The Natural Diet

It's okay to celebrate with food, but I don't think it's as healthy to reward or comfort with food.

That's my deep thought of the day. I watched "FedUp" last week and, being the take-action type of person I am, I decided to stop eating sugar. Completely. Well, with the exception of going out to eat because I'm not going to ask what is in every single dish and I eat out about once a week anyhow. When I go out to eat, I still try to make conscientious choices, for example having a savoury breakfast rather than waffles or pancakes.

I'm very curious to see whether it will make a significant difference in my overall weight, abdominal weight, and mental clarity. It's just been 11 days and in all honesty, I haven't noticed anything different. I'm committed to try it for a month, though. Learning about how sugar is in everything (and believe me, once you start reading labels, it is!) and how sugar affects insulin resistance, made me very interested in taking back the control that sugar seems to have taken over my life.

Well, let me rephrase something I said earlier, though. I think I am experiencing fewer cravings and my sense of sweet is heightened. For example, I had applesauce on my bread this evening and it tasted rather sweet to me even though it was unsweetened. The natural sweetness was enough to satisfy my need for a different taste than savoury.

My biggest challenge in all of this is finding substitutes. First, because I'm not eating sugar or anything with sugar, the natural replacement is fat. Ie. if I don't have jam on my bread, I'll eat peanut butter and margarine, probably not the best idea. Then I'm a bit frustrated because I'm a big bread eater and I'm tired of eating sandwiches with tahini and vegenaise. I want variety! I'm a sanguine! I think I'll have to just get creative and make bean dips and fruit sauces. If I experiment a little til I find what I like, it should get easier. I think what's so funny is that I'm getting frustrated because a handful of foods are being taken away, when in reality I have a huge variety of fruits, nuts, grains, and vegetables to choose from!

My go-to right meals that are keeping me from going crazy right now are breakfast bars with dried apricots, dates, applesauce, trail mix, and unsweetened soymilk all mixed up and baked in the oven, and quinoa salad. Quinoa is probably high in calories and I'm still trying to get my emotional satiety buttons to recognize that when I have a bowl of quinoa salad, that is a meal and not a starter! But I mix up a huge bowl of that and it lasts me throughout the week. Another fun way to eat quinoa is with chickpeas, sweet corn, and green salsa.

The reason for this post, other than that I realized it's been far too long yet again between posts, is that I stepped on the scales this morning and it was not a good day. I resolved that I need to do something conscientiously and intentional to make a difference in that number, so I'm going to do so. I have a lot of excuses, I'm busy with work and studies, could be due to metabolism, etc. ad nauseum. But I think a lot of times we create our own destiny by the words we speak and we can speak truth or we can speak falsehood. I want to learn how to speak more truth so my actions will follow.

Lagging

So today wasn't the best of days. Ate a Twix bar, an Aussie bite, a microwave chocolate souffle, 2 waffles with maple syrup and margarine, and a piece of basboussa. In addition to 2 regular meals. Walked just over 4,000 steps. Yep, it wasn't the best of days. I haven't mentally calculated all the calories, but I'm pretty sure it's more than my daily allotment of 1,500!

So what to do when a day like this happens? First of all, my stomach is feeling pretty miserable and I had to leave a couple bites of the souffle in the bowl because I would be sick if I ate anymore. I'm thankful for that, strange as it may seem. Second, I realized that I ate this evening because I am programmed to eat when I watch any kind of cooking show (Top Chef Just Desserts was my downfall) and I wasn't hungry. So my 3.5 weeks of going to bed with a growling stomach was worth it to finally have an evening when I wasn't hungry. Of course I defeated the purpose by eating. . .but that's besides the point. And finally, I know it's a hassle but I'm going back to counting my daily grams of fiber. When you know something works, wisdom dictates that you continue to do whatever it happens to be. I was discouraged when I first started my high fiber diet because it didn't seem to be effective. Until several days in, when the weight started dropping and didn't stop. When I quit being conscientious about the fiber intake, though, the weight stabilized and then began to creep back up.

I want, no I need, to lose the weight for good. My goal in all of this is to learn how to eat healthily so that when there are days that I can't exercise, my body will still be happy because I will be giving it fuel rather than clogging it up.

So tomorrow is the first of September and my goal is to lose 5 pounds this month. I think it's possible and I plan to achieve my goal. If I can do so, I'll be that much closer to my goal weight and I'll be able to fit more comfortably into my clothes. I have the cutest red dress sitting in my closet waiting to be matched with a pair of red heels and a slimming black belt. Just a few more pounds and this 34-year old woman will be steppin' out in style!

Step by Step

So after the summer, and all the traveling that goes along with that (yes, I'm still figuring out how to eat healthy while traveling, not so big on packing my own snacks and dried noodles and things), I have decided I need to work on the weight loss again.

I'm pleased to report that 3 weeks later I've lost my first 6 pounds! Super awesome!!!

Yep, like most people, after I lost about 20 pounds a couple of years ago, I went through my usual high-stress time and put on half of that and then a couple more. It was hard, my fun new clothes didn't fit anymore, I felt bad about my weight, and I attributed a whole lot of disappointments to those extra pounds. Then, with a bit of incentive outside of myself, I decided I was going to work on this weight loss seriously.

