Fat Free Greek Yogurt (Plain)

I more or less stay away from yogurt because it has so much sugar in it, but I have to say I loooove Fage Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt and Chobani Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt. They are the lowest carb, highest protein yogurts I’ve ever found.

Stats:

In a 6 oz. serving: 100 calories, 18 grams of protein, 7 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of fat.

I love it for:

-Thickening smoothies

-Sweetened with sugar-free sweetener and/or fruit as a dessert

-As a sour cream alternative (it’s really not sweet tasting on its own)

-As a quick, healthy snack.

-To make savory dishes creamier in place of heavy cream

I have to say I really don’t like the varieties with fruit/jam in them because they have a lot more sugar and calories. They’re delicious, but I feel like dumping sugar on top of something healthy kind of defeats the purpose of eating healthy in the first place. I try to never eat anything with added sugar.

High School Is Hell

“Everybody at school today: Omg it’s suicide awareness day you’re all so beautiful, nobody should have to go through that, I don’t understand how anybody could be made to feel like that.

Everybody at school normally: Ew she’s so fat 
Everybody at school normally: Why would you cut yourself lol emo 
Everybody at school normally: Oh you want to kill yourself? Attention seeker
Everybody at school normally: Stupid slut I hope you die 
Everybody at school normally: You’re ugly don’t even look at us”

—

This really has nothing to do with dieting, but I love it because it's so true. Also reminds me of the movie World's Greatest Dad and what a hivemind high school is.

In high school I was simultaneously invisible and horribly picked on (which sounds impossible, but that’s the best way I can think to describe it). Now I’m pretty happy though, so that’s what matters. Well, that and the fact that I’m thinner and more successful than most of them. 

Final Stand: 

Source: z0mbiesss

Wine is Fine, But Liquor is Quicker

I slipped up a bit last night...I started the evening with a glass of wine, but I ended it taking a couple shots of Bacardi. While the shots didn't have that many extra calories, I ended up feeling super snacky and munching on toast with butter (kill me) and pork rinds*. I need to stick. with. wine. That said, I feel relatively slender still and I'm glad I didn't totally binge.

Can't take all the credit though. My boyfriend hid the peanut butter from me and wouldn't let me have it.

*In defense of pork rinds, they are super low-carb (which means they won't make your blood sugar spike and crash later) and do have 7 grams of protein in a serving. A serving has 80 calories. If you stick to an appropriate portion, the fat and protein can help keep you feeling more satisfied than say, 2 fat-free rice cakes for the same amount of calories.

Remember, fat in food does not magically become fat in your body. Excess calories (whether those calories come from steak, yogurt, bananas, granola, muffins, whatever) become fat in your body. 

When Did This Become Hotter Than This

"Can't we all just get along [and discuss this over a beer]?" - Rodney King

I've been seeing this and similar images circulating on Facebook. The basic idea behind this image is that once upon a time "real women had curves" and beauty standards weren't as harsh. This is a fallacy. Women's bodies have always been subject to strict beauty standards.

Marilyn is clearly wearing make-up, we all know blonde was not her natural hair color, Marilyn Monroe was not her real name, and she's totally wearing a body shaper in that picture.

And honestly: I think the woman on the right has an great body and I would rather have that body than have Marilyn's. She doesn't look emaciated to me, she looks fit and sexy. She looks athletic.

Does that mean there is anything wrong with Marilyn's body or women who have bodies like Marilyn's? No. A lot of people do prefer a larger woman. Do today's beauty standards encourage women to be thin? Yes. I think that's problematic because not everyone can be thin and perhaps some people don't even want to be thin, but that doesn't mean we need to pretend thin bodies are ugly to feel better about ourselves.

Women need to support each other, not tear each other down.

I found some interesting pictures people put together as a response to this:

Via YourFaceIsStupid.com

My personal favorite via Know Your Meme.

Alcohol Calorie Counter

Oh, alcohol. If I'm perfectly honest, a big reason it has been tricky for me to lose the weight and keep it off is my drinking. You cannot drink regularly and lose weight.

Booze causes problems with maintaining one's weight for a variety of reasons:

• Alcohol simply contains a bunch of calories (About 65 per 1 oz. hard liquor, about 140 per regular beer, and around 75-80 per 4 oz. of wine, etc.)
  
• Your body burns alcohol for fuel before it burns anything else.
  
• You're more likely to lose your resolve about dieting if you're tipsy.
  
• Alcohol affects the way your body controls its blood sugar levels. This is why you get the drunchies and overeat after drinking/think a McDouble and fries sounds like a good idea at 1 AM.
  
• Alcohol is a diuretic and dehydrates you which leads to water retention the morning after.

This is a pretty decent calorie-counter for alcohol. You can type in how much beer, wine, liquor, etc. you drink per week and find out your extra calories for the month and year. It is from a website called College Drinking Prevention so I was skeptical that the values might be inflated as a scare tactic, but I checked and it's all accurate.

