Last night was another one of those nights where I'm dead on my feet by 9 p.m. Unfortunately I didn't sleep well last night and had to drag myself out of bed this morning and really push myself to be functioning and alert. The "not counting calories" thing was really plaguing my mind last night and I'm not sure why it cropped up out of nowhere after over a week of not thinking about it.
I haven't weighed myself but I am pretty sure I have not gained weight and with my stomach upset all the time, it's hard to notice if I've lost any, and to be honest, at this point I am afraid to weigh myself because if I find I have gained - I know I will want to quit and not finish the 30 days. I'm not expecting to lose weight over the 30 days but I am also not expecting to gain. In volume, I am eating far less than I did before starting the challenge but in calories....meat and fat have way more calories than what I normally eat so I am a bit worried.
Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust. Trust.
Then repeat.
I've been thinking over the last few days about some benefits I've noticed and I'll post those tomorrow - my half way point!!
I don't think I could have done this or stuck with it without seeing Andrea's daily posts and reading her enthusiasm every day - it definitely made me believe I can do it too.
I started reading Wheat Belly last night and finished it on my train ride home tonight . It is such a different book than It Starts With Food. First off, it's very, very medical/sciencey/technical. If I hadn't already read It Starts With Food, I honestly would have no idea what the man is talking about. It's also very repetitive and now and again he attempts humour which falls flat. It is not a book I would recommend to someone who wants to understand how wheat affects our bodies and hormonal systems - It Starts With Food is much more "user-friendly" and relatable.
Davies also focuses mostly on wheat and seems to grudgingly admit that sugar and dairy may also contribute to weight gain and metabolic syndrome. One of the many things he emphasizes over and over is that if you cut out wheat, you must replace those calories with real food and not processed foods. In this area, his plan is very similar to Whole30. Go a month without wheat, eat real food and see how you feel. He does have recipes in his book for what is known as "paleo-fied" foods, carrot cake made with almond meal and even cheesecake!
Today's eats:
Breakfast: whey protein powder with water and light coconut milk; date; coffee with light coconut milk
Lunch: green salad with dried cranberries, slivered almonds, cherry tomatoes, mesclun mix - no dressing; watermelon (I know, no protein, but I wasn't hungry and didn't feel like meat, the salad was the perfect amount of food for my non-appetite level!)
Snack: hazelnuts; apple
Dinner: roasted chicken breast marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic (I ate about half of half a breast); carrots; green beans
Dinner seemed like a lot of food to me and I was full long before my plate was empty. Leftovers for lunch tomorrow!
eep! I confess that I've been very bad and have been weighing myself almost every day ... AND I went back and tracked a bunch of my calories. BUT here's the weird thing -- my weight stayed the same for 10 days -- did not budge. Then I got paranoid that I was eating too much ... which is why I decided to go a plug a previous week of calories in. I realized I was eating only about 1100 calories a day! On the weekends I was only hitting about 900-1000. Craziness! So that day I upped my calories to 1800 -- and the next day the scale dropped. And has been inching downward ever since.
ReplyDeleteI mean, your milage may vary. This is just what happened with me. I guess I would just say don't be afraid to eat too much. I know it's hard to just throw caution to the wind, but I regret that I didn't do that more. I should have avoided weighing and tracking entirely. What happened is I lost well the first week (6.8), and I think I then subconsciously started thinking "Hmm, I could probably even eat a bit less, then I'll lose more...". Except it totally didn't work that way. Lesson = learned.