It's not easy. That's the first thing I always need to remind myself. It's soooo easy to put on the weight. Skip exercise, eat high-calorie low-nutrient foods, skimp on sleep, and load up on the stress. It's not so easy to lose the weight, even when you reverse the trend. Here are a few things I've been doing that have helped me in the last 3 weeks:

• Get regular sleep
• No food after 7 pm
• Drink at least 2 liters of water a day
• Keep a fiber log
• Make exercise manageable

I love sleeping but I'm a night owl and I need to wake up early to get my exercise in before work. That combination does not work well. This week I'm making a deliberate effort to turn off my laptop as close to 9 pm as possible and start winding down. I read a little, write a little, and do a Sudoku puzzle before I sleep.

My rule isn't hard and fast, but I do my best to eat supper around 6 pm so it has time to digest before I go to sleep. I find that I sleep deeper when I eat earlier.

If it's hard to drink 2 liters, try a tall glass as soon as you wake up, another glass after you exercise, and then keep a water bottle with you and drink from that throughout the day. I usually have 1.5 liters in by lunch and then work on the rest in the afternoon. Staying hydrated keeps the cravings down.

I found a blog online that gave detailed steps on how to keep a fiber log using myfitnesspal.com. I faithfully tracked my fiber for about a week (being sanguine it's hard to justify more time than that!) and was very surprised to learn where the fiber was: in beans. Yep, the humble bean, no matter which form (though black beans are extra high in fiber) is perfect for keeping the blood sugars stable. I aim for a cup a day. The perfect snack is half a cup of beans with salsa poured over it! Low calorie/high fiber and tasty too.

Exercise is my nemesis because right now I'm limited to a cement road as I'm rather stingy and don't want to shell out the $50+ a month to join a gym that I would have to drive 15 minutes to get to. I have decided to cut back from an hour, though, to half an hour because I think that is more reasonable for my lifestyle. I'm using exercise at this point to jolt the weight loss, but not as the primary means. My goal is to understand how to eat right so I don't have to rely on excessive amounts of exercise to stay at a healthy weight.

Yes, I have gone to bed with a very empty stomach that hurts and grumbles and growls at me. I'm hoping that goes away soon. Yes, I've craved sweets and chocolates and all things fried and tasty. I had half a Twix and the rest is sitting in the freezer. I bought dark chocolate Hershey kisses and mini York peppermint patties. Those are in the fridge for the day I know I'll need a little pick-me-up. Yes, I don't always feel like exercising so I skip a morning here and there.

What keeps me motivated this time? I think it's because I need to prove to myself that it can be done, at home, with simple ingredients and not a lot of hassle or expensive equipment. I need to learn persistence in this area so I can be consistently persistent in other areas of my life. I also want to write a book one day about healthy living and loving the journey you're on. So that's what keeps me going.

For Tonight

Tonight I chose to have a salad for supper. I was quite pleased with the calorie count, ~275 calories for a huge glass bowlful. Then I treated myself to 2 rice cakes with peanut butter and honey. It's a couple hours later and I'm not physically hungry but I want to eat. Yep, I'm a stress-eater. I think being a stress-eater is a cruel and unusual punishment! We have to eat to survive, but then when we crave the carbs and the sugars we can't have them, or at least we shouldn't, and then the message we send to our brain is: "You're being deprived of (chips, cheese, chocolate, cookies) which is causing you stress and on top of that, I'll deprive you of your favourite foods." Yep, not too pleasant. I learned something this afternoon, though, in my communications class. I learned that the brain doesn't accept negatives. In other words, you can't tell it to "not think of the little red monkey" because then it will. So when it comes to taking away favourite foods that may not be the healthiest, to say, "You can't eat (chips, cheese, chocolate, cookies)" is not going to register but rather trigger an even stronger desire for those things. I think the purpose is to refocus our desires so we can say, "You can eat a salad with chickpeas and guacamole for supper" and retrain our taste buds so they are pleased with our choices. I'm thinking this analogy may apply to other areas in life too.

Here's the part for honesty: the weight went up. If I step on the scales just once a week, I tend to cheat on my daily calories. If I step on the scales every day, I tend to get stressed out when the weight does go up for various reasons (dehydrated, too much salt, eating out one meal). Either way, I end up being frustrated and tend to want to give up. Unfortunately this time I can't. I've been here before, and sometimes I plowed on through and other times I returned to old eating habits. I like to think each time I find myself at the crossroads I'm a little healthier than I was before. Tonight I made a healthy choice and instead of reaching for a bag of vegan gummy bears, I blogged and reminded myself that a moment of enjoyment would likely mean a week of misery as I'm battling a sore throat right now. Here's to tomorrow and the endurance to make more healthy choices. . .

