How I lost weight during the holidays
This past year, I lost weight during the holidays, and it didn’t kill me.
On December 1st last year, I checked in on MyFitnessPal.com at 222.4 lbs, and at the end of the month, had dropped to 217 lbs. That’s 5.4 lbs lost.
Getting serious about health
That last statement may not be an accurate portrayal of things, so let’s back up. Over three years ago, I got interested in better health, so I stopped drinking soda. That was tough, but I can proudly say I’ve not had any soda except for extenuating circumstances like once having a stomach bug and Sprite being the only thing I could keep down. Another situation where I needed caffeine to drive, and the only thing available was a Diet Coke.
But my weight losing goals really got going a year and a half ago. I stepped onto a scale and weighed in at 245. Yikes! I began using MyFitnessePal.com to track everything I ate and improve my fitness condition.
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. My doctor duly informed me that aggressively losing weight can help with apnea. (Seems like doctors will say EVERYTHING is helped by losing weight, right?) I tried and tried and tried, but it seems like I couldn’t get below that 230 lbs. floor. So I threw in the towel.
New approach to things
In March of last year, I read some new articles on health and diet. The most outrageous article pointed out that today’s typical breakfast of cereal is nutritionally equivalent to halloween candy. That one took a bit to settle in, but I realized it’s true. Our vaunted high grain, low fat diet espoused by the food pyramid is ridiculous and not grounded in real research, but is instead a huge experiment (that is failing).
Then in October, my wife was introduced by a friend to the Trim Healthy Mama plan. The second she explained it to me, I was onboard.
It incorporates several elements:
- Eat something every three hours, because that is the time it takes your body to process. Avoids you feeling starved, and also gives you grace to fall off the plan, but get back on it without much hoopla.
- Eat a healthy protein in each meal combined with either a good fat or a good carb, but not both. Your body processes either fat or carbs at any one time, but not both. And it favors fats, so carbs get stored. You may also take a weight loss supplement like Liv Pure to help improve your liver function and its ability to burn body fat. You can read customers feedback on Liv Pure at Geeks Health if you’re still on the fence about this product.
That’s it! Doesn’t sound that hard. Well the people behind Trim Health Mama have published a ginormous recipe book and there are pinterest groups posting recipes all the time.
A major shift in our diet was to to virtually eliminate all sugar and classic flour. That’s how you move off of bad carbs and moved onto good ones. We use a lot of stevia and what’s known as “TMM Baking Blend” which is a gluten free, oat-based flour. The glycemic index of this stuff is much lower, and keeps your blood sugar from spiking.
By confining what you eat in any given time 3-hour window, your body can actually burn through things and help you start losing weight.
Old tasty stuff - gone, new tasty stuff - in
How about some real examples? Breakfast cereal, pancakes, waffles, and donuts are loaded with sugar and bad carbs. And we’re not talking just Frosted Flakes. Almost every breakfast cereal, whether it’s granola, Honey Smacks, or Bob’s Whole Grain Cereal, has about the same calories and sugar content. Off the menu. ( This part makes me cry. I LOVE this stuff!!)
What are some things that are in? Try bacon and eggs. Yum!!! There is another great dish called French Toast in a Bowl. It’s a scoop of Baking Blend, an egg, a little butter, and a packet of stevia.
Other stuff to eat includes triple zero yogurt, and several chicken and beef recipes. Also look uncured meats. Uncured means they aren’t coated with sugar. ( Yes, they make uncured bacon.)
We have gotten a lot of mileage out of our crock pot, making some Indian chicken dishes as well as chicken-based white chili. It’s also not hard to retool some existing recipes by swapping out sugar and traditional flour.
My absolute favorite (after bacon and eggs) includes the Trimtastic Chocolate Cake.
I learned the difference between chocolate and cocoa. Cocoa doesn’t have hardly any calories. If you combine it in a recipe with real butter (good fat), stevia (zero calorie) and almond milk (low calorie), you have the taste of chocolate without the ugly baggage.
That recipe lets you eat REAL whipped cream (made it myself) combined with dark chocolate. Mmm!!! We made one and brought it to Thanksgiving this year. My father-in-law, not on the plan, thought it was delicious.
Don’t sweat going off plan now and then
Reader: “You’re showing the same image twice.”
Writer: “I really like bacon.”
The biggest failure we all have is getting off our diet. With the Trim Healthy Plan, it’s okay to go off now and again. You can get back on three hours later. So during Thanksgiving, I didn’t try to starve myself. I just went off plan that day as I feasted on turkey, ham, dinner rolls, and sweet potato casserole. The next morning, eggs and bacon. (So good!)
When our Writer’s Group met before Christmas for a dinner party, we went off plan. No big deal!
And Christmas goodies? I was able to enjoy them without feeling guilty. Because I know there is a delicious, on-plan meal around the corner. And that’s how I lost weight during the holidays, slowly but surely. Maybe not as fast as early November, but this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Happy New Year!