morning all popping in to say hello from the quit smoking community. need help and support to lose the weight i have piled on since giving

[jules56]

up the cigs 4 months ago. hi kath hope your well. decided to use both communities for both of my probs. hope this works cause the weights just daft now. however dont want to put in jepody my no smoking achievments, cause thats big for me. been a smoker for 40 yrs.

[jules56]

will do kath. had a good first day yestetday. had to just keep reminding myself not to snack. only eat my meals nothing in between. feeling a bit stiff today after my bikeing and rowing. but geared up to do it again today. still working hard also on remaing smokefree. no going back there after 4 months. but it still requires me sometimes to be sigle minded. ie. cig or biscuit. for now it would b the biscuit. but i am goin to try not to do both. here goes

[Zest Healthy BMI]

Hi Jules56,

Hello! Sounds like you've done really well and given up smoking. Brilliant! Good luck with your goals for this week. I find it hard not to snack, and I tend to plan in 'healthy snacks' - mainly for the mid afternoon, as I think it can be really tough to last without some sort of snack.

I tend to have something like yoghurt (plain) with blueberries; or apple with some nuts; things like that.

Hope you have a good week.

Lowcal

[jules56 in reply to Zest]

thanks. i got some plain yougart and some blackberrys and rasberrys yesterday. i will use them for snacking. my worst time is the evening. so i pure the fruit in readyness for tnite. will let u know hw it goes

[Hidden]

Hi jules56,

Well chucking the ciggies and taking control of your body weight are similar processes.

They both are substantially about leaving behind old habits and ways of doing things and taking up some new and better ways, which in time become your new habits.

Lots of good (and free) advice on the NHS live well lose weight web-pages, including things like a BMI calculator (not a bad starting point) and a free 12 week plan.

I'd suggest you set yourself a target weight, decide just why you are going to lose weigth - i.e. what presses your buttons about it? why does it matter to you? and then also set yourself some mini-targets / milestones to tick off as you go.

And then, hold tight onto your will power (which you must have some of if you've given up smoking) and get on the weight loss bus and journey towards a slimmer, fitter, lighter you.

Good luck with your weight loss efforts.

[jules56]

thanks so much. rather than be ridged about it, i am going to take the same approach as with the smokkng. that seemed to work for m. so its day by day, and no pressure for me. my aim is healthy food not junk. and no takeaways!!! and no junk snacks. plus exercise. i have along way to go on this journey, that if i think too much i wont even attempt. so slowly it goes and see where it takes me. any weight off at the moment is a bonus.

[Windswept1 in reply to jules56]

You have a good attitude to this and if you can stop smoking, you can do anything. That was the hardest thing I have ever done & it was 20 years ago but it was only last year I started to address losing the weight I put on. Good luck

[jules56 in reply to Windswept1]

thanks so much

[Hidden]

Hi jules56,

A good starting place is to look closely at what you are - really, honestly, truly - eating.

And that's not just the obvious bits, it's all the toppings, sauces, gravies, oh yes and the lattes, glasses of wine, and those "oh but one won't make any difference!" things. What you eat at home, at work, out travelling, when out socialising.

I really moved forward with my weight loss just by kicking out all the rubbish - and OMG was there plenty of that to kick out!- the fatty, creamy, sugary, fried food, chocolate and sweets, bread (I cut that down to two slices a day), all 'fizzy' drinks, cakes, biscuits (I cut those down to 2 lite Digestives a day). That, together with some serious portion control, as in normal-sized portions rather than super-size ones and I was well on my way.

O.K. when you have 26 Kgs to lose, it's easy to make a start and even the basics will begin to turn that excess weight around.

But as I continued on my weight loss journey I kept discovering more and more about weight loss and nutrition and now I truly can't believe some of the things I would have tucked into a year and a bit ago. (Not quite deep-fried Mars bars stuff, but not all that far off!)

I now eat so much more healthily. Much more fruit, veg (especially green veg), more fish, much less fatty meats, much less oil and fat generally and much less carbs and sugars generally). And it's quite simple the changing of my eating habits that has permitted me to lose weight and keep it off.

I still drink lattes - but they're made with skimmed milk. I still very occasionally have a very little chocolate. If I do fry something, it'll be using a squirt or two of one of those spray things.

Good luck with, and enjoy, your weight loss journey.

[jules56]

what this is a bit wiered even for me? mara86