Mrs. Illinois Diet
“And
the rest,” as they say, “is history!”
However,
since so many of you who have seen the video, An Etiquette Afternoon, have asked me to either write that booklet
on my Mrs. Illinois diet and exercise plan or to at least divulge what I did to
get in shape, I have decided to tell my secrets!
Six
weeks before the beauty contest, I received a letter telling me that I had been
accepted as a candidate! The first
thing I did after getting this letter was to sit down and laugh!! I had entered the contest for free publicity
for my business as an image consultant, as I have said, but on the application
I had to declare my age and send proof
of it in the form of a copy of my birth certificate. Since I was 53 years old at the time, I really did not think that
they would consider me as a candidate.
After
I got over my giggling spell, I sobered up and decided that the owners of the
pageant probably accepted everyone
who wanted to enter it. I also decided
that even though I was entering a bathing
suit contest at the age of 53, I did
not want anyone to laugh at me! I would
NOT embarrass myself on stage in a bathing suit by looking fat or out of
shape!!!
After
getting the OK from my husband, two sons and daughters-in-law to go ahead and
do this crazy thing, I started preparing my body for the competition. First, I weighed and measured myself and
recorded the results in a little notebook. This is a very important thing to do when starting a diet! You need to know your starting point so you
can tell if you have made any progress.
The best way to get an accurate weight is to weigh yourself on a good scale and at the same time each day. I prefer to weigh myself in the morning before I have had anything to eat or drink. I found that I usually weigh two pounds less in the morning than I do right before I go to bed at night.
Even
though I know that the two fewer pounds are only because of water loss and not
eating while sleeping, weighing those two less pounds serves as a psychological
boost to me. Weighing myself in the
morning also produces the most consistent control
for determining my correct weight.
Then,
I decided that in order to lose some weight I would eat only 1200 calories per
day. I wasn’t really overweight when I
started preparing for the contest, but I felt that if I got a little slimmer
and more trimmed up, I would look better, especially in a bathing suit.
To
be sure that I ate only 1200 calories, I recorded all my food and the
corresponding calories in a little notebook.
I soon discovered that 1200 calories were just not enough for me,
especially since this was gardening season and I am an avid gardener! I increased my calorie intake to 1500
calories so that I wouldn’t be passing out or getting headaches during the day.
Because
I was a woman of 53 at the time that I was preparing for this contest and only
moderately active, in spite of the gardening, 1500 calories were enough for
me. Younger, more active men or women,
pregnant or nursing women or people with more active metabolisms would need
more calories than 1500 per day.
The
best way to find out how many calories you need is to get a chart from your
doctor that tells the calorie requirement of people at various stages of their
lives. This will give you a guideline as to how many calories you
should consume per day, but trial and error will help you determine how many
calories you will need to maintain your weight, how many to lose weight and how
many to gain weight.
Regardless
of your individual calorie requirement, the only way to lose weight is to eat
fewer calories than your body needs to maintain
your present weight. The only way to
know how many calories you consume each day is to record your calories in a
little notebook or on a piece of paper as I did everyday for six weeks. It was amazing for me to see how seemingly
little I would eat and the calorie count would be 1500.
Most
people have no idea how many calories they consume each day. They don’t feel that they eat very much but
they are overweight. If they would
start keeping tract of exactly what they eat, they would see that they are
consuming much more food than they think they are. Recording your food intake also makes you very aware of exactly what foods you are eating. Many of us think that we eat healthy, well
balanced diets, but when we actually write down what we eat, the results can
tell us otherwise.
Eating
a well balanced diet is a very
important factor in maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy body! If you don’t know what a well balanced diet
consists of, see a nutritionist. I was
fortunate that I had had nutrition courses as part of my college education so I
knew that I needed a combination of protein, carbohydrates, dairy products,
fruits and vegetables in my diet.
By
recording all the foods that I ate each day, I could be sure to eat foods from
all of the food groups. In addition to
eating the right foods each day, I took a multi-vitamin pill daily just to be
sure that my nutritional needs were met while I was dieting.
I
also attempted to drink between six to eight glasses of water each day. I found that by flavoring my water with
freshly squeezed lemon juice, the water tasted better and was easier to
consume. The lemon is supposed to help
break down fat also. I don’t know if
this is true or not, but I know that it did help flavor the water and made it
easier for me to drink this quantity.
Water
should be a part of your diet not just when you are trying to lose weight but
throughout your lifetime. Water helps
carry the impurities out of the body and helps conduct the electrodes in your
brain.
Alcohol,
caffeine whether in coffee or soft drinks, and salt cause water retention in
your body. To eliminate the retained
fluid caused by the consumption of these foods, drink more water. This advice sounds like the wrong thing to
do to correct this problem, but it is actually the right solution because the
water will dilute the chemicals that cause the water retention and help flush
them and the retained water out of your body.
Some
people think that if they drink diet
drinks while trying to lose weight that this will help them stick to their
diets because these drinks have very few calories, taste good and fill the gap
in one’s tummy caused by eating less.
