I've lost 80 pounds since January 12, 2013. That's the day my husband ended up in the hospital (as I talked about in my other blog post). People who know me, or have heard about it, keep asking me, "how are you losing all that weight? What diet are you following? What is the SECRET?"
Everyone thinks there's a magic formula. There's not. You can follow as many "diets" as you want and no of them are going to work until you do a few fundamental things:
1) Admit you're fat. Don't lie to yourself. Stand naked in front of a full length mirror and say it, "I'm FAT!"
If you are not fat, that's okay....you may be a perfect weight and want to maintain that weight and not gain back what you have lost. Please understand, I know there are millions out there with eating disorders triggered by mental issues. If this is the case, I BEG YOU....seek counseling. I did, and I'm glad I did. It has helped me find out things I did not know about myself. I'm 45 years old and I've finally found the real me. Don't look at this as a diet, it's a lifestyle change to get you and keep you healthy so you can enjoy a long and wonderful life.
2) Go to the doctor. Get blood tests. Most important are your A1c -- which will check your blood glucose levels for your risk of diabetes. Have your cholesterol checked, blood pressure, and another important blood test is your vitamin B and vitamin D levels. My vitamin D levels were so low I'm now on 5000mg a day to boost them. More on B & D in another blog post. Men should have a PSA test, women should have a TSH test. Men 50+ should have a colonoscopy, women 40+ should have a mammogram. If you have risk factors in your family for colon rectal cancer, get the colonoscopy done at 40 or even 35. My dad had his first one at 42 because his father died of colon rectal cancer. Women who have a history of breast cancer should have mammograms early, too, possibly as early as 30. Women also need to have a colonoscopy, consult your doctor on an appropriate age for that. Women, see your GYN. If you haven't (like me!) in years, you would be surprised at what is going on inside of you that could be keeping you from losing weight even though you are doing everything the right way.
3) Drink water. No soda, no fruit juice (eat your fruit, don't drink it), and not even any diet soda. Nope, don't hit me with the good stuff about diet soda. I don't like it, I've read too much about it that says its no better for you than other soda. I drink a LOT of water. Some days as much as 64 ounces. I also treat myself to an unsweetened iced tea or coffee from time to time, more on coffee and tea later. I never was a milk drinker, so I don't do the whole milk thing. I've tried to wean my hubby off dairy milk and onto almond milk, but he wasn't having it. But....he doesn't drink milk anymore. Two or three times a week when he has shredded wheat or generic cheerios or my special blend oatmeal for breakfast, he'll use a little milk, but he's down to about 12 ounces of milk per week rather than 8 to 16 ounces a day.We get our calcium from other plant-based sources. Let me say this about juice....while I avoid 100% fruit juice, fresh vegetable/fruit juice blends that I juice myself are acceptable. I have a higher ratio of vegetable to fruit in my blends and juicing is the only way I get kale into my diet. I know some people love kale, I'm not one of them. And I'll eat just about any other veggie, including Brussels' sprouts and cabbage. Go figure.
4) Exercise. You don't have to go to the gym or buy special workout DVDs or go to yoga or zumba or Pilate's class, especially if money is tight. Walk. Simply walk. Put on your good sneakers and walk. I was quite heavy and my cardiologist told me to start with 2 blocks three times per week. I know walk 1 mile three times a week. I hope to be up to 1 mile five times a week in the next couple of months and then up to 2 miles five times per week by the end of 2013. But I just walk. You may laugh at me, but I can't afford those little weights people carry in their hands, so I took a couple of large empty paper towel tubes, taped up one end with a bunch of duct tape, filled them with plain old cheap white rice so that each weighed one pound, taped up the other end with duct tape (I found 2 rolls for $1 at the dollar store) then taped up the whole thing with more duct tape. Those are my weights I carry when I walk. Cost me almost nothing to make and I made them in February and I'll be using them for awhile. If they start to break down, I'll just untape them, remove the rice, take two more rolls and repeat with the rice from the old ones.
5) Eat your veggies. I don't care what the USDA recommended daily allowance says about 6 to 8 "fruit and vegetable servings." I make sure I get 6 to 8 vegetable servings and only 1 or 2 fruit servings. Period. Fruit is a great dessert, a small apple or 1/2 cup blueberries is a nice snack. But fruit is high in natural sugar, most vegetables are not. I eat 2 cups of salad and one other veggie serving every day for lunch and 2 cups of salad and 2 more veggie servings for dinner. Peas and corn and potatoes are not really vegetables, they are considered starches/carbohydrates, so eat them sparingly and don't count them as a veggie serving. Watch out for carrots, they're high in natural sugar, so are beets. I also eat a lot of celery sticks and cucumber slices throughout the day as snacks.
