Weight-loss: Slow, steady but surely

After weeks of eating according to the parameters of The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno and my initial clean eating detox; my participation in the 50 Day No Sugar Challenge; and getting the flu this weekend…my clothes have been feeling…different.

I could no longer ignore my gaping bras, and when I pulled on my skinny jeans this weekend and they fit perfectly, I knew something was up. I have been trying to get down into the ‘60s’ ( 132lbs-152lbs) since I was a teenager! I have only been in the elusive sixties twice in my life. Once when I was starving myself, drinking like a fish and depressed/ post bad break up. And another time when I thought that following a cleansing alkalising vegan detox with soup and broccoli in soy sauce water for weeks was a reasonable thing to do. (More on my idiotic antics here if you are interested)

So you can imagine my elation but surprise to find myself under 70kgs this week! No calories were counted and no abstaining from anything but refined sugar. I have not been dieting, I have not been hungry, and I am in great spirits because the Viking is immigrating to Australia NEXT week on the anniversary of 10 months long distance!

I talked recently about my good habits starting to ‘weigh up’ and helping me maintain but it seems that eating clean full-time tips me over the edge into the weight-loss zone. Yet I have honestly not felt any of the typical effort I normally need to accomplish weight-loss.

Stepping on the scale and weighing 68.8kgs (151 lbs) and my measurements all reflecting the loss too (cause scales can tell fibs!) was just the best. Who knew I could be happy, full and slim?

Before August 2010 (the time I quit dieting for good) I used to cry my eyes out to the Viking every time we were getting ready to go out cause I felt like shit and looked hideous even when I was making an effort. Spanks and tights couldn’t smooth out the lumps under my clothes and I felt thick around my waist which with my natural figure is my smallest place. I am so glad that I started taking steps then to feel like this today. I am proud of myself and thankful to my body for putting up with so much and still blessing me with results after putting it through so much when I was a crazy dieter. Slowly but surely I am getting to where I want to go.

If you are unhappy do something today to change how you will feel in the future.

50 Day No Sugar Challenge

Australians are going viral with Natalie Carter’s 50DayNoSugarChallenge!

I said I would give you the scoop this week… but clean eating and a new committment to BodyPump has left me a little exhausted. But don’t worry you can sign up right now and join in

The challenge : 50 Days without sugar

All you do is register and then twitter, instagram and facebook your way to a sugar-free month and a half! Natalie is a PT and coach and is offering free support. She has developed guidelines and tips that get emailed to you when you register. There is even a meal plan you can purchase if you need help (and hey give the lady a break and let her earn some crust of this great project!). But otherwise it is a free challenge with a lot of momentum. There was a television interview, a lot of facebook love and check out this journalists view on the challenge.

Whether you last 50 days or two you will have learnt something important…There is sugar everywhere in our diet!

Today I had to read ten labels of mixed beans before finding one without sugar in it. Mixed beans should have nothing but beans, water, and salt.  Why the hell is there sugar in my bean water god damn it!!

If the last few weeks of eating clean has reminded me off anything it is to trust no foods except for the ones with out ingredients (aka whole-foods).

So I am hoping everyone will give it a go. Even if you don’t start on time or you live in Sweden or America (my two biggest readership groups after Aussies). It is not too late to start getting the hidden obscene amount of sugar in our lives…out of it.

Good luck and let me know on facebook or in the comments if you are joining in.

Cut the crap!

Eat Clean Detox and Clean Eats for Life

My detox is over and I am now eating clean.

I ended up completing the detoxifying ‘Cooler Bag 1‘ plan on Thursday last week. I realised that if I was going to start ‘Cooler Bag 2′ aka Eating Clean this Monday that if I didn’t ease off the first plan I was going to potentially gain weight. So I slowly replaced my uber ’tight’ high protein meals and snacks over four days; adding more weight to the meals with whole grain carbs, fruits, lactose free yoghurt and good fats until on Monday I was Eating Clean.

