My goal was to lose 20 pounds in one month. An ambitious goal, I know, but why not dream big? So here’s what happened this week:
Week’s Weight Loss/Gain: Lost 3.5 pounds. I’m actually very happy with that for the reasons discussed below.
Total Weight Loss to Date: Lost 8.0 pounds.
What I Ate: I actually ate more of the “limited” quantity foods (nuts, starches, etc.), so that’s why I’m glad to see I can still lose weight eating those things. I was testing out how I am likely to do once the weight loss phase of this plan ends. In the past, on every diet I’ve tried, I end up slowly putting weight back on because I couldn’t keep up the regimen permanently. This eating plan is starting to show some real promise in that regard. I still eat a massive salad with beans every day, a huge fruit smoothie, and cooked vegetables and mushrooms. But I can add some extras in that really made me feel like I’m not on a weight loss plan at all.
Did I Cheat? I little bit. I had another birthday celebration to attend, but I limited my beer intake. I made the mistake of going to the grocery store hungry and had more than a few cheese samples. I had a couple of eggs even though I’m doing the vegan version of this plan. I used quite a bit of oil this week – about 2 tablespoons a day – either in salads or to sauté vegetables. My biggest weakness was macadamia nuts! I had about ¼ cup every day – in addition to the 1 ounce daily limit of nuts allowed on the plan. And even though I’ve never been a big salter, I used regular amounts of salt as I would have done in the past. I can only imagine how much more weight I could have dropped this week if it hadn’t been for all of these slips. But the fact that I still lost weight despite this is really encouraging.
Did I Feel Hungry? Not at all.
Did I Exercise? Yes, I went to the gym 5 times last week. I spent 30 to 60 minutes between the treadmill, elliptical and bike. For some reason, I had tons of energy a couple of times so I just kept on going. But on 2 days, I was completely exhausted after 30 minutes. One of those days was after the birthday party, so that was expected. I still can’t figure out why I was so wiped out the other time.
Any Problems Eating the Food? This week, I stuck with quinoa and brown basmati rice for my starches and had no problem with them. However, I definitely felt the effects of the grains in the beer when I woke up the next morning with clogged sinuses, a wheezing cough, and a runny nose throughout the next 2 days. I also ate a gluten-free hamburger bun, but I think some of its ingredients must have been contaminated by wheat during processing because my nose started running not long after eating it. My inhaler use continues to decline.
How Am I Feeling in General? Really good. Except for a couple of low energy slumps, I’ve been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!
Will I Do Anything Differently This Week? Yes. This week, I’ll try to stick much closer to the original plan to see if I can increase my weekly weight loss.
Change Alert: Due to my dismal performance on Week 2 of the plan (see this post), I’m going to extend my experiment for an additional week, so that I get a solid 4 weeks on the program.
Check back on January 27th for my results on Week 4 of the plan.
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