Ironically, these so-called diet
drinks contain chemicals that cause the body to bloat and retain water! Trust me, there is no better beverage for a
dieter or anyone else to drink than pure, unadulterated water!! Flavor it with
lemon or lime if that will help get it down, but drink it, lots of it!
When
I started my diet, I weighed 134 lbs.
Six weeks later, my weight was 123 lbs.
I am 5’7-1/2” tall so neither my beginning weight nor my beauty contest
weight was outside of the normal
range for my height and bone structure.
I
wanted to lose a little weight, however, because I knew that it was very
important for my legs to look good
when I was on stage in a bathing suit.
Legs are the most important part of a woman’s body during a bathing suit
competition because that is all you can really see well on stage. Since I tend to carry more weight in my hips
and thighs, I knew that I would have to lose a little weight overall to get my
legs slim enough to look really good!
I
also knew that diet and exercise alone would not be enough for my legs to look
slender and shapely enough for this contest, so I decided to have some
liposuction on my thighs. Liposuction
is most effective if it is done on a person of normal weight who has some area
on his or her body that does not respond to weight loss or exercise.
If,
however, any of you are considering having lipo on those problem areas of your
body, proceed with caution! At the time
that I did this, which was in 1997, I was not aware of the potential risks
involved with this surgery. Fortunately,
I had an excellent doctor and I had no complications. If you are considering this surgery, however, make sure that your
doctor is certified by the American Academy of Plastic Surgeons.
There
are many doctors doing this surgery as well as other types of cosmetic surgery
who are not certified by the
Academy. Some of these doctors should
not be doing these surgeries at all for one reason or another!
There
was an article in People magazine
recently titled, Dying to be Thin. There are apparently people who are
literally dying in their attempt to
be thin and one of the ways they are attempting to be thin is by having
liposuction.
It
is very important that you go to a
doctor who is certified by the Academy!
These doctors have seven years of training in plastic surgery and have
to pass vigorous tests before they can be members of this prestigious
organization. Also, don’t be afraid to ask your doctor for references of his
patients who have had this surgery.
Call the former patients and ask them if they were happy with the
results, what is the recovery period and how much discomfort did they
experience.
I
can tell you from my own experience that the recovery period was only a couple
of weeks but that there was more pain than I had expected. I had to wear a corset that went all the way
down my legs for a few weeks and every time I stood up after having been
sitting for awhile, pain shot through my legs.
I was also badly bruised for a few weeks after the surgery. The doctor assured me that the bruising
would be completely gone by the competition and, thank God, he was right!
Remember
though, it’s better to be alive and a little overweight than to be a thin
corpse!!
A
well balanced diet of 1500 calories, plenty of water and liposuction were all part
of my plan to get into my fighting weight
for the bathing suit contest I had entered. The only other piece of the puzzle was exercise!
For
years I had worked out with a trainer on an off again/on again basis. I had used my trainer to show me the correct
ways to exercise, which is also a very
important thing to know! When I joined
a health for the first time, I did not take advantage of the trainers that the
club offered and I ended up ripping a tendon in my left shoulder! It was incredibly painful and eventually I
had to discontinue my exercise program until my tendon healed and I had to have
shots of cordizone to alleviate the pain in my shoulder.
I
called my trainer and told him about my latest adventure. He was thrilled to have the opportunity to
help a 53 year woman compete in a bathing suit contest with 30 year old
women! A few years before he had helped
a woman of about my same age compete against much younger women in a body
building contest. She placed third in the competition! He had high hopes for me to do as well in my
contest, or better, than she had done.
I love people who believe in me!
(I wasn’t that confident.)
We
worked out about three times a week once I was able to work out again after my
lipo surgery. I have a small gym in my
basement so he would come over to my home for the work out. When we first started working out together
years ago, before I had set up my own gym, he would meet me at the health club
and we would work out there.
One
of the pieces of equipment I have in my gym is a treadmill. On my own, I would spend at least a
half-hour on the treadmill to do my cardiovascular workout. My trainer provided me with a little device
that recorded my heart rate and he figured out what that should be when I am on
the treadmill to get a safe but effective workout.
It
is very important not to overdo exercise, especially if you are badly out of
shape when you begin your program!!! I
cannot over-emphasize the importance of a using a trainer who really knows what
he or she is doing to help you establish a good, healthy and most importantly,
a safe workout program.
When
my trainer would come over, we would concentrate on working out with the free
weights and machines that I have in my workout room. He would show me the proper way to do each exercise and then make
me do more than I would do on my own.
That is another good thing about a trainer, he will push you a little
more than you might push yourself to do that extra one or two reps for each
exercise.
A
trainer will also give you the exercises that are right for the look that you
want to achieve. Since I was entering a
beauty contest not a body building
contest, I wanted my body to be trim and smooth, not muscular!!!! By using lighter weights but by doing more
reps with each weight, we achieved my goals.
The
exercises for men or women who want a more muscular look or who are trying to
build up certain muscles for a sports activity are very different from those
that are for a woman who is going to be struttin’
her stuff in a bathing suit contest!
Make sure that your trainer knows what your goals are before he puts
together a workout program for you.
