I am going to try this today and maybe for the week to see if it is helpful. I have been working on these points for a while now and want to make them my routines. I will fill this in later.
1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
6. Eliminate any added oil.
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Victories, comments, concerns, questions: I was able to walk 3 miles outside today after waiting a bit for the sun to warm things up. It was 11 degrees this morning so when the temperature hit 22 degrees I headed out with lots of warm clothes and a scarf to partially cover my face. I was nice and warm by the time I got home !
Today went well for me but I confess to a few urges to get into foods I shouldn't. Knowing I was going to post this way today made me get through it and those urges went away pretty quickly.
I have mixed beans soaking over night tonight and will make my favorite bean soup from "Vegan Under Pressure" cookbook tomorrow. It is a different bean mix than I usually use so I hope I like it as well as before. I also need to think about a veg soup to make. I have some in the freezer so I have a couple days to decide what to do. Maybe just a "clean out the fridge" soup ?
Have a good evening and a great Sunday tomorrow. My goal is to keep busy tomorrow afternoon as Sunday afternoons are my tough time.
-squealcat