Wednesday, February 17, 2010

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET!!! The Realities of Weight Loss


Okay, folks, how ya doin'?

I woke up this morning super early...with last night's phone call with Carlene on my mind.

I was dissappointed over the speed of my weight loss.

You know me, this blog is peppered with quick losses of 20 lbs in a week. I'm all about losing quickly. But then again, i realize everytime i lose it quickly...i gain it back even quicker.

So, Carlene and I discussed the realities of how fast I could lose weight doing what i'm doing (about 50% raw, very low fat, 1700 cals a day, 1 hour of walking daily).

My goal is to lose 75 lbs...and to weigh 199!!!! Wow...i'll be in the 1's!!!

I expected to be there by June. Carlene said, doing what i'm doing, it would take closer to a YEAR!

A YEAR??????!!!!!

That really got me thinkin'. Is eating cooked all it's cracked up to be? Or was i better off before?
And, how much did i ever really lose before doing 80-10-10? And...do i want to lose those next 75 lbs only eating, basically, fruit? Or eating cooked greens and lentils?????

Before i see what i did before, i'd like a quick check on what i'm doing now.

I've been working with Carlene now for 3 weeks. Next week is our last week together,unless i renew my work with her.

Week one, i lost 13.5lbs. I went from eating fried mozzerella sticks, french fries, fried onion rings, pizza, donuts, spring rolls, Singapore rice noodles with fried tofu......to a Whole Foods diet of fresh veggies, fruit, almost zero fat and salt, some lentil beans, 1/2 of my intake cooked.

Cooking veggies seems like such a 'logical' thing to do when you are attempting to go low fat. A giant plate of raw broccoli sans cashew sauce or raw mushrooms, left unmarinated, or a big bowl of spring mix without the slippery oily dressing just does NOT appeal to me. And i had tried to lose weight just eating gourmet raw moderately. Nothing happened.

Week two, i lost 4 lbs.

Week three, i lost 1.5 lbs.

That's when i started to get a little discouraged. Imagine, walking out in the blizzard, getting up to go to the mall to race walk for an hour or walk outside in the freezing cold...DAILY..., sauteeing your veggies in their own juices, bypassing the salt and oil,...and see if 1.5lbs a week is enough for YOU!!!

I know 3 people right now who have lost LARGE amounts of weight, no 4 people, eating gourmet raw. How did THEY do it...if to lose 1.5 lb, i can't even eat barely a trace of fat????

1) Dustin Kellogg - Scroll down to check out his new pic in his new courderoy's (homemade by his wife) on http://www.therawseed.com/. He is literally half of his former self and is down about 100 lbs. His wife is a gourmet raw chef, and he gets to indulge in fantastical raw gourmet food, AND lose weight? Why is God so unfair? I do know that Dustin DAILY drinks large amounts of green juices and has reported to eating food only 1-2x a day after juicing all morning. His caloric intake might very well, then, be restricted. I also know that Dustin does not binge eat like i do, and as a matter of fact, he may very well not even OVEREAT like i do.

2) Tim Arnold - Yes, Tim runs about 10 miles a day, but he also eats banana whips made with 10 bananas a night, and devours rock sea salt like it's going out of style. Tim's wife, Leslie, is a wonderful raw cook, so he is definitely NOT denying himself. Tim is down 100 lbs and looks like a completely different person from the pudgy, pale person i first met. I do know, however, that Leslie and Tim do NOT use oil on their salads at home, so it might be quite possible their diet is relatively low fat, although it is "gourmet raw," salted with seasoning. I suppose gourmet raw can run the gamut from LOW FAT to INTENSELY HIGH FAT. Leslie soaks all of her seeds and nuts and uses soaked sunflower seeds, low in fat (and cost), as the base for most of her dressings. Their diet consists of smoothies, nori wraps, salads and treats such as chia pudding, banana whips and pies. They don't overeat, i have eaten with them often.

3) Lisa Maguire - Lisa, an Arnold's Way customer, lost 75 lbs eating what she calls 'regular raw...in 4 MONTHS! It's like she just melted before our eyes. Amazing! I do know, however, that Lisa ALSO does not use oil in her raw diet, either. It's quite possible calorically she is not eating that much and her diet may not be super high fat, either. Anyway, here is an amazing video on her: http://www.youtube.com/arnoldsway#p/u/16/rvXknFSVkPU that i shot at Arnold's Way. Lisa may also not be an overeater and she does not binge.

