How I lost 23 pounds

Zucchini "pasta" made with my new veggie noodler

It's been about four months now since I started actively trying to lose weight. I've done some reading & tried a few approaches. It seems to be working: I've lost over 20 pounds so far & I feel like the way I eat is sustainable, not deprivation.

People often notice that I've dropped a few sizes, & I've had a few ask what my 'secret' is, so I thought I'd share. (spoiler alert! It's not really a secret)

Before I say anything further, let me say this is just what has worked for me, I know everyone's bodies are different so if you to try eating the same way, your mileage may vary. I am not a dietician, or a medical professional of any sort, nor do I claim to be any sort of expert or diet guru.

Now that's out of the way, here's the list of what I've learned in the past few months, in no particular order:

This veggie bean soup was yummy!

1. I don't drink my calories. When I have a can of pop or a fancy espresso drink here & there during the week, the calories add up fast. I've also read that calories in liquid form don't register in the same way as a full belly from a huge salad or bowl of rice & beans. I may still want to eat even though I've just consumed a 1000 calorie beverage. Beware smoothies for this reason, especially the ones from fast food places or smoothie places--they often have a ton of added sugar on top of the fruit & veg that may be in them.
2. Refined starchy foods aren't worth it. I'm not going all Atkins on you, but I do avoid the more processed carbs as much as possible. Anything made mainly from white flour--pasta, bread, muffins, cookies, crackers--has a lot of calories & not much else. Fibre is really key in helping you feel full & slowing down the metabolism of the sugars that these starches turn into rather quickly, so I still eat some starchy foods, but I try to pick whole grain versions when I'm eating things like bread or pasta. I've also started doing a lot of substitutions like zucchini 'noodles' for spaghetti or ramen, roasted chickpeas when I get a potato chip urge, or high fibre cereal with fruit rather than just toast for breakfast.
3. There is no magic bullet. It's not about superfoods, fat burners or supplements but just fewer calories. All the magic formulas or secret tricks that are out there are just marketing. Easy answers sell diet books & make snake oil peddlers like Dr. Oz millions of dollars, but I think the sad fact of the matter is that eating less crappy food is the only way to lose weight & be healthy. Which leads me to my next point...
4. I track what I eat. I always thought my diet was pretty good, but I rarely ate green leafy veg, consumed way too much fatty dairy (11% greek yogurt, several ounces of cheese a day, plus milk & occasional ice cream binges) & just a lot more calories than I needed. But I didn't really know what I should be eating until I started actually writing it down (or entering it into MyFitnessPal, technically) Tracking also helps me identify foods that are higher calorie than I may have realized, like salads at restaurants (the dressing & add-ons like dried fruit & nuts are often super sugary & fatty). I won'tdo this forever, but I think it's helping me stay honest when it comes to portion sizing & snacking.
5. Portion sizes are important. I attended a nutrition class led by a dietitian a few months ago. Seeing the fake food she brought along was really helpful for me to get a sense of how much to eat. Using an app to track my diet helps me rejig my portion sizes too. & though you might think that it means always having less than I want to, it's not all bad news. I realized that the 'official' recommended portion size for fruit & vegetables is 1/2 cup/120ml--half a banana or half an apple, a handful of peas or carrots. It's not that hard to get in the 5-10 fruit & veg recommended in the Canada Food Guide.
6. Calories have nothing to do with satiety. Reading Eat To Live then trying fairly low-calorie salads as meals really hammered this one home for me. The stomach doesn't feel full based on calories consumed but bulk, so I eat low calorie, high fibre, & nutrient dense foods more often. Meaning veggies, fruit, beans & legumes. Huge salads or plates loaded with raw veggies & oil-free hummus dip satisfy my North American desire to consume mass quantities while being full of nutrients but not necessarily calories.
7. Protein isn't as important as people think. I'm not saying it's unnecessary, but there's no reason to go out of my way to add it in. Adding a few grams of chopped nuts to my oatmeal or cereal in the morning does put off the stomach rumbles for a little longer, but that's the only difference I've noticed. From what I've read, if I'm eating enough food, I'll get enough protein. 
8. Fat has its place: a very small place. A teaspoon of oil to sautee with, an ounce or less of cheese grated on dinner, or the (most likely) healthy fats in nuts, olives & avocadoes added to salad is great. But the processed stuff (butter, olive oil, etc) is basically just fat & doesn't generally have any other significant nutritional value.