(So, in a month, I'm taking in about 4,200 extra calories from wine because I have 2 glasses of wine a night. That's pretty gross, but on the other hand, I used to take in around the same amount of extra calories from alcohol in a week so it's an improvement.)

Basically, even moderate drinking (what most countries report as healthy for a woman is no more than 2 drinks per night) is not conducive to being skinny and most people I know don't drink moderately anyway.

I really like using the calorie counter to remind myself how many calories I'm saving by not drinking or not having that extra couple drinks at night. It's also good to remind myself how many extra calories I am taking in when I do drink.

I'm working on cutting down even more...it's a process. This post has gotten long enough as it is, so I'll be doing a list of my favorite low-calorie alcoholic drinks & tactics I use to curb drinking later.

Cheese

"Cheese is the devil's plaything." House, M.D.

Going to the gym after breakfast today. Wanted to seriously pig out last night, but didn't. I did have a sugar-free slurpee and a little extra wine, but I don't care because I could have seriously binged.

My dieting tip of the day: If I'm eating pizza (which I generally don't because I think bread is pretty bad for you, but sometimes I get stuck eating it at someone's house), rip off the cheese. Most people don't just top their pizza with veggies, they add cheese, fatty meats, and sometimes more cheese. If I rip the toppings off and limit myself to a slice or two, I'll save a ton of calories.

Sometimes people think this is a little strange, but I usually just tell them I'm sensitive to dairy if they ask. Most pizza is loaded up with way too many calories.

(4 out of 5 skinny alcoholics agree that you can eliminate around a bajllion calories by ripping the toppings off of this mofo)

10 Tips to Avoid Binge Eating

I would like to note that I when I refer to binge-eating and my own issues with binge-eating, I’m only talking about binge-eating, not bingeing and purging.

This is a list of some ways I deal with fighting the urge to binge and I plan to refer back to it when I need motivation (I considered tacking it up on my wall, but I don’t really want anyone seeing it and making assumptions).

Some ways to avoid binge-eating:

1. Ask yourself: Am I actually hungry? If the answer is no, wouldn’t you rather save those calories for when you actually are hungry? I don’t know about anyone else, but scarfing 2,000 calories for breakfast doesn’t keep me full for the rest of the day. It just makes me hate myself for the rest of the day.
   
2. Ask yourself: Am I fixated on one particular food? If you’re fixated on eating a particular food (say, getting a spoon and attacking a jar of Nutella), you’re in binge-mode. If you’re actually hungry, you’ll be open to eating different things.
    
3. Tell yourself: It’s not too late to stop. It doesn’t matter if you ate half a bag of Oreos (which, by the way is 1,575 calories). Finishing the bag is only digging you deeper. This is a big one for me. I’ll eat and eat and eat and then hate myself. But hey, the day is ruined, so why not enjoy it and eat the rest of the bag and some whipped cream while I’m at it? Wrong. It’s never too late to stop the damage.
    
4. Go online and read a weight loss article. Read someone’s blog. Read some inspiration diet quotes. 3 Fat Chicks has some good ones, whether you’re overweight or not.
    
5. Eating too much of anything isn’t good, but if you just need to eat something and you’re about to snap, fill up on any kind of lettuce, spinach, green beans, broccoli, or any other very low-cal, low-carb veggie. Even if you eat the whole bag it’s a far better option than a lot of other things.
    
6. Throw out whatever it is you’re bingeing on. Just throw it in the trash. Squirt dish soap on it if you have to. Just get rid of it. I know it’s a waste, but it’s also wasting your body if you’re going to eat it all.
    
7. Identify what triggers you and don’t keep it in the house. This can be really hard if you live with other people. My roommates keep peanut butter in the cupboard and it drives me fucking nuts because I know as long as I replace it, I can totally eat it. There are other things that I just do not buy (regular nuts, for instance) because I will eat the entire container in one day.**
    
8. Everyone knows this one: Water. I try to drink a full glass of water before    every meal. I don’t as often as I should, but when I do make myself it helps a lot. If I’m thinking about pigging out, I suck down a couple glasses of ice water and it makes me feel full and sloshy and less in the mood to binge.
    
9. Sometimes being way, way too hungry is what leads to a binge. Lately, if I feel like I’ve just waited too long to eat in a reasonably manner, I have something fast like a can of veggies (green beans only have something like 65 cals in a can). Then I drink a glass of water and wait 15 minutes. After that I’m not starving and I can make something with a reasonable portion & calorie count.
    
10. Remember: You’re going to be happier and have more motivation to keep eating correctly tomorrow if you make yourself proud today.

**This is why it really irritates me when people get on me about watching my weight. The only reason they think I’m perfectly fine and need to pig out is because I’m thinner than they are. There are around 800 calories in just one cup of peanuts. If they admitted it’s not healthy for me to eat an entire jar of nuts, they’d have to take a closer look at their own eating habits (which they don’t want to do).