Hey guys!!

I'm an Indian (from India not Native American) and a lot of my meals consist of indian food which means a lot of rice and curries. I'm trying my best to measure the amount of rice and eating more curries (because of the vegetables) but I don't feel like I'm losing any weight. I am eating a lot less than I used to an exercising at least 4 times a weeek.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what can do? By the way I am pretty much a vegitarian except that I eat eggs, milk and cheese occasionally.

I find journaling on paper easier than online because I don't have my computer with me at all times. After my success in the first week of journaling for everyone to see, I decided to buy the checkbook-sized 16-week journal from WW that I can carry with me. Now if I could only figure out how to stay under points on a regular basis I'd be all set.

Hi Sherry57,

I used fitday.com for a couple of weeks. It can be a little tedious but I found it really helpful. It was one of the things that really helped my veg consumption. It was kind of amazing to see what one carrot did to my vit A numbers.

The free one on fitday.com didn't have a emotional graph. That would be interesting...

I don't use it very much anymore as it is a little time consuming. I've gotten resentful about food journals and measuring food in the past. I'm not sure why this time is different. I still measure my food. I thought that I would get resentful about measuring out oatmeal, etc, etc. I just sort of think of it as a recipe for a healthy body.

I do a big cooking job on Monday. I do enough tasting on Monday, I usually don't have a snack.

Denise

GoingSkiing when I realized just how much I was eating tasting while cooking and cleaning up after I fell into not sitting down and eating at the meal.
Somehow I don't think that was the right route to take

Well I must say I am pleasantly suprised to see the fitday mentioned here.
I am on dialup and hate being able to do something only on net, so since it was within my budget I downloaded the program.
It took a lot of customizing for the particular foods I eat and then some due dilligence keeping the log but it pointed out to me some things that I wasn't aware of.
And I havn't even used the diary or emotional graphs just the calories in and calories out.

Whether you use a program or do it on paper keep a food diary and if possible an excersise diary.
Putting it on paper or computer screen takes out so much of the guesswork.

Well I'm going to try the food diary and I will post it soon. Maybe I am eating too many calories...we shall soon see!!

Thanks for the advice...As for where I am getting my protein I don't really know. I have milk with cereal, sometimes I'll have string cheese as a snack but I don't really eat a lot of legumes maybe dal once or twice a week...maybe I'm not having enough protein

And Fer..I will definitely share some of my favorites...I'm working on getting my grad school applications in and as soon as I'm done with that I'll post away

It just occured to me. A lot of us have found that we don't lose weight because of the snacks, bites, tastes, nibbles, etc. BETWEEN meals.

Some of us taste too much while cooking. Some of us finish the food on childrens' or other family members plates. At the end of the day, we don't even remember eating it.

Maybe somebody all ready suggested this - but a food diary for 3+ days can really help. It can also be helpful to measure food for 3 days. Measure out 3/4 cup of cooked rice and 1 cup of curry.

PS I think that lite olive oil refers to the color and it has the same cals as other oils.

Hope this helps

Denise

I tend to stay away from extreme diets, I think moderation is most things is a good plan. I try to eat most of my meals as 1 part concentrated protein(or less) and 2-3 parts veggies, and 1-2 parts starches. If your starches are whole grain, they are much more filling, more fibre, more protein, more complete. The brown basmati rice is pretty good, espeically if you toast it a little in a dry pan before you fix it like you normally would.
I don't believe that most people need to elminate carbs like seems to be the trend now.
Good luck. I hope you like it here.
Nisha


Do you think I'm eating too many carbs? I sometimes have rice twice a day[/QUOTE]

Hello, anu!

I would doubt that you are eating too many carbs, just perhaps too many calories!

I love Indian food, but I tend to reserve it for special occasions because so much of the cooking uses a lot of oil or ghee to toast the spices, which can really increase the calories in the meal. Have you tried cutting the amount of oil you use in half, or toasting your spices in a nonstick pan without the oil?

If you don't eat tofu or paneer, where are you getting your protein? If it's from yogurt, make sure you use the fat free or low fat kinds. If it's from eggs, try using fewer whole eggs and more egg whites (one egg is 70 calories, whereas one egg white is 17). Beans are also a good source of protein, but you should combine them with a grain to get a compelte protein (or have the rules for that been changed again?).

It is possible to loose weight on a vegetarian high-carb low-fat diet. I've lost 50 pounds and counting. I eat rice at least once a week, and carbs at every meal.

alli

My favorite Weight Watchers leader (she was a bit of a smart alec) used to poll new people like this:

"How many of you are here because you eat too many apples or too much rice?"

I don't think anyone ever raised their hand

A food diary is probably going to work best. . .as you eat things, write down how much, if there are a lot of ingredients, jot down as many as you can (or if it's a canned sauce, write that down). Put as much on your plate as you normally would, then measure it to get an accurate idea of how much you eat. Just a couple of days would be helpful, and you can use the "What's For Dinner?" thread to post in if you don't want to write it down

(Edit: Doh! Or use Fitday, as Jen suggested!)

Sometimes it's easier for other people to see where you can add whatever's missing. And since so many of the great people here are used to finding healthy, yummy substitutes, there's probably a lot of help in that arena available, too.

D

Anu -
I don't see anything wrong with eating rice twice a day. Perhaps you could make one of those brown rice instead of white. Trader Joe's makes a very tasty brown basmati.

Vegetarians can be very healthy on high carbohydrate, low fat diets. As long as you are eating lentils, chickpeas and other legumes frequently, I don't think you're shorting yourself on protein. One of the Indian restaurants here makes a textured vegetable protein dish (not sure what the name was, but I saw the package in the Indian market) that starts by rehydrating the TVP. Thats high in protein, but has more a of a meaty texture that people not fond of tofu like.

I would love it if you shared some of your recipes with us. I have two vegetarian Indian cookbooks, but the recipes have not come out tasting authentic.

If you go to Fitday.com you can enter all your food for an entire day and see how many calories you're getting.

Maybe take a look at your calorie expenditure too -- see if you can add some extra activity to your days.

I don't use a lot of ghee in my cooking...in fact I use lite olive oil instead and not even a lot of that. I unfortunately hate tofu, I don't even like paneer which is kind of similar. And I don't use any coconut milk in my cooking.

Do you think I'm eating too many carbs? I sometimes have rice twice a day

Yes some additional protein might be needed. Can you add some diced tofu to your curries? Perhaps some cashews too?

Also, if you use coconut milk in it, there's a load of fat in it. I think they sell a light version now. Or perhaps up the yoghurt portion.

Welcome!

I love Indian food and make some of it myself. I agree with Denise, you can cut down on the ghee or oil in the recipe and still get great tasting food, while cutting the calories and fat content.

Also, and this may be difficult for you since you are so used to white rice, but you may try switching to brown basmati rice, at least for some of the meals. That will give you some extra fiber and nutrients.

Dawn

Welcome

You say you're eating a lot less and exercising 4 times a week--are you eating enough? Lots of vegetables and rice certainly seems healthy enough, but I'd take a look and see if you're getting 1200+ calories a day. Are you eating breakfast? Any snacks? Or just big lunch & dinners? Are you getting fruit?

A food diary (with amounts & ingredients, if you can) might be really helpful for a week or so.

D

Hi,
I live in Fremont, CA and we have a really large Indian population here.

Do you use a lot of Ghee? Curries, dals, etc are usually really healthy if you don't use too much ghee.

Portion control usually does the trick. We have some really good Indian restaurants here and the food is so good that it is hard not to want seconds!

Hang in there and WELCOME!

Denise