LauraW wrote:
You look wonderful! Congratulations.
I have about 35 pounds to lose. I'm very excited thinking about how different I will feel when I've lost all the weight. How do you feel, day to day? I mean, have you noticed a difference in how you are able to move? I used to be able to sit with my knees pulled up to my chest.
Thank you (and the others) for the kind comments. I don't hardly recall when I weighed over 300 pounds but I am sure I am more flexible than at that time. I haven't weight more than 205 pounds for the last 5 years. It took some additional changes to lose the next 27 pounds DW stopped eating beans and split peas due to kidney problems so I stopped eating these also a year ago. We also stopped eating our evening pop corn. And then as I mentioned I became more active outdoors (we also moved to Florida).
Now there are things that I do know is different than before (other than my blood pressure and fasting glucose). When I ate the SAD diet, I often had abdominal pain --- I always ate a large quantity of food but at that time, I would sit down with a big bag of chips and a container of cream cheese chip dip and eat it all in one sitting. Plus I rarely ate any veggies except for fried potatoes ;(. Now I don't have abdominal pain and I don't have the joint pain that I used to have, particularly in my knees.
I still eat a large amount of food --- except now it is plain vegetables (I limit my fruit to two servings per day) like onions, tomatoes, zucchini, butternut squash, brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, etc. I start with a big breakfast of whole grain cereal (it has oats, oatbran, ground flaxseed, wheat bran) which is minimally processed with nothing added. For lunch 5 or 6 servings of veggies -- raw or lightly cooked -- and two servings of fruit (for the last several months -- oranges from a u-pick orange grove but other times of the year, we will eat papaya, mangoes, or apples). For supper, a tomato based dish that is lightly and quickly cooked. Most of the time fresh local tomatoes are available here either in our own garden, in a u-pick farm, or a farm's market. If they are not available, I use Pomi in a box. I add a yellow or red onion, zucchini or okra or eggplant, green beans, and curry powder (I have learned to love lots of curry powder). I try to be done eating by 6 PM each night.
This is quite change from my midwestern childhood diet which included sugar, fat, and white flour in just about everything. My Asian born wife can't understand how my family could have eaten the way we did with lots of sugar (in kool aid, in white rice, in tomatoes, added to strawberries, in cakes and sticky buns or donuts, etc -- everything had to be super sweet), lots of fat (pancakes cooked in bacon fat, fried potatoes loaded with grease just about every day), and loads of white flour bread with probably a tablespoon of butter on each slice.
I am sure glad that my Mom (84 years old) and my Dad (95) don't ingest as much sugar and fat any more. But they have dealt with heart problems and diabetes for many, many years.
Thank the Lord for Dr. McDougall.
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. All I can say is... WOW. Not just the weight loss but the health improvements also. I wish I could get my dad to go the route that you did, as his BP has always been unstable and we have had episodes of having to take him to the ER because he passed out on low BP episodes. 