We’ve planted a garden and watched it grow. (I’m not sure what John was thinking when he used PVC to give the beans something to hold onto. They look ridiculous sticking up in the air like that!)

We set up our backyard pool and the kids have been swimming every day.

We went on a quick trip to the beach, where I have exactly one picture of myself so you will have to settle for seeing the kids.

My oldest daughter graduated from college and has a real job!

It is a busy yet fun time of year and as you can see, we spend a lot of time outdoors. Now, I do not do a lot of giveaways because, well, I just don’t. I get approached a lot but turn them down about 98 percent of the time because the product just isn’t something I use or something I think you would use.

When the folks at Aquaphor (made by Eucerin) asked if I’d like to try some of their lotions and lip ointment, I said yes. The thing is, I had already tried them and loved them. We are plagued with dry skin in our family and these lotions are some of the best I have ever tried. I swear by the lipbalm because it is the best of the many, many I have tried over the years.

Here are the lotions and lipbalm I received, along with a great CamelBak water bottle, and a $50 VISA giftcard. (And one lucky winner will get all of this too!)

My husband wanted the little tube to put in his briefcase, my oldest daughter claimed the other tube and stuck it in her much cuter Vera Bradley tote, and I grabbed the biggest container because I need it the most. I also snagged the Aquaphor lipbalm because I am the mom.

If you like to keep your skin and lips healthy in the summer (or anytime), I think you would like Aquaphor lotions as much as I do. If you would like a chance to win the prize package, which includes the lotions and lip balm shown above, a CamelBak water bottle, and a $50 VISA Giftcard, you have four ways to do so. Please leave a separate comment for each entry. Giveaway open to US residents only. 

1. Leave a comment telling me what summer outdoor activity you enjoy the most.

2. Like Aquaphor on Facebook

3. Like Fit To The Finish on Facebook

3. Share this post on your Facebook page or on Twitter.

The giveaway closes on Wednesday, June 26th at midnight CST. Good luck! Diane

*Disclosure: I received a product package in exchange for an honest review. I am responsible for hosting this giveaway, but all product will be provided by Aquaphor. As always, the opinions in this post are my own.

I’ve been in this weight loss world for a long time. First, I dieted constantly for 10 years and had lots of exposure to different diet programs.

Richard Simmons? Yep, tried it.

Super Low-Fat? Yes, tried it.

Weight Watchers? Yep, tried it multiple times.

Magazine Diets? Yes, did that too.

Cottage Cheese Diet? Yep, did that as well.

Then, I lost weight using healthy eating and reasonable exercise (and wrote a book about that). After I lost the weight, I did what a majority of weight loss success stories do not. I kept it off. I kept it off through pregnancies, through tragedy, through life upheavals, and good times. I’ve kept off 150 pounds for over 15 years. I’m not bragging, but trying to show that I have a lot of experience and hopefully some credibility when it comes to dieting and weight management.

I’ve seen a lot of diets come and go throughout those years of dieting and weight maintenance. Right after I lost the weight, the super low carb craze took hold and people everywhere were buying no-carb bread, crackers, and cereal. Since then there have been various other diets that have come and gone. Some were great, some were not.

I get concerned when I see people on television, in books, on blogs, and in videos become so fervent about their particular diet plan that they discount any other plan other than the one that is currently working for them.

I found this quote from John Berardi, founder of Precision Nutrition talking about weight loss coaches: (And I think this quote applies to anyone who influences others in healthy living.) And, no, I have no affiliation with them. I just appreciated his take on diets. He said:

Sure, if a particular nutrition idea — like Paleo or vegetarianism — worked for you personally, that’s awesome. You should be happy you found something that helped you reach your goals.

But to suggest that because it worked for you, at one point in your life, under a particular set of circumstances, now everyone else should follow the same program isn’t just narcissistic. It’s the antithesis of good coaching.

He brings up such a great point. Just because it worked for you does not make it the only way to lose weight. I lost weight using a combination of portion control, exercise, and keeping my fat intake at about 30 percent. That worked for me and probably could work for you as well, if that fits in with your lifestyle and personality.

I hate it when I see people trashing other people’s healthy diet approaches just because they feel as though their way is the only way. I have had people tell me that not eating a vegan diet, or following South Beach, or using the Paleo approach to dieting is detrimental to me morally because any other way of eating is harmful.

I’ve seen people criticize people who lost weight counting calories to the point where those folks now doubt what they are doing. I had a lady talk to me about Weight Watchers one time because her friend who was now a Paleo follower made her doubt whether WW was an okay program. Mind you, this lady had already lost 45 pounds on Weight Watchers and was making great strides in changing her life.

