Discussion Board

Thanks for the encouragement, Kathy. I hope that you're doing well too!

Kimberlee,
I just saw your journal for the first time! Glad you are back on track. I can relate to all the things you struggle with, and I appreciate your authenticity and positive attitude. I'm rooting for you...you can do it!

Hey Kimberlee,

You're going to journal again great! I am really impressed to see the teecino in your menu. I know that is hard for you - I mean I too was a coffee drinker that thought I'd never be able to drop it for a day even.

Then I read here that it really elevates blood pressure - which I hadn't known before. So, I ditched it for the teecino and haven't looked back.

Your commitment is showing clear as day and the scale results will soon follow.

Best wishes - Michelle

Thanks for all of the encouragement! It really helps. Today I weighed in at 156. I think that I do need to weigh myself often because it's really my best accountability partner! I sort of find myself falling into a routine, which i think is good. Here's what I had:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, raspberries, honey, teechino

Lunch: Salad with lettuce, black beans, tomatoes, corn, and a veggie burger

Dinner: sweet potato, brown rice, salad with romaine lettuce, black beans, tomatoes, corn.

Snack: smoothie with 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 TB hemp protein, cup of berries

I think that what is really helping me this week is changing my usual daily breakfast of Ezekiel bread with peanut butter or avocado, to a breakfast of steel cut oats. Every night, I've been putting water in the bottom of my crockpot, putting a bowl of 1/2 cup steelcut oats mixed with 1 1/2 cups of water. This is enough for two servings in the morning, and I eat half of it. Also, I put it on low and it cooks for about 8 hours while I sleep. I've always hated, hated, hated, oatmeal. Did I mention that I hate oatmeal?! But cooking this for the first time over the weekend, it really clicked that I like steelcut oats instead of oatmeal. I bought it in a bin at Sprouts health food store and it was only .99 a pound!

Also, the other thing that has really helped me is buying hard black beans from the bin at Sprouts (I think only about .80 a pound!) I soaked them overnight and then boiled them on the stove the next day. And I cooked up a big batch of brown rice. Between the brown rice and black beans, I have some instant meals to go to if I need to eat something. The next time I go to the store, I'm going to get some sweet potatoes and yellow potatoes and bake them so that I can store them in the refrigerator and add them to meals and salads.

Thanks again for the encouragement. I do like the teechino, Michelle. I have been adding a little bit of coffee in with the teechino to give it more of a coffee taste. But overall, I'm getting only about a third of the caffeine that I was drinking before.

I know it helps me too to have stuff in the fridge. I get on Bob harpers site and that is what he recommends. He recommends cooking up brown rice, quinoa and having cut veggies in fridge so they are ready to just grab. I did that last week and it was so nice. I also roasted some veggies and had them in the fridge ready to go. I do like to cook up some sweet potatoes and have in the fridge so that I can just grab, even for a snack. For snack I like to take some baked sweet potato slices and top with some blueberries. It is so yummy.

Baked sweet potato slices with blueberries sound great. I'll have to try that!

This morning, I weighed in at 155.8. Here's what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, frozen raspberries, drizzle of honey, teecino

Lunch: all vegetable veggie burger, lettuce, corn, black beans

Dinner: brown rice, broccoli, lettuce, corn, black beans, small potato with sirachi and mustard (really good sauce!)

Snack: banana

I was pretty hungry in the evening because I'm running out of food in my refrigerator and need to go shopping.

My plan today again is to go shopping tonight and get stocked up with some good stuff. I really need to organize my refrigerator better this week so that I have some great things stocked up. I'm trying to keep my shopping list to a mininimum and spend about $50. All of my dry goods will be bought out of a bin. Here's my shopping list:

1. Black beans
2. Brown rice
3. pea pods
4. dark leaf lettuce
5. sweet potato cubes
6. baked potato cubes
7. cherry tomatoes
8. chopped zucchini
9. chopped squash
10. mushrooms
11. corn
12. corn tortillas
13. salsa
14. broccoli
15. bananas
16. corn tortillas
17. pinto beans

Today, I still weigh 155, so I haven't lost any weight the last few days. But I did lose an inch on my waist.