Late Night Munchies

So here's what works

• 500 calorie meals
• 1 hour exercise daily (every single day. . .)
• 3 servings of fruits and/or vegetables at each meal

Here's what I don't have to do

• Restrict favourite foods
• Eat oil-free, sugar-free, gluten-free
• Eat before 6 pm
• Stop eating out

It worked last time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's working again this time! The one exception is that last time I was following a pre-diabetic meal plan and I did eliminate sugar and oil, but I wasn't counting calories then. I'll admit, counting calories is tedious. Every meal, I have to run to my computer and pull up www.caloriecount.com and type in the food items so I can get an estimate of how much is on my plate. The really neat thing is that caloriecount has a recipe calculator, where you enter in the recipe's ingredients, and it will calculate the nutritional facts and total calories for you.

The exciting part is that I dropped 2.4 lbs in one week! I began this journey by calculating my BMI and BMR and calorie intake and learned that I need about 2,500 calories daily to maintain my weight if I exercise 3-5 times a week. My goal is to exercise 7 times a week and shave 1,000 calories daily so I will guarantee a 2-lb consistent weight loss and have a slight buffer for the birthdays, special occasions, and meals out with friends.

Ah yes, and late night munchies. When I'm craving a snack or something sweet, or I just can't face another apple, my new go-to is dried fruit. About 10 apricots is just a 110-calorie serving so I can enjoy something fun and still feel healthy. For breakfast yesterday, since 9 am was too early to eat, I threw dates, almonds, and apricots into a tupperware, grabbed a tangelo, and was on my way. The 500-calorie "trail mix" kept me full til lunch!

I've also found I can get in one of my veggie servings by boiling down 3 cups of raw spinach into about a 1/2 cup. It takes all of 3 minutes, tastes great, and I'm getting my greens in! Yes, this way of eating is slightly more time-consuming, largely because I'm a penny pincher and refuse to buy pre-cut fruit or pre-made mixes. But I have a little extra time to devote to my health right now anyhow, so I don't mind. To lose the weight and gain the self-confidence will be worth it.

à votre santé!

Clean Eating

I realized today that it's been 6 months since I've posted here, and for that I apologize. I started studying and got caught up in that, rather than my health, for awhile. Now I'm back on track, resolved to lose the weight seriously. You may remember about 18 months ago I was pleased to drop about 18 pounds. Unfortunately, due to stress and life changes, I put about 10-12 of those back on. I returned to feeling upset with myself that I couldn't fit into my clothes (I'd given away all my larger sized clothing); shying away from pictures; and my self-confidence was struggling. My takeaway from this is not that being thin equals happiness. It's that being healthy equals happiness. I knew, even when I didn't want to admit to it, that I wasn't eating as healthily as I could. I baked cakes and cookies as fast as I could eat them, and even while I rationalized that at least now I wasn't eating the Doritoes and the Chips Ahoy, I was still indulging in the same ingredients, just in a different form.

So I've resolved to return to clean eating. I will be the first to raise my hand and say, "It's Not Easy!!!" It requires discipline, retraining my taste buds, and exerting extra effort to prepare a plate of good food. I can't just grab several cookies and pop a grilled cheese sandwich on my plate. Suppers are my biggest downfall and I have to now be intentional about choosing what I eat so I maintain a consistent caloric intake. But I also love a challenge and this time I have a goal.

I created a Success Chart and stuck it to my mirror. Each day that I exercise an hour, I get to put a check mark on my chart. Each meal that is less than or equal to 500 calories and includes at least 3 servings of fruits and/or vegetables, I get to put a tick on my chart. I'm rewarding myself monetarily and incrementally. First, the psychological association with putting a check mark or a tick gives me incentive to fill up the boxes each week. My chart was created for 14 weeks so I'll be able to see all the check marks and ticks accumulate. Second, if I exercise 5 times a week I'll "earn" $5 but if I exercise 6 times a week I'll "earn" $10 and if I exercise 7 times a week I'll "earn" $15. In the same manner, for the first day of clean eating I'll "earn" $3 but each day will increase by 50 cents so that I'm up to $6 by day 7 of clean eating. If I slip up, in other words if I have only 2 clean eating meals in a particular day, then I've lost one step up. So for that week, I would only make it to the $5.50 tier.

Now you have to understand something about me; I'm an A student and a competitive overachiever. If it says to exercise 60 minutes a day, I will exercise 61 minutes. Plus do household chores. If it says to stay under 500 calories, I may keep my meal to 450 calories (though right now I'm working on establishing a baseline metabolism that is comfortable with portion-controlled meals, so 500 is where I'm at).

Each week, I will be able to cash in my rewards, IF I have reached a minimum of $25 which means I'll have to have at least 5 days of clean eating and 5 days of exercise. I can do what I like with the money; I'll treat myself to a full priced DVD, a manicure, books from Amazon, a massage, or a fun outfit! I also get one cheat meal a week because I need to keep my social life alive and going out to eat with a friend is where it's at right now!

In 14 weeks I'll be taking the vacation of a lifetime. I really want to be ready for that; I want to be happy and self-confident and look attractive in my photos. It's ironic that I look back at photos from 12 pounds ago, when I thought I still needed to lose more weight, and now I think, "Girl, you were beautiful there!" I'm looking for that woman and I know I'm going to find her.

Here's to renewed health!