I ate one of these. Just one. In past I likely would have had four.

That's about it. Michael Pollan's very simple advice in In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto sums up most of the above: "Eat food. Mostly Plants. Not too much." Another thing to mention is that I don't really consider this a "diet" in the sense that it's a temporary change in eating habits to lose weight. I see this as a permanent change to my eating habits. Or perhaps I should say an ideal to continue striving for, since I don't have a 'perfect' diet. I still eat chocolate, have cake at birthday parties, & eat the occasional handful of deep fried potato chips or fries. But my eating habits are healthier, I feel better, & I'm about the same size I was in my early 20s, which feels good too.

One last thing: you may have noticed that all of the above is about eating. Nothing about exercise. This is not because I think changing eating habits is the only way to lose weight. Being physically active is vital. But for me, with osteoarthritis in my hip limiting further options for exercise, diet had to be the main part of my strategy. I do bike about 50km a week & walk fairly often too. I don't really think of it as exercising, since it's just how I get around & it's nothing new. But there's no question that keeping as active as I can has helped me keep my metabolism running higher than it might be if I were to cut calories alone.

So there you have it. Does any of the above surprise you? Have you tried eating this way yourself?

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Random Things In My Kitchen Slaw

Random Things In My Kitchen Slaw for lunch.

I'm not much of a cook & I'm certainly never going to be a food blogger--I leave that up to the likes of Well Fed Flat Broke's Emily Wight or Rebecca Coleman of Cooking by Laptop--but salads I can do.

I like chopping veggies plus since there's no cooking required I won't forget & leave a pot on the stove. I feel like there's more room for creativity with a salad too, since I don't have to worry about anything rising or thickening or caramelizing. I can just toss things from my fridge & cabinets into a bowl & voila! Lunch. 

Since reading "Eat to Live", I've really gotten into eating just a huge salad for lunch. It totally fills me up & I don't get hungry for hours afterward. I can consume a mass quantity of food without eating more than a few hundred calories. Plus eating a massive pile of kale or other greens is a great way to get important nutrients & fibre.

Here's my latest giant salad creation that I thought I'd share with you, since it turned out pretty well. I've named it Random Things In My Kitchen Slaw:

3-4 leaves kale, finely chopped
1 large carrot, grated
1/4 red cabbage, sliced into thin strips
1 apple
1/2 an avocado
A handful of cashews
A few dashes of apple cider vinegar
freshly ground pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste (I used 3-4 good squirts of Sriracha)

Toss the first three ingredients in a large salad bowl. Throw the rest into your blender or food processor & whizz it up until it's smooth. Pour the dressing onto the salad & toss to coat.

This recipe made around 4 side salad sized portions. You could add some seeds or nuts on top to make it a little richer--sunflower, pumpkin, hemp, or even chia would be good.

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What I actually eat these days

Fruit, nuts & high fibre cereal for breakfast

At the moment I'm focussed on losing weight, but I'm not "going on a diet" in the sense that I'm only eating this way temporarily. I'm trying to permanently improve my diet, not just change things until I get to a specific weight. I don't plan to go back to eating the way I used to. To give you an idea of what I've changed, here's what I used to eat in a typical day:

Breakfast: Cheerios or oatmeal or a couple pieces of toast with butter or peanut butter, plus tea with milk or a big mug of hot chocolate. Eggy pancakes or french toast on weekends, smothered in maple syrup.
Snack: I'd graze on something mid morning or afternoon, usually, unless I was out, often something carb-y or maybe fruit.
Lunch: Sandwiches, or leftovers, or melted cheese on crackers, any of which would involve lots of cheese.
Dinner: Big portions of pasta, rice, or potatoes featured heavily in our diet with maybe a serving or two of veggies & usually meat every day. I was eating a lot of bacon for a while there too.
Snack: Depending on what was in the house, I might have chocolate, cookies or popcorn or eat a lot of a big bag of chips.

