Living Nourished Lives

Hoping everyone’s 2017 is off to an amazing start! It is so crazy that January is already gone!  I began this post January 13^th and am just now getting to finalize it!!!

In this post, I just want to reflect and share some about my self-discovery and experience with maintaining my weight loss last year.  I wish I could say all was smooth sailing, but I need to be honest.  So I want to share my experience with food, in hope that it will help others in some way.  As simple as my weight loss seemed to be with Shaklee 180, when I went into “maintenance” I really struggled with what and how much I should be eating.  I really had not realized that I had any issues with eating because it was “baby weight” that I had lost and because Shaklee 180 had made it pretty easy for me to eat healthy and lose the weight.  However, going back to eating food at Breakfast and Lunch eventually brought me to the realization that I did have a problem with food, and certain foods more than others, but also quantity.

Outside of my Shaklee 180 weight loss experience, I had never really felt a need to restrict or think about how much I ate.  After I started having children, I felt like my weight was out of MY control and consequently, did not focus on my weight much at all.  I knew it wasn’t what I started with, but I knew that with pregnancy and nursing, it wasn’t good to restrict my eating, so I just accepted that it was normal for my weight to be more than what it had been in my early 20’s.  Eight years after beginning to have children, sometime between my 4th (Francisco) and my 5th (John), I had switched to eating mainly protein.  I guess you could say I adopted a semi-Atkins type diet, but not because I had read anything about Atkins.  I had heard that unused carbohydrate got stored as fat and that it wasn’t fat that made you fat, and that protein was the building block to build strong muscles and organs.  At this point, I did remove most flour and sugar, as well as fruits and vegetables, though I didn’t focus as much on removing vegetables, I just didn’t eat them much.  I used Splenda (not a natural sweetener) for a time to sweeten desserts and drinks, but did not completely cut out sugar sweetened sweets from my diet either.  Shortly after John (5th) was born,  I did lose a lot of weight with a bad flu I had during this time, and did go back to the weight of my 20’s which actually felt too thin and I appreciated gaining a little back after I recovered.  However, I gained everything back when I had my 6th (Arrigo) and after weaning him, I had started to focus on my weight which I had realized was going up after weaning.  I had not recognized that I needed to cut back on eating since I wasn’t eating for 2 after weaning.  However, I didn’t get far because as soon as I had decided to do some extra exercise for a month or so, I realized I was pregnant with my 7th (Nicolette) and stopped trying to lose weight.  I had two more pregnancies after that which were pretty much back to back, so I had not lost much weight in between.  Finally, after weaning my youngest, Remi, right after he turned 2 in Sept. 2014, I had started to realize again that, what weight I had lost through nursing and regular walking, was again returning.  I still did not get the connection between weaning and reducing my calorie intake.

In mid-February I had decided to use Shaklee 180 Weight Management products to lose my “baby weight”.  At this stage, I had already re-discovered and been trusting Shaklee as a company for 6 years.  That story is here: http://betterhealthin31days.com/frankandana.  I began my Shaklee 180 journey at 142 lbs.  I was willing to try Shaklee because I knew their products were scientifically formulated and tested to assist with weight loss in a healthy way that would make sure you were losing fat and not muscle, thus maintaining your metabolism.  I didn’t believe in any typical diets, so the idea of maintaining my metabolism while losing weight was attractive and important to me and I decided to give it a try. Restricting calories was part of it, but I found it really freeing to not have to think about food so much, such as:  What am I going to eat for breakfast or lunch?  My breakfast and lunch were determined already for me…. a leucine rich protein Life Shake along with a Metabolic Boost supplement.  For dinner, I did not follow the recommendations of calories very closely, I just stuck mostly with protein and avoided sugars and other carbohydrates, but unlike my previously more strict avoidance of carbohydrates, I  regularly added in some starches and vegetables and salad, and still had 1/2 of a dessert with the family here and there. At that time we seemed to have dessert a lot, so I periodically I had a “regular” serving and at other times I skipped dessert altogether, but I also took a Metabolic Boost with dinner.  I lost my weight and was SO grateful and amazed at how easy it had been.  I saw that I was eating better because I was actually eating 3 meals a day.  Previous to Shaklee 180, I would be so busy, I’d skip breakfast, sometimes lunch too and then be so hungry by the afternoon that I’d start eating whatever I could grab.  I tended to want “carby” processed stuff by that point but knew they weren’t good for me, so I would often try to choose proteins.  However, my experience with Shaklee 180 made me realize I had been over-eating/binge eating before dinner because of not eating regular smaller amounts earlier in the day.  Having Life Shakes helped me see that it was “freeing” to be less obsessed with “What am I going to eat?”   I had not realized up until that time how much thought and energy it took me to “decide” what I was going to eat, making it more natural for me to skip meals. And while I was not consciously “trying to lose weight” at that time, I did have a misconception that skipping meals would help in keeping my weight down, instead of realizing that it would encourage a “starvation mode” response of storing fat.  In addition, I did not like taking the time to prepare food, so if I ate, I’d eat left overs and since I was the only one in our household that regularly ate left overs, so I regularly ate more than I needed to eat.  Even though I knew sugars and refined carbs were not good for me, I did really like to eat them, especially with my coffee once I became a regular coffee drinker (sometime after Francisco, my 4th).