On Saturday I did a big shop and cooked my first recipe from my new bible called Thai Basil Chicken Stir Fry. It is absolutely delicious! So delicious I even proudly shared it with my bestie when she came over for tea tonight! Not exactly what you would call diet food now is it! Which is why I know I have found the answer (my answer) in the eat clean lifestyle.

My two mentor’s Michelle Bridges and Chalene Johnson are awesome but I could just not condone counting calories for life. Do I know what is in my food and double-check now and then? Sure. Do I read labels? Sure. But I do not want to count calories for life. I do not think it is healthy or achievable. I do not want to diet either. I just want to live, eat and be healthy and this way of eating, eating clean, is my answer.

A lot of the food I have already been making for months now. I am focusing on portions, protein, and no refined foods. Sure I wont be perfect every day but this is going to be how I eat from now on.

As for results, I lost weight and cms all over on the detox (2kgs/ 4.4lbs). I was even able to pull on jeans I haven’t been able to wear since 2009! Which was a great kickstart into action (which we all need sometimes) and very motivating. But more importantly I learnt that I do not need coffee to work, that sugar is easy to avoid if you try (and read everything even your bloody spices!), and that protein is really really filling! A non hungry me is a happy me.

Interestingly on Sunday I enjoyed some light sushi and mulled wine as a treat meal and basically felt woozy from the sugar and really not right for hours (don’t think it was the wine… I am a Cadbury but not that soft!). That is the only sugar I have had (besides fruit) in the last 16 days. I am pretty sure it is having a very positive effect on my mind, body, skin and health. So I am going to do my internet friend Natalie Carter’s 50 day challenge. And you should join me!

Full details tomorrow

Join me on Facebook for all the daily tidbits and before and after photos!

Eat-Clean Detox Results

If you follow PLD’s facebook page you would have seen a variety of colourful meals that I ate this week on my detox from sugar, coffee, and refined foods. The detox was the ‘Cooler Bag 1′ plan from The Eat-Clean Diet which if I don’t stop talking about people are going to think I am being paid (which I am totally up for please some one pay me!).

Some of the clean eats enjoyed this week.

After a week of super clean eats I have my first results and I am super impressed. I didn’t count calories, I was never hungry, and I had great energy levels! I lost 1.2kgs(2.2lbs) and all my measurements (bicep, chest, waist, hips, thigh) were down for a total of 4.5cms lost in total. This would have to be the best result I have ever had at the least effort. I only worked out minimally at home to DVDs since Perth nearly blew away with severe storms. The only effort was a little planning in the evenings to make sure I had my cooler bag filled with the right foods for work and my breakfast semi prepared so I could get out of the house as fast as normal despite now cooking scrambled eggs every morning and having porridge!

I am going to do the additional week of the plan now that I know how great it is. (Note the detox is two weeks max)

I will do a photo day where I take a shot of everything so you can see just how much food it really is! I am excited to see what my results will be next weekend. This week I will be back at CBD Health Spa for BobyPump classes while my voucher is still valid. Will be interesting to see if I am hungry on this plan if I work out more.

I have altered the plan by drinking green tea and I accidentally have been eating one extra serve of sweet potato a day. But considering my results I am happy with my choices/ and mistakes.

Next week I will start preparing for Cooler Bag 2. That is when the whole-grains, the nuts and the good fats join in!

the time is now…

Cooler Bag 1: The Eat-Clean Diet

For the last four days I have eaten very clean. In my new bible The Eat-Clean Diet I found a kick-start/ detox version of the Eat-Clean Diet’s principles. Feeling a bit icky due to my recent interest in gourmet cupcakes, home-made delights, and starting to eat too much dairy again I decided I would go the ‘hardcore’ route. Plus the plan promises rapid results and with my Viking about to finally immigrate to Australia, I would be happy to lose a few kilos!

Tosca Reno recommends not doing the plan (Cooler Plan #1) for longer than two weeks. So I have set myself the goal of just one week and if I don’t feel like I am deprived or dieting by the end I might do the whole two weeks.

