Hi Team Time & Adherence,
Hope that everyone is enjoying their week and their food!!!
We've had crazy weather in Chicagoland with temperatures moving from the 40's to like 90. Expected to rationalize (60's/ 70's high) in the upcoming week. I am all in for that!!!
1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Yes. I consistently preload B/L/D. Have been enjoying Romaine lettuce, persian (or cocktail) cucumbers, rainbow carrots, tomatoes of all sorts, radishes, bell peppers. Also fresh and frozen fruit. This week I have loved Galia melon and frozen mango and frozen dark / sweet cherries. They seem almost too good to be compliant... 2 Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches.
Choose fruit for dessert.
Yes.
Still following similar routine and batch cooking potatoes, rice, beans.
Made simple meals and kept prepared ingredients easily available.
Loved a "summery" plate of Mexican salad. Put corn, rice, smashed beans (Mary McD recipe) on half the plate and then romaine, tomatoes, red onion on other half of the plate. Added some NSA salsa and TB of taco sauce. Super delicious and filling.
Also loving super simple meal of Romaine, carrot, other raw veggie pre-load with roasted potato slices and fruit 50/50. All ingredients are in the refrigerator to make this a "go"!!!
3 Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
Yes, reduced not eliminated. Used a little onion salt on potatoes at times. Also, had 2 TB BBQ sauce once with Jeff Burger / roasted potatoes. That is sugar based on the brand that I picked up at WFM which is low sodium (I tried to find the best product using Jeff label reading guidance). I didn't use sugar on anything else this week (rarely do).4 Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
YES, of course. 5 Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
Well, there was one occurrence where I fell short on 5 and 7. The usual suspects for me under similar circumstances. I do aspire to remove these items from my "food for me" list. I am trying to incorporate concepts that Mark Cooper has successfully done with changing mindset here. I do believe that I have slow incremental forward progress, but am not quite there yet.
Learnings:
1) I did eat potato slices roasted first.
2) These didn't really taste that great to me, but not tasting bad either. (good for not Pleasure Trapping me here, where I am not great at climbing out). 3) Still not sure why I am so attracted to dry, salty, calorie dense foods... Boo!
4) Better self-talk and laughed to think about how to avoid next time. (so, this is priceless... laugh!! but TRY to understand and overcome)
5) Next time, I will go for a second of the potato slices instead of caving to dry, salty, calorie dense CRAP.
6) I believe that I can do this. If I did it with peanut butter, I should be able to do it with anything.
7) I would feel much better to report a "clean" checklist. But this is the reality.... So, yeah...
6 Eliminate any added oil.
[b] Yes! 7 Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes, puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
See #5. 8 Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
Yes.9 Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
Yes. I didn't stuff or starve.
Again, I snacked a few times when hungry on roasted potato that I didn't 50/50 or pre-load. I am not prioritizing changing this yet until I am a bit more secure feeling on #5/7. But, yes -- I do intend to eat the recommended foods in the recommended fashion... 10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes.
* 7/7 days walked outside. I walked less steps than past 2 weeks due to HEAT. I can't believe we went from 40ish to 90ish in the same week. I am looking forward to next week getting more steps / time walking outside.
* Exceeded my steps goal by 1.1K steps / day (less than prior 2 weeks).
* I still need to prioritize resistance training. I have this on the future list to do.
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
One non-scale victory that I have recently noticed is thicker hair!!! Yes!!! Woo-hoo to this....
I have a huge amount of gratitude for this group. I can't effectively articulate how much Mark, Jeff, Wildgoose have helped me to find my way. It is the long way for me, but I'll get there!!!
Not only do I learn from every participant's comments, but also I am inspired by all of the success on this Board. It is simply incredible!! So go back to Carol's / Carwex comment a month or two ago... We are all stars in training!! Keep Going!!!
Thank you to all moderators and participants! You are transforming lives! Hoping that everyone has an excellent week!!
Cheers,
Stephanie