4) ME! I lost 140 lbs in 8 months incorporating MANY gourmet raw meals into a VERY low fat salt free raw diet at the raw retreat i attended for those 8 months. When i came home from O.H.I. http://www.optimumhealthinstitute.org/, i continued to lose weight even as i stuffed myself daily with cashew pate and raw bread, binge eating DAILY. How the heck did i accomplish THAT feat? The weight loss, however, soon stopped when i stopped exercsing regularly, and soon i was gaining weight.

I'd like to interview the top 3 people and really SEE what they eat. Wouldn't THAT be enlightening?

As for me, I only began to lose weight again on raw when i started 80-10-10. And luck would have it, that that entire history IS this blog. Hello? Am i smart or WHAT to have documented all of this?

So, how much did i lose doing an all fruit, VERY low fat, no salt diet, with some veggies? Let's see. I'm going to go back and review my blog from day one (May, 2009).

_ _ _ _ _ _


Okay, you know what? I am SO glad i've been keeping this blog. I just reviewed my blog entries from the start of this blog through all of june, when i sang at the RAW WEDDING UNION and weighed about 250.

250!!!!!! God, i looked GOOD!!!!

I had started this blog in May of 2009 weighing 277, 2 or 3 lbs more than i weigh now (how pathetic is THAT? Can you believe i got up to 293.5??? And now i'm only back to where i originally started from in May 2009??????)

In 4 weeks I lost 27 lbs eating lowfat raw/no salt.

My head is kind of spinning right now and i feel like i'm WAY NUTS for having started with the cooked food. It may be NICE to have a warm plate of spinach and lentils in the cold winter....but...is it REALLY WORTH IT??? The weight loss is slower. I didn't even exercise daily like i am now in the summer. I'm working HARDER for less outcome. I can't poop like i used to. Several mornings i've woken up to NOTHING, no poop. I used to poop SEVERAL times a day. Now, i'm lucky if it's once a day.

Eating low fat raw/no salt, i lost -
-15 lbs the first week (vs. now - 13.5 lbs 1/2 cooked)

-5.5 lbs the second week (vs. now - 4lbs 1/2 cooked)

-3 3/4 lb the third week (vs. now - 1.5 1/2 cooked)

-2.75 lbs the 4th week

-0 lbs lost week 5

+7.7 gain week six.....

Wooo...what happened there?? +7.7lbs?

I'm telling you it's truly amazing to read back on this blog. What happened was that at the raw wedding, i binged on gourmet raw. I don't know how i didn't manage to gain then, or i did and then lost it 80-10-10ing by the time i weighed in, but when i returned to work at Arnold's Way, i was consistently having issues with binge eating on gourmet raw.

My goal at that time switched from STAYING ON 80-10-10, to LEGALIZING gourmet raw.

Trying to "legalize" all of the salt and fat led to an almost 8 lb gain. Legalizing means trying to eat it and NOT binge. Well, i found i couldn't. i always succumbed to binge eating. It always came down to HIGH FAT AND HIGH SALT setting me off.

I never learned self control. I never learned i had better stop NOW because i wouldn't be able to stop later.

I refered to my month of 80-10-10 as "the glory days of 80-10-10" and commented "i was much better with what i was doing before."

So, pardone' moi my language, but what the fuck am i doing now???

This blog is called, "Pure Raw Joy" for a reason. Raw was a joy, a blessing. I just didn't know how to handle it. I added in cooked beans last September rationalizing that they were MUCH lower fat than cashews, and probably more digestable, too.

But, who said i had to eat cashews? Soaked sunflower seeds are low in fat.

I think i've mistakenly started to eat cooked food under the impression that i'd lose weight even FASTER than 80-10-10. But, i'm finding that's NOT the truth.

Quick Note - Bananas: The more bananas i ate, the slower i lost.

I think the blog really took a detour then for a long time and i tried to eat gourmet moderately and found i couldn't.

I'll go back and review that some other time, but what is truly amazing to me is how WELL i was doing last summer. I weighed 24 lbs LESS than i do now. God, looking back at those pictures makes me feel a little queezy in my stomach. Like, "Michelle....what are you DOING?" "What have you DONE?" Regret. Remorse.

