Key word — TRYING — but I’m having the hardest time giving up beer and pizza...

I’ve cut down on the carbs somewhat and lost a few pounds...

ground turkey, boneless skinless chicken, and zuchinni noodles instead of pasta. 2/3 of my plate should be veggies. I am allowed steel cut oats on this diet. And a few berries for dessert.

I made it a couple times with a friend a few years ago

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This recipe called for 6 ounces of cheese which would be 3/4 Cup. As I was making the mixture, I didn't think that it was enough for 2 people so I doubled the cheese for the "dough" to 1.5 Cups. I have extra large eggs and I only used 2 eggs at room temperature, instead of doubling the eggs. It was plenty for the egg mixture. I also used extra grated mozzarella cheese on the topping. Here's a few photo's from my end.










While I'm sitting here typing this, I'm fighting the urge to go back for seconds.

It's called "not eating out for over a year"

and lentils, (I get the bird's eye frozen vegetarian pasta - it's not bad)

was already to eat, you just rinse it and then dry it, and then mix with sauce. I should have kept the bag but would recognize it if I saw it again. The spaghetti was made out of mushrooms and oats. Less carbs. Tasted like real spaghetti. I did try zuchinni as noodles in my feta tomato pasta bake and it was great. You don't even have to cook the zuchinni.

and see only regular spaghettis with a mushroom and oat sauce?

at your local grocery store through Instacart. It said "Spaghetti" in big letters across the top.

https://well.ca/products/liviva-organic-shirataki-pasta_180360.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0Miqgo_n8AIVL3FvBB3o7AzZEAQYASABEgKnHfD_BwE

Not very complicated.

I'm down some 40 pounds from last summer on the "Eat a whole lot less" diet.

We have all gotten far too used to the huge servings we get in restaurants. And how heavy most of us are. If you look at high school yearbook photos from the 1960s you'll be astonished at how few, if any, overweight people you see. And obese? No. Really. You just won't see anyone who is actually obese back then.

I reduced my BMI from 31.6 to 24.2. Meaning from the beginning of obese, down to normal.

And I did it simply by reducing how much I eat. Restaurants are insidious, because their portions are huge. Huge. Far beyond what any of us actually need. These days when I go to a restaurant, if a companion isn't open to sharing (darn!) I take home half of my meal. Or I only order an appetizer.

Figuring out appropriate portion sizes is much more difficult than it should be, only because restaurants have trained us to think portions sizes are vastly larger than they should be.

Eat a fuck of a lot less than is offered. That's my advice.

I could hoover most restaurant portions in about 10 bites. But I like the idea of just ordering an appetizer. Those tend to taste better than main courses anyway.

For some reason my appetite is vastly less than it used to be. I also pay attention to when I feel satisfied and stop eating at that point. It's too easy to think that you should finish everything, and given how huge restaurant portions generally, are, it results in overeating. I also generally only eat one meal a day, and that's in the late afternoon or evening. Oh, I do start the day with a cup of coffee with cream and sugar.

One half-meal a day for me would result in me murdering someone.

I'm 72 years old, and lots of things are different for me than in years past. I know what it's like to be hungry, and to feel crazed with hunger.

Growing up, I was a skinny kid famous for my appetite. I could easily eat seconds and thirds and fourths. I remained thin past high school, then put on a bit of weight. Remained thin into my twenties, although weighing more than I had in the past.

Fast forward to marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing. The weight went on and never came off.

I honestly think that the fact I have weighed myself every single day for decades now, has been a huge help. Even as my weight climbed, I still got on the scale, despite my sense of discouragement at the number I was seeing. In recent months it's been gratifying to see the numbers go down.

Here's the most encouraging thing I want to share. My BMI has gone from 32 to 24, meaning from obese to normal. It feels so very good. I was overweight/obese for far too long. What's actually somewhat disturbing, in my opinion, is that we have all gotten so used to almost everyone being overweight that we've forgotten what normal looks like.

It's not easy. We are surrounded by food. Restaurant portions are ridiculously large. We've been trained to be hungry and to eat much more than we realistically need.

My personal weight loss odyssey started back in March, 2020 when I went on a cruise to Hawaii. Wonderful cruise, but I set out determined not to gain weight, which is far too common when cruising. So I paid attention to what and when I ate, didn't just eat as much or as often as I could, and still had wonderful food. When I returned home I weighed exactly what I had at the beginning. Hooray! A few months later I decided it was time to take the excess off, and so I simply started restricting my eating. Fortunately, it wasn't that hard. I know that for many reading this, your appetite is simply greater than mine, and cutting back isn't very easy. I cannot offer any magic solutions, but I hope you can hang in there and make it happen.

I used to be like that at his age. Now my metabolism has slowed way down, but not my appetite. And there is just too much temptation in the house with the cupboards and fridge stocked with all the food my son loves. I don't think I stand a chance at losing weight until he goes off to college next year, and I can empty the house of his cereal, chips, ice cream, chocolate bars, cheeses, salami, breads, pasta and peanut butter. Every time I try to go on a diet, I end up succumbing to all that food I keep in my house for my son. Until he's off at college, the best I think I can do is try to not get any fatter.

I had two sons of my own, but lived in an entirely different universe from most parents with sons. They both had small appetites. Indeed, the older one ate very little and was so small for his age, that I figured there was no point in feeding him unless there were witnesses.

I never experienced what most parents of teens go through, trying desperately to keep enough food in the house to feed everyone, teens and others alike. Oddly enough, neither of my sons went through that kind of desperate need for food. I did see it happen with others, so I understand that my experience was quite anomalous.

I do understand the thing of your metabolism slowing down, but not your appetite. It's how I ventured into the early edges of obesity myself. I will offer that over time your appetite will reach equilibrium with your metabolism.

I completely understand how hard this is. Hang in there.

I went on a very-low carb diet early last year, just before the lockdown, and since then I've lost 52 lbs. It helped a lot that I live by myself and wasn't influenced by anyone else's food desires, and also by the necessity of ordering groceries on-line for delivery. That way I wasn't tempted to buy things like pastries by seeing them in front of me. Also, of course I wasn't eating in restaurants, whose portions are always way too large. And I gradually got into the habit of not eating as much of anything, maybe because my diet had become kind of boring and I wasn't so excited about eating anything.

By August I'd lost about 30 lbs. but got stuck, so I started walking every day. I also bought one of those fitness trackers (which revealed to me how sedentary I'd become) so I could keep track of how much exercise I'd done and how many calories I'd used up. It turns out that I can burn about 100 calories per mile of walking, which doesn't seem like much (it's only a cookie's worth), but they add up. I usually do 2-4 miles a day, and kept doing it even through the polar vortex. So between the almost-no-carb diet and the exercise I've lost another 22 lbs. It works, slowly but surely. Keep it up!

The diet specifics can vary, but cutting back, sometimes drastically, is the key. Like you I live alone, which is hugely helpful. I don't have to cook for another person, I don't have to take some one else's needs into consideration. I can purchase food and fix it for myself. It may well be a very important factor in my weight loss.