I still can’t believe how good Proactol is. I got my sister onto it and she’s gone from 105kg (231 pounds) to 96 (about 212 pounds) in a matter of a few weeks after using Proactol and reducing the amount she eats. Her diet hasn’t really changed much except the total amount she has, she doesn’t snack before she goes to bed or get up in the middle of the night to snack.. She still drinks the same amount of alcohol and is still losing weight! It’s amazing what a couple of minor changes to your lifestyle (that don’t make you uncomfortable) and a daily Proactol pill and boom! you’re losing weight!

I’ve been on a low calorie diet lately too. Working at a computer and not having much time to exercise leaves me needing about 1900 calories a day to maintain my weight. I’ve lowered that to a max of 1500 and it seems to be piling off! I’m losing about 1.5kg (about 3.3 pounds) each week and it’s staying off! Every couple of weeks I’ll be naughty and share a serve of Indian with my hubby, but other than that I’m still sticking to lean meats, less refined carbs and have a nice low fat daily diet!

I just found out I have my high school reunion in August next year, so I’m going to put my head down and really work to get my weight down. I’m unhappy with it at the moment as I have found myself binging a little as food companies advertise some seriously delicious meals on TV. So, I’ve done a spur of the moment thing - bought a Wii Fit! It was on special… it is a “Christmas special” but after negotiating with the store, I got $60 off the advertised price which was $60 less than it’s been the entire year (I have kept my eye on it)!!

So with this program, I’m going to try track my progress with this blog, keep myself a low fat daily meal plan (and low carb), keep my Proactol going and see how it goes! Already have a boost from the proactol so it can only get better now!

Just a quick suggestion irrelevant of if you’re on a low carb diet, another diet or no diet and you’re just trying to eat healthily - try substituting our your pastas and rices with egg noodles. Egg noodles will still produce a similar texture to pasta in your spag bol etc recipes but have lower carbohydrates which will aid in lowering your daily calorie intake which is important when trying to lose weight.

Remember the #1 key to weight loss (what you don’t need to join a weightloss club to work out too):

the amount of calories/kilojoules you consume should be lower than the amount of calories/kilojoules you burn off. Burning off calories isn’t just spending an hr a day in the gym, it’s also your general physical activity from getting up to make a coffee instead of having someone else bring you one, walking up stairs instead of taking the escalators or elevators, getting off the bus a stop early to walk home or to work.

Many soups are pretty high in fat and can still taste bland. Limit your salt additions to your soups… yes we all know soups usually taste better when they’re a little salty… but remember salt can wreak havoc on your heart.
Best advice I can give for making soups low in fat - cook your soups and stews the day before, store them in the fridge overnight and then the next day, skim off the layer of fat that floats on top of the soup or stew. You’ll find they won’t leave your lips lubricated by the fat. This is especially a good idea if you like to make your own chick stock etc as you would usually use chicken frames and pieces of chicken with the skin left on.

Everyone knows cookies are treats that should not be eaten as a staple food. They don’t really have much nutrients that the body can get a decent use out of.

I started cooking cookies a few months ago as both my partner and I had stopped drinking alcohol but still had the sugar cravings.  I took the normal recipe for cookies and substituted some things out of it.

Butter - you always have butter on the list of ingredients with cookies. I chose to replace half of the butter with skim milk which made my cookies a little bit less naughty. With butter, the cookies are supposed to have a more shapely appearance and better binding than milk and I found with the milk added as a low fat partial substitute, I found my cookies were a little more chewy than my previous batch (which I find a great thing) while still having a crunchy outer coating. A little like Subway cookies if you’ve ever had those.

So overall, using milk as a partial substitute or full substitute, the cookies still come out well but with a lower fat content!

Also, make your cookies more nutritious by adding half a cup or a cup of oat fiber/ whole oats to the dry mix when preparing the cookies (this still works really well with choc chip cookies if you like making those). This will also add a little crunchy texture to your naughty healthy cookies!

It’s easy to cut out a lot of the fats you have in your diet (remembering Omega 3 fats from fish are actually GOOD for you!) Here are a couple of suggestions on lowering your fat intake:

