Decision Made – Eat To Live Reports Live On
In my December Eat To Live Report, I hadn’t decided whether to continue these reports because they were a bit too revealing and embarrassing to write. I like to keep my private life…….well, private. Which begs the question, if that’s the case why would I start a blog in the first place and this series of reports in particular?
My desire to provide information about following what I believe constitutes a healthy diet was overshadowed by my desire to keep a low profile, so I didn’t do anything to promote these Eat To Live reports (or my blog in general for that matter). I guess I thought that if anyone was interested in this topic, they would scour the remote corners of the internet and eventually find me.
Build it and they will come….
And they did. Almost 50% of people visiting my blog found it by searching for information about Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat To Live program. So if that’s what people want to know, why wouldn’t I keep discussing my experience with it? Yes, I (eventually) achieved the results I wanted following his weight loss program, but I think we all know that maintaining the loss is the harder part. So I decided to “man up” and resume these reports about how my experience with his “life plan” is progressing. (BTW – my sincerest thanks to all of you who read these reports!)
I’ll be doing it a bit differently – providing quarterly updates rather than monthly. Here’s the first.
2014 Recap
My New Year’s Resolution was to drop a stubborn 20 pounds that seemed to be turning into cement on my thighs with each passing year. After a nice start on the program, I went off the rails during February while on vacation. Trying to re-lose the weight I gained ended up being quite a challenge. I had plenty of excuses for a slow climb back due to an active social calendar. When faced with an unending string of parties to attend and guests to entertain, I fell into Scarlett O’Hara mode — “I’ll just think about that tomorrow”. Not good, because tomorrow never seemed to come.
I Manage to Gain Weight Eating Healthy Foods
For the record, even before starting Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat To Live program, I followed a fairly healthy and strict diet for years. The reason it was pretty easy for me to follow Dr. Fuhrman’s program was because I already ate 90% of the foods he recommended.
Our cupboards are pretty sparse – you won’t find any cereal boxes, bread, granola, energy bars, pre-packaged foods (other than canned beans) and absolutely no cookies, candy, snack chips or soda. The last time we bought sugar was about 10 years ago – a 1-pound bag of turbinado raw cane sugar. More than half of it is still left and it’s hard as a rock. We break chunks off for guests who like sugar with their coffee.
What you will find in our cupboard is a monster stash of nuts – cashews, macadamia, Brazil, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, sunflower seeds, pecans and pine nuts. We also keep canisters filled with chia, hemp and flax seeds. And I make liberal use of them all.
After starting Dr. Fuhrman’s program, I had no choice but to measure my portions of certain foods. I was shocked to find that I was eating between ½ and 1 cup of nuts per day. When you consider that nuts have, on average, about 175 calories per serving (which is 1 ounce or ¼ cup), I was eating up to 700 excess calories a day mindlessly because I wasn’t keeping track. No wonder my visits to the gym a few times a week couldn’t counteract the damage.
In case there’s any doubt about the extent of my near addition to nuts, here’s a photo of what’s currently in my cupboard. Note how many bags are nearly empty. This doesn’t include the canisters filled with chia, hemp and flax seeds. (And no, I’m not being paid by Trader Joes to advertise their products.)
No wonder why losing, or even maintaining, weight seemed to be such a struggle. Although nuts are a good source of nutrients, healthy fats and protein, they also bring a lot of baggage in the calorie department. That’s why Dr. Fuhrman’s program limits them to 1 ounce or less per day. Errgh.
Some Things I Just Can’t Seem To Give Up
I’ve completely given up or seriously cut back on a lot of foods over the years in order to improve my health. Cutting out anything with sugar, surprisingly, wasn’t much of a problem. I gave up my 6 – 8 Diet Cokes a day cold turkey eons ago. Cutting back on my beloved carbs (bread, rice, pasta, cereal, potatoes, etc.) was a bit more of a challenge, but I got it under control. However, I found reducing my nut consumption to be nearly impossible.
I also had trouble completely giving up oil, as Dr. Fuhrman recommends, and limiting my avocado consumption to 2 ounces per day (about ¼ of a fruit) or less. I’m hard-pressed to stop at one avocado, let alone a measly one-quarter of one. That’s just a tease as far as I’m concerned.
Am I Going To Change?
