Thursday, January 27, 2011

With apologies to continuity….


Today's weight:  280.6 lbs. 103.2 lbs lost, 40.6 to go!

Well, it’s somewhat embarrassing to visit the blog today, and realize that my last post was 10 months ago!  I hope I can be excused, however, as I had some pretty significant things happen in that time.  For one, I got married!  A wonderful event, so much fun and so memorable, but incredibly time-consuming!  It’s the type of thing you only want to do once in your lif
May 28, 2010e, for various reasons, but I suppose probably the least of which is how much time it takes.  Married life is great, and it’s a wonderful advantage to be living with someone who is as health-conscious as I am—it just makes things that much easier, trying to lead a healthy lifestyle.  I can only imagine what life would be like if I were married to a junk food addict!  It’s hard enough to stay away from that stuff as it is!

It’s time to come clean, however.  As I look back to my last post, I see I had weighed in at 269, under 30 lbs away from my goal.  I was flying high, and it was hard to see what could get in my way.  Well, life got in the way, as it so easily can.  The amount of great food in the time surrounding our wedding was pretty astounding, and for a once-in-a-lifetime event life that, I felt like taking part in everything.  Then there was the honeymoon.  We were in Panama City Beach, FL, where there was a lot of lying on the beach and good eating!  Every meal was in a restaurant, and I can’t remember not finishing a plate the whole time we were there.  I’m not ashamed to say I’m a food lover, but I am ashamed to admit, as I have in previous posts, that I have a weakness in the area of controlling myself with a lot of good food surrounding me. 

To me, that was the beginning.  The indulgence, while I don’t regret it, as we were on a wonderful trip of which good food was a part, broke down the momentum I had been building for the previous 10 months, in which I had lost 90 lbs, and had kicked my metabolism into high gear.  We worked once again in upstate New York, where we were provided each meal.  While my weight stayed down, hovering around 270, a back injury I suffered limited my mobility, and I could feel that while my weight was staying steady, my body composition was changing, and my metabolism had slowed.  It’s quite amazing, actually, how incredibly different your body feels when it’s functioning correctly as opposed to when it’s just surviving whatever you choose to do with it. 

Returning to Pittsburgh in the fall, my motivation was pretty much gone, as my body just didn’t feel like going through the effort of getting back into gear.  I cruised through the fall, gaining anywhere from 5-10 lbs by the time the holidays came, weighing in near 280 by the time we left to spend two weeks in Nebraska.  A bad time to be on the upswing with your weight is heading into a holiday, because you know you’re going to come out a little heavier anyway.  Well, heavier I was indeed when we returned to Pittsburgh.  I weighed almost 290 by the time we got back on January 5, just three weeks ago. 

Laurelin and I listened to the UltraMetabolism book on CD during our two-day drive home, and picked up some much-needed inspiration.  In the past three weeks, we’ve gotten rid of all sugars and unhealthy fats from our cupboards, and added a few things to our pantry.  We’ve started eating a ton of beans, of all sorts: garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, black beans, red beans, kidney beans…beans have an incredible amount of healthy fiber, and replacing some of your everyday gluten-heavy carbs such as pasta and bread, even of the whole wheat varieties!  Beans are very filling, too, and have been a great addition to our diet!

We’re now working our way through Phase 1 of the UltraMetabolism program.  After our detox period (eliminating bad fats and sugar of ALL kinds), the Phase 1 eliminates gluten (including pasta, bread, anything with wheat or gluten), eggs and all dairy, among other elements.  It’s a big adjustment, as I love to make eggs with just about every breakfast, but I have had one savior thus far…salsa.  It’s the one food I would consider an “indulgence” which is allowed in Phase 1, and I’ve been using it pretty much for breakfast, lunch and dinner with rice, beans, meat and vegetables. 

Here’s my current typical day of eating under Phase 1, so the reader can get an idea of what this looks like:

Breakfast: A serving of brown rice with some beans, maybe a little lean ground turkey, and salsa.  Laurelin has a sweet variation which is brown rice, flax seed, soy milk and cinnamon, which I have yet to warm up to, but I may yet.

Lunch: We try to eat our heavier meals at lunchtime, so lunch is brown rice, beans of some variety, ground turkey, and several servings of vegetables.  I’ve started trying different spice combinations with my vegetables, and I’ve found that mixing curry powder, garlic and chili powder works as a nice variation on your typical vegetable dish!

Dinner: We’ve been buying large bags of Romaine lettuce to speed up our salad preparation, as that is our typical evening meal.  Mine is a large salad, with a little ground turkey or shredded deli turkey, garbanzo beans, flax seed, corn, chopped Roma tomatoes and cilantro.  For a dressing, either we use salsa or a homemade recipe I really like, which is two parts olive oil, one part Balsamic vinegar and one part Dijon mustard, with whatever spices you feel like adding to the mix!

That’s it for now, please keep reading!

Next post: Tips on getting started…the great thing about eating healthy is that you can start at any time, all you need is determination!

3 comments:

  1. attaboy. praying for you and so inspired by your determination. yours too laurelin :)

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  3. Nice work, Deej! I am excited to hear how this works out for you. It's great to be able to make changes in your life... and starting is the hardest part, I think, so COURAGE! (in french)

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