Yesterday, here's what I ate:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, blueberries, honey, unsweetened almond milk, teecino

lunch: salad with lettuce and tomatoes, veggie burger, quinoa and corn

Dinner: salad with lettuce, tomatoes, corn, and four corn tortillas with pinto beans

I just got a gym membership. Because it was so cheap ($18 for my husband and I a month) we're only able to go to the gym on certain days, Tues, Thurs, and Saturday. I'm going to definitely exercise a lot more than I have been doing, which I think will help some on my weight loss.

Blessings,

-k

Hi Kimberlee -

I just joined a gym too - but I have major envy that yours only costs $18 a month. Envy oh no, that's a bad thing

Y'all best get right to it. so you get your moneys worth.

Take care - Michelle

Kimberlee,

I think this McDougall talk might speak to you: The Role of Meat in the Human Diet

Pat

Michelle,

No need to envy, my friend! This gym has been harassing us to join them for about a year. Finally, my dh went into them with our two small kids and they let him join with nothing down. But I think it was probably our cute kids that won them over.

Pat, I think that I've already seen this, but thanks for the link.

Kimberlee, You are doing great! I love your attitude, and your food looks terriffic! What fun that you were able to join a gym! I love mine, and feel so good when I go. I do a lot of their classes, which are included with membership. I think it most certainly will help with your weight loss! Even more fun that you can go with your hubby!
Keep up the great work, and you'll get there!!!

Today, finally I've finally lost a little weight. I'm now at 154.8. I haven't seen 154 since before I was pregnant with my second child!

Yesterday, I had:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, blueberries, unsweetened almond milk, raw honey, teecino.

Lunch: salad with lettuce, tomatoes, corn,
two corn tortillas with 1/2 cup pinto beans

Dinner: salad with corn, tomatoes, lettuce
one bean burrito (bad, I know, but hopefully won't happen very often).

I was able to workout yesterday at my gym, and I'm hoping to work out tonight. I'm trying to fit comfortably into a size 10 (I'm at about size 12 right now) in two weeks when my in-laws come to out house for my brother-in-law's wedding. But a size 8 would be even nice as well! I'm going to try to keep up the MWL, as well as try to exercise for at least an hour every evening.

Blessings,

-k

This morning, I weighed in at 154.4. Slowly but surely. It's very weird, but I think that weighing myself every morning is really helping me stay accountable to MWL and overall good health. A few months ago, I decided not to weigh myself for a while. Then when I weighed myself a month later, I had gained 5 pounds!

So from now on, I've been weighing myself first thing in the morning. I know that water weight changes from day-to-day, I just find that if I'm over or haven't lost any weight, than I'm much more likely to eat more carefully the next day if the scale shows me I've lost weight.

Yesterday:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, banana, teecino, honey

lunch: lettuce, tomatoes, corn, veggie burger

Dinner: split peas seasoned with red curry paste, brown rice.

I totally stuffed myself with the split peas and the brown rice because they were so good! Then, I walked four miles. Hopefully, I'll get at least four more miles in tonight and then I go to the doctor's tomorrow to get some lab work done.

The first time in my life that I've had my cholesterol checked and I'm a little nervous.

Today, I'm still at 154. This weekend was really tough, but I think that I'm ready to become even more stricter on my diet. Here's what I had yesterday:

Breakfast: steelcut oats, peaches, teecino

Lunch: bean burrito

Dinner: pinto beans, salad with lettuce and tomatoes

Snack: air-popped popcorn with nutritional yeast.

This week, I'm cutting out all honey I've been putting in my teecino and oats, as well as no more veggie burgers. I think that doing this will help me even more in my transition to MWL. I'm also going to cut off any late-night eating, or eating after dinner. Tomorrow will be hard because we're having an office lunch (make your own sandwiches) my plan is to take only one slice of bread and make an open-faced veggie sandwich, or a salad and forego the bread altogether.

Overall, I'm pretty proud of myself even though I'm losing weight slowly the last week. I am slowly loosing my sweet tooth. Now that I'm going to forego the raw honey that I've been putting in my steel cut oats and teecino, I think that this will help me to cut down on my cravings. Otherwise, I feel good.

Blessings,

-k