This week I had the good fortune of talking to some people in my group and recommending a program called myfitnesspal.

If you haven't heard of it, it's an online site much like sparkpeople, fitday or dailyplate where you can track your calorie intake and the like to examine what you are eating. When I talk to someone who is stalling or not losing as they'd like, 9 times out of 10 it is the carbs that they've added back into their diets that is slowing down their progress. Numerous times, it's been people that have been doing protein shakes like Body By Vi that are not low carb.

Low carb is a key to weight loss. It doesn't mean going NO CARB.

When you have an eating disorder, the worst thing you can do is to compound the eating disorder by elimating a food group completely. Your body also needs some carbs and there are nutritional values to carbs as well. (Read the China Study about how all plant diets can do wonders for many medical conditions and you'll understand that life with carbs in our body is a good thing in many respects).

Anyway, low carb is important. Most of us did not get fat by eating too much protein. It's usually the processed junk that gets in the way for most of us whether sweets (cakes, cookies, and the like)or crackers, chips, pasta, breads, cereals, popcorn etc. You'll find often that when you stall it's because you've been slowly adding more and more protein to the diet.

The ideal diet for a post RNY/VSG patient is considered to be 40% protein, 30% carbs and 30% fats. Myfitness pal has a WONDERFUL display on their phone app (not on website and not for blackberry users) where you can click a button and see a pie graph that shows you this percentage breakdown. If you go to "home" and click "daily" - there's a little basketball type looking button - that's it.

This is the brillant tool that I've shared with two people this week who both took the time to send me emails/notes and say it totally shows them that they are getting way too many percentages of carbs. One even wrote that she's been following it and already losing weight from it. She's got hope finally as to why she's been gaining, rather than losing.

This is the tool that I'm currently using myself....as my diet can easily go the way of too many carbs. I've even started doing protein shakes - damn the Premier Protein is pretty darn good =) to see if bumping that up helps me out. I'll keep you tuned! Dawn

Spring is on its way!

Here's a dress shot. LOL I'm getting totally in the mood for spring - but that means, getting off the next 12 lbs of regain to get back to goal. Here I am trying on a cute little dress at Marks Work Wearhouse (yes, they have nice clothes and aren't just work overalls and boots). I didn't end up buying the dress...but the dress does symbolize one goal that I am working on.

I am trying to embrace my inner girliness.

It's ironic that when I was 288 lbs I spent a lot of time in dresses. For some reason, when I was larger I felt like dresses were a great thing - they helped hide my rolls and made me feel pretty despite my size. But once I started to lose weight, I didn't buy a single dress. Funny as you'd think it would work in reverse but this goes back to one aspect of my weight loss. The more I lost, the more critical I became of my body. I think that may sound foreign to people as you'd expect that the weight loss would equal more confidence, not less. But that is how it worked for me especially over the long term.

The first year I was on a perpetual high of feeling great. When I started battling my head, fat and weight issues again, that's when the self confidence went down.

So now my plan of attack is to get the 12 more pounds of weight off. I am thinking that spring is a great time as I'll get more active and enjoy the weather. I have all Spring/Summer to s l o w l y make it happen. No fad diets, just slow loss over time is my goal. The other goal of course, is to wear more dresses and skirts and let myself feel girly.

It seemed like a great plan last week when I wore some dresses to school. I think I could have knocked some of my colleagues over with a feather by the way from the looks they gave me seeing me in a dress. LOL But I also got a ton of compliments too. I ended up course wearing the wrong shoes to walk to work and ended up with about 5 blisters and cuts on each foot. So much for my inner girliess! LOL

Dawn