One thing Weigh Down Workshop taught me - the value of eating small portions of foods I love.
SMALL PORTIONS of FOODS YOU LOVE ON RAW
Now that I'm raw again, instead of denying myself the pleasure of hemp seeds and dates and chocolate in my morning smoothie (
like i used to do with radical low-fat or low-glycemic raw approaches like 811 or rawfoodbootcamp.com which i could never stick to and only set me up to binge), today i enjoy a SMALL PORTION of fattier raw foods. This morning, for example, I enjoyed a luscious hempy, datey, chocolately smoothie for breakfast, only a moderate 10 oz serving since that was all i needed before the hunger turned off, INSTEAD of 3 huge 16 oz glasses like I used to drink and then feel intense remorse and frustration because i thought i 'couldn't' lose weight eating fat on raw.
Weigh Down Workshop at least proves that people CAN lose weight eating ANYTHING...as long as you eat portions that are appropriate to YOUR boday and YOUR authentic hunger.
I always marveled at how Dustin Kellogg lost over 100 lbs eating raw gourmet. He obviously ate an amount appropriate to his body and his true hunger.
http://www.dustinkellogg.com/I was never successful for long on programs like Weight Watchers that ask you to control "regular" foods, like 1 oz of chips and 1/2 cup of icecream.
Yeah, right. Raw is the first "diet" I could stick to for 3.5 years. Raw removes addictive foods and makes it practically impossible for me to eat at fast food restaurants. A good thing, since i'm a fast food addict.
Eating "small portions of everything" seemed like a dream-come-true idea on Weigh Down Workshop.
You mean, i get to eat anything i WANT???? Wow!!!! Even though i've never been able to make it work, I'd thought i'd give it another shot.
On Weigh Down, I was hungry ALL day. My stomach made noises and squirms and yearns and gurgles non stop. And when i overate even ONE bite, the guilt was overwhelming. I'd passed the point of no return and and I was right back in bingeland in an instant.
No, to make it work, apparently you have to move to Tennesee, memorize bible verses all day, leave your husband, listen to Gwen on her streaming video talks 24/7 on your headset, join the cooky Remnant cult and live a life of senseless rules and regulations and fear and and have Gwen embarrass you in front of the congregation weekly disclosing publicly all of your overeating episodes.
Eating raw seems easier than that.
Eating raw, my tummy is surprisingly QUIET in between meals. And i forget about food. Until i'm hungry again.
Eating salt free or low salt (using nutritional yeast) raw has been like an oasis in the dessert. I feel like i've been rescued. This act of giving up salt has eliminated most of my former raw bingefoods, like Brad's raw chips, and raw bread and salty raw nuts. The discipline has offered me a much needed rest.
Eating alkelizing foods also creates almost no stomach acid. When we eat highly acidic cooked foods, like fried meats, our body produces gallons of stomach acid to break down the food.
With raw, the body only produces 1/2 cup of stomach acid to digest the easily digestible fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds.
That's why on raw, reflux diminishes. That's why a 'comfy tummy' in between meals becomes the norm.
Would you rather have 2 gallons of acid sloshing around in your belly making noises and making you feel starving and uncomfortable all day? Or a quiet 1/2 cup?
Today, i'll take 1/2 cup.
It's kind of akin to how a drug addict who needs a hit must feel. Being finally OFF of the highly acidifying foods (granted, not ALL cooked foods are acid-forming), my tummy feels so much better.
The other day, though, i was watching a cooking show and I actually cried watching Chef Daisy Martinez taste the delicious cooked food she'd just prepared. I so admire her shapely, trim, but womanly figure, and her passion and love of delicious food. She constantly moans when cooking, "My mouth is watering!"
If i could be like Daisy and eat normal portions and not be obsessed with food..."Why can't i be like her? She gets to eat normally and stay thin! Why can't that be me?," I cried. I literally cried. It was a part of my detox.
Well...
Why can't i be 6 feet tall and be a super model?
Why can't my eyes be blue instead of brown?
At the Easter party I was at last month, there were regular people eating regular foods, most of them so full from overeating, but they were normal-weight people, not excessively fat or obsessed with food in real life. Regular people CAN overeat sometimes...and not get morbidly obese and massively lose control of food.
Then there was me. I tasted the turkey Lucille cooked. It was just another food i wanted to experiment with since opening the doors to cooked and gaining 120 pounds back. For the first time in 5 years, I had turkey. It was so mind blowingly delicious, i couldn't get it out of my mind. Every opportunity i had, i snuck over to the turkey for a sneak bite. I was absolutely obsessed out of my mind with that turkey. I was planning on a turkey sub for the next day. Planning on how i could get back over to that turkey platter when no one was looking.