Now at a younger age, I think I even prided myself that I could eat as much as I wanted and thought it silly to skip a dessert “to watch your figure” because for the most part, pre-child bearing years, my weight did not suffer from what I was eating.  And for the most part, once I began having children, I didn’t notice any real cause and effect from bread and sweets because I was pregnant or nursing much of the time and never at a constant weight anyway, not even stepping on the scale except at prenatal appointments.

So, when I reached my goal weight with Shaklee, 109 lbs. by December 2015, I knew I did not want to have to take the Metabolic Boost supplement forever, but by then (about 10 months to lose my “baby weight”), I was really excited to be eating food at Breakfast and Lunch, instead of a shake.  Yet, I felt at a loss as to how much food I should be eating at those meals. I had a calorie amount for the day, but I am not a big fan of calorie counting and except for about four weeks of time to get a “rough idea” of how much to eat, through-out my experience with losing weight using Shaklee’s products, I did not count calories, so I certainly was not interested in counting them as part of my maintenance.  As a result, I didn’t know how I should eat to maintain my weight loss. My appetite had always been my basic “guide.”  Plus, because I had been able to eat grains, bread, and even dessert during my weight loss with Shaklee, (I believe because of my lower calorie intake and the Metabolic Boost supplement), I wanted to keep eating these foods which I liked but had not eaten much of for roughly 6 years previously with my Atkins type diet.  As a result, a pound or two here and there had been creeping back throughout 2016 until about the time of my birthday (September 2016) when I got super excited about finding a bakery with bread made the way my Mom had made bread and buying lots of fresh, organic bread and then to top it off, about that time, my daughter made a tray full of lemon bars with powdered sugar on top that I literally didn’t feel I could get enough of! And there were so many that I didn’t want any to “go to waste.” 😉 After that, I vaguely realized I was going into an addictive state as I started wanting to eat  and snack more and more.

To digress, while growing up, My Mom had made bread for us from whole wheat flour and honey and I had watched an interview of Susan Pierce-Thompson by Ty Bolinger in about July 2016: (https://nourishinglivesblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/a-blessed-4th-of-july-to-you/) which had begun to help me realize that there was such a thing as food addiction, and helped me realize I was susceptible to food addiction, but because in the interview it sounded like refined flour and refined sugar were the culprits, I had reasoned that whole wheat flour was different and honey was natural and different from refined sugar.  And since I had grown up eating no sugar, only honey and maple syrup, as a child, and had never had any weight issues, I thought I recognized more of a problem with addiction to sweets and white bread when I had begun eating mainly white bread from refined flour, and sweets from white, refined sugar in my teens.  That is right, I literally had not had sugar or even chocolate until about age 13.  My Mom was hard core, no sugar.  She even brought 100% pure maple syrup to the restaurant rather than have us eat the sugar based substitute in restaurants.  However, we still had desserts, but only when we baked them with freshly ground whole wheat flour and honey, which was basically only on special occasions.  I started to try to switch back to this approach because what Susan said in the interview seemed to validate for me how much better it had been when I ate the way my Mom had us eat.  However, I didn’t realize that in trying to create the same sweet baked goods that I had become accustomed to, just with “healthier” flours and sweeteners, I was feeding my addictive tendency that had formed in my teens.

After watching that interview, I had taken Susan’s susceptibility test for food addiction. Based on what I’d learned about myself when I was losing weight with Shaklee 180, and how I had always really, really liked white bread: I had gotten a score of “7” with “10” being the most susceptible to food addiction. Yet, at this point, I still really blamed the refining process spoken of in the interview because I really had not grown up liking my Mom’s whole wheat bread too much, but had always loved the rare occasions I got to have white rolls at my Grandma’s house, so this strengthened my impression that whole wheat flour/bread was not addictive.

