November 15th was nine weeks into my new love me lifestyle! I have never managed to stick with a diet that long in my whole life. So I found myself trying to figure out why this time is different. Here are my thoughts.
1. I am actively trying to lose weight
In the past, I have always "dieted" by foregoing food. This time, I actively sought to find healthful foods to replace the high calorie, low nutrient choices that I made in the past. I have found many, many recipes that I have enjoyed and been able to share with my family. I've also included some new foods regularly. For example, I remembered how much I loved cottage cheese as a child. I never knew then that it was packed with protein! Nor did I care. I try to have at least a half cup of cottage cheese every day now. Imagine how excited I was to find fat free cottage cheese with pineapple! I really loved that as a kid. Now I often have that for morning snack. Its like having dessert in the middle of morning. YIPPEE. Actively choosing good foods is much easier than giving up bad foods!
2. NO DEPRIVATION!!!
In my search for delicious, healthful foods, I realized that I do not need to give up anything. I can have my cake and eat it too! Especially when its yummy chocolate soda cake or peach blueberry cobbler. No wings during the football game? Who cares when there are chicken buffalo bites! In the past, I have always avoided the BAD FOODS. Unfortunately, I considered the BAD FOODS to be anything that I thought was tasty. I didn't need to avoid taste, I just needed to be more judicious about what delicious foods I ate and, if the food is not highly nutritious but tastes great, then I needed to moderate how much I ate. There are no BAD FOODS! There is just a lack of moderation and creativity. Since I don't spend every day mourning my inability to eat the BAD FOODS, I don't spend my time thinking of ways to cheat or suffering the sense of failure when my sense of deprivation gets the better of me. Instead, I spend my time living life and finding great alternatives that offer me what I need instead of offering me empty calories. I never feel deprived.
3. THIS IS NOT A DIET!
A diet is a temporary measure to affect a weight loss by limiting the scope and quantity of food intake. Sadly, on a diet, temporary changes don't have a long term effect so weight loss is also temporary. I am not on a diet. I am changing the way that eat long-term to effect permanent change. Rather than waiting patiently for the deadline of my diet to arrive so I can revert to the same behaviors that made me fat to begin with, I have creatively and happily redesigned my eating plan. I have also added in a reasonable, sustainable workout plan. This is not a diet. This is a new lifestyle in which I have learned to "listen" to my body and try much harder to give it what it needs!
4. Eye on the Prize!
I have weighed myself regularly on this diet. I have learned about the fluctuations in my weight. In the past, I have always weighed myself only once a week. Unfortunately, if the day I chose was a day in which I had some additional water weight, I felt like a desolate failure. Now that I've learned more about my body, I have learned to pay attention to other signs of weight loss. I look not only at the scale but at the way my clothes fit and how I feel. I began to see positive changes rapidly and change is continuing! Sometimes I see it in the amazingly lower numbers on the scale. Sometimes I see it when I can put on clothes that were once too tight that are now too big. Whenever I am tempted to say, "the heck with this, I want two cheesesteaks and a double whopper with extra large fries" I think about how great it is to not have pain in my knees and to be able to wear high heels without pain. I think about the incredible rush that I get when increase my performance at the gym. I also envision the amazing changes that I have ahead of me. I can picture myself on the beach in a bathing suit this summer feeling comfortable and self-confident. Keeping my eye on the prize makes it easy to forego that those cheesesteaks and burgers because I don't really want them nearly as much as I want to experience all these marvelous physical changes.
So, enough babbling! More pics when week 12 rolls around on December 6!