I believe that there are a lot of healthy approaches to weight loss. If counting calories works for you, great. If watching fat percentage like I did works for you, awesome. If Paleo works, terrific. If you are a Weight Watchers fan, fabulous.

Let’s encourage those people who are losing weight in a healthy way no matter what approach they take instead of making them doubt whether or not they can do it. The militant approach to “my way or the highway” does nothing to encourage other people whether you see that approach on the Internet or in a book.

Believe me when I say that the diets of today will likely shift into something different three years from now. I’ve been around the diet world for 25 years and it seems that “what’s hot” now becomes a distant memory years later. What always works is some form of healthy eating that is sustainable for the long term, and that may look different from person to person.

How do you feel when you see someone saying their diet plan is the absolute only way to lose weight? Have you noticed how popular diets come and go? Diane

The World Health Organization recommends that we consume 10 percent or less of our overall caloric intake from added sugars and the American Heart Association recommends that we only eat no more than 5 percent of our calories from added sugars.

As a reference point, 5 percent of an average woman’s daily calorie allotment is 100 calories, or about 6 teaspoons (24 g) of sugar. For men, that’s about 9 teaspoons of sugar (36 g) or 150 calories. Guess what? The average cola has 17 teaspoons of sugar or about 68 g. As we get started talking about sugar in our diet, here’s another reference point to keep in mind:  A single teaspoon of sugar is about 4 g of sugar.

Here are some foods with their sugar content listed:

Smoothie King’s Peanut Power Plus Grape Smoothie has 22 teaspoons of sugar

1 Pop-Tart has 20 grams of sugar, or about 5 teaspoons of sugar

Cheerios (1 cup) has 1 g of sugar

Special K (1 cup) has 4 g of sugar

NutriGrain cereal bas has 13 g of sugar

Carrots (8 baby carrots) has 4 g of sugar

Grapes (1 cup) has 20 g of sugar

3 Chips Ahoy cookies  have 11 g of sugar

2 Fat Free Fig Newtons have 12 g of sugar

1 sweet potato has 9 g of sugar

Uncle Sam’s original cereal has less than 1 g of sugar 

What does this mean to you? If you are like me, you are not as satisfied after eating high sugar junk foods as you are after having foods that are packed with protein or healthy carbohydrates. This is often because eating a lot of sugar at one time causes our blood sugar and insulin to spike and then crash fairly quickly. This drop often makes us feel more hungry and leaves us craving more of those foods that gave us that blood sugar “high” in the first place.

Think about it this way. If you eat a donut, can’t you easily eat one or two more? If you eat a candy bar, are you really full? If you have a handful of chocolate chips, can’t you fit more of those same chips into your belly pretty quickly without feeling overly full?

What happened to me as an obese person was that foods high in added sugars often left me wanting more and more and more and more. And I gave in quite willingly. Sugar alone did not make me fat, but eating a diet high in processed foods that happened to be high in sugar certainly contributed to my obesity.

Real life for me was learning to balance my nutrient intake. I did not turn away from foods with added sugar in them all at one time. It has been a gradual process over the years. Although people who are militant about only clean eating might disagree, my experience is that you can lose weight and still have sugar, but you have to learn to control your caloric intake, which can be hard if you are craving sugary, high-fat foods.

Real life often involves taking a close look at your diet, seeing where your weak spots are, and working toward fixing them. These days I read the labels of foods diligently and choose carefully. I do not drink sodas, add sugar to coffee or tea, rely heavily on processed foods, or bake all the time. I do eat foods that have sugar such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and sometimes have dessert. However, I also plan my diet carefully so I have a balance in my life.

How do you handle sugar in your diet? Do you keep track, do you avoid it altogether, or do you not worry about it too much? Diane

I am a pretty generous person in most areas of my life. Well, I am now. However, there was a time when I was generous with most things except for food.

As a size 28, morbidly obese wife and mother to three small children, I had many roles. I was a chauffeur to my kids, a “vet” to our dog, a stand-in doctor for my kids little boo-boos, and guardian of all food.

I was responsible for the grocery shopping, I alone planned and prepared all the meals we ate at home, picked out the restaurants we ate at, and decided what food did or did not make it in the house.

I suppose that role of “food keeper” is pretty typical for moms these days.

What made my “food keeper” role less typical was my protective attitude toward the food in the house.

My grocery store trips included time spent selecting the necessary ingredients for the breakfast, lunches, and dinners I had planned. But, while I was strolling up and down the grocery store aisles, I would also be shopping for some special foods for my enjoyment only.

