Day 2 review

I take back what I said about it being impossible to be hungry on the The Plan.  This morning as I sat in my regular Monday morning meeting, I was so ravenous I could have chewed on my own arm.  That brought back the memory from yesterday morning that I was starving by lunchtime and ate at 11:30am.  I must have suppressed that memory.  Being completely stuffed by the end of the day was an effective method to induce hunger amnesia.  (I really need to think up a cool word for that!)

I got started on lunch again today promptly at 11:30.  Thankfully, lunch was incredibly satisfying.  For the second day in a row, I had to force myself to eat the snack.  I wonder if I could make part of my lunch a morning snack?

Yesterday was so effective that I don't want to mess with it, so I'll deal with it for now.

Did you notice the containers at lunch, that my snack has a keyboard in the background, and the grass around my food for dinner?  Just in case anyone thinks there is no way a working mom can cook this much, I'm here attempting to prove it's possible.  I've always been the brown bag type for lunch, so this fits me well.  It's also soccer season for my sweet Lindsey, so I ate dinner during the game.

After the game we went shopping for the food for days 4 through 6.  I still couldn't get everything I needed at Kroger!  Grrrrrrr!!!

I never would have though that rye crackers and sea salt were so blasted hard to come by!  (Yes, Kroger has sea salt, just not the good kind that I like!)  Hopefully I can pick up the last few items on my list on the way to work tomorrow so that I can do some of the cooking for day 4 tomorrow night.

Getting started has been a bit pricey.  I spent $60 on my first shopping trip, and another $60 today.  The good news is that much of what I am buying will last for a long time.  I'm really wishing there was a summer version of the thyroid menu because the butternut squash that the winter recipes call for is over $6 for one lousy squash.  Sick.  As soon as I can get that off the menu I will switch to something more seasonal.

Time for today's results.....

At 0.4 pounds, it's not quite as overwhelming as yesterday.  Still things are moving in the right direction.  Yesterday was a test day for almonds.  I wonder if that slowed me down?  I may need to test almonds again to be sure.

B

Day 1 review

Wow!  There is no way one can be hungry on this plan!  I was completely stuffed and had trouble finishing dinner.  Take a peek at the food from today.

I enjoyed most of the food.  The exception was the carrot ginger soup at lunch.  I think I'll like it with a minor adjustment to the recipe.  The trouble is that the recipe doesn't tell you how much of the spices to use.  It just says "to taste."  How am I supposed to know what "to taste" means in a recipe I've never tried?!?!?!  All of the recipes were like this.  Let's hope I guessed better on the others. 

I felt crummy all day, in and out of a migraine.  I took three naps and still managed to sleep through the night.  The book warns about detox effects.  Maybe that was it.  Maybe it was just a migraine.  With no way to tell, I'm not going to worry about it.  I still feel a little bit of the migraine hanging on this morning.  Ugh.

Now it's time to reveal my day 1 results!

3.2 pounds gone!  I'm completely at a loss to explain it!  I've been told that the first few days will be rapid weight loss, but given my resistance to hope for it (as I explained yesterday), it's still a complete surprise.

The critics out there will probably say that it was just water weight.  I drank 100 ounces of water yesterday, so I have clear defense against that! 

Getting all of that water in was harder than I thought.  I had a plan to just chug a glass on a schedule to make sure that I didn't miss any.  With the migraine and all the naps, that didn't work so well.  Somehow I managed and I'm hoping that it will get easier.

It's time for breakfast!

B

As I start day one

Each day on The Plan requires that I check my Basal Body Temperature (BBT), weigh myself, drink a glass of water, then drink Dandelion tea.  As I write this, I'm still trying to finish the water and the tea is steeping.

Not everyone on the plan has to check their BBT everyday.  Part of the preparation for the plan is to check your thyroid function by measuring your BBT.  If you are consistently below 97 degrees, then you use a special thyroid menu, take supplements, and continue measuring daily.  Mine was between 96 and 97 consistently so I'm using the special menu.  I'm skipping the supplements since I was just a touch low.  As I test foods I'll be sure to keep an eye out for how my BBT changes. 

Now for the part that's the real gut check....I've been saying for two days that I was going to post my starting weight.  Maybe.  I don't really want to, but if this whole thing works out the way I'd hoped, I'll look back on this and won't regret it.  If it doesn't work, I may regret it as this is the heaviest I've ever been except when I was pregnant.  I keep asking my dog to encourage me, but she's not very supportive this morning.

Ok.  Here I go.

I'd like to say that wasn't so bad, but it was.  I really should have painted my nails first.

Now that I've revealed just how bad I've let this get, let's talk about why I'm doing The Plan.  I found it when we hired someone new at the office and she told me about it.  I bought the book the same day.

The entire premise of this book is based on the fact the inflammation in the body causes a whole host of medical issues, including obesity.  If you can figure out what foods cause inflammation in your body, then you can simply avoid those foods.  The catch is that everyone's body is different.  My coworker, so far, can't eat peas or strawberries.  It may be entirely different things for me.  So the book walks you through a testing process to find foods that work for you as well as to teach you how to plan your own menus (after the first 20 days.)

For the last year, I've been working hard to eat healthy.  I LOVE oatmeal, so I've been eating it for breakfast everyday.  I'm been having some amazing green smoothies for lunch and just generally eating tons of things that should be great for my health.  Of course, I still eat the occasional slice of pizza and I love sweet potato fries, but I'm careful to limit those "bad" foods.  Still I'm the heaviest I've ever been.