I told Carlene, eating cooked would never have come into the picture had i not started with the beans in September. Then it was like a snowball rolling out of control. Pizza, eggrolls, onion rings.

When i would contemplate 80-10-10, it no longer HELD MY INTEREST.

But, reading about me doing it back then? I was certainly committed, having a good time, jazzed about losing so quickly, was looking good, MUCH better than i do now.

The only 2 drawbacks were: HAIRLOSS....and YEAST INFECTIONS when i would eat too much fat.

If i could put that aside and go back to 80-10-10 with no dates, low bananas, onlya little fat, i could theoretically lose 24 lbs in...only a few weeks?

Compare that to the 1.5 lbs a week Carlene said i should expect from now on doing what i'm doing. Uy vay. Can someone say, "Patience is a virtue," please?

What i said to her on the phone last night was, "I know i can lose weight fast on 80-10-10, but i always gained it back. I always fell off into gourmet raw huge fatty salty binges that i couldn't stop for weeks. So, i found 80-10-10 hard to maintain."

She said, "well, you STILL need to develop self control. You never did that."

No. I didn't. And you know what? I didn't really TRY all that hard to maintain 80-10-10. I saw it as a DIET and not a lifestyle.

When i started with Carlene, i was looking for a lifestyle i could happily LIVE with. Did i find it? I have been pretty happy. My hair isn't falling out. I don't get yeast infections. But, i am losing slower. And my identity as a raw foodist is shot.

Were i to reconsider and return to 80-10-10, i would do it differently. I would severely LIMIT 'treat's. I know now from MUCH experience that excessive Fat and Salt set me off.

If i NEVER would have been excessive and would have learned to take a little, i might have been 80-10-10ing (with some treats) up until now...and i might weigh 200 TODAY!!!!!

Last night, Carlene gave me a choice. "You can do what you're doing and lose 1 lbs a week and just LIVE like that forever. You WILL get thin, in two years. It will just take LONGER. OR, you can lower your calories and up your exercise and lose 2 lbs a week."

"Or, you can do low fat raw again (her label for 80-10-10), exercise 2.5 hours a day, and consistenly lose 3 lbs a week until you meet your goal. You could theoretically lose 75 lbs in 6 months doing that, or lose ALL of your excess weight, 105 lbs in a year instead of 2 years."

When Carlene said 'exercise 2.5 hours a day,' my jaw dropped. Exercise THAT much and only lose 3 lbs a WEEK? Well, i suppose 3 lbs a week IS pretty great...consistently. How much do people ever really lose on Weight Watchers? Like a pound a week? Usually people who have massive amounts of weight to lose don't do Weight Watchers...because it's too slow.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Well.....this whole exploration into my diet history, the numbers and the results of what i'm doing now is really....eye opening.

So, nu? What will i do?

My own blog entries of May and June 2009 so inspired me. I can't believe it was ME eating like that...lots of juicy fruit, lots of zucchini spaghetti, lots of smoothies, salads with a little tahini on it, gross raw blenderized soups that i didn't enjoy, but i tolerated.

I certainly ENJOYED it...when i got up and weighed myself the next day!!!

My problem was...when i went OFF of 80-10-10, i wasn't careful with HOW i went off. It became a free for all. I wasn't able to MANAGE going OFF. But, who's to say i couldn't do that....and work on THAT? But, use 80-10-10 as my base diet again? I certainly WAS doing better than i am now.

I weighed myself this morning and gained a lb! I'm so frustrated. Maybe it's just beans clogging my system. I didn't poop today. Don't get me wrong, i FEEL good. I'm just DISCOURAGED.

Looking back, I also ate quite a lot of bananas, but when i didn't the weight would FLY off.

So, what am i gonna do????

By eating cooked veggies and lentils and eggwhites and baked potatoes, did i really FIND my "best diet"? My work with Carlene is up next Tuesday.

Or did i already have my best diet before???? It just needed some modifications. And some hard won self control when it came to indulgences. Maybe i just indulged a little TOO much. An indulgence could be a BITE of raw pie, and not the whole thing. Or a bite of cashew pate and not 8 oz of it.

What will i do...what will i do?

I've set up an interview with Lisa Maguire already and have inquired about interviewing Dustin Kellogg and Tim Arnold, my 3 gourmet success stories from above. I think they will be enlightening.

xoxo michelle joy

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