Of course ,these special foods were not grapes, salad, carrots, or other healthy food, but instead those special foods were chocolate covered peanuts, flavored chips, chewy cookies, and any other package of junk food that struck my fancy.

If I had some of the children with me when I was shopping, they would ask if they were going to get some of my special food. I’ d say, “Yes, honey, you can have a few pieces of candy when we get home.” However, I knew that as soon as I got home that candy would disappear into the high reaches of the pantry where my little daughter would forget about it. You see, I did not want her  (or any of the other members of my family) to find my candy/junk food stash and make me share it.

After I had hidden the food on a high pantry shelf or in the back of my own closet, I would frequently visit my stash throughout the following days. I remember the feeling of reaching my hand up into the closet, feeling under winter sweaters for the ever shrinking bag of M&M’s. If someone walked in while I was stuffing my face with candy, I’d turn away from them and pretend like I was just walking through the room instead of standing in front of the closet or pantry eating.

Occasionally John would find my stash while looking for something and would ask where the food came from. I’d take a step back and try to appear casual as I lied. I would tell him something like, “Oh, I bought that bag months ago for the birthday party. Good you found it so it doesn’t go bad.” He would just nod briefly and walk away. He told me later that he knew I was lying but did not want me to feel bad, so he did not confront me.

As for me, I would think about that candy he had discovered and worry that he would get that bag and eat some of my candy. Sad, isn’t it?

Even more sad, perhaps, was the fact that I even watched the food at dinner time. I always hoped that there would be enough for me to have seconds or thirds after everyone went to bed, and was a little disappointed if there were no leftovers.

When I finally got to the point where I was tired of living like that, I made a 180 degree turn.

I stopped buying junk food for me or anyone else at the grocery store.

All food in the house was in the pantry, freely seen, and freely accessed by everyone.

At dinner, I stopped worrying about what I would eat after dinner and instead stayed in the moment and enjoyed the meal.

If you are reading this and have experienced these types of feelings or done some of these things, know that you are not alone. Countless men and women have told me their own stories of similar feelings and behavior. When someone asks me what to do about feeling possessive of food or hiding food, I tell them that although it is hard, it is possible to change and eliminate this habit.

I changed this bad habit by finally putting food in its proper place in my life. Food wasn’t for soothing feelings, relieving stress, or as a companion when I was bored. Instead I tried to look at food as a joyous part of a full life. This took a lot of effort and diligence and did not come overnight.

As I changed my attitude toward food I saw many positive changes in my life, and you will too.

Have you ever felt possessive about food or been tempted to eat in secret? Diane 

<p>Image courtesy of Ambro <a href=”http://www.freedigitalphotos.net” target=”_blank”>FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>

Weight loss is one area of our lives where reasons and excuses often collide.

A reason for doing something or not doing something can easily morph into an excuse. Let’s look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of both terms.

Reason: A statement offered in explanation or justification.

Excuse: To make apology for or to try to remove blame from.

I am sure you see this all the time in your life when talking to coworkers, friends, and probably even family members. I know I often use excuses as reasons for not getting something accomplished or when I try to explain why I failed at a project or goal.

Kids use excuses, adults use excuses, and if my dog could talk, she would probably use excuses too. Because let’s face it, there is no reason for her to have chewed on the chair leg when her bone was laying right next to her.

Here are some reasons you may give someone if they ask you what problems you are facing with your weight loss journey:

My program does not seem to be working.

My weight loss plan is too hard to follow.

I cannot find time to exercise. 

The scale is not moving as fast as I want.

The scale is not moving at all.

My family is not supportive.

I think I am sabotaging myself. 

I live with a food pusher.

Healthy food is too expensive. 

Exercise makes me tired.

I don’t know how to cook. 

There are many seemingly valid “reasons” you could give for your lack of weight loss progress. Believe me, I used all of these listed above and more. I always had a reason at the ready if a friend actually cared enough to ask me how things were going. Sometimes I said them with a straight face and other times I hemmed and hawed about my lack of progress knowing full well that I was making excuses and not giving valid reasons for yet another diet failure.

In the world of weight loss, reasons often collide with excuses and the result isn’t often pretty. My reasons that were really excuses did nothing to help me move forward on my journey and did everything toward moving me away from my goals and objectives I repeated the excuses to myself so often that I began to believe them.

For example, because I repeatedly said that I did not have time to exercise, and over time, I really began to believe that I did not have time. Well, guess what? When I finally got serious about my weight loss and identified that reason as nothing more than an excuse, I did have the time to exercise even though I had three small children aged six, three, and 4 months at the time.

One thing that was very different during my last weight loss attempt was that I correctly identified excuses for what they were. Most times they were not a justifiable reason for my lack of progress, but rather just a simple, old-fashioned excuse. By identifying those excuses as such, I then worked hard to overcome the excuse in order to keep moving forward.

