Just checking back in after a long fall and winter. Of course, my weight is my primary focus and the metric by which I evaluate whether I am winning or losing at life. How sick is that? Yet, I can’t trust myself to not focus on it; it is far too easy to fall back into comfort eating, and reward eating, and giving myself sweet treats–and then, where does that put me? Back into pre-diabetes, aches & pains, puffiness, and fat rolls.
So, I was able to maintain my weight at @148 lbs for six months!! A record! Then on December 23, I gave myself a diet moratorium for Christmas. By January 1, I was up six pounds. And now it’s April 3, and I am still wearing that six lbs around. We’ve just finished Easter. (Yes, I treated myself with some candy, which I greatly enjoyed. But I also noted that I didn’t have the huge appetite for sweets I had earlier in my life; I now feel queasy after a big shot of sugar.) So I am thinking today is a good day to start down the road of dropping 9 lbs (why not go for 145?)…
The last year of Optavia and Atkins has left me with a desire to figure out how to lose weight/maintain weight eating real “clean” food, and less reliance on manufactured bars and shakes. I’ll probably continue to have 1-2 proteiny-type manufactured food daily (I have grown to enjoy them), but I want more variety in fruits and vegetables. I am interested in trying to eat more fermented foods, and vegan/vegetarian food.
Can I kick my refined carb-cravings to the curb? Am I ready to stress myself with some period of feeling deprived? ….Stay tuned…..I want to be ready to fully embrace the warm weather when it gets here–
nancymansberger 
Sooooo? Did you do it?
Just curious
I’m on day 3 of OPTAVIA and felt you on your journey. So I’m curious did you ever find another way?
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I’ve already answered Mindi on Messenger. But I thought I would add to “the story” for anyone else who might read this blog. The answer is…the ride continues. I got down a little in the spring of 2018, but later in 2018 I became involved in helping out a friend, who ended up moving in with me & my husband, and then I got caught up in trying to help mediate her very very unhealthy life. When she moved out 9 months later (spring 2019), I had to go into therapy for myself for a bit!….Then about 6 months after she moved out, my husband became ill in Fall 2019, and passed away from lung cancer around Christmas. In February 2020, I sold and moved out of our rural home (15 acres on a river, surrounded by a nature preserve) of 40 years, and moved into a little house on a busy street in a nearby small city, just as the pandemic began. All in all, a very tough period.
I maintained my weight (though I never lost that 9 lbs) for most of these months–keeping a BMI of 23-24, so.. YAY!. But I drifted back to comfort eating and wine drinking at the start of the pandemic, and put on my own “COVID-10+”. However, the stay-at-home order really ended up giving me the time to reflect and rebuild my sense of self, and who I wanted to be, which had taken such a beating for the past year and half.
About 6 weeks ago I contacted my Optavia coach, Craig the Amazing Guy, and started back on an Optavia plan and regular daily workouts (though less intense than in the past). I also got the new Habits of Health and the Life Book, and have been reading them. I chose Optavia because, at least initially, I wanted the convenience & no-fuss complete nutrition of their fuelings. But this time I chose to eat at the higher end of the Phase 1 diet (about 300-400 calories higher than the classic 5 & 1), and to not focus on being in a “fat burning” state. My goal is to find a new normal way of eating, not to drop a lot of weight. I am currently 154 lbs (a “normal” BMI), and I’m considering continuing on this plan for a few more weeks to try to get back to the 140s. I am also interested in Dr. A’s plan for “ultra health”….
Am I going to eat pre-packaged food for all my meals the rest of my life? …. No. But I am probably going to keep using the fuelings for my snacks/treats/mid-day fuelings, as I move back into “regular” eating later this summer. I find that I feel so much better when I am craving a treat or a snack, if I can eat a salty, or sweet, or savory fueling instead.
And, as I look back on the past 20 years, I realize that, before I was introduced to Optavia, my weight see-sawed pretty dramatically. Though I had learned about how to eat to keep my insulin levels steady (I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and high cholesterol about 20 years ago—but have managed to change both conditions with diet and exercise, and no medications), I was never able to stay at a healthy BMI until I adopted and adapted my eating to the principles in the HOH book.
With my husband passing, I find I am at a crossroads in my own life. I am in serious good health (LOL), but I am trying to figure out a new “why”. I wanted to be fit and active as I aged….and I am, but now I’ve reached that goal. What else do I want to be healthy for? What else can I discover to look forward to?
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Thank you so much for sharing your journey. It is really inspirational. My first box of fuelings came in last night. I plan to read and organize today and tomorrow and start on Monday. 19 years ago I lost 100 pounds on Medifast, gained it back over 5 years and again lost 100 pounds. My concern this time is wine and potatoes. Reading stories like yours helps me be prepared for what is to come. Thank you,
Sheila
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Hi Sheila,
I’ve added some stuff today, though reading my reply earlier, I guess I’ve just repeated myself in my latest blogs. I did want to share with you that wine is a big problem for me. My husband and I always had a glass or two every night before dinner. But clearly, wine loosens me up and allows me to make poorer choices in my eating. This is what has happened this time. I did start dieting, but I didn’t have wine for the first 2-3 weeks. Then, I allowed myself 1 glass of wine, but dropped a fueling…..this is difficult to do. You get hungrier; you want more wine….I finally started “choosing” to eat a little more instead of having a glass of wine….. When I am able to not drink wine, my weight loss really takes off; drinking wine just stops it cold.
Anyway, I’ve worked with my desire for wine a lot the past 3 months. ….but trying to work on it has changed things a lot for me. I do not drink alone anymore; I am drinking now (on average) maybe one evening a week. The amazing thing to me is that I do not think about having wine at the end of the day anymore. The second amazing thing to me is that I can stop with one glass (and fit it into my low-calorie daily limit); for rare social events I am able to stick to two drinks and water, and not feel deprived.
I’m using the “stop challenge choose” strategy. I thought it sounded silly and simplistic when I first heard of it, but—if you really do it when faced with temptations, as a method for understanding why you want to do something, and asking yourself if there is something else you could do, or actually would rather do or need to do….it’s actually become incredibly effective at changing what I want to do. Okay, I sound like a coach or something. Not trying to sell you, but just to encourage you to engage yourself with changing your thinking.
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Thank you so much for your encouragement. I will definitely have to use the Stop, challenge, choose. Perhaps I’ll write it on my Reidel wine glass. Sheila McCormick
Sent from my iPad
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