The taste, the texture, the aroma. Turkey, turkey, turkey! I also couldn't find a chair to sit in that fit.
There are people who are obsessed with food like me, who become morbidly obese because of their addiction. And there are normal people like everyone else.
There were also people drinking alcohol, in moderation, normal folks, who imbibe on holidays, like everyone does.
Then there is Bill, the confirmed alcoholic, who was visibly smashed, and who is never without a beer in his hand, anytime i see him.
Bill isn't like normal people with alcohol.
"Why, Why, why?" we cry, before we come to terms with the fact that WE may be different than other people.
"Why, why, me?," we cry, when we can't do something like other people can. Like eat normally.
Or sing.
I can sing. Not everyone can.
Hey, people with Celiac disease can't have donuts for breakfast like everyone else without entering into a state of extreme distress. People who are allergic to shellfish can die if they ingest it. The smart ones don't feel sorry for themselves. They accept. They avoid what makes them sick. And they move on with their lives, never looking back. They don't say, "Let's see if that shrimp will kill me THIS time!," and start munching on it. They don't test the waters. They KNOW.
Some people may not be food addicts like i am. But, maybe their metabolisms are so slow, they may gain weight eating what a normal weight person eats and easily burns off. That guy over there, Joe Shmo, can eat a cheeseburger and fries for lunch, a steak and potato for dinner and eggs and bacon for breakfast, and not gain a pound.
His metabolism is all revved up. He burns it.
And then, there's someone like me, who has gotten so extremely sedentary, she gains if she eats what Joe Shmo can, she becomes so blown up from the salt she can hardly walk, and then so obsessed with the food, she can't think of anything else...
Some people can lose weight on 2500 calories. Some may need to eat under 1000 calories to lose weight. It depends on their metabolism.
The leader of my Weigh Down group, Andy, followed Weigh Down's suggestion (pressure) and maintained a very radically low amount of calories to lose over 200 lbs in one year - 500 cals a day. That's radical. (But he's a part of the Remnant cult, so he gets publicly weighed in at church weekly and publicly humiliated unless he follows their guidelines).
The TLC channel's bed-ridden "600 lb mom" of 6 from Haiti, Dominique Lanoise, was p
ut on a 700 calorie diet and instructed to do calisthenics in bed, which she did in the first episode with the help of her daughters. She can only wave her arms and move from the waist up as she is almost completely immobile, stuck in bed, but she moved her upper body to music and seemed to be having fun. This will help raise her metabolism. Dominique lost over 35 lbs in the first two weeks on the 700 calorie diet, which was mostly water weight her doctor commented, but it was a great start.
The second weigh-in came in another two weeks. Dominique was hoping she lost another 35+ lbs. That would mean she would have taken off 70 lbs in 4 weeks!
No such luck. Dominique's daughters snuck fried shrimp and rice into her room, along with bottled sugary iced tea. Dominique gained 4 lbs during those 2 weeks.
It was estimated that Dominique was taking in only 2,000 calories a day prior to the drs diet to maintain her 600 lb body. 2,000 cals a day is nothing~! That's one McDonald's value meal. That's a SNACK for Joe Shmo. Dominique's metabolism had stopped functioning. She maintained a massive body on the caloric equivalent of a big mac and some fries and a coke.
I suppose I should be grateful my metabolism is in a better state than Dominiques.
Dominique could cry, "Why, why, why can't i eat one huge plate of fried shrimp and rice a day and lose weight????," but her weight wasn't going to move unless she took in under 1000 cals a day, and ate more than once a day and moved in bed to rev up her metabolism.
Weigh Down would take a different approach and instruct Dominique to eat 3 fried shrimp and a half cup of rice daily to lose her weight. For supersize obese people, they "suggest" (pressure) according to some inane bible verse that we should eat 10 oz of food a day. That's the amount of food that would fit on a saucer, once a day. That's how you lose two and three hundred pounds in a year at the Remnant church cult. (But you have to join the cult to do it and be publicly humiliated and degraded when you don't.)
Following the drs. diet, Dominique's emotions began to de-numb. She began to start feeling very emotional, upsettingly so. She freaked out, yelling and screaming at her daughters from her bed. She was livid that the house was messy.
I think she was really just in withdrawls from fried shrimp. Dominique called the police asking them to kick her kids out of the house because it was messy.