You may be asking yourself if there are ever valid reasons for lack of progress in weight loss. Well, of course there are. Your job is to separate the reasons from the excuses and overcome them one by one. Additionally, even if you have a valid reason for having problems with losing weight, there are usually ways around those valid reasons as well. It sometimes takes creativity to fix the problem, but you can usually find a way if you really want to. You have to want it and be willing to work for it.

Have you ever found yourself making excuses and passing them off as reasons like I did? How do you recommend others identify and overcome this tendency?  Diane 

Image courtesy of Zuzzillo FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Facebook friend of mine shared the following with me and asked me whether or not I thought it would make an interesting discussion on the blog. I definitely thought it was worth opening up the discussion. Here is part of the comment:

… It makes one wonder to what degree employers judge potential new employees on body image. I have an overweight friend who dreads job interviews. He is an engineer, his resume is stellar; but when he arrives at the interview, he can tell by the way they look at him that he probably won’t get the job. Not hiring someone based on weight is shallow at best and discriminatory at worst. But a lot of employers don’t want to take the risk of hiring someone who may have major health problems down the road or may not have the energy to, as is printed on most applications…..”fulfill the duties required without special conditions.”

I know firsthand that people do have a hard time separating abilities from appearance. I saw it in my own life and have seen it happen to overweight friends of mine. I have even seen it from the business side with business owner acquaintances who have shared that “I try not to hire overweight people because they are lazy and often absent from work.” (These acquaintances usually do not know my weight loss story.)

There was a small study published in the International Journal of Obesity that asked potential employers to evaluate the likelihood that they would hire women based on their resumes and pictures. The catch was that the pictures showed six different women before and after they had weight loss surgery. In every case the study showed that the obese candidates “received more negative responses on leadership potential, predicted success, likelihood to select, salary, total employment rating and rank order of preference relative to other candidates.”

I am not surprised. The discrimination of the obese is hard to quantify and likely hard to prove. And, in the eyes of the law, obesity is not a protected class. While it is unacceptable to discriminate against people for race, religion, etc., it is often still acceptable to make fun of, and yes, discriminate against people who are obese.

I think part of the reason that employers and other people tend to discriminate against obese people comes from the common stereotypes associated with people who struggle with their weight. I wasn’t lazy, but I suspect people thought I was. I was still as intelligent as I was before I gained 150 pounds, but I wonder if people still saw me as intelligent once I weighed more than a football player. I didn’t have medical problems associated with my obesity, but I can see an employer assuming that I would cost them more in terms of medical payments and fees.

I don’t think that discrimination is right in any form. It hurt my feelings when I saw people treating me differently than they did before I gained weight, and I suspect I would have had a harder time finding a job as an obese, 300+ pound person than I would have as a regular-sized 150 pound woman.

Have you seen discrimination against an obese person or been a victim? Diane

 Image courtesy of Stuart Miles FreeDigitalPhotos.net

John and I might go out for our anniversary, a grandparent might be in town and take the whole family out to dinner a couple times a year, and we sometimes remember to dress up like cows for Cow-Appreciation-Day at Chick fil-A and get a free meal.

Part of the reason we rarely eat out has to do with money, because it is very expensive to eat out, but the primary reason we do not go out to eat is because of health. There are very few restaurants in our area that serve healthy food. We have one or two local restaurants, tons of chain restaurants, and no restaurants that cater to people wanting to have fresh, healthy food that isn’t full of unhealthy fats, chemicals, and sodium. So we skip the restaurant meals and I cook 362+ nights a year.

While I normally plan my meals in advance, there are times like last week where I had to take three kids to the doctor on two different days, stand in the line at the pharmacy forever, and got home later than I expected. I still didn’t swing by a restaurant though, because I knew I could put a healthy meal on the table in no time flat.

Here’s the funny part. On my way home from the pharmacy, I decided to make stir-fry vegetables over quinoa because that was fast and filling. I already had applesauce muffins that I made the day before, and we had salad greens. All good – right?

I got home, grabbed the quinoa from the container, rinsed it, and set it on the stove to cook. In the meantime, I quickly sliced vegetables and threw them in the pan to cook.

The quinoa looked a little weird. Kinda whiteish on the top and the water was milky. “Well,” I thought to myself, “I probably mismeasured the water/quinoa ratio.” I kept looking at the quinoa, gave it a few stirs, turned up the heat, stirred it again. Hmmm. Still didn’t look quite right but the veggies were done, the salad was washed, the table was set, and eight people were in the kitchen ready to eat.

