High fructose corn syrup is evil. Yes it is. If you want the easiest way to help lose weight and be healthier, never eat or drink anything with high fructose corn syrup in it again. It can be hard to diet, hard to exercise, but changing your foods and drinks to ones without high fructose corn syrup isn’t that hard. All you have to do is read labels every time you shop-and if you see the dreadful “high fructose corn syrup”-stay far, away. Don’t let it in your body.

In my opinion the FDA should ban high fructose corn syrup. It’s nothing but bad, promotes obesity, contains mercury, and foods and herbs even with medical, health or other benefits have been banned by the FDA.

Arizona tea has high fructose corn syrup. Don’t buy Arizona tea, and let the Arizona tea company know you won’t buy their teas until it’s free of that poison called high fructose corn syrup. And I thought tea was one of the healthiest things you could ingest. But not if it has high fructose corn syrup. That totally cancels out any health benefits.

The obesity epidemic began after high fructose corn syrup was put into our foods and drinks. Coincidence? I think not. This was way before internet, video games, chat rooms and all that.

Having a hard time losing weight? It could be because you are eating or drinking a fair amount of high fructose corn syrup.

Most Americans don’t even know what high fructose corn syrup is or even bother reading labels. Parents feed their children high fructose corn syrup regularly without knowing any better.

And it’s everywhere. I mean tea is supposed to be healthy, but it’s even in tea! Not all tea of course, if you’re a tea drinker, it’s best to buy tea bags of your favorite kind of tea and brew it yourself. It contains nothing but tea leaves and perhaps herbs or fruits.

Ragu and Presto spaghetti sauce have high fructose corn syrup. Smuckers jelly and jam has high fructose corn syrup. It’s everywhere! In everything! You have to carefully read labels to make sure you’re not poisoning your body and making it difficult to lose weight and easy to gain weight or remain overweight. I only buy jam called “Kentucky’s finest” because it’s all natural. It simply has the fruit in it, plus sugar to sweeten it and then pectin. No high fructose corn syrup, no weird chemicals, artificial flavors, or stuff you can’t pronounce. When you  buy jelly or jam read the label to make sure there’s only 3 ingredients in it and no high fructose corn syrup.

If you’re trying to lose weight but it seems impossible, even though you try not to eat things like cake, chips, and candy bars and try to go on walks but still can’t shed any extra pounds, you probably wonder what’s wrong with you. Maybe your metablism is slow. Maybe you have some undiagnosed medical condition. Or it could be because you are ingesting high fructose corn syrup even if you don’t know it or know what that is because it promotes weight gain and obesity and makes it extra hard to lose any weight.

If you want to know more about HFCS, there is reading out there, including articles about it killing honey bees and containing mercury and much more. If you want you and your family to be healthier, never buy anything containing high fructose corn syrup again. (If you drink soda, bad news, it’s loaded with HFCS, so you really should find another drink)

Here is one article with a youtube ad about HFCS-

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/you-know-what-they-say-about-corn-syrup-that-it-has-mercury.php

I had surgery recently. A tubal. Not supposed to be a big deal. But the pain was worse than expected.

Did a lot of resting after surgery and didn’t get hardly any physical activity at all. Certainly no exercise.

To my despair, when I was weighed at the doctor’s office after surgery I saw I had gained weight. And more than just 2 or 3 pounds. I was in shock at my weight gain. I feel like all my previous hard work was for nothing. It really made me feel terrible. How could that have happened?

So I have another set back and it’s taking way longer than expected and harder than expected to reach my weight loss goal.

I should also mention I’m not taking any weight loss pills or supplements. Or water pills or colon cleansers. These would probably help somewhat, but I don’t want to throw a bunch of money away on pills unless I knew for a fact it worked. Colon cleansers are good for you though to clean out your system.

Anyway I feel like I’m back at square one after all the work I’ve done and progress I had made. It’s so depressing. But I haven’t given up. I have to start exercising daily and I have to get the energy to do so. Ever since the surgery I’ve had sleep problems which leaves me fatigued with the worst headaches. I don’t feel like doing anything much less exercising.

Of course if I had a pool (indoor and heated or lived in Hawaii) I’d probably be skinny cause I love to swim and would swim for hours every day. It’s not exercise, it’s fun.

But woe is me, no pool. I also love rollerblading, but I don’t have a clue as of where to rollerblade. Up and down my street? I don’t want to look silly but I guess I shouldn’t care. You just don’t see people rollerblading around here. I wish I lived in San Diego. Lots of rollerbladers there and places to rollerblade…near the beach! Why couldn’t I have been raised in San Diego? Oh and I don’t even have rollerblades anymore. Used to but lost them.

So big set back but have not given up. Just more determined to get exercise in and fix my insomnia to get rid of the fatigue and headaches. Nobody said this was easy!

Cheese. I have decided to give up cheese. At least temporarily.

And when I start eating cheese again it will be only moderate amounts. I used to eat pizzas loaded with cheese, but no more. And cheese on sandwiches, but no more.

Nothing wrong with cheese, it has calcium and all that, but after reading so many nutritional labels, I couldn’t help but notice cheese is a high calorie food. So I decided to give it up.

Now I eat turkey sandwiches with no cheese. And macaroni and cheese used to be one of my favorite foods.

I know I’ll eat macaroni and cheese again one day, just not anytime soon. I’m going to go at least a few months with no cheese.