On raw, you're brought face to face with your emotions, too. But something is radically different. Gone are the intense mood swings, the irritability, the angry outbursts we feel when eating restrictive amounts on cooked. On raw, you're calm, serene, and filled with gratitude most of the time. Well, at least I have been this week. And thanks to the alkelizing effect of the diet, you're not having insane highs and lows, or intense hunger bouts. Sure, you may feel sad inexplicably, but if you allow yourself to cry or talk it out, it vanishes into the ethers and you feel happy again in 5 minutes. (Emotional detox is a given. You must learn to flow with your emotions.)
On raw, i forget about my belly. My gnawing belly was the constant focus of my attention when i was on Weigh Down. Not God, like it was supposed to be. My belly was so empty and gurgled all day, that's all i could think about. My stomach never gurgles and percolates in between meals on raw.
They have Dominique eating broiled chicken and veggies from what i could see for dinner, a cup of soup for lunch, and I didn't see her breakfast. She's probably feeling pretty darned hungry I imagine.
On raw, it's tolerable between meals. I feel so blessed to be back here!
On Weigh Down Workshop, exercise is all but forbidden because it might make you hungry.
What kind of insanity is that? As a normal weight 170 lb man, Andy Sorrells, my former WDW group leader, still only eats 1/2 hamburger for dinner, an orange for lunch and 1/2 cup of cereal and milk for breakfast. His metabolism is soooo slowed down, thanks to Weigh Downs teachings and frowing upon of exercise, that he STILL can't take in much food.
If he ate more?
Heaven forbid! That would be sinning! And, I imagine, he'd start gaining if he did.
Andy's metabolism is still slow. Way slow.
On raw, my first time, at the raw retreat, I walked and walked all over town, and swam for an hour several times a week. I so enjoyed moving and being out in the fresh air and sun. All i wanted to do was move. Exercise was wondrous! It was a miraculous time, a time that taught me so much. Jeez, I'm so glad moving is not forbidden on raw!
Imagine that.And having revved up my metabolism, I routinely enjoyed big gourmet raw meals out at local raw restaurants.
What a massive pleasure that was! Everything i ate, i ate it without guilt. I believed it was helping me lose weight and loved every bite of it. I was working the Secret and didn't even know it!
I reveled as I ate a bowl of guacamole with flax crackers, a raw entree, a peice of raw pie and maybe a raw chocolate or two for lunch several times a week. And i lost 140 lbs in 8 months doing that. The rest of the time I stuck to a very low fat and salt free raw diet.
My metabolism was revved.
When i got home from the retreat, my metabolism was still revved up, and i used to marvel to my friend, Jan, on the phone, that i ate continuously at Arnolds Way and never gained a lb. For an entire YEAR, i ate like a pig daily at Arnolds Way and never gained a lb. My metabolism was still revved. And i was still exercising.
Later, when I stopped exercising and started eating Rita's water ice (not raw), my metabolism slowed down, and i started to gain.
My body was no longer burning what it was taking in.
_ _ _
I'm so looking forward to this second adventure as a raw foodist.
For today, i wisely stay away from salt, like I did at the raw retreat. But, i won't deny myself going out from time to time for gourmet raw meals that have salt in them. I learned going out could work for me, if my metabolism is revved.
For today, i exercise. I did my first 20 min walk as a return raw foodist and it was amazing! All of my pains have vanished! I feel such gratitude.
For today, i listen to my body, i eat until my tummy says it's satified. At least Weigh Down taught me that if nothing more. I'm positively bristling with energy. I'm happy as a lark. I can't believe i was so depressed and hopeless only a week ago.
For today, i'm patient. I weigh myself once a month. I know i'll get there with weight loss, but it probably won't be as fast as the retreat. That's okay. Weighing monthly will relieve me of the insanity, the emotional rollercoaster of frequent weighings.
I'm smarter this time out!
FOOD TUESDAY, May 10, 2011
Br: 10 oz yummy smoothie:
hemp, chocolate, strawberry, mint, banana, vanilla, date smoothie
Ln: Berry Smoothie:
strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, 2 small bananas. SO MUCH ENERGY AFTERWARDS! I think i will save fats for dinner time. I had much more energy with a fat free lunch.
Dn: Beautiful mexican salad with home made salsa
saltfree, home made guacamole
saltfree made from one small avo, over spring mix with 1/2 ear of fresh corn kernals sprinkled on top.
Yummo!!!
Sn: 1 mango, 1 apple and 2 dates stuffed with lime rind, 3 walnut quarters and fresh herbs.
Was hungry tonight! xoxo michelle joy