Veggie snack

Another thing I'm curtailing is binge eating at social functions. If I went to a family gathering or a house party, I'd probably spend a lot of time hovering near the chip bowl, eating at least half a dozen cookies or squares or whatever sweets were on offer & drinking at least a couple glasses of pop. I've been trying to cut out pop for ages, but I just love fizzy drinks & mineral water is rarely available, so I usually end up drinking a few hundred calories in the form of ginger ale, or cola.

Here's a typical day's food now:

I ate four of these

Breakfast: Bran Buds plus fruit & topping of chia seeds, hemp hearts, flax seed or almonds & soy milk.
Lunch: big salad with homemade dressing (Eat To Live recipes or just balsamic)
Dinner: lots of veggies--typically steamed, sometimes braised--plus smallish serving of high carb food like pasta, bread, rice, quinoa, etc, sometimes a little meat
Snack: fruit, or veggies with hummus, or rice crackers, or roasted chickpeas.

I also have of hot drinks throughout the day--tea, Akava (a barley-based faux instant coffee), hot chocolate (My 'recipe' is not very sweet: 1 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp honey, dash of vanilla, 1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk, hot water)

My diet is nowhere near 'perfect'. I do lots of "cheating" with birthdays, our anniversary, sneaking chocolate & cookies after I put the kids to bed, or occasionally bingeing on a massive bowl of popcorn (but that's mostly air, right?). However, I try hard to limit myself--I'll have just one cupcake instead of eating as many as I feel like. Two months in, I feel like I can follow these eating habits & still enjoy my life (chocolate, beer, occasional french fries) so I'm hopeful I can make it stick.

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Weight Loss Update: Slacking A Bit & "Eat To Live"

After a follow-up appointment with my doctor, I took her suggestion & read "Eat to Live", by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It's a fairly extreme diet plan with a foreword by Dr. Oz, which pretty much gives you a good idea of the tone of the book. I found it a little infomercial-ish & condescending, but I think there are some good ideas in it.

Fuhrman basically advocates going vegan & avoiding most grains, particularly anything processed like bread, pasta or crackers, as well as oils & added sugar. This means you can basically eat vegetables & fruit, beans, nuts & seeds. Also, no alcohol. His plan requires you do do that for six weeks to drop a lot of weight fast. All of his testimonial style stories in the book of patients who succeeded on this diet are obese people who have major health problems like diabetes, heart disease, etc, & that seems to be who the diet is aimed at primarily.

Loading up on veggies 

Once you've done the six week Eat to Live diet, Fuhrman's plan allows a little bit more leeway, switching to a maintenance diet that allows you to get about 10% of your calories from dairy, meat, grains, oil, alcohol, etc. I'm not willing to go vegan--I like cheese far too much--nor do I plan to give up beer! I'm also not really in the demographic that Fuhrman's diet is targeting--I was only about three or four pounds overweight by BMI chart standards--I didn't have 50 or 100 or even more pounds to lose. So I'm loosely following the Eat to Live plan--more the maintenance stage, including a little meat & dairy

I'm finding it somewhat exhilarating that the scale keeps showing a smaller number every week or so. I do struggle with staying away from the junk food, especially during the times of day that I habitually snacked, like after I get Bronte to bed, while I'm watching a show. But I'm not finding it too hard to just eat more veggies--I tend to just load up at lunch with a giant salad--& reduce the amount of dairy & meat I consume. I feel hungry just before meals, but I'm not hungry all day--I'm not starving myself. My goal is to lose 20 lbs, which would put me right at the weight I was before my first pregnancy & the lower end of the range I was in during my 20s.