I
hope you feel that this article gives you some good advice and some guidelines
to help you get started in your diet and exercise program. I would also like to share with you a few tricks that I use to encourage myself to
stick to my diet.
I
love clothes and I pride myself on the fact that I can still wear all of my
clothes, even the ones I still have that I purchased 30 years ago! I do, however, occasionally put on a few
extra pounds and some of my clothes get a little snug.
I
have many occasions in my life to dress up and I always plan way ahead of time
as to what I am going to wear for a special occasion such as a Black Tie
event. I get my gowns out that I think
would be appropriate for the occasion and try each on. If a gown that I would like to wear is a
little tight, I determine how much weight I need to lose to slip into it and if
I have enough time to do it before the party.
If
I decide that I really want to wear a particular dress for an occasion and I
feel I can get myself back into shape so that I will look good in the dress in
time for the party, I go back to my Mrs. Illinois diet and exercise plan. Even if I don’t achieve my goal in time for
the party, at least by trying on the dress and realizing that it was too tight
gives me the incentive to get back on my strict diet and exercise program.
I
also like to put my goal dress someplace where I can see it to
remind myself that if I want to wear the dress, I have to stick to my regime.
The last time I did this, I actually laid my gown over one of the chairs in my
kitchen so I could see it every time I walked in and remind myself not to eat
too much. Hey, whatever works!!!
Another
dieting tip. It isn’t a lot of fun to deprive ourselves of our favorite
foods no matter how much we want to look good and be a healthy weight. I love desserts as much as the next guy, but
sweets are not and cannot be part of
my daily diet!!!
When
my husband and I go out for dinner, if there is a dessert on the menu, like
cheesecake, that I really want, I will order it. However, I will only take one or two bites of this wonderful, but
rich, dessert. I will keep the
cheesecake in my mouth for as long as I can without looking stupid and let my
taste buds really savor it before I swallow.
I know this isn’t very economical, but it is a compromise situation that
works for me. If I feel deprived, I
might overindulge later. Remember
eating a bite or two now is better than eating the whole cheesecake later!!!!
And
one final tip: If you have had a really
bad day and ate the whole cheesecake,
wake up the next morning and tell yourself, “This is the first day of the rest
of my life!” Start over with your diet
and exercise plan. None of us are
perfect and if any of us think we are, I don’t like them! Be good to yourself, forgive your weaknesses
and begin again.
And
lastly, I know that if I don’t include a sample of one of my daily diets, I
will get tons of email questions requesting one, so here goes.
Breakfast:
2
cups of coffee
with 2 T of fat free creamer 20 calories
1
cup of cereal,
usually something like Fruit and Fiber,
with ˝ cup of skimmed milk 250 calories
1
banana
105 calories
1
cup of orange juice 110 calories
Mid-morning
snack:
1
slice of whole grain bread 100 calories
1
tablespoon of apple butter 50 calories
1
serving (4 ounces) of chicken breast 110 calories
1
serving of green vegetables 150 calories
Mid-afternoon
snack:
1
pear
75 calories
Dinner:
1
serving of lasagna with meat sauce 450 calories
1
serving of tossed salad
with low calorie dressing 50
calories
˝
grapefruit 50
calories
Total
1,520 calories
You
see, it doesn’t take much food to get 1500 calories into your diet! It is best when dieting to eat small meals
several times during the day rather than to starve yourself all day and then
eat a big meal at night. If you go to bed with a really full tummy, you are
asking for weight gain! If, on the
other hand, you eat small amounts throughout the day, you will keep your
metabolism charged up and your body will burn calories more efficiently.
It
is also a good idea to do your exercising in the morning, if you can, because
that will help jump start your metabolism and keep it reved up during the
day.
If
you do your exercises in the morning, however, it is very important to wake up your body before your
begin. First, get up and have some coffee,
tea or whatever. Give your body a
chance to get used to being awake before you start your routine. Jumping out of bed and doing vigorous
exercises can cause injuries to your not-quite-awake body and it is also an
unpleasant jolt to you psychologically.
Now
for the answer to the question you are dying to know, “How did I do in the
beauty contest?” Very well!! The two goals I had set for myself which
were to get publicity for my business and to look good in a bathing suit were
achieved before the contest. As an added bonus, I also made it to the
finals in the competition! This was
something I did not expect or even dare hope for, especially after seeing the
other, much younger women! (The judges
probably felt sorry for me.)
All
in all, I had a great experience and was quite happy that I had participated in
the Mrs. Illinois pageant. Two years
later, in April 1999, I was asked to be a judge for the contest. I accepted the invitation and discovered how
hard it is to judge a beauty pageant,
especially with so many beautiful and poised women competing.
The
really unexpected result of this
pageant, however, was my becoming an Etiquette Consultant. The Master of Ceremonies’ question to me
during the final round of competition, which was, “What is the etiquette at a
McDonald’s restaurant?” inspired me to write my booklet on dining and start it
by giving etiquette tips for eating at a fast food restaurant.
“And
finally, the rest really is history!”
If you have any questions about my Mrs. Illinois diet or exercise plan that I have not answered in this article, you may email your question to:
Happy
Dieting!!!