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At Least My Third, New Plan Since June
 Posted by Michelle Butler Nov 1 2010, 1:06 am in bad habits, cooking, eating healthy, Holidays, inspiration, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, weight loss You may recall some of my previous complaints about how little weight I’ve lost this year. I was my lowest weight of the year on March 30th (33.2 pounds down). Since then, I’ve stayed in a six-pound range between 33.2 and 27 pounds down. I started the year at 26 pounds down, so I have always been able to say I’ve lost some weight this year but not much. In June, I started a back-to-basics plan that didn’t last long. I followed it with a be-one-size-down-by-Thanksgiving thanks to very consistent exercise, especially weight training in my body pump class. I still really like that plan, but I’ve not been nearly consistent enough in my exercise. I’m going to have to extend that deadline to some point in 2011 because there’s no way I’ll make it by the holidays this year. I’m still mostly a size 12 with some 10s. In fact, I weighed the exact same amount this past Tuesday as I had at the start of my Thanksgiving plan. So, becoming “mostly a size 10″ will be something I accomplish next year. But, what am I going to focus on the next two months – the trickiest eating months of the year, aka the holidays? Based on my experience last year, I know I want to plan to lose weight during the holidays, defined as Halloween to New Year’s Day, but realize that maintaining is an accomplishment too. Last year, I weighed the least I did the whole year right before Thanksgiving, and that may be the same case this year. I need more direction though than just saying I plan to lose weight. I got some great insight into how I could do better from my greatest eating debacle of October. Over Columbus Day Weekend, I did another cooking marathon and decided to bake two pumpkin spice cakes. I then proceeded to eat 1 and 3/4 of those two cakes in 4 days. At least one day, about all I ate was cake. I didn’t really pay for this at the scale, but it was still a big wake-up call. This was by no means healthy, mindful eating. This overeating incident inspired me to sit down and take a good, hard look at my eating habits for the past several months. I looked at several of my trackers and forced myself to confront my newish pattern of mindless snacking. I was eating healthy, portion-controlled meals, but I was not making good choices in terms of my snacks. I was eating sweets, lots of leftover, catered food at work, way too much dried cereal straight out of the box, and even peanut butter from the jar on too regular a basis. This may be the reason I could not seem to make any forward progress in my weight loss efforts. This insight gave me something to focus on for the rest of October. I tried to be much more conscious of everything I ate – especially when I was snacking. I worked to replace the sweets with frozen bananas and really tried to cut back or cut out the other mindless snacking. I tried to make sure that any snacking was a planned snack that would help tide me over to my next big meal. I pulled out my Geneen Roth book Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Nearly Everything. I reread my favorite quotes, looked at her 7 eating guidelines again, and tried to incorporate them more into my life. I finally watched a DVD of a presentation on eating for energy/mindful eating that someone had given me earlier this year. It inspired me to look for mindful eating seminars I could attend in the DC area, and I will try to go to one in 2011. I also looked for new inspiration and insight at my Weight Watchers meetings. During one meeting when we were listing all the ways weight loss was difficult and brainstorming ways to work around those challenges, one long-term member said changing her plan when it no longer worked for her was tough. A meeting or two later, the man who had just reached goal talked about how his nearly 3 year journey could be broken down into very distinct stages. He slowly had become a vegetarian so he could eat more. For the last 6 months, he had been eating out a lot and had to really change some habits. He often would order a bowl of butternut squash soup and side order of veggies for dinner. The soup was filling and helped him continue to lose weight. Last week, two women congratulated each other for following their mutual challenge to make vegetables 50% of what they ate the past week. So, I needed to think about how I might change my plan in terms of eating. In addition to the increased focus on mindful eating, I also wanted to work to increase the amount of vegetables I ate. Now, I consistently eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but eating more than that a day might mean that I would eat less higher calorie foods and lose more weight. I got a very good start on that this week when we had a vegetable buffet Wednesday afternoon at work. I enjoyed the variety of the various vegetable side dishes and found them to be pretty tasty and filling. It was even more proof that increasing my veggie intake may be a good, new plan. This Saturday, I went to the grocery store, and it almost felt like Mary Curry was shopping with me. My cart was filled with mostly vegetables, and many were seasonal veggies that Mary has written about here. I bought kale, pumpkin, beets, carrots, fennel/anise, butternut squash, acorn squash, baby potatoes, yams, russet potatoes, shallots, onions, parsnips, and fruit including bananas, two kinds of apples, oranges and a lemon. I also bought a slice of carrot cake for a planned treat/snack and a few other items for recipes I planned to make. I spent most of Sunday cooking to set myself up with a lot of veggie centered main and side dishes for the next couple of weeks. I made a Weight Watchers Caldo Verde soup that I love (recipe in comments), an Irish curried parsnip and lentil soup, a butternut squash soup that Mary linked to in Saturday’s comments as a possible substitute for Au Bon Pain’s Harvest Pumpkin soup, roasted dijon potatoes, roasted carrots and fennel, and French chicken in a pot. I also hope to make a couple of other side vegetable dishes later this week. Yes, I do still feel like it takes extra work to cook all these vegetable-centered dishes, but hopefully, this third, new plan of mine will help me start losing weight again. Do you have a(n eating) plan for the holidays? How do you try to stay mindful or conscious of what you are eating? Do you work to incorporate more vegetables into your diet? Do you have any suggestions for me?