However, I have always had a sweet tooth & loved salty junk food too. When I was at that weight, my diet really wasn't that great--it included more added sugar than is probably healthy, tons of refined starches, not that many veggies, & a lot of dairy. So I wonder if I change my eating habits permanently to include tons of veggies (like the 2 lbs a day that Fuhrman advocates for in Eat to Live), much less refined carbs, less fatty dairy & meat, if my weight will stabilize at a lower point than it's been in past.

My weight loss started off fast & has slowed down a bit in the last month-ish. I'm down a total of 15 lbs, 10 of which I lost in the first 3 weeks, just 5 more in the next 5 weeks. I'm a bit lighter than I was before getting pregnant with Bronte & getting close to where I was at before I was pregnant with Linnaeus.

I don't see that much of a difference & my "bagel" is still there on my belly. However, I've noticed my pants are looser these days--some of them slip down far enough to drag on the ground. I finally got around to measuring myself: though I've only lost about an inch at the waist, I've lost three at the hips.

As you can tell, I'm happy about the changes to my appearance from the weight loss, but I'm a little disappointed that I don't feel much of a change with my bad hip. The arthritis that spurred this diet is causing less pain in general, but I'm not sure how much of that is the reduced weight on my joints, or the physio exercises I was doing, or starting to use a cane. In any case, it isn't worse...

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Eating Habit Redux: Some Results

I actually did a bit of hiking again! This is in the LSCR

As I've said before, the main reason I'm changing my eating habits is to ease the physical strain on my arthritic hip & hopefully reduce inflammation in general. Of course, I can't pretend there isn't a part of me that wouldn't like to buy a smaller clothing size or fit into some of my favourite pre-kids clothing better. But the reason I'm actually sticking with this huge change is pain. My hip really hurts every day.

On top of the food stuff, I'm doing my physio exercises (mainly core strengthening & working on my transverse abdominus specifically) & taking a few supplements (Vitamin D, Calcium, Fish oil for Omegas) too.

The pain is starting to get better. I find I can walk a little farther without as much pain. I even did some hiking on the weekend on a tour of the Seymour Watershed--more on that soon! I'm still popping ibuprofen & acetaminophen regularly to deal with soreness after I do anything much, but it's better than hobbling & gasping from the sharp pain when I move my legs which was where I was at on flare-up days in the past two years or so.

Secondary to that, but maybe what you're wondering about, is how much weight have I lost? I'm losing faster than I expected--but I'm not starving myself. I don't count calories but I feel full after every meal & I'm eating 3-5 times a day, with lots of fruit & veggies in there. I'm not feeling tired either, so I think I'm getting enough calories. Which means I must have been eating so much more than I needed before. Yikes.

So yeah, the numbers: I'm down nine pounds in 18 days, lost about two inches at the waist & one at the hips. My clothes are fitting better, or falling off in some cases. I looked at my belly in the mirror the other day before a shower & was happy to see it's starting to look a little more like it did years ago. Still got my mama tiger stripes though! :)

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My Weight Loss Plan, Or, Eating Habit Redux

It all starts with a good breakfast, right?

For the first time in my life, I'm on a diet. Well, sort of. My doctor flat out told me I should lose some weight, as much as I can, to ease up the stress on my arthritic hip. In past I've always tried to stay healthy by keeping active, not changing my eating habits. But since adding in more exercise is tricky with a hip problem like this, those calories have got to come from somewhere.

So I took my doctor's advice to heart & started the next day on a list of how I'm going to do it. I'm a list maker, if you didn't already know. Planning things like this & committing it to paper (or Evernote at least) gives me a more concrete goal & a path to follow.