My reluctance to give up or cut back on high oil-content foods is the main reason my weight loss on Dr. Fuhrman’s program was so slow and why I have difficulty maintaining it. Blame me, not his plan. So the question becomes whether I can remove this obstacle going forward?
Stay tuned because even I don’t know the answer to that. That’s what these 2015 Quarterly Eat To Live reports will reveal.
So without further interruption, here’s the first!
First Quarter 2015 Eat To Live Report
As mentioned above, during 2014 I achieved my goal of dropping that stubborn 20 pounds. The timing was great because I was about to go on vacation and I wanted to fit into last year’s beach attire. Achieving that, I patted myself on the back.
But then…..
I went on vacation with every intention of NOT repeating my pattern of gaining it back. I cooked a healthy breakfast and lunch every day. That apparently wasn’t enough to counteract going out for dinner and drinks every night. I find that if I eat or drink (even water) after 6 p.m., I’m going to be up on the scale the next day. And since we ate late every night, it was a sure fire way to guarantee that I’d be wearing last night’s dinner under my bathing suit the next morning.
I suppose it also didn’t help that I was a total beach chair potato for two weeks. Sure, I “swam” every day – or should I say, gently floated on the warm, bath-like waves. No real effort to partake of any exercise occurred.
Oh, Nuts!
What really didn’t help was that just before leaving, I decided to fill a gallon-bag with an assortment of my favorite nuts from our very large stash. You never know when you might need them – on the plane, in the airport in case of delay, etc. Whatever excuse I could come up with to keep nuts on my person at all times.
The macadamias disappeared first, followed by the cashews and pistachios. After two weeks, the bag was almost empty. Limiting myself to ¼ cup per day just didn’t happen.
So by the time I returned home, I had regained 7 pounds. Not entirely unexpected, but still – a full 7 pounds in 2 weeks???
Shoot me now.
The good news is….
I resumed the program and dropped 3 of the 7 pounds. Even though I should have dropped it all by now, I have that blasted cupboard of nuts constantly calling my name.
Check back at the end of June to see how the second quarter goes!
Jad says
Thank you for your website. I just found it and it’s fantastic.
I love to read your ETL- reports. It’s so real – your ups and downs on diet,
friends visiting and ”end of a diet at home”.
It’s like me. Whatever left I had to finished after.
Your posts reming me about my troubles, and after reading this website
I’ve just realise what I’m doing wrong ( sugar, nuts, etc. )
I’ve read book Eat to live and it was to much for me. What to eat on a day plan? what if I’ll cheat on this diet? It was so hard to start ELT life style.
Your blog opened my eyes – I’m not only one who love snacking, nuts or sugar.
And that supposed to be limited amount.
And the recipes is so good, the first week report what did you eat with recipes help me a lot. Just to see you did snack between meals with green smoothies and small salad is so encouraging.
My plan is to start diet again with good results this time ( next week I’ll have friends visiting me so finger cross…)
Btw. section ”Cooking for one” is big help.
Thanks for this ELT reports and please don’t stop writing about it.
Amy says
Hi Jad: Thank you so much for all of your kind words! It really means a lot to me to know that, as hard as it is for me to write these reports, that it’s having the intended effect of helping others. I know what you mean about snacking — it’s something I do to keep my blood sugar stable throughout the day. But there are good ways of snacking (green smoothies, salads, beans, etc.) that won’t blow your diet. I am still working on a special section/eBook about my complete Eat To Live experience with recipes, grocery lists, photos, etc. It’s just taking me a lot longer to put together than I thought. So keep checking back — I hope I can complete it in time to help you. Good luck and hang in there. You can do this!
cc says
This is a familiar sounding story. I lost the weight I needed to last year. After the initial 8 weeks I was slightly less strict and added in more exercise. I maintained it until Jan when I allowed myself to eat pizza on a regular basis, then came the vacation and all the weight I had lost was back. I still haven’t gotten back on track with my plan. I eat great 80% of the time but that other 20%…. ouch. My weakness…. pizza or pasta and wine!
Seeing you get back on track encourages me to do the same. Thanks.
Amy says
Thanks for sharing that. Habits are a hard thing to break. You already proved to yourself that you can lose the weight, but it’s creating new daily practices to keep it off that’s tough. Hang in there! You can do this!