Day 28 — still on track

Yep, today is day 28, and I'm still on track. This morning I was at 160.2, so that's 9.8 pounds in 28 days, which equates to about 2.5 pounds per week so far. I had a bit of a stall for a week or so there, where right after my last post, I stayed at 161.4 for a while no matter what I did. Nothing seemed to matter; it was exactly the same for about a week. Then I didn't weigh myself Saturday or Sunday, and when I hopped on the scale this morning, I was down to 160.2 (at first it said 159.8, but I gave it another go).

I'm definitely planning on continuing with the challenge until my birthday. It's really not that tough, and I don't want to mess up now. I do have a few fun cheats planned for my birthday, but I'm going to try to keep it in check. It don't want to end up spending my birthday feeling sick and gross. So, about 15 more days to go, and I think the first thing I'll do is chug a Coke Zero. There's one sitting in my fridge from this weekend, waiting for me. Of course, having been without caffeine and artificial sweeteners for so long, it'll probably give me a headache. It's tough — part of me is looking forward to some "cheats" and the other part of me doesn't want to undo all of the good I've done over the past month. I bet by my birthday I'll be ready for a little fun, though :)

Day 16 -- Back on track

So, after a short-lived blip on the scale helping me mark the time of the month, I'm  back down to 161.4. Before this lovely increase, I was down to 161.0, so hopefully I'll have another big loss tomorrow to make up for that :)

Even if I don't have a big loss tomorrow, in 15 days I've already lost 8.6 pounds, which is an average of almost 0.6 pound per day and 4 pounds per week. Not too shabby. I hope the next two weeks are as successful.

Coming up, I've got a trip to Charleston, so I'm going to have to redouble my efforts and not forget what I'm working toward here! :)

Day 15 -- halfway there!

It's been a while since I posted, but I'm still on track 100 percent with my Whole 30. I'm halfway through the 30 days, and I'm not going to record my weight because my period brought with it a couple of extra pounds that don't count. But I'm still on track and looking forward to my period being over so that I can have a real weight to report :)

Day 10 – 1/3 of the way there

I can’t believe it’s only been 10 days. It seems like I’ve been eating this way for such a long time now. I’m feeling good, energetic in the afternoons, which is nice. And I lost another 0.8 pounds, so as of this morning, I’m at 162.2. That’s down 7.8 pounds in 10 days and only 2.4 pounds until I get to my lowest. I have to say, this is definitely the longest I’ve sustained a losing streak in a while. I think that has something to do with committing to 30 days … it doesn’t mean I can never cheat or eat out again, but it does mean that I have a special reason for saying “no” to going out or to eating something that isn’t compliant. That’s what I need — a kick in the pants to just stick with this and maybe FINALLY reach my goal of 150.

That’s about all that’s new. We got a delivery of produce yesterday, so I’ve been trying some new things like kale and eating yummy local organic blueberries, which taste awesome.

You know you’re really cutting back on sweet stuff when even your TOOTHPASTE starts to strike you as really sweet J

Day 9

Well, this morning was the first time I saw only a teensy loss on the scale (except when I was eating strawberries and almonds out of control), but I expected that my weight loss would begin to slow down some. This morning, I weighed in at 163 even, which is down 0.2 pounds since yesterday, which is on track for 1.4 pounds per week, a realistic goal.

Everything is pretty much the same. Josh made a crockpot full of chili last night, and that was PERFECT. I got home and it was time to eat right away. Plus, the chili was delicious. I think next time I’ll make an even bigger batch (this was two pounds of ground beef) and possibly add in a pound or so of beef stew meat. It was so good, I even had it for breakfast (and I’m looking forward to having it for lunch as well). Josh threw in the first squash from the garden as well as a zucchini or two, so there are some veggies in it as well. Yum!

Tomorrow, I’ll be 1/3 of the way finished with my Whole 30. I decided not to restart the 30 days even though I had the disastrous Sunbutter situation. I suppose I could, but that would be so disheartening. As it is, I’m hoping/planning to keep it up until my birthday, so if I do and I don’t have any other lapses, then I’ll have completed a 100% clean Whole 30 by then. Hopefully that’ll give me some motivation to stick with Whole 30 for 43 days instead of discouraging me to the point that I want to give up tomorrow.