6) Watch your sodium. Because of my Meniere's disease I have to eat low sodium. Not just the recommended low sodium level of 2000mg per day, but under 1500mg per day. It's not easy, I won't lie to you. EVERYTHING has sodium in it, including spinach and broccoli. I do not add salt to anything I make from scratch and I try not to eat anything that has more than 5% of the recommended daily allowance of 2500mg per day (which is for normal people without Meniere's).
7) Portion control. This was a big one for us. We used to eat an 8-ounce chicken breast or pork chop or steak EACH for dinner every night. Now we eat 3 to 4 ounces of lean protein, and it can be plant-based protein, which is half of what we used to eat and the normal amount of protein you should be eating. When I cook fish though, I do allow 6 to 8 ounces because the fish I cook, usually salmon or sway, is low in calories. Four ounces of salmon is about 80 to 100 calories. We eat fish three times per week, we eat meatless one night per week and we eat completely vegan one night per week. This leaves 2 other nights, and 7 lunches where we figure in animal proteins. Two lunches per week are meatless, two lunches per week are vegan, so that leaves three lunches per week to fit in lean animal protein. Breakfast, in general, is vegan or ova-lacto vegetarian. My special blend oatmeal is a big thing we eat, I also like a hard boiled or poached egg and dry rye or pumpernickel toast. I'm also a fan of cottage cheese with either fresh blueberries or fresh strawberries, or when in season, fresh cantaloupe and honeydew melon. We eat 3 meals and 3 snacks per day. Each meal is much smaller than it used to be. We pay attention to what a "serving size" REALLY is. We read a lot of labels. I've become quite educated at reading labels and can tell you right off the bat if something is worth it. I do not pay for fillers in food. I'd rather pay more to get a pure product than a few pennies or nickels or dimes less to get something watered down or full of fillers.
8) Know "good carbs" from "bad carbs" just like you know plant-based fats are different from animal based fats and you know good cholesterol from bad cholesterol. If you need more information, refer to my article on making smarter food choices:
Type 2 diabetes study raises questions: How to make smarter food choices. Even good, plant-based fats are to be used sparingly. Plant-based fats are good for your hair and skin, and contrary to some beliefs, they are necessary in your diet.
9) Fiber is your friend. The higher the fiber the lower the net carbs, the better the food is. Still watch the sugar, calories, fat and sodium. Raisin bran is *not* healthy, even with all its fiber. You can deduct the fiber grams from the carb grams to get your net carbs per serving. Also, fiber fills you up. Fiber...is...your...friend.
10) Try to make everything from scratch, avoid processed foods and refined sugar and sugar substitutes. First, lets get the sugar substitutes out of the way. They're bad for you. You won't convince me differently, I've read too many studies and watched too many documentaries and had too many doctors lecture me on the "evils" of sugar substitutes. High fructose corn syrup is the devil. Period. Again, too many studies and documentaries have convinced me otherwise. Natural sugars are to be used sparingly. Cane sugar, derma or turbinado sugar. Natural sweeteners like agave nectar and maple syrup are good, but again, use sparingly. Many opinions are still out on honey, but...we avoid it. There are many reasons, but you can do your own research on it and make your own decision.
There's more, but do you really want to sit here and read more right now? These are the basics, the fundamentals. If you are not willing to commit to the fundamentals all at once, take them one at a time. There were too many health issues going on in my house for us to take it one at a time. Our lives, literally, were at risk. I'm 45, my husband is 50. We are both morbidly, ridiculously obese. Neither one of us would be here in 5 years if we didn't change DRASTICALLY. There were two options...change drastically or die.
It's overwhelming, I know, believe me, I've had a few meltdowns over the lifestyle change. But...it had to be made. The BIGGEST factor in all of this was finally, FINALLY having my husband on board. After getting sick and being diagnosed Type 2 diabetic and having to get a few low dose insulin shots, he turned to me one afternoon as he lie in the hospital bed and said, "I don't want to be an insulin-dependent diabetic. I'm going to die if I don't change, aren't I?" And I was brutally honest and said yes, we both are. And that was the turning point. We never looked back. We've learned our trigger foods and we don't have them in the house, period. We have realized our food weaknesses and we avoid them like the plague.
It's a long journey, and it's accomplished one pound and one blood test at a time to achieve that result. As my hubby is fond of saying, "It's a marathon, not a sprint. We're on our way now, baby!"
As always, I remain Frugally Yours!
Rachael Monaco