Now if only I could quit my biggest weight loss obstacle-soda. But I’m addicted like an alcoholic is addicted to alcohol, I just can’t.

If you’re like me, you love sweets. Chocolate is my weakness. I love brownies, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookie dough, and other chocolately stuff.

Of course the problem is it’s high in calories, fat, and sugar. (Unless you get the sugar free kind, but it’s still high in calories and fat)

But it tastes so good.

It seems unfair to have to deprive ourselves of sweets in order to lose weight.

I have discovered a way to satisfy my sweet cravings in a healthy way and it may sound funny at first- Cookie Crisp Cereal.

You know that cereal. Just go in the cereal aisle in your grocery store and you’ll see it.

It has a sweet taste and of course it has sugar (nobody said we can’t have ANY sugar!) but it’s so much healthier than eating a candy bar or real chocolate chip cookies.

I looked at the  box and it has whole grain and a good source of calcium and vitamin C. It’s also fortified with other vitamins and minerals that you can’t get from cake or ice cream. And no I’m not being paid by Cookie Crisp to advertise their cereal, but I should be!

I was walking down the grocery store aisle, saw the cereal and a light bulb came off! Hey, this is healthy stuff (compared to the sweet alternatives) and it tastes sweet so I won’t be depriving myself of my sweet cravings.

After eating a bowl, I tasted some chocolate and sweetness and my sweet tooth was satisfied and I didn’t have to eat a pack of M&Ms to do it.

So this may help someone who is trying to lose weight but has strong sweet cravings!

I really didn’t. And yes, I looked in a mirror everyday. Well mainly for my face. I knew I was overweight and needed to lose weight. But until pictures were taken of me with my whole body in it, I didn’t realize I was fat. I never felt fat on the inside. I like sports. I’m an athletic person. I don’t feel fat. But I am.

It’s a terrible feeling, a horrible wake up call when you look at pictures of yourself and realize just how fat you are. It’s heartbreaking.

It’s also motivation to lose weight. It’s strong motivation. Nobody wants to be fat.

I have had a few days of not doing well at all on my lifestyle change. I ate way too many calories because for some unknown reason I felt so much hunger. It was like I couldn’t get full.

I would eat my regular meal and then felt like I was starving so I had to scramble to eat something else. And I could have eaten all night but eventually I managed to stop myself.

I didn’t bother to count calories because I knew for sure I was going way over my daily calorie allotment. If I counted all the calories I ate I would have been so angry, frustrated and disgusted with myself.

Now I’m afraid I will gain back some pounds that I worked so hard to lose. I don’t know why I felt so hungry, I just know I felt like I was starving and had to eat and had way too many calories.

So I had a major setback in my weight loss obsession and lifestyle change for a few days. Now I will have to work extra hard to put in extra exercise to try to burn off all those excess calories.

I also need to take hoodia or some appetite control because it’s not good if you eat a meal and then felt like you barely had an appetizer and have to get more and more to eat.

But most everyone has set backs in their diets or lifestyle changes, so I’m not alone. I will just try to put in extra exercise and get back on track.

I have lost 16 and just noticed yesterday my jeans felt looser.

How did I do it?

Doing more exercise (but not nearly as much as I want) Mainly by dancing to music and simple exercises at home. I have also gone on some walks on the local track. It’s winter and it’s cold, so I can’t walk that often. If it’s freezing cold, I’m staying indoors. I won’t stay out in the colder a second longer than I have to. But when it warms up, I plan to do a lot more walking. It’s great exercise.

Also I do not eat pork, red meat, no fried foods and no restaurant or fast foods.

A typical dinner is grilled chicken and spanish rice in enchillada sauce. Or my chicken, zuchinni, and squash casserole. A breakfast may be a South Beach Diet chocolate peanut butter meal bar. I cut out former favorite foods like pizza and bread sticks.

What I have failed at so far-Soda. For a while I limited myself to just 1 soda a say. Just one soda has 73% of the sugar I should get in a day.

I moved to a better place recently and was worn out with all the packing, unpacking, and all that moving stuff. I was really burning off the calories with moving! So I drank another soda. I thought, just this one day.

Well, it wasn’t just one day. Now it’s been weeks and I’ve been drinking about 3 cans of soda a day. I would have probably lost 20 or 25 pounds if I could cut out my soda or limit it to one a day. But I’m bad addicted.

In spite of 3 cans of soda a day, which has waaaaaay too much sugar, I’ve still lost 16 pounds.

On the inside I never felt fat. I have the soul of an athletic and thin person. But on the outside I got fat.

I never ate pork or red meat and only ate fried foods every now and then, but I ate too much, consumed way too much sugar and soda, and didn’t get enough exercise.

I would always think, “I’ll get thin one day, I’ll get thin one day.”

Then one day you just kind of realize how big you are. I guess I never knew exactly how much weight I had gained. I didn’t stare at myself in the mirror or weight myself. I would rather not know.

So it kind of just hit me like a train one day: I am fat! I need to lose a lot of weight and I’m going to start now.

So I went out and bought scales so I could weigh myself. The first time I stepped on the scales and saw how much I weighed, I could have died! I could not believe it. I had never felt that fat in my life. How terrible!!

And from then on I have been weight loss obsessed.

It’s not easy to lose a lot of weight, but you have to start and the sooner the better. The longer you put it off, the longer it will be until you get down to your ideal weight.