Monday, July 1, 2013

OH NO, not you, too! Saying au revoir to the G-word.

It's been a long time since I've posted, not for any particular reason other than lack of time.  I have gone through a number of changes in regards to my diet, however not so in regards to the number on the scale.  Now, I only use the scale as an indication of the successfulness of what I'm doing, so it's about every 2 weeks.  I have decided to adopt a clean eating lifestyle for me and my family, which has been pretty successful.  I have to say, on the whole, our diet is now about 85-90% clean, which I am very proud of.  It's a lot of cooking on my part, and a lot of recipes that I have and will only make once, but the internet offers so much help.  Also, the fact that I grew up eating a pretty clean diet helps (my mother was always leery of chemicals in foods), so this concept is not unknown to me. 

I have met with a problem, though.  Clean eating is great for controlling emotional eating and binging, and I haven't experienced either since eliminating refined sugar, processed foods, and as much msg as possible, which is about 6 weeks now.  And that, alone is HUGE!  The hunger is not constant, and I don't experience energy spikes and lows any longer.  So that part has been extremely successful, which is great!  So what's the problem?  Well, it comes down to a simple concept, I eat too much food, even though it's clean food.  I am also clearly vegetably challenged, always have been.  I don't know why I would rather choose an almond milk chocolate smoothie over a bowl of vegetables 10 out of 10 times, that's just how my taste buds roll.  So I've decided to start fooling my self with stealth vegetable adding, like 2 handfuls of spinach to that smoothie (which is awesome, can't taste the spinach at all).

However, I have come to realization that this is, in part, a maturity issue (yeah, I know, I'm 40, ok pushing 41).  I want to WANT to eat vegetables, when I think the issue is that I just have to do it instead of waiting to want to, since that might never come.  I have to just eat vegetables so many times that it becomes a habit, like brushing your teeth.  So the vegetable eating is increasing, and the nut, organic bread consumption has to decrease.

So, after the frustration of not seeing my weight budge during this change, I decided to go the next step and start logging my food.  I logged for a week, without counting calories, just writing down what and how much I was eating.  Then I decided to calculate the calories for one of these days, mind you, one I thought was a "good" day.  Well, I was astonished to find that I was eating over 700 more calories that I have allotted to lose weight!!  WTH?!?  I thought it was a good day because I over ate the amount of vegetable in a day, but I apparently over ate everything else in the process! 

Now, I have been going to therapy to address my eating disorder since January, and it has helped me emotionally in so many ways.  It was such a great decision to go this route, it has been both healing and freeing. The one thing it hasn't been, however, is HELPING MY WEIGHT LOSS!!  Well, if I were really honest with myself, I'd point out that fact that I exercise now about once a week, and as I said before, eat too much.  So, as an attempt to get this weight loss moving, I've decided to go gluten free! And since its July 1st, this would be a great summer challenge, especially with farmers markets and fresh produce in abundance. 

Why go gluten free?  I have often considered gluten free for my son's autism, although never did it.  I never considered it for myself.  And although I don't necessarily have a noticeable reaction to gluten, I do feel that I rely on wheat products too much, albeit whole wheat or sprouted, and that it keeps weight on me, due to the concentration of calories.  So it's time for me to practice some tough love and get rid of the bread and the pasta, to name a few. 

I'm doing this for 60 days, mostly to see what kind of an effect this has on my body, digestion and weight.  It would be really interesting to find out that gluten has been preventing me from dropping weight.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it has a hand in it, at least.  So here I go, and if you are interested in doing this with me, please inbox me at beth@spellacy.net or comment your email below, and I will set up weekly google hangouts to see how things are going and to exchange ideas and challenges.  Remember, we're looking for progress here, not perfection! 

So, join me for this!  I have no idea if this will be a really long term thing, but I want to see what 2 months can do.  It's going to be hard, but darn it, seeing the same number on the scale has been harder.