I'm also on a bit of a crusade to have only "real food" in my house.  That means that I only eat things I made in my kitchen, or the ingredient list on packaged food must only contain ingredients that I would use in my kitchen.  I will not eat foods whose ingredient lists contain words I can't pronounce and/or look like a science experiment.  Still I'm the heaviest I've ever been.

Something has to change!  When I read The Plan, I was very interested, but I'm still holding back on being hopeful.  I've done every diet out there.  They all work to some degree.  The level of misery they induce varies, but is usually pretty high.  After reading the menu plans, I see that there is no way I'll be hungry.  There's no limit on the veggies I can eat and the author has a few suggestions on how to address hunger should it rear it's ugly head.  The factor that made it possible for me to do this was that the menus are filled with fantastic whole foods.  There's literally only one processed food on there, the coconut milk I wrote about yesterday. 

I have two hopes for this blog.  First, talking to people helps me process my thoughts.  Honestly, typing it out isn't quite the same, but I hope as I gain readers that we'll have some great conversations through the comments.  Second, I hope that maybe it will help someone else who is struggling the way I am.  I know there's folks out there in the same boat and maybe this will help connect us. 

It's time for my tea!

B

Preparing for my plan

On this blog, I'll detail my experience on The Plan.  Please keep in mind that for the most part, I'll assume you have read the book.  I do not want my blog to be a resource such that one does not need to read the book.  I believe that the efforts of the author, Lyn-Genet Recitas, should be rewarded through the purchase of the book.  (You'll find a link to The Plan on Amazon on the right side of the main page of my blog.)  Where the author has made resources available on her own site, I'll be sure to provide links for you so that you can utilize them. 

I've spent most of the day getting ready to begin day 1 of The Plan tomorrow.  Some Planners have been critical of the fact that it involves A LOT of cooking and I have to confirm that is true!  Thankfully, I enjoy cooking so I don't think it will negatively effect my experience on The Plan.

Since it's the weekend, I decided to prepare the food for the first three days in bulk.  After writing my grocery list, it took three stores to get everything!  I admittedly could have done this in two stores, but yesterday after work I stopped at the health food store near my office to pick up a few items in their bulk foods section.  I found that their bulk foods, particularly their spices, to be a better buy than the same foods prepackaged in a regular grocery store. 

Today I started out at Kroger where I got everything but the ginger root, which is why I had to go to Food Lion as well.  It's frustrating trying to buy groceries where I live.  Kroger is usually my best bet for whole foods and I shop there often even though I'm convinced it costs a bit more than other stores.  (For the record, one of my coworkers disagrees with me on that!  She actually went to Walmart and Kroger with the same shopping list and priced the items.  Kroger won with the lower total cost for the list.)

When I got home today, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the produce! It's a good thing I already consider my self to be a veggie lover!

After 5 HOURS, here's everything ready to go in my refrigerator.  I prepared everything except cutting up the apples, pears, and avocados because they would turn brown.

I can't believe I'm supposed to eat all that!

Actually, there are a few recipes that made WAY more than I need for three days.  The Carrot Ginger Soup made six jars.  The Spicy Vegetable Soup made 8 jars.  And the Roasted Winter Vegetables made four servings.  I need to look forward in the plan to see if these can stay in the refrigerator, or if they need to go in the freezer. 

My friends know that I almost never follow a recipe exactly.  I promised I would this time and I swear that I tried!  I failed though.  I'm not surprised!

First, I took one look at the ingredient list of the Silk coconut milk that they wanted me to buy and there was just no way I could drink it.  The list as a whole isn't so bad.  I strongly prefer what I call "real food."  By that I mean that the ingredient list should only include ingredients that I would cook with in my own kitchen.  I've certainly seen worse than this, but the deal-breaker was Carrageenan.  Research links carrageenan to gastrointestinal inflammation, including higher rates of colon cancer, in laboratory animals.  Isn't this plan supposed to stop inflammation and reverse it's effects?!?!?!  I'm honestly a bit shocked at the over-sight by Lyn-Genet Recitas.  It's entirely too easy to make coconut milk from scratch not to include that in the book.  Therefore, I'm going to share my recipe with you!  I'm so sorry I forgot to take pictures.  I'll take some when I make my next batch and repost the recipe!

It's so simple, it hardly seems worth writing a real recipe for this!  I brought 4 cups of water to a boil.  Then I turned it off and added half a bag of unsweeteded shredded coconut.  (I used the bagged stuff you'll find in the baking aisle.)  I let is sit for while.  I honestly don't know how long.  I was too distracted cooking other things and I don't really think it matters.  When I got around to it, I blended it, then strained it using a fine mesh metal strainer.  Done! 

Next time I'll take pictures and show you just how easy it is to make.  Also, the bag I bought costs $1.25 and I only used half.  It's shocking how much money can be saved when you are willing to make some things from scratch!

I should mention that as an alternative to the coconut milk, the author also suggests Rice Dream.  Click the link and check out that ingredient list.  Organic or not, I'm not drinking that.  I'm really looking forward to my homemade coconut milk in the morning!

I have so much more to say!  Tomorrow I'm post about my starting weight, what I hope to get from The Plan, and why I'm blogging.  Until then....

B