the pricier the restaurant is, the more likely you are to get the exact meal you specify. Keep in mind that cheap places will use rather unhealthy ingredients, so in those places even a meat free salad can have way to many calories or carbs because the oil used is not of good quality and the vegetables are surely make in synthetic environments. If you are pro bio food, those are not places to choose when dinning out on a diet.

As I was saying, one of the best tips for dining out on a diet proved to be the one encouraging me to ask for what I want to eat. This way, there’s no embarrassing conversation with the waiter, while you are trying to discover all the ingredients used for a certain meal course, there’s no counting calories and no unpleasant surprises when you finally get your plate. If you ask the exact thing you are used to eat at home while dieting, then you will know what to expect and the more information you give about the way you want your food prepared the better it is.

I usually replace fried fish with barbecued fish, French fries with salad. If I eat pizza I tell them specifically not to add the cheese blend or add just a bit of it and instead add more vegetables. Or in case of a salad, I choose to remove the croutons for it, and add some more tomatoes or lettuce leaves.

It’s obvious that respectful restaurant will gladly accept your changes to their menu. Another one of the important tips for dinning out on a diet is the one that should make us aware of the so-called vegetarian foods served in restaurants that are no that vegetarian after all. It can contain various fried ingredients as croutons, and also other ingredients that are not so health after all.

A thing that I will never understand is the rice served with salads. An on op of the fact that they ruin a perfectly diet-fit food, they over-boil the rice, and make it loose all its properties. Rice should be served somewhere between raw and boiled, so not when it’s all smooth and soft.

As far as bread goes, I try ordering cereal bread instead of the standard white bread. Plain water with lemon is the best thing to eat after meals, because it helps digestion. If the foods are digested faster, the risk of accumulating fats decreases. Even if it’s a custom in restaurants, alcohol is not recommended right after eating because it returns the hunger sensation.

But even with these tips for dinning out on a diet, I sometimes fail to choose the best foods or I am simply too tempted by a certain food that everyone else is having and can’t help myself. When this happens, I will wake up the next morning at least one hour earlier, give up on coffee and replace it with a glass of orange juice freshly squeezed and then go out for a half hour rapid walk in the park near my house. It really does work wonders, because in more than two months now I’ve managed not to destroy any diet plan with my frequent dinning out customs.