Now hopefully without risking copyright I can tell you that the plan is basically this:

• Nothing dirty period.
• No sugar.
• No refined carbs (even though whole grain refined carbs are part of Eating-Clean diet).
• No diary (good for me! Lactose be gone!).
• No fat (not even good fat which is a big part of the Eat-Clean diet).
• No coffee (I have somehow been able to survive without my morning coffee but decided as a working girl I at least needed Green Tea and surprised myself by being alive to tell the tale!).

Eat protein five times a day, eat as many water based veggies as possible, 1 apple or pear, 1 sweet potato a day but eaten in two halves at different meals, and an awesome breaky of oats-flaxseed (linseed), bee pollen and scrambled egg whites (not together!).

*There is a variety with some other breakfast options but I always only pick one breakfast ona meal plan to make it more affordable.

I was a little nervous on Sunday when I was preparing some food in advance for the plan. IT felt like this was going to be too much like a fad-diet and I was going to be hungry. I started worrying I was giving up on my beliefs and had a little moment of doubt. But I believe that trying new eating styles and fad-diets are two different things. So I went through with it.

The Result so far…

Ever since… I have been full.

So freakin full!

No hunger, no cravings, nothing.

I think I may just have solved a massive problem in my life… the gaping endless hole that is my stomach!

The time is now…

Grilled zucchini, broccoli, sweet potato and grilled fish.

Cooler bag for work with my meals of canned tuna and cherry tomatoes, celery and grilled chicken, and a mixed salad with sweet potato and grilled chicken. Pack it the night before while I cook dinner and put my rolled oats and flaxseed in a bowl ready to go.

Porridge with linseed (flaxseed) and bee pollen in a bowl with no milk… keep forgetting to take a picture of the eggs I eat first.

Clean-Eating: The beginning

Eating clean is my evolution…
I have been ‘cleaning’ up my eating for years now. Last week I talked about a number of habits I have developed to help me maintain and lose weight  since I decided to lose weight for good.

The more I read about eating clean the more I realise I have been moving towards cleaner eats for a long time. They are after all the natural choice when you are trying to slim down healthfully.

If you want to lose a few kilos while maintaining your vitality and looking after your health your answer is to eat clean. If you want to maintain weight loss the answer is to eat clean. Long life…eat clean. Health…eat clean. Eco friendly, sustainable, natural, traditional, simple… yeah eat clean.

Everywhere I look it is the answer to every remaining question I have had since Michelle Bridges “Crunch Time” book helped me get my shit together. Tosca Reno’s book “The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged” confirmed so many things for me and enlightened me on a few more.

But what is eating clean? Well simply put eating ‘dirty’ is pretty easy to imagine. Junk food, fast-food, artery clogging gunk, deep-fried goo that all equal your taste buds being hit by the triple threat! Fat, salt, and sugar! In combinations so tantalising you become addicted. So addicted that as you slowly mellow your life to black and white (depressed, fat, no energy, motionless) you can not help but need more. What a clever idea, no wonder it is being pushed out all over the world. “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt!”.

Today I have set in motion steps towards a cleaner life. I have bought all the ingredients for the Cooler Bag 1 ( or detox/ clean up) eating plan from the book. The meal plans are drawn up, the food is in the fridge or pantry and I even tried bee pollen for the first time today!

I want to learn, I want to grow (or shrink!) and I want to live a healthy life full of vitality.

Cooler Bag 1 information to follow!

The time is now!

The bad and good habits I learnt dieting away my metabolism

**I try to blog responsibly. I understand that my experience with weight loss, gain and some of my habits reflect minor ED type behaviour. If you feel that reading about someone’s excesses, success and failure in regards to dieting and weight-loss will upset you or set of your own ED type behaviour, please look after yourself by not reading this post, or any blogs that discuss weight-loss.**

 

I have been really thinking for a while about where I want to go with my weight loss and health goals. In August 2010 I started a big journey when I quit dieting, slowly lost 15kgs the ‘right way’, and got down to my ‘comfy’ weight zone. I have been maintaining that weight for a year now (which when you have PCOS seems to be just how my weight works… a few kgs to me is a few 100gs to others- aka I still fit my clothes within this fluctuation, look the same and feel the same).

