Listing Details
| ID: | 915 |
| Title: | Escape From Obesity |
| URL: | http://www.escapefromobesity.blogspot.com/ |
| Category: | Health: Weight Loss |
| Description: | A look into the life and inner thoughts of an obese woman. |
| New Plan Coming! - 2012-02-07 10:00:00 |
| Good morning! I am having a good week so far. I seem to be over my weekend illness; no more vomiting. I am staying off the scale for a bit, because on Sunday once I was able to eat and keep food down I mostly had juice and toast. It was whole wheat toast, but it was buttered! The higher carb count probably has me retaining water, and I really do not want to see a number higher than 199 again, so I will wait a few days to take a peek. I have not seen anything *lower* than 199 yet and I am going into week 3 at that weight. I am hoping to see a decent loss through February, as this is my final month doing the Medifast 5& 1 Plan. I am very excited for the 'big change' (at least it feels big to me!) that will happen next month. On March 1 I am starting Medifast's Transition Program. It's their official plan to switch back to a whole foods diet when you are done with the weight loss phase of Medifast. No, I am not done losing weight, but I need a change. I am ready to get back to whole foods, so I will be transitioning carefully but still keeping my calories on the lower side (1500-1600ish to start) while adding exercise back in. When I am done with Transition, which is a 6-week program, I am going to eat mainly from theSouth Beach diet food list. I won't officially be doing South Beach or any other diet, but I really think it is a healthy way to eat: lean meats, fruits and veggies, healthy fats, beans, legumes, and very limited sweets. I will just use that food list as well as mySuperfoodslist on my refrigerator to make my daily food choices and guard against slipping back into an "eat whatever sounds good" habit. I want guidelines but not rigid rules. And I still want to get down into the 160's, maybe even 150's. We'll see how that goes. So here is an idea of the changes I will be making. Right now, I am still doing the 5& 1 Plan, which includes 5 Medifast meals and one Lean& Green meal, plus an optional snack. That looks something like this: 7am: coffee w/sugar free creamer 8am: Medifast peach oatmeal with a splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk 10am: Medifast hot cocoa made with decaf coffee 12 noon: Medifast chicken noodle soup with celery added, iced green tea 3pm: Medifast peanut butter crunch bar 4:30pm: 30 pistachios 6pm: 6 oz chicken breast grilled w/Mrs. Dash, 1/2 c green beans, 1 c green salad w/light dressing, 1/2 c mashed cauliflower 8:30pm: Medifast brownie Which averages out to a daily intake of 850-1100 calories, 85g carbs, 75+ g protein, 10-34 g fat. I will keep doing this through February. Then I will do the Transition Program, which looks like this: Week 1: Eat the same as above plus an additional 2 servings of vegetables. Week 2: Cut back to 4 Medifast meals but eat the same foods as above plus add two servings of fruit Week 3: Same as above, but add a one-cup serving of low fat dairy Weeks 4-6: Cut back to 3 Medifast meals, eat the same foods as above but add 4 to 6 oz of lean meat and 1 serving of whole grain. (I am probably going to hold off on the whole grain for awhile) There are also guidelines in the Maintenance guide for substituting whole foods they call "healthy fuelings" for those last 3 Medifast meals as you eliminate them. So sometime in April my intake should look something like this: 7am: coffee w/low fat milk 8am: 6 oz Greek yogurt, 1/2 c berries 10am: hard boiled egg noon: large salad with Romaine, spinach, red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, sliced grilled chicken and Balsamic vinaigrette. 2 Clementines 3pm: 1 cup of broccoli with hummus dip 6pm: bowl of chili made from lean ground beef, canned tomatoes, kidney beans, pinto beans, green peppers 8:30pm: 14 almonds and a cup of decaf tea This menu is *without* adding the whole grains. It looks pretty satisfying to me. You can read more details about Medifast's plans in theQuick Start Guide. Information about Transition starts on page 15. They say this ends up being about 1550 calories per day and suggest you add an extra 100 calories per week when you are ready to stop losing, until your weight stabilizes. I am really looking forward to this new part of my journey! Honestly I am absolutely excited to start eating beans, legumes, and fruits again regularly! I think my energy will soar. Any questions? Let me know! *FTC-required disclosure:Medifastprovided me with its products for my personal use for free. I am not paid or compensated in any other way for mentioning their products. Medifast states an "average weight loss of up to 2 to 5 pounds a week."*   |
| Superfoods Challenge: Week 5 - 2012-02-06 11:44:00 |
| Wow, where has the time gone? It's already Week 5 of theSuperfoods Challenge, and if you've been faithfully adding one Superfood each week, your body is already thanking you for all the wonderful nutrition you've been giving it! So far, we have added: Broccoli(Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, turnips, cauliflower, collards, bok choy, mustard greens, Swiss chard): 1/2 to 1 cup per day Wild Salmon(Alaskan halibut, canned albacore tuna, sardines, herring, trout, sea bass, oysters, clams): 2 to 4 times per week Yogurt(kefir): Two 8 ounce servings per day Walnuts(almonds, pistachios, sesame seeds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, macadamia nuts, pecans, hazelnuts, cashews): five 1-ounce servings per week This week, we are adding something rather simple, yet very powerful: tea. This Superfood has no sidekicks, but includes both black and green tea, regular or decaffeinated. The Superfoods book does not mention white tea, but I am going to throw that in there because it has very similar health benefits to green tea, yet has a milder taste that many people enjoy. Thehealth benefits of teaare simply astounding. Tea increases metabolic rate, is antibiotic, anti-cancer, immune-boosting, stress reducing, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and show