The only major challenge on the horizon is Oliver’s birthday party, which is a couple of weekends away. I’m going to be making food for it, but I’m trying to limit the amount of sweet stuff in general … Oliver doesn’t need to eat a bunch of crap, and neither do the other kids. I’m going to have a “make your own sandwich (or salad) bar” filled with fresh fruit and veggies, natural meats and a variety of cheeses. Oliver LOVES salad bars, picking what he wants to put on his very own salad, so I think it’ll be nice. We’ll also have a birthday cake, of course, and possibly some other treats that fit the rainbow theme, but hopefully I can keep the focus on fresh, unprocessed, no-added-sugar foods.

Dude. Reading Labels FAIL

I'm so mad at myself (and food manufacturers) right now! I can't believe I did this.

So, the backstory is that I'd heard that sunbutter (peanut butter-esque food that is made with sunflower seeds) was a really tasty replacement for peanut butter, better than almond butter, which I had been buying. So I decided to look for it. For starters, it was $6 for a 16 oz. container, but when I got it home, I actually READ the label, and it had evaporated cane juice, or, in other words, SUGAR in it. So, I set it aside and decided to investigate a good brand of sunbutter that doesn't have added sugar. I looked on the Whole 30 site, and folks were talking about Sunbutter brand as being a good choice. So I went on the Sunbutter site and checked out where I could get it, then made a special trip to a sort-of-out-of-the-way Target to buy it. I looked at the label to make sure, and although it did contain some additives to prevent separation and preservatives, there was no sugar on the label. So I bought it and tried it, and it was OK, but it tasted overly sweet and seemed really thick, since I've gotten used to the somewhat-runny texture of natural peanut butter and almond butter. I didn't really like it THAT much (I couldn't eat much of it, since it tasted so sweet to me), but I thought I was doing better than eating my regular almond butter. I read the label again every time I picked it up because it tasted like it must have sugar in it. So probably four times. Then tonight, I was reading the label to Josh AND SUGAR IS THE SECOND INGREDIENT!! RIGHT AFTER SUNFLOWER SEEDS!!! How did I miss this in all these label readings and in all of this research?? So for the past two days, I've had probably three or four servings of the stuff, so it's not TRAGIC, and at least I realized it NOW. But I hate how food manufacturers just can't leave well enough alone! Why do they have to put a bunch of CRAP in everything they make??

OK, so I'm not going to worry about it any more, but I'm PISSED that even when I think I'm reading labels and being careful, I still get TRICKED into buying things. I mean, that's $12 worth of CRAP THAT I CAN'T EAT that I've bought just trying to try something different from my regular almond butter. And do you know what the ingredients in that are? ALMONDS and SEA SALT. What do you know. Exactly what it says on the jar. Whoda thunk it.

Whole 30 Week 1 Wrap-Up

Well, let’s do the numbers first, even though the number on the scale isn’t what it’s all about, yadda yadda. I started out last Tuesday at 170. This morning, I weighed in at 163.2. That’s a loss of 6.8 pounds in a week. And it would have been more if I hadn’t spent the whole weekend gorging myself on strawberries and almonds. But, those things are out of the house now, I recognize them as triggers to overeat, and I’m going to try to keep that in mind when I go to the store and the strawberries look so delicious. Although, their season is about up anyway, so I should be OK when the strawberries are sort of tart instead of so perfectly red, ripe and sweet.

Anyway, other than that, I’ve been having some intestinal discomfort lately. I thought that taking basically everything out of my diet would help my digestion, but apparently it’s somewhat common to have a digestive adjustment period, or so I read in the comments on the Whole 30 blog post. It could also be the five or so pounds of strawberries that I ate over the past few days. Just maybe.

My headaches are gone, and after several days of feeling exhausted and going to sleep early, I think I’m back to normal. I stay up until 10:30 or so fairly easily now (I was hitting the sack around 9 at the latest for the first few days), and I actually am waking up earlier (before my alarm goes off), refreshed and wide awake.

So, I’m looking forward to the next week. I’m all but certain my serious weight loss won’t continue at the ridiculous rate, but I’m hoping to maintain the downward trend and possibly get to some “new” territory by the end of this experiment. (That would be anything below about 159.8 or 159.6, maybe.) I don’t think three more pounds in three more weeks is TOO much to hope for. And it might set me up to be fairly CLOSE to my goal of 150 by my birthday, even though I recognize that that’s not really a realistic goal anymore.

Anyway, week 2, here I come!