So, I dished out some quinoa on the first person’s plate. It was soupy. No problem, I threw it back into the quinoa pot, rinsed the whole thing under hot water until it looked more “right” and dished some out onto each person’s plate. I then added the vegetables. Here is what it looked like.

Looks pretty good – right?

Well, we ate dinner and I thought the quinoa tasted different but I was in a hurry, a bit frazzled from the whole cooking experience, and just ate it up. So did everyone else. Toward the end of the meal my oldest son looked at me and said, “Mom, are you sure this is quinoa?”

I said, “Yeah, it’s the organic quinoa I got from our bulk foods co-op.”

He said, “Are you sure it isn’ t steel cut oats?” I looked at my plate again and started to laugh. Sure enough, he was right. I had grabbed the plastic bag that was nestled inside the quinoa container thinking it was full of quinoa, but no, it was steel cut oats. On the right hand side is steel cut oats and on the left, quinoa.

No wonder the cooked product looked soupy and milky. I cooked steel cut oats instead of quinoa and then put vegetables on it. I laughed so hard I cried and all the family laughed too. We dubbed the new dish Oat-WAA and I promised I would never make it again.

My husband said, “Well, it tasted different but you are always serving us different stuff so I figured it was good for me and just ate it.” That’s a good sport for you. 

I learned that my family is used to getting served strange looking, healthy food. I learned to check my grains twice before cooking them. And I learned that cooked, rinsed, steel cut oats aren’t terrible as a base for vegetables.

Have you ever had a funny kitchen mishap? How did it turn out? Diane

A month, a year, five years? A week, two weeks, 12 weeks?

The answer is very dependent on your personal situation isn’t it? But there is one thing that we all must remember when losing weight. We have to remember that it is not about the time it takes and it is not about whether or not we win a bet for losing weight. The weight loss process is about you getting healthy, you feeling good about yourself, and you staying at a healthy weight forever.

In fact, I’m talking about the “P” word. That dreaded word many of us despise: Patience. Ugh.

I’m over at the Attune blog today talking about this very topic: How long it should take and why we are in such a hurry to get to the end. Please come on over and join me there as I think you will find the post very interesting and hopefully get you thinking about timing, patience, and weight loss.

Comments are closed here but open at Attune.  I look forward to seeing you there! Diane

Disclosure: I am a Brand Ambassador for Attune Foods, love their products and whole foods philosophy, and all the opinions expressed are my own. 

I was reading an article about budgeting because I am always looking for ways to save money. One of the people who commented on the article said she was an “entitled spender.” I finished reading all the comments and then thought about that phrase.

I realized that I was an entitled eater.

Of course, we are all entitled to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and in whatever quantities we want. I took that right to eat one step further. I felt entitled to eat junk food because I deserved it, I needed it, I had a right to it.

And I did, in theory. However, what I did not stop to consider at the time, was whether those feelings of “I deserve it” were helping me long-term or just satisfying a current craving. Looking back, those feelings were only satisfying the moment rather than helping me prepare for the future.

Eating Cheetos by the bag or candy bars all day long temporarily satisfied my feeling of “I deserve it” but left me feeling guilty, feeling sick to my stomach, and left me feeling like I would never reach my goals.

I was satisfying the now without considering how those choices would affect my future.

My attitude of entitled eating when I was morbidly obese negatively affected my future. I spent 10 years as an obese woman. I missed out on activities I could have participated in had I been at a healthy weight, I socially isolated myself on occasion, and I am left with physical reminders in the form of loose skin from my eventual weight loss.

Fortunately I did make the shift from being an entitled eater or an “I deserve it” eater who did not consider what affect my food choices would have on my future, to a person who finally realized that what I ate then did affect my future.

It all came down to choices and feelings. I felt like I wanted and deserved junk food, more fried chicken, or a third biscuit, but I choose to make a different choice in order to positively affect my future. Making poor choices time after time left me feeling defeated, but when I started making good choices most of the time, I started feeling like I was finally on a path toward a healthy future.

We are all entitled eaters because we all deserve food. And, I encourage you to shift your thinking from “I deserve this unhealthy food” to “I deserve to make the best food choices I can” because you are worth it. You are worth it. Your future is worth it. Your family’s future is worth it.

We can satisfy the now with junk and negatively affect our future health and life, or we can satisfy the now with good food and positively affect our lives.

Making this shift from thinking mainly about how the food was making me feel at the moment to thinking about how food was affecting my future really helped me stick with my diet and lose half my body weight. This way of thinking has also helped me maintain that weight loss for over 15 years.

What do you think? Have you ever gotten stuck in the “I deserve junk food” cycle? Diane