Happily Ever After?

[doubledee]

Day 1 of the rest of my life:

My plan going forward is to work on three things: 1) Maintaining healthy eating and exercise habits and feeling good, 2) Keeping blood sugar stable and healthy, and 3) Continuing to lose weight in a sustainable way. I'll make some notes here on what I'm eating and how I'm feeling in order to keep track of what makes me feel good. I'm also going to weigh myself once a week to keep tabs on weight loss (but no more than once a week so I"m not stressing over daily fluctuations). I realize this may be TMI and not interesting to anybody else, but it's important for me to have the accountability of keeping track. 

Weight: 218 pounds. My goal is 175 (at 5'9" this would be technically a few pounds overweight, but it's a weight I'm comfortable with), so I have 43 pounds to lose. I'm aiming to lose 1 pound/week. Will check back in next Weds.

Food: Reintroducing legumes today. I thoroughly enjoyed some white beans with sausage and sautéed veggies this morning. Planning on a bit of peanut butter with my lunch, and chickpea hummus at dinner. We'll see how it goes!

[doubledee]

Hmm. Feeling energetic and healthy on Day 2 of legume reintro, but all these beans are definitely giving me gas!

[Pandora Black]

I love that your weight loss goals are reasonable. So many people expect to lose tons of weight right away and expect to hit like 120 lbs.

Personally I’m 308 lbs at last check (in the hospital). I’m hoping to lose 150 lbs total, to hit 150 at 5’4” which is still slightly overweight. But I’d accept and be happy with even 200 lbs. I’m not weighing myself at all, but my clothes already fit better.

Legumes are also first on my list for reintroduction!

[doubledee]

Day 22: Well, three weeks post Whole-30 I see that I have failed in many ways, not least in posting this log! My goal was to lose one pound per week; instead, in my first two weeks I gained 3. I did settle back down and lose one pound this past week, leaving me right now at 220. Hoping to keep moving in the downward direction going forward!

Why did I falter? Two things, I think. First, I hurt my knee a few weeks ago. It's on the mend, but I've been hobbled and haven't gotten as much exercise. I hope by next week to be fully healed and back to more walking/jogging. Second, I had several special occasions in the first couple of weeks and I gave myself too much license to go wild on them--my husband's birthday, Father's Day, and most significantly my college reunion, which turned into four days of drinking and eating way too much while reconnecting with old friends. I need to work on moderation: I can do fine during 30 days of absolute abstinence, but I'm much less good at saying okay, I'm going to have one glass of wine and one small dessert (or small helping of chips and dip or whatever)--that one too easily slides into two or more. Because I don't want to completely abstain from sugar or alcohol or gluten for the rest of my life, my key to successful post-Whole 30 is definitely finding good ways to balance and set reasonable limits!

I have learned that legumes in small quantities don't seem to bother me but too much definitely caused problems. Sugar and gluten don't seem to cause specific reactions, but in large quantities leave me feeling a bit icky. Dairy seems to be the one thing that genuinely causes reactions, most notably it makes me congested in an icky post-nasal drippy sort of way. So dairy is the one thing that I'm working hardest to almost completely eliminate, beans I'm letting back into my regular diet but in small quantities. Sugar and grains I'm largely avoiding but allowing occasional exceptions.