After several months of setbacks, I knew I wanted to lose the ten pounds I'd gained over the winter before I went back to running. I hadn't yet considered my method of weight loss, but deep down I knew that my main problem is sugar and carbs. I love them. But my steady breakfast of doughnuts, mid-morning snacks of tortilla chips, and afternoon candy bars were not allowing me to reach any goals.
On February 17 (Monday), I was helping one of my favorite patients choose eyeglasses. She's really nice and I've liked talking to her in the past. She's one of those people you meet, who you instantly want them to be your friend. While looking at frames, she said that she'd recently lost 18 pounds. I asked what she was doing. She was following a diet by Dr. Oz, and she was impressed with it, because she hadn't been hungry at all. When I asked how long she'd been on it, I was expecting a New Years Resolution, so I was surprised when she said it had been about three and a half weeks. Eighteen pounds in three and a half weeks? I'm listening.
I went home that night and looked up the plan. Keep in mind that I've never watched Dr. Oz and I'm skeptical of all diets, especially fad ones or elimination ones, anything that seems unrealistic to keep up for the rest of my life. I watched four 5-minute videos, and twenty minutes later, I was interested. It's official name is Dr. Oz's Two-Week Rapid Weight-Loss Diet. You're supposed to be really strict for two weeks, then you can tweak it into something you can handle long term. He was up front in saying that you cannot go back to eating how you used to eat, or you'll gain it all back. Everyone in the audience had just completed the two-week plan, and lost an average of nine pounds each. Watch it for yourself to get all the details, but I was impressed with the simplicity of the plan. It all fits on one printed page!
I shared it with my family and a few friends. Everyone seemed interested, and I was leaning towards doing it, but what sealed the deal was that my mom said, "I'll do it if you do it." Done.
By Wednesday, I'd bought rice protein powder and flax seed and unsweetened vanilla almond milk for the breakfast smoothies. Joel and I measured out the easy recipe for our taste test. Joel's review: "It's not like 'Wow! Cinnamon Toast Crunch!', but it has a certain sweetness to it." He started drinking them for breakfast the next day. He has replaced his morning cereal, which he's eaten every morning as long as I've known him, with these breakfast smoothies! I'm happy about it, because they're so much better for him, but I couldn't be more surprised. They're super food. Tastiness that keeps you full for four hours, and less calories than the two doughnuts that would keep me full for ten minutes. The breakfast smoothies are key!
Breakfast Smoothie math determined that they're around 350 calories, and cost about $1.75 each. (That's cheaper than my usual two doughnuts.)
On Saturday, I officially began the plan. I'm calling it "Some Guy's Eating Plan" for two reasons. First, the words 'eating' and 'diet' both boil down to the same meaning, but 'diet' comes with the idea of being deprived, which I am not. I'm simply choosing healthier options. Second, a certain member of my family doesn't like Dr. Oz. It's not Joel, because when I initially told him about the plan, he said, "I'll do anything that Dr. Oz recommends!" But for the sake of being able to talk about the eating plan around other family members, I have given Dr. Oz a code name: Some Guy.
Day One on a new eating plan is always rough. I started the day with the Breakfast Smoothie. I went to the grocery store. I filled my cart with veggies. I made green peppers stuffed with ground turkey and brown rice for dinner. My morning was great, but my afternoon felt terrible. I felt foggy and exhausted because I had no sugar pick-me-up.
Day Two was the crucial Am-I-Going-To-Do-This-Or-What day. I purposely started on a weekend, because work days are hurried and stressful, and would have made things more difficult. Sunday morning was okay. I like my Breakfast Smoothies with a straw, but I still need to brush the extra flax seeds out of my teeth afterwards. No drinking these on the go. I stopped at QT for an iced tea and did not buy a doughnut. Iced tea is technically not on the plan, but I live on iced tea. Eventually I might be able to switch to iced GREEN tea, but not now. (Anyone who is interested in doing Some Guy's Eating Plan needs to watch the video for themselves, because I'm intentionally doing it with 90% accuracy, so don't base your choices on my version.) After church, I turned down going to lunch and made myself something at home. My nieces' birthday parties were in the evening. I can turn down cake and ice cream any day. They do not tempt me, so I wasn't worried. But when it came time to sing happy birthday, the candles were in a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, which is my favorite. I ended up having the tiniest little sliver (less than a finger's width), which kept me from throwing the whole plan out the window. It was the most delicious three bites of ice cream cake I've ever had. When I got home, I made butternut squash, tomatoes, asparagus, scallops, and baked chicken, which I fried up with a little bit of teriyaki sauce. It was the healthiest and most colorful dinner I'd ever made.
IMPORTANT: Butternut squash is DELICIOUS. It is my new stand-in for potatoes.
Day Three was terrific. Breakfast Smoothie always kicks things off. I ate cut up green peppers on my drive back from a funeral to work. I had a leftover stuffed green pepper for lunch, strawberry Greek yogurt in the afternoon, and a single serving package of almonds. (S.G.E.P. says plain Greek yogurt, but I can't choke it down by itself. It works as a dip or pretend sour cream. I chose the flavored yogurt with the highest protein and fiber and lowest sugar.) I felt really focused and energetic at work, which is never how I feel at work, so that's a big advantage. Dinner was teriyaki chicken, broccoli baked in the oven, and apples with cinnamon baked in the oven. (Apples are also not on the plan.)