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12 Responses to “At Least My Third, New Plan Since June”Leave a Reply |
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Michelle,
It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one about to start over…again…for at least the third time. What you said about mindful snacking really resonated with me, and I think I’m really resisting any form of thinking ahead because the last few months have been so stressful and have required such detailed planning.
I, too, was thinking about incorporating more veggies. My solutions? I like the Steam-fresh veggies because they are quick, easy, and I can usually get at least 2 servings out of them. If in a hurry, I have been known to eat a serving of those and one slice of bread with peanut butter–not perfect, but it generally gets the job done.
I also really like the huge clam shells of spinach and mixed greens from Sam’s. You can make a really tasty salad out of spinach with golden raisins, feta, and a raspberry vinaigrette.
Those are things that have worked in the past. Now, all I have to do is start eating them again…
Sally, it is hard to work this kind of stuff into a busy schedule, isn’t it? Are the steam-fresh veggies sold in the frozen section? I’ve used those before, and they certainly work.
Another frozen veggie side dish that my mother swears by are the single servings of veggie with light cheese sauces. I think they are sold by green giant. They’re one-point each, and my mom loves to serve them over a baked potato. It’s a pretty filling, satisfying, veggie-focused lunch or light dinner. Unfortunately, my local grocery stores are urban/suburban highbrids, and they don’t sell the single serving portions – just the full “family” ones.
The salad you suggested sounds yummy too. It’s just figuring out ways to incorporate veggies easily into my life. Learning to appreciate their flavor more helps.
I think what Sally said about resisting detailed planning for eating while having to do detailed planning for other things is perhaps what I’ve been struggling with. Deadlines require detailed planning as does travel, but I just need to make my brain realize that the food intake must have this too, and not just for short spurts. It has to be an everyday thing.
Is there anyway you can make the healthy food planning fun for you?
I think what I need to do is set aside one day just for planning, shopping and cooking and not plan on doing anything else that day other than exercise. That way, my brain knows what it has to do that day and I’m not thinking about all the other things on the to-do list.
I do think, like everything else, the more you do this the more efficient you will get at it. Best of luck!
I think it’s inspiring the way you are able to recognise and reassess and move forward, Michelle – even if you think you’re not getting anywhere, you’re always striving. I take my hat off to you!! That’s awesome!!
I’m too much of a carnivore and dairy lover to go veggie completely *g*. I’m doing well with my efforts to add more fruit and veg into my meals.
I don’t tend to eat too many sweet things, though over the holidays I probably have more. Savoury snacks are my downfall over the holidays. I try to balance what I eat and be sensible – unsalted nuts, crisps and dips that are low fat and salsa for added veg!
My challenge is actually making sure I don’t eat too much and getting the protein carb balance right. I try to ensure I eat much more protein than carbs – but I do love potatoes *g*.
Thanks, Anna! I think like a lot of overachievers I can have a hard time recognizing my acoomplishments – and that striving in itself is an accomplishment.
I can’t imagine going vegan or vegetarian because I also like meat and dairy too much, but I can definitely do it for individual meals. (Though lots of my veggie based soups have chicken broth instead of veggie broth in it – so that might be overstating it.)
I like both savoury and sweet. I pretty much like food – though I can say I have developed a more sophisticated palate which makes it easier to turn down junk/highly processed food fairly regularly.
Best wishes on enjoying the holiday season! Knowing yourself and what works for you help a lot.
Hi Michelle,
I’ve gotten better about adding more fruits and veggies into my diet, but I’m still pretty bad at it. It’s easy for me to end a day and realize that I only ate 2 or 3 servings of veggies and fruit combined (and trust me, that’s better than how I used to eat!).
So, no tips here, but a lot of commiseration!
Some tips that have helped me reach that 5 a day have been making sure I have at least one fruit or veggie at each meal. For example, I almost always add fruit to my morning cereal or oatmeal. If you like eggs, you can add veggies to your egg dishes.
I also have had some success adding more veggies to my main meals – cutting them really finely in a food processor can help there too. If I don’t have a fruit or veg w/ each meal, it can get challenging to have 5 a day.
I’m also getting better at incorporating fruit and/or veggies into my snacks. A piece of fruit is a common snack for me. I’ll also add it to yoghurt (and often all bran) for a pretty satisfying snack. I’ve also started to get hummus fairly regularly and will eat that with carrots and celery instead of pita as a snack.
Best wishes on reaching 5 a day!
Thank you , I enjoy reading about other vegansas it gives me the strength to continue. I have about a thousand vegetarian feeds in my google reader, but another can’t hurt!! I did manage to find a good lentil recipes here, but I’ll be sure to try yours too. Thanks!
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