• Trim all visible fat from beef, pork and poultry and remove the skin from poultry before eating.
• Bake, broil, or roast meat dishes instead of deep-fat frying them. To reduce the risk of drying out, baste with a chicken, beef or vegetable broth or lemon juice.
• If pan or stir-frying, use small amounts of vegetable oils such as canola or safflower oil; or preferably olive oil
• Reduce the amount of butter you use in cooking.
• Check the packets’ ingredients for “partially hydrogenated” or “hydrogenated” oils and other products - these are essentially TRANS FATS which are incredibly bad for you (worse than saturated fats) and do no good for your systems (unlike minimal saturated fats help with cells).
• To cut down on whole-milk products, use skim or trim milk. Once you get yourself accustomed to lower fat milk, you’ll find it harder to go back up the chain and will eventually (even within a few weeks) find full cream too rich. Also look for reduced fat cheeses!
• Compare the saturated fat and carbohydrate/sugar levels in ice creams if you want to keep eating ice cream. Overall, saturated fat should be considered more important if you’re tossing up between two containers (ie one with less fat/more sugar vs more fat/less sugar), however getting the lower of both is recommended. If you have yourself on a low fat carb diet, you should aim for the tub with less carbs (or just avoid ice cream).
• Cut the amount of oils, butters and fats mentioned in recipes by 1/3-1/2, and use polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils rather than saturated and “animal fats” like lard.
• Avoid nuts that are high in saturated fats, such as coconuts and macadamia nuts.

Are my pointers getting out of hand? Make managing unwanted fat easier! Check out my favorite dieting product (it gives me a serious head start in weight loss and makes the whole process a hell of a lot easier!) and to give you a head start on losing that baby fat!

Let’s face the real facts here, you need to have fat in your diet and you need to have carbs in your diet. Your cells are made up of different fats and carbohydrates and in proper doses can keep you healthy. It’s over eating these types of food that is unhealthy.

So I guess what I’m saying is completely cutting out all carbs and fats is going to end up being bad for you. What you need to concentrate on is cutting out refined carbs like white sugar and white bread and limiting your saturated fats (and obviously trans fat should be next to 0)! You still need Omega 3 from fish, still need the other fats to help with your cells and carbs for energy etc.

I found this great service that makes delicious gourmet low fat meals with all the right nutrients you need in your daily diet. You can lose weight without having to go through the process of working out what you need to eat. Plus, they’ll deliver the meals to you so you don’t have wasted vegetables in the back of your fridge because you can’t think of what meal to make with them!
Chefs Diet Delivery - Save $50 Now

I’ve been exercising everyday but since I am usually very busy, I find it harder to get to the gym than I would like to. I have a personal office so I have come up with a scheme that’s been working quite well for me and has helped me with my weight loss.

Every time I go to the bathroom, I give myself an exercise regime. Ultimately, on my way back to my desk (in a hygeinic area) I do 20 pushups (all the way to the ground) and 20 situps. These situps sometimes alter to be 20 pilate type of horizontal bikeriding. It really works your stomach muscles! I find by the end of the work day I’ve done about 80 pushups and situps. The only downfall, I haven’t broken a sweat. However, remember the first step to losing weight is muscle mass. When you build up your muscle mass, you build up the rate of metabolism (ultimately, the more muscle mass you have, the faster you’ll burn fat!).

I have kept this up for the last 3 weeks and I have lost 5.5kg. I have had a mostly low carb diet but have still had the occasional carbs (which is healthier than leaving them out). I’ve combined the healthy eating and limited exercise with Proactol. While just healthy eating and exercise will make you lose weight, having proactol in the program too gives a big boost and headstart in the weightloss. I saw a lot better results while I was using proactol than when I wasn’t… hence, to me, it’s an essential component for getting faster, successful weight loss results!

See how proactol works. I thought it was a good concept, so I tried it and it turned out to work even better than I thought! If you want to lose weight, you’ve just got to try it! It’s clinically proven to bind to a lot of the fat you eat, so it actually doesn’t get absorbed into your bloodstream and end up on your hips, your belly and your arteries!

I just found this one out the ‘easy way’ lol. I had some bananas sitting on the bench. They were starting to go black so I brought out my blender, threw in all of them (5), some low fat milk and a tablespoon of malt energy drink powder (we call it Milo here). I forgot I had no ice cream left over but the bananas just had to be used anyway and I couldn’t think of a better way than milkshake! You don’t necessarily need ice cream (you can have a low fat and lower sugar milkshake this way anyway) as the bananas help to make it thicker than straight milk. I have been keeping to my low fat diet. The 5 bananas and about 4 cups of milk came to about 5 decent-sized glasses of milkshake. I had about 1 and a half and I was FULL!
I’d put that on par with a meal replacement. Best to have in the morning and there are no added fats, sugars or preservatives because you’re making it yourself.

Basically, similar to the international Weight Watchers program, you just have to watch what you eat. Look at how much saturated fat, sugar and calories you’re eating with each meal. If you need support from help groups, then maybe looking at a weightloss program is a good idea for you - and you’ll pay. If you’re looking for some self-help weightloss, you’re probably not going to need the help of a weightloss corporation. Low saturated fat, low/no (As in <0.01g) trans fat (aka hydrogenised), less sugar, and eat as many veges and salads as you want.