A suggestion: being successful at losing weight depends on finding your “G-Force.” I’ve borrowed the term from physics where g-force is “a measure of acceleration felt as weight.” But when it comes to dieting, G-Force is something personal that accelerates your loss of weight.
For some, their G-Force is the Gym, their Goal, or God. For others it’s a Group such as Weight Watchers, other Guys, or Girlfriends. My G-Forces are the Garden and Gratitude, with a touch of Google…more about the gratitude and Google parts in a future posts.
There is the obvious: gardening takes you outside and gets you moving. I read once that an average hour gardening burns the same amount of calories as an hour in the gym. Pulling those weeds, pushing a wheelbarrow, and filling pots with soil are effective weight bearing and aerobic exercise. But gardening is a weight loss motivator well beyond a good workout.
Growing your own vegetables is a perfect dieting aide simply because the produce tastes better. Fresh tastes best! Broccoli, cucumbers, or green beans that have been picked shortly before you eat them have so much more flavor than produce that was harvest a week or more being placed on the table.
If vegetables taste better, you’re more likely to eat more of them, so you fill up on fewer calories. Because you’ve raised this food yourself it “fills you up” in other ways as well. You have the satisfaction of a job well done, of providing well for yourself and your loved ones, and for making healthy choices.
Studies show what gardeners have long known: gardens awaken the senses and support healthy lifestyles. They disclose that vegetable gardeners are more likely than the general public to eat a wide array of fresh produce. When the plants in our gardens are bearing fruit we’re often challenged to use it all up! Such an abundance of riches leads to a better diet.
When it comes to changing habits, trying new behaviors and working toward a goal, everyone needs to find their own support system and motivators. What will your G-Force be? And no, it doesn’t have to start with the letter “G”.
Cooking every day,
C.L.
Every Monday at Coffee for Roses is a mish-mash of lifestyle posts. We explore how plants and gardens connect to everything else that we care about in life. Recently, C.L. has been posting about how she lost forty pounds on what she calls the Gardens and Gratitude Diet.