Mira's Journal

[Miramel]

My personal journal attempts have thus far been wildly unsuccessful (I think my record was less than a day...) so I'm going to give an online journal a try. Hopefully this will keep me on the straight and narrow.

Some background: I'm 24 (25 at the end of this month), and married to the most wonderful man ever (ok, ok, I might be a little biased). He joined me on our vegan journey in December of 2009. He nearly instantly lost 80 pounds, and has continued to be in fantastic shape since. He could probably eat a jar of peanut butter daily and not gain a pound...

I've been overweight since hitting puberty. I had been an active child, but when my ballet teacher came to me one day and told me that I was "too fat" to be a ballerina and should "just quit" I took her advice and quit, not just ballet but any activity. This combined with my love of sweet things and tendency to use food for comfort led to gaining lots of weight.

Having tried various diets, I finally hit an all-time high of 315ish pounds (I say "ish" because that's how high the scale went, I have no idea how far over I was). This was during my "ethical vegetarian" period, where instead of eating meat I consumed boat loads of cheese and fluffy white pastry goodies.

As mentioned earlier, I went vegan the end of 2009 and McDougall shortly after (Feb. 2010). I lost weight easily until January of this year, when I had my gall bladder removed. Then the scale settled on 170 and only budged up and down slightly despite all kinds of different intense exercise programs and even a stint of calorie counting. So, here I am, reluctantly returning to the MWL plan. I want so desperately to be like my husband, able to eat bread and goodies and still lose weight, but I just can't.

I also seem to suffer from excessive wordiness, so I'll just stop here and update this post with my foods for today.

Breakfast:
Plate of hashbrowns topped with a bit of salsa and sprinkled with nutritional yeast (couldn't finish it all right away, ate the rest about 2 hrs later along with a handful of raspberries)
Cup of herbal tea

Lunch:
Water-sauteed zucchini, garbanzo beans, and brown rice

Dinner:
Whole wheat pasta with loads of tomatoes with Italian seasoning

Exercise:
4 mile walk/jog

I know WW pasta is technically not MWL; however, I had some, I was very tired from the jog and it is easy to make, and I believe Jeff Novick has stated that when cooked WW pasta has a calorie density approaching other whole starches. I really need to go grocery shopping... (we live about 30min away from the nearest one so it's hard to just go get things spur of the moment)

[BeansNRice]

Hi Mira! Welcome to the boards! I also love bread & have a hubby who can eat anything and not gain a pound.. I know how you feel!

[Miramel]

Yes, I'm terribly jealous of him. I think I'm going to stuff him full of all the non-MWL stuff we have left in the house and then not buy any more, that way it doesn't go to waste. Now the tough part will be resisting them myself. Today was rough...I usually have my morning hashbrowns wrapped in an oil-free WW tortilla, and they felt strangely naked and unsatisfying this morning. I'm hoping that the longer I stick with it I won't miss these things so much.

Here's to resisting the call of the bread, Beansnrice!

[sksamboots]

Hi Mira,

It's great to see another 20 something here in the journal forum. Ignore your husband's weight loss. This journey is about you and you only. Never compare yourself to someone else because you will never be happy about what you hear. Thats what I have learned. You will get used to the food soon enough. Glad you are here

[Miramel]

Nice to meet you, sksamboots, and thank you for the welcome and advice! I do tend to compare myself to him a bit too much. I felt better today when I sent him off with the last of the coffee cake I made on Sunday. Didn't crave it a bit, but I knew if it stuck around it would start calling to me. He told me last night that he's interested in eating better as well so there's no pressure to keep non-MWL stuff in the house now. Grocery shopping planned for Thursday!

Today I have a lot of soreness in my right knee, I think I may have overdone it a bit in the exercise yesterday. I think I'll just have a shorter walk today. I'm starting to plan ahead a bit more, I have a bean and grain mix from Bob's Red Mill that's been languishing in the back of the pantry for a while that I tossed in the crockpot with some low sodium broth and spices. Should make for a tasty stew for dinner.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with frozen mixed berries, splash of almond milk, and cinnamon
Surprisingly good; the first few bites my tongue was crying for me to go get the sugar bowl, but by about halfway through it really started to taste delicious, especially the blueberries, which in the past I've never really cared for.

Lunch:
Hashbrowns with ketchup, small apple

Dinner:
Two bowls of bean and grain stew with spinach

Snack:
More stew, this time with frozen mixed veggies, and a small apple

My hunger levels are crazy today, I want to just eat and eat and eat. I really need to increase my low cal veggie intake, but I don't really care for a lot of them. I have a hard time especially with salads; I have very sensitive teeth so raw veggies are too cold and too tough to chew comfortably.

[BeansNRice]

Hi Mira, good job with your food. I too have to make a point to get more veg in. It's tough when your not used to eating so many, and in my case unsure of how to prepare a lot of them. Not a huge salad fan either, but I keep trying them. Hope your having a good day

[Miramel]

Thank you, Beans, today has been a good day, despite the craziness. I combined a physical therapy appointment with grocery shopping and pet food shopping, which ended up taking much more time than I anticipated and so my lunch kind of...wasn't. Surprisingly though the hunger wasn't as bad as yesterday. I'm going to keep trying to eat bigger breakfasts like I did today and see if the trend continues!

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with frozen berries and hashbrowns with salsa
I tried eating a bigger breakfast to see if it will help me be less ravenous during the latter part of the day. I still started to get hungry about 2 hours later, but it was much less intense.

Lunch:
2 bananas This was amidst my shopping, my appointment ended up going long and it was quite busy all over so I pounced on the delicious organic bananas I just bought at Safeway. Surprisingly, two bananas and a bottle of water was quite satisfying.

Dinner:
Bean stew, brown rice, and frozen veggies. Not yet consumed, but the rice is cooking and should be done by the time hubby gets home (LOVE Success rice, so quick and easy!)

If more days go like this one, it'll be no sweat sticking to it.

[Miramel]

Crazy weekend, so here's the recap. Made a huge crockpot full of split pea soup. I am very much addicted to it, it is so delicious.

Friday:
B: Hashbrowns and oatmeal
L: Hashbrowns and split pea soup
D: Split pea soup with brown rice
S: oatmeal bars (Jeff Novick's recipe)

Saturday:
B: hashbrowns and oatmeal
L: Split pea soup with brown rice
D: Split pea soup with brown rice, mixed veggies
S: oatmeal bars

Sunday:
B: Hashbrowns and pancakes (yup...)
Late lunch/early dinner: Split pea soup with brown rice, mixed veggies
S: Banana
My husband conned me into making my whole wheat pancakes (ok I didn't really struggle too hard), of which I had two with a thin smear of peanut butter and a bit of maple syrup. Ridiculously tasty but I felt so bloated and heavy the rest of the day, it was awful. We volunteered with our local humane society so we missed lunch and had a big helping of soup, rice, and veggies when we got home.

As far as weight goes, I weighed on Friday and the scale said I had lost 5 lbs I am very suspicious.... I'm not sure if my original weigh in last Monday was inflated because of my cycle or what, or if I really have lost it all that quick, either way I'm back around my nemesis weight of 170-172, where I've been since the beginning of the year.

For Today, so far:
B: Bowl of brown rice with a banana, cinnamon, and a splash of almond milk. Very tasty, and filling Here it is hours later and I still feel full.

Lunch and dinner will probably be more of my split pea soup and rice. I guess I'm unintentionally doing a sort of Mary's Mini. This soup is just so darned good nothing else sounds appealing. Wish I could say the same for those veggies I need to eat more of....