I’ve been getting some questions ever since my March Favorites (and some “where’s the butter” comments to my insta-stories) regarding my revamped “nutritional guidelines” (apparently it’s not a diet). Some people have noticed that I’ve appeared to have lost weight and other have just noticed that the food I’m talking about is much more healthful. My weightloss has been the result of diet changes I’ve been making (or my die-t as my mum has coined it… since it cuts out most things I love).
The first thing I’d like to say is that the changes to my lifestyle are at the recommendation of a dietitian and my doctor. Everything is supervised. I track my food super closely to make sure I’m getting the right amounts of everything. Don’t be worrying about me, other than that I miss butter.
I hesitated to share too much about this at first because it did result in some pretty rapid weight loss and I’d hate to have someone think this is a great way to lose tons of weight. But I’m comforted that:
- This is actually a healthful way to eat
- Unless you were pounding brie, butter, pasta, cured meat products and cheese like I was… you probably won’t lose much for weight
I know loads of people are probably going to be looking at this thinking, god tell me how you’ve been dropping the pounds and assume that weight loss is why I undertook this change. I get it. I was, and still am, in the overweight category for my height. My weight just had no bearing on why I went down this road- the never-ending symptoms of unchecked inflammation in my body is the reason. I’m happy to say that it’s been about 6 weeks now, and I haven’t had a single instance of eczema flare up, swollen joints, stomach issues, or fatigue that wasn’t preceded by a food choice that was outside of the parameters provided to me.
I now choose to eat 4.5/7 days per week by the guidelines. I choose that because I spend some days with my family and the last thing I want to do is make this someone else’s problem. I’m lucky that I can do 4.5/7 and still feel great. My mom is awesome and I’d say 9 times out of ten what she’s making for the family fits these guidelines. But, I call them my “YOLO weekends” for a reason because I will have brie, bacon, steak, beer… Life is too short to cut out the fun stuff completely so unless it starts to adversely affect me, I’m going to live my life.
So what are the guidelines?
- Eliminate or greatly reduce refined sugar
- Eliminate or greatly reduce refined grains
- Eliminate or greatly reduce saturated fat
- Increase intake of fruits and vegetables
- Increase complex whole grains for carbohydrate needs
- Limit alcohol to “very occasional” intake
- Eat to limit glycemic load
- B12 and D supplementation, as well as iron
Pretty simple, right? In the first ten days of eating on my new guidelines, I stuck to the rules 100% on 7/10 days. Even still, I lost 7 pounds in ten days, and have kept that off and lost more since. I’m just waiting for that weight to bounce on back because I still eat loads, but it hasn’t so far. At first I don’t always know what to eat so I just don’t… but those moments are probably what contributed to the rapid weight loss in the first ten days, and my getting myself together has evened out to the 1-2 pounds per week that I’m losing now. I’m not exercising any more than I generally do, which is just 8-10km of walking per week.
I didn’t really take any before-and-after style pictures at the start of this because I was so convinced I was going to be the person to prove everyone wrong with this whole diet schtick. I know that’s a bad attitude, but I was feeling pretty awful for over a year and I didn’t hold out much hope that some pretty simple sounding guidelines would help that much. But, I’ll be updating as I go and have now taken some pictures I can use to contrast in a few months. I have some pictures from Christmas compared to recently where you can see how puffy my face was, though:
So yeah. Safe to say that physically, there’s a difference. My favorite pants being baggy concur. I guess time will tell where this leads but for now, I’m feeling loads better and will continue my weekday good behavior and weekend fun! I hope you guys enjoy the healthier recipes I’m starting to include, but don’t worry- comfort classics will forever be a thing for me! I’m just enjoying them as a treat instead of the norm.
Have you ever undertaken a diet change for reasons other than weight loss? If you have, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments.
Comments are closed.