benefits in reducing risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lowering cholesterol! Studies are ongoing, but the fantastic health benefits of this Superfood make it very much worth including in your daily diet. You can read even more about the benefits of various kinds of teahere, on WHF. I personally started drinking green tea after my mother died of ovarian cancer;research showsup to a 77% reduced risk of ovarian cancer from drinking green tea daily. If you think green tea tastes bitter or tastes like grass, like I did, think again! Some brands or types of green tea do taste more strongly than others, but preparation makes a huge difference too. Don't use boiling water to make your tea; instead, let the water come to a boil and then wait a minute or two for it to cool a bit. Pour the water over your tea bag and steep for just 2 minutes. If you steep your tea too long it will become bitter. Use a spoon to fish out the bag and then squeeze it into the tea (getting more healthy antioxidants into your cup). Drink it plain, or add a drop or two of lemon or your sweetener of choice. I used to "need" sweetener in my tea; if you do, too, I challenge you to measure your sweetener and gradually cut back over days or weeks until you can drink your tea plain. I now love the flavor of plain tea. I never thought I would. You can drink your tea hot or cold; I have made it a habit to brew a cup of green tea while I make my lunch, and then pour it over a large cup of ice. I really enjoy my iced green tea each day. Having it watered down like this also makes it easier to drink if you aren't find of the flavor of green tea, but doesn't water down the health benefits at all! My very favorite brand of green tea that I drink 90% of the time isBigelow Green Tea with Lemon  , which I get at Walmart or Kroger. It also comes indecaf . There are lots of different flavored teas that have no calories in black, white, and green varieties. TheSuperFoods Rx book recommends drinking at least 1 cup of tea per day.Another way to get your green tea fix each day is to use matcha powder, which is powdered green tea leaves. Some sources claim matcha is even more beneficial than regular tea, because you are consuming the actual leaf. I like it a lot as tea, but even better added to smoothies. It has a nice fresh, non-bitter flavor. Again, brand seems to make a difference in taste; my favorite isDoMatcha  . It's a bit pricey, but one jar in the fridge lasts me many months.Some studies suggest that adding milk to your tea may decrease its benefits, while adding citrus such as a few drops of lemon juice increases absorption of antioxidants. So keep this in mind when deciding what, if anything, to add to your tea. I hope you will find ways to incorporate tea into your daily meal plan. Sometimes, a nice hot cup of tea is a great thing to just sit and relax with. If you have a favorite type or brand of tea, please leave it in the comments section or onBlogFrog. I am always looking to try new things!   |
| The Big Picture of a Changed Life - 2012-02-05 11:22:00 |
| Last night I went to bed and woke up an hour later vomiting. I will spare you the details of the rest of the night. I was up at 6 as usual with the dogs and daughter, but after meeting their needs I laid on the couch until 9:30 when I finally peeled myself up and made a cup of plain ginger tea. I still feel rather unwell and drained, but I was able to keep down the tea and a piece of toast half an hour ago. I am just going to rest today. I have zero energy. Last night before going to bed, I was thinking about the big picture of the last five years and how different that big picture looks than the smaller, more myopic view I often take. I have found myself grumbling about "still" weighing near 200 pounds and getting frustrated with myself at times. But stepping back and seeing the WHOLE picture of the last five years, it gives me a new appreciation for what I am doing. My weight loss "journey" really is like background music to my life. It is *not* my whole purpose or existence. I know what it's like to only have 30 or 40 pounds to lose, spend a couple months doing it, and then being done. It's like a perfectly defined, relatively short stretch of time when your life almost seems to revolve around weight loss and dieting. It is a handful of weeks in your life that had a definite 'before' and 'after' both in feel and in pictures. You were fat, you lost weight, you were no longer fat. That is not how my journey has been. And that's a good thing, for me, because if this entire past 4.5 years was all about losing weight, I would be insane by now. I'd have given up. No one can sustain an intense focus on weight loss for that long, and not be thin yet, without major frustration. When I start thinking in those terms... "I have been at this for how long now? and STILL fat!!"... it feels like I have failed. But when I step back and look at the five-year span, it is a joyous, triumphant, amazing thing! I see that I have lost weight in chunks, with plateaus in between. I see the growth emotionally and the big changes in my eating patterns over time. I see the weight loss as an undercurrent as I have gone about LIVING. And the wonderful thing is that as the weight has gone down, life has gotten easier and better even when I am 'stuck' and not losing very quickly. Looking at the big picture gives me faith that things will just keep getting better and easier, as they have over the past 5 years. I have no doubt that I will make more healthy changes, keep losing weight (even if it is in 'chunks') and continue having a richer life as my health improves. That knowledge is enough for me to smile regardless of what the scale says this week or last week or next week. I *know* where I am going, and because it is the background music and not the primary focus of my life, it is a pleasant thing. I used to need immediate feedback from the scale, from my measurements, from pictures, that I was making progress. But lately, it is easier to relax and enjoy my life secure in the knowledge of the journey. I have faith in myself, backed by experience, and that is a very comforting thing.   |