Progress Not Perfection

Getting Real Day 2

My own experiment with vegetables for 30 days

Progress not Perfection.

Today is my second day of attempting to keep it real when it comes to the food.

As you know, I have put on approximately 25 pounds over the last 6 months and yesterday I wrote about how I want to stop that roller coaster once and for all.

For me to do that, I have to accept that my physiology just does not process all foods equally and that I cannot subject myself to trying to be more normal.

The way I am is the way I am and if I accept it, then it should work out fine.

I do not process grains or junk foods well at all.

In only 6 months I am up 25 pounds, shocking and disappointing.

Having said that, I want to use this experience as fuel for me to power forward, to not give up, to keep working on finding what does work for my body and sticking to it.

I wrote about creating a new room, a new home which is built on improving every day in every way that I can.

Certainly that will apply to food. I know that with all due respect (is there any respect due?) to Doritos, despite how great that flavor is, I know I am a goner after that one bag.

I get bloated, my face expands to the size of Mars and I am not a happy camper after those heavenly chips are finished.

Either I am going to be improving with every meal, or really harming myself.

So, in this new room, new home, the foundation must be healthy living habits.

Good food, good drink, good sleep, good air, good workout.

I have never heard any dietitian or nutritionist condemn vegetables.

Everyone agrees on vegetables, so that is the foundation.

Fruits are also well liked but appears to be more effective with a bit more moderate use.

Everyone agrees that junk food is the pits, but some say that a cheat meal every now and then is okay and can even help boost your metabolism.

Well, that might work for someone else, but not for me!

It is not working for me, even one meal with bread, alcohol or cake sends me into enough of a tailspin that my result is a 25 pound gain.

Okay, but let’s not give up.

I am still not up to my starting weight on June 21, 2012 of 275 pounds and it is never too late to nip this in the bud.

I also decided to do this very strictly for the next 30 days, no matter what.

And what is that?

Vegetables

The base of every meal, shoot for three meals a day, that is if I get hungry.

My experience with vegetables is that I do not get as hungry with vegetable based dishes as I will with a bread based dish.

Fruits

For snacks, such as apple, berries.

Nuts

For snacks as well, but go easy.

Protein

Either Tofu, Tempeh, Eggs, Fish or Chicken

So for today, I have had an apple, a grapefruit and a big omelette which had a half onion, quarter garlic, half yellow pepper, a little olive oil, a couple of handfuls of spinach, 2 whole organic eggs and 2 egg whites.

I did not even add dairy such as cheese or parmesan.

What am I not going to have?

Grains, any grains, including bread, pasta, rice, quinoa, oatmeal, barley.

Legumes, any beans, because they always give me heartburn. I am going to miss peanuts and peanut butter though.

Alcohol, even the touted red wine, I just want to go an entire month without red wine and hope that it is a plus.

Dairy, cheese, milk, even parmesan for sprinkling.

Oreos, the toughest part of this, but no Oreos or any other junk food for that matter.

In addition, I want to lift weights and walk, so for today as an example:

I did 5 sets of squats, starting light with 55 pounds and in between each set of squats, I did 20 pushups.

That whole workout took about 45minutes.

Later on today I will take a walk for 30 minutes as I do not usually enjoy running on a treadmill, but I am going to be open to changing around my workout routine as I get leaner.

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