The pressure to lose weight can often cause the stress that makes you want to eat more. It's a vicious cycle. Food can also seem like your best friend, sometimes your only friend. I just set out to make better friends. Before I even started, I spent a week just observing my eating patterns and deciding what I could give up and what I couldn't. A lot of experts would tell you that is absurd, but I was trying to be realistic. My "Can't live without" list included Cake (see my screen name), Cheese and Chocolate (The C's have a hold on me). I was pretty discouraged until I found that there are really low cal/low fat varieties of all these things available. I had to tweak the cake myself, but went from devouring my favorite, Carrot Cake (notice the C's again) at 450 calories and 25 fat grams, to making one that is actually better (I've done taste tests with unknowing victims) that has 150 calories, zero cholesterol and 1.5 grams of fat. I did tweaks like that with a lot of my favorite foods. I eat what I want, I just put my food on a diet ;)
I also would like to mention one myth I uncovered in my health journey. You will always hear and read "fresh veggies". That was a big obstacle for me, and honestly one that kept me from even trying for a long time. I don't have access to fresh veggies. However, I did a lot of research and learned that with today's harvest methods, frozen and canned vegetables are just, and in some case, more healthy than fresh. If you have access, and want to do all that cutting and prep, go ahead, but you can stock up of all kinds of healthy veggies that only take a minute to heat and eat. One big exception is spinach, and not in the way you think. Fresh spinach tastes really good, but it loses 80% of it's nutrients just four days after being picked. For that one, frozen and canned is much healthier. I just wanted to mention that in case anyone else is facing the same situation I have.
