Weight Loss Update: Slacking A Bit & "Eat To Live"

After a follow-up appointment with my doctor, I took her suggestion & read "Eat to Live", by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It's a fairly extreme diet plan with a foreword by Dr. Oz, which pretty much gives you a good idea of the tone of the book. I found it a little infomercial-ish & condescending, but I think there are some good ideas in it.

Fuhrman basically advocates going vegan & avoiding most grains, particularly anything processed like bread, pasta or crackers, as well as oils & added sugar. This means you can basically eat vegetables & fruit, beans, nuts & seeds. Also, no alcohol. His plan requires you do do that for six weeks to drop a lot of weight fast. All of his testimonial style stories in the book of patients who succeeded on this diet are obese people who have major health problems like diabetes, heart disease, etc, & that seems to be who the diet is aimed at primarily.

Loading up on veggies 

Once you've done the six week Eat to Live diet, Fuhrman's plan allows a little bit more leeway, switching to a maintenance diet that allows you to get about 10% of your calories from dairy, meat, grains, oil, alcohol, etc. I'm not willing to go vegan--I like cheese far too much--nor do I plan to give up beer! I'm also not really in the demographic that Fuhrman's diet is targeting--I was only about three or four pounds overweight by BMI chart standards--I didn't have 50 or 100 or even more pounds to lose. So I'm loosely following the Eat to Live plan--more the maintenance stage, including a little meat & dairy

I'm finding it somewhat exhilarating that the scale keeps showing a smaller number every week or so. I do struggle with staying away from the junk food, especially during the times of day that I habitually snacked, like after I get Bronte to bed, while I'm watching a show. But I'm not finding it too hard to just eat more veggies--I tend to just load up at lunch with a giant salad--& reduce the amount of dairy & meat I consume. I feel hungry just before meals, but I'm not hungry all day--I'm not starving myself. My goal is to lose 20 lbs, which would put me right at the weight I was before my first pregnancy & the lower end of the range I was in during my 20s.

However, I have always had a sweet tooth & loved salty junk food too. When I was at that weight, my diet really wasn't that great--it included more added sugar than is probably healthy, tons of refined starches, not that many veggies, & a lot of dairy. So I wonder if I change my eating habits permanently to include tons of veggies (like the 2 lbs a day that Fuhrman advocates for in Eat to Live), much less refined carbs, less fatty dairy & meat, if my weight will stabilize at a lower point than it's been in past.

My weight loss started off fast & has slowed down a bit in the last month-ish. I'm down a total of 15 lbs, 10 of which I lost in the first 3 weeks, just 5 more in the next 5 weeks. I'm a bit lighter than I was before getting pregnant with Bronte & getting close to where I was at before I was pregnant with Linnaeus.

I don't see that much of a difference & my "bagel" is still there on my belly. However, I've noticed my pants are looser these days--some of them slip down far enough to drag on the ground. I finally got around to measuring myself: though I've only lost about an inch at the waist, I've lost three at the hips.

As you can tell, I'm happy about the changes to my appearance from the weight loss, but I'm a little disappointed that I don't feel much of a change with my bad hip. The arthritis that spurred this diet is causing less pain in general, but I'm not sure how much of that is the reduced weight on my joints, or the physio exercises I was doing, or starting to use a cane. In any case, it isn't worse...

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