Anyway, the reason I said I'm 'sort of' on a diet is because I'm not counting calories or completely eliminating anything from my diet. I'm not following any specific plan like Weight Watchers or the Atkins diet or getting the help of any experts. I've changed how I eat quite a bit--ten days or so in I'm still adjusting--mainly getting rid of bad habits.

In case you want to hear the details, this is what I'm doing, in no particular order:

1. Portion control. I'm learning what the serving sizes for various foods are supposed to be, instead of just heaping my plate full of whatever I like. This means some measuring until I can more accurately eyeball a cup of pasta or 1/3 cup of bran cereal, for example.
2. No more emotional eating. I used to eat a big snack after I'd put Bronte to bed, sometimes finishing off most of a whole big bag of chips on my own. I also did a lot of mindless snacking during the day when I was home. Then there was the therapy eating. Bad day? 100 grams of quality chocolate should fix that, right? So I'm consciously trying to reach for veggies or fruit in these situations, or just have a drink instead.
3. Slow down. I am a classic fast eater. Having children, particularly a food chucker like Bronte has made this habit worse because I eat as fast as I can when I get the chance, in between dodging flying dishware, refilling sippy cups & all the other madness that goes on during meals here.
4. No more midnight snacks. This is one of the hardest things to cut out, I'm finding. It's the only time of day when I get to eat in peace, without a child stealing half my food, or dumping it on the floor, or 
5. More fish. I'm not a huge fish eater, but the healthy fats in it are good for arthritis, so I will endeavour to eat those omega-packed critters at least once a week.
6. Less dairy & meat. I was never worried about my calcium intake before because I ate so much dairy. Greek yogurt, cheese of all sorts every day, milk, ice cream, butter. I'm fairly sure I was eating at least double the recommended daily servings of the stuff... which leads me into my next point.
7. Less fat. Fatty foods like 11% Greek yogurt, cheese, ice cream, butter, chips & fries, etc, etc are my Achilles heel. But I just can't keep eating all that stuff AND lose weight, so it's got to go. It's easy to jump on the 0% fat processed product bandwagon, but I'm trying not to just switch to the 'diet' version that is often reduced fat but increased sugar or sodium.
8. Oil-free cooking when possible. Braising, steaming, baking or just raw instead of fried.
9. Healthier alternatives. Unbuttered popcorn instead of chips. Unsweetened fruit smoothie instead of milkshake. Salsa or mustard instead of mayonnaise or fatty dip.
10. No pop. I love fizzy drinks, but the huge amounts of sugar in pop are empty calories I just can't afford. So I'll treat myself to sparkling water sometimes. Plus I'm still drinking beer--just less of it.
11. More veggies. I usually ate a good amount of fruit before, but didn't really eat enough vegetables. Now when I'm really hungry I will try to stuff myself on veggies. Having tons of celery, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, & tomatoes in the fridge really help with this.
12. More fibre. I'm trying to eat whole grain everything. We already weren't too bad about this, but there are 
13. Limited treats. I'll allow myself a dessert like a chocolate bar or cupcake once a week so I don't have to feel guilty about joining in the sugary fun at birthday parties. I can have chips once a week, but only one proper serving. Those are my main vices & I have to admit, I ate one or both daily until this month. When I get sweets cravings I'm trying to eat fruit or chew gum instead.

Trying to break my fatty-salty midnight snack habit.

As I said, this isn't any specific plan, it's just improving some of my bad habits & eating more sensibly. So far it seems to be working. I feel full after meals, but I actually get hungry before meals now, which I never used to with all my mindless snacking & huge portions. It ain't easy to say no to chocolate & dessert & chips & cheese & all my other vices, but I find that I can do it. Osteoarthritis is a good motivator, I guess. Ha!

I'm not planning on turning Spokesmama into a diet or fitness blog--don't worry--but I will probably post about this more in the coming days & weeks. I've actually already been on this 'diet' for over two weeks, so there will be a 'results' post soon.

Let me know if there's anything you're curious about in the comments below.

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