What Made the Difference? Nutrition.

photo courtesy: vitalityskills.com

Here is my food journal from a random Sunday in December 2008.  It may not look like it, but I was trying desperately to lose weight!

Not looking forward to the Monday Weigh In. I'm afraid it will be over 150 lbs.

Food Journal:
2 shredded wheat biscuits w/skim milk
1 whole wheat toast w/butter
1 small hot chocolate (skim)

1 small baked potato w/butter, low-fat sour cream
a 2-3 oz piece turkey breast (made it in the crockpot)
1/3 cup broccoli and cauliflower
1/3 cup spinach w/ tiny bit dressing to dip it in
1 cup skim milk

1 bowl Honey Bunches of Oats w/skim
1 1/2 clementine oranges
microwaved 1/3 cup plain popcorn, w/butter buds and a little parmesan. I was tempted to have coke with this, but then I remembered the weigh in coming up!
1/2 cup cran raspberry juice

It wasn’t working for me. Why not?  I should have been losing weight.  I was eating fewer calories then than I am now.

I was exercising:  I walked 3 miles six days a week (at 4 mph).  I was burning calories.  But I was not losing weight!

It wasn’t until I started nourishing my body that I saw results.  This was not a healthy way of eating! A small potato and less than a cup of green vegetables for the whole day? 1 ½ Clementine oranges for my fruit?  I was only looking at fat grams and calories in vs. calories out.  Until I understood what good real food is, I didn’t change.

As soon as I started eating a lot more fresh vegetables, especially green ones, more fruit, more water and less processed food I started to feel so much better.  If you’re struggling I know you don’t want to hear how easy it was, but at times I wondered if it was too good to be true: How could the weight be coming off so easily?  I’m feeling so good about my efforts but what if I’m actually wasting away from some deadly disease.  I really did think that a couple times. But it turns out I'm healthy.  I just had a hard time believing after all these years of trying to lose weight, I had finally figured out what worked for me!  When I started giving it what it needed, my body was more than happy to just let go of those extra pounds.

I still had my days or weeks where the scale didn’t budge, or it actually went up a couple pounds even though I was doing everything right. But this wasn’t a big deal because I wasn’t focused on the scale.  Instead I was trying to see how healthily I could eat each day.  That’s what made the difference.