Here's the thing about me and this plan. Flavored Greek yogurt and apples are not what made me overweight, and flavored Greek yogurt and apples are not going to keep me from losing weight, but they are going to keep me from eating something worse. I'm going to do what I have to do to stick to the 90% of the plan. I am not choosing to stick to 100% of the plan, partly because I know what I can and can't handle, and partly because my personality says "no one can tell me what to do" and hates anything that in any way attempts to control me. I may not lose the weight as fast as my family members who are sticking to the plan 100%, but being in control of small variations and sticking to the 90% of the plan means I can do this long term.
Day Four. Breakfast Smoothie. I went to QT in the morning for an iced tea and caved to a doughnut. It tasted kind of like chemicals, and I went right back to the plan. I'm not perfect. Almonds mid-morning. Salmon and rice with soy sauce for lunch. Joel made dinner, because by that point, I'd made dinner three nights in a row, which is probably a Jean Record, and I absolutely hate making food. That's the worst part about all this, all the food prep and all the dishes. I like microwave-able things and I like packaged things and I like things handed to me through small windows and I like things that come in paper bags. I really do not like cooking. Joel made something new to us: tuna steaks. I was surprised that he'd bought them, because he doesn't like canned tuna. We both liked the tuna steaks, and their side-kicks: kidney beans, green beans, and spaghetti squash.
Day Five. Breakfast Smoothie. Almonds. Lunch from Crazy Bowls & Wraps: their 'super bowl' with veggies, salmon, brown rice, teriyaki sauce. Dinner was chicken and spaghetti squash. For about three hours during the afternoon into the evening, I felt like I was a hungry cartoon character, and everything I looked at changed to look like a food. If my own arm had been made of sugar or carbs, I'd have been in trouble. We went to church, and that distracted me from eating my own arm. When I got home, I had a frozen Greek yogurt. It has a decent amount of protein and fiber, and the same amount of sugar as a flavored Greek yogurt. Several months ago, Cathleen (a trainer and nutrition coach at my gym) recommended it to me. She said that her daughter eats them for breakfast, because they're quick and high in protein. I've decided that I can swap my daily Greek yogurt for one of these frozen ones if I really need something sweet. (They're found in the grocery store next the Healthy Choice frozen meals, not near the desserts.)
Day Six, I knew I was going into work later, so I varied my Breakfast Smoothie to be what I'm calling a "Fake Frappe". I added 1/2 cup coffee, 1/2 cup almond milk, three scoops rice protein powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, ice, and a little bit of honey. Yum! It didn't keep me full as long, without the flax seed, banana, and berries, but I knew we were celebrating Julie's birthday at work, and I'd be having a good lunch. Maybe this will be my Thursdays-only variation? Lunch was from Chipotle. I got my veggie burrito bowl as usual, but chose brown rice instead of white rice, did not add cheese or sour cream, and added lettuce. It was delicious and filling: brown rice, fajita veggies, lettuce, guacamole, and salsa. Almonds in the afternoon. By the way, a few weeks ago, these same almonds were bland and unsatisfying, and made me want to go get a candy bar. Now they are delicious. It goes to show that when you stop eating processed foods, real foods taste better.
Day Seven. Breakfast Smoothie, with some added cinnamon. Felt great... until I ate a doughnut on my way to work, which made me feel immediately tired. Lunch was chicken with some BBQ sauce and butternut squash (aka fake potatoes). When I got home from work, I had one of my Fake Frappes, because I hadn't dumped out the coffee that I made yesterday. Joel brought me home Chipotle for dinner. I'm not proud of Friday. I don't want to eat doughnuts. It's difficult to make these major lifestyle changes. It's easy to feel discouraged. But I know that if I keep making good choices, it will get easier.
I made a big mistake at the beginning of Week Two. I should have known better. I got on the scale. Joel had been telling me that maybe I'd be less discouraged if I could see some progress, and even said that he thought it was stupid that I wasn't getting on the scale. I had explained to him that getting on the scale would not enable me to run comfortably or to fit in the pants that I was able to wear last summer. I knew it was a bad idea when I started thinking about it on Saturday, but I rationalized it, telling myself that it was the first of March, and I hadn't weighed myself since the first of January, and it would be an even two months, and it was the longest I'd ever not weighed myself. I felt like the cartoon character with an angel and a devil on either shoulder, and the angel didn't win. The scale was the same as January. Actually, it was 0.2 more, which is like the same but insulting. So I don't know how many pounds I lost during my first week of Some Guy's Eating Plan, because I don't know how many pounds I'd gained in between January and last week.
My clothes feel noticeable better. My pants that were tight last week are comfortable again. I have more energy and feel much better in general. In the end, I'm not doing this for pounds, I'm doing this to be a healthy person and to get back into running. Based on how my clothes feel, I estimate that I lost five pounds last week.
The three best things about eating better:
1. Everyone's on board (my husband, my mom, much of my family, my manager at work). Not only is there a great support system, but it's harder to back out if everyone's doing it.
2. I feel better and I have more energy.
3. Real food tastes better, and favorite tastes of processed foods can be faked with a little creativity.
"Everything looks better, everything taste better. Even this chocolate peanut butter tastes better." "Good. It's fudge mint." "Whatever. I'm reborn." -- Peter and Jack on 'While You Were Sleeping'.
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