By August 2016, some of my family members had also taken the susceptibility test and as a result, several of us were on Susan’s email list.  I had thought of trying one of her boot camps to learn more about food addiction until I saw the price (about $900).  Plus, I did not know if  I’d have the time available to put into the “support” which was a big part of the price.  In mid- October 2016, one of my daughters showed me an email about a “Self-Starter” Boot Camp Susan was doing which was more affordable (about $400)  and without the same support time-commitment, thus more doable for me with a household of 11.  I was ready to try to learn how to eat so I could first lose the 11 pounds I’d gained back over 11 months and at the same time, learn how to eat in order to better maintain my weight, and most importantly, I was hoping to re-wire my brain and end my addiction to flour or sugar.  Because of this self-starter boot camp, I have been cutting out all types of sugars and sweeteners as well as all flours and weighing my protein servings, my whole grain (not ground into flour) servings, my veggie servings, and my fruit servings every day for three and a half months. My experience has been good. However, even though I did lose all 11 pounds in about 8 weeks, and made it through the holidays, I relaxed a tiny bit after Christmas while on a 3 night family trip, eating some of the home made candy a neighbor had given us for Christmas and two small tastes of some honey sweetened, garlic cheese bread that I’d gotten for the kids and had always wanted to taste, but never had.  I was fine with my maintenance after that blip of flour and sugar, but it didn’t stop there.  I was at my weight and I wanted to eat more food again, so I thought I’d start to try Susan’s maintenance food plan (adding in more food) plus on top of that, there were a couple more instances when I ate Christmas sweets that had been hanging around the house since they arrived and nobody had eaten plus I ate a good amount of macaroni and cheese that had been over cooked (too soft) and I couldn’t get anyone else to eat it.  This week of eating food that would otherwise have been wasted, actually brought home to me, one of my biggest problems.  I have always had a very hard time with food being wasted.  I have eaten kid’s left overs for 18 years until I had stopped while I had been losing weight with Shaklee 180, and had not noticed that tendency had crept back in with my attempt at maintenance after Shaklee. This is usually food I eat after I’ve eaten my own food, so “over-eating.” This one week of eating what would otherwise need to be thrown out and about 3 days of eating 1-2 of the home made candies, I gained 3 pounds back.  So back on to the weight loss amounts I went and I just stuck the candies in the freezer for the kids to eat down the road. 

Ultimately, for weight maintenance, I have realized that I cannot eat food that the kids leave behind, even though I have an issue with “wasted food.” I also realized that my typical quantities were too large. I had been so used to “eating for two” for so many years (20 years time) that I had lost touch with what it was like to eat for one, just me.  So, weighing my food gives me a way to gauge a proper amount for a single female without having to “count calories”.  I hate having to read labels for calories, plus calorie counting gives the impression that bread and dessert are “just calories” and removes the focus from the unhealthy nature of flour and sweeteners.  The calorie approach makes it seem like all food is “equal”….as in: just calories, when in fact, weighing the different types of food and cutting out all flour and all sweeteners has proved to be a much better overall approach for me. It seems a much simpler way for me to eat according to a single person’s needs than calorie counting is.  Sticking to three meals a day has also helped me avoid endless snacking.  The other thing that I have come to realize through all this is that I appreciate having more food groups in my diet than just protein.  While I miss eating more meat, I do enjoy the variety of eating more food groups and know that cutting out flour and sugars is a health promoting choice and is more doable for me when I know I can still have a natural taste of sweet from fruit a couple times a day and some grains, just not in a flour state (processed). I think that over the long run, it will help me feel like I am eating well and balanced and keep me from feeling “deprived.” I still don’t feel I’ve “re-wired” my brain but then I have kept giving my brain refined sugars here and there.  Even as recently as two days ago I 3 chocolate candies (yes, still from Christmas…you would think with all our kids, that stuff would be gone in a flash, but kid’s tastes can be pretty finicky and the older ones know that too much candy isn’t good for them.)  The science says that when an addiction is formed, if the pathway is not fed, it will become dormant and stay happily dormant, like a dry river bed, but if fed again, the “river” will flow quickly and easily back into addiction again. I think my experience can partially validate that…. I have not succeeded long enough in a completely dry river bed yet. 😉  And it makes sense to me that someone addicted to nicotine, alcohol, or another drug does not quit and then have just “a little” here and there and expect to stay “clean,” so why would addiction to sugar or flour be any different?  But I think I still have a little denial that I’m dealing with.

Not everyone is going to have my tendency toward addiction to flour and sugar or have been so used to eating for two that they are used to “over-eating,” but for me, the weighing and cutting out sugar and flour has been the real missing link that I believe I needed after losing all my “baby weight” with Shaklee 180 and which will allow me to maintain my healthy weight, for life, without Metabolic Boost.  It is an easy, doable way to help me not over-eat. I am excited to now have additional tools and experiences available to help others achieve and maintain their own healthy, “right for them” weight. I’m here willing to help!

God’s Blessings to all as the first month of 2017 closes and the second begins!