By Lynn Haraldson-Bering
I recently asked my Lynn’s Weigh readers on Facebook this question: When you make a day trip, do you figure you’ll find food along the way or do you pack your own?
Most responded that they do. One person said she doesn’t want any food to be “bad” food and so eats what’s available in smaller portions.
I wanted to pose the same question to maintainers and to ask how have your food choices changed, if at all, since you started losing weight?
My food choices continue to evolve. Five years ago when I joined Weight Watchers, there were only a few outlaw foods on my list (i.e. baked Doritos and Teddy Grahams), namely because if I had one bite, I’d want 50 more.
Moving along in my weight journey, more foods were added to my outlaw list, and not always because I feared lack of self control. Some foods I lost a taste for and some were outlawed because they weren’t very healthy. I started paying close attention to what was in certain foods and slowly moved down the path of “real” food – those with only few ingredients.
I also began eating out less frequently, mostly because I live in a very small town and find that most local restaurant fare is either salted, sauced or boiled to death. Sometimes all three. There are a few restaurants I can count on for real greens in their salads, but I’ve yet to find a place that offers any vegetarian fare that doesn’t involve pasta or copious amounts of cheese.
Usually when I travel by car, I don’t count on there being a sufficient choice of non-outlaw foods along the way, so I pack a cooler of salad fixings, fresh fruit and other Lynn Approved foods.
Another part to this metamorphosis is that the older I get, the more sensitive I am to certain foods. I love Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower, but they aren’t as easy to digest as they used to be. I don’t have the abs of a 20-year-old and apparently I don’t have the gut of one, either! They aren’t on my outlaw food list, but I’ve added Culturelle to my diet to help out.
What I love about this topic of how, in maintenance, we choose to eat is that our answers really shine a light on how individual we are in what works for us. While I completely respect my reader’s view that for her no food is “bad” food, I’d be willing to bet that if I asked the same question a year from now that at least a few of you might have different answers than the ones you give today.
So write to us! Tell us if you have outlaw foods and if you pack or trust there will be something you’re willing to eat when you travel. Leave us a comment or send us an email at refusetoregain@gmail.com.
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