This is the longest I have ever been in this zone (the low 70s if you are desperate to know and that is 155-160lbs according to Google my imperial peeps). So it is official… I am maintaining! Which is a massive achievement for me. After a lot of thought of how this has been possible I realised that it is my daily habits. Because I am by no means being good all the time!

Over many years of dieting (5 to be exact) and since making the commitment to learn and apply myself when it comes to goal setting and weight-loss I have learnt a lot of good habits that are paying off dividends in helping me maintain my weight now that I have almost eliminated all the nasty habits I made dieting.

Change your habits- change your life?

Examples of some nasty bad habits include:

• Believing that I could lose weight quickly and therefore when I wasn’t on a diet I could eat like a pig! (Aka that it is all or nothing)
• Not eating enough (1200 calories a day is no good…. 500 calories a day is just one meal! And I have done both much to my regret).
• Not eating well and rewarding myself with food (“Hmm I want to eat junk food and I have 200 calories left over from my target…oh great I can eat X. Yah!”).
• Going on a diet every three months and off for three months for years.
• Not exercising for years.
• Exercising for the wrong reasons such as believing that exercise would control my weight (sorry friends do the math…exercise is ineffective for weigh-loss!).

And all the other typical one-step-forwards-two-steps-back mistakes people make when they can’t be bothered fixing their head before trying to fix their butt! I honesty now believe that diets (fad diets) are for people who can’t be bothered losing weight!

Good Habits  that I have slowly cultivated include:

• I learnt not to be scared of what my body can or cannot do and that most of my limits are mental not physical.
• I learnt that dieting makes absolute no sense and that for me:
  Eating more protein, keeping an eye on the amount of carbs I eat ( aka not really eating shitty simple/white carbs and not eating too many whole grain ones and not at every meal), and eating low GI’ish works for me and my PCOS/ insulin resistance.
• I learnt to exercise regularly for the love of it and not to burn calories.
• I learnt that I can run.
• That if I want to lose weight I need to eat very well 90% of the time but that 10% of the time living a little helps me stick to my guns while also keeping my metabolism working. If I want to maintain 80/20, and if I am holiday or relaxing I shouldn’t go lower than 70/30 or my weight just goes to hell!
• I learnt that by trying your best you can’t fail at anything.
• That you should make excuse to move not to be still.
• That it is 80% nutrition, 10% exercise and 10% genes!
• I learn that eating good fats keep me full and happy.
• That eating a dinner type meal at lunch is more satisfying than a sandwich for lunch (thanks Sweden for that habit!).
• That making my lunch, cooking my own dinners, and choosing homemade delights over commercial junk means I have better nutrition and maintain weight easier.
• At least half my plate should be covered in vegetables and that my plate should be smaller than standard.
• That I should eat 40% of what my 6ft3 Viking eats… not 50/50 (typical trap women fall into…while you grew up going 50/50 with your brother he was only a boy then, you don’t keep up with how much men eat!).
• That 3-4 litres of water a day keeps me hydrated… and that I can easily drink that much or more.
• I learnt not to drink milk, soft drinks, or much alcohol.
• You do not need to eat bread, pasta, or rice with every meal (who knew).
• And that two pieces of bread a day is a maximum or before you know it you have had a whole loaf! (Perhaps that is just me but that stuff is just addictive!)

Over time I have become an adult when it comes to my food and exercise routines. While sometimes I still revert to being  kid (licking the plate and eating till I am sick) most of the time I am in my kitchen making my little lunch boxes or choosing not to finish eat the rice in my bento box. I am more aware that the more I slip over to the reverse of the above habits…the thinker I become and as soon s I start applying the above again the weight goes away. It is a balancing game. Because after all if you can lose 1kg a week on a diet… you can also put it on!

August 2010 and April 2012- The Viking and I

The time is now…

What are your good and bad habits? Are the any habits you are working on getting rid off?