Tuesday, December 17, 2019
I don't calorie count
In my last post I said I was counting calories or doing some form of portion control to keep myself from overeating. Well I'm not anymore. I'm just eating LOTRL and letting everything else fall where it falls. I think I explained what LOTRL is in my last post.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
I count calories
I’ve learned a lot in my 14-year vegan food journey and I feel that I am in a good place now. My weight is stable, my eating is stable, my health is good (knock on wood), and I’m focusing my efforts on my passion of body movement in the form of hiking foremost, but also biking, swimming, walking, stretching, yoga, etc. I also enjoy reading. Here is an update of where I’m am food wise. I learned a lot from every group I joined. I’m still in Bright Line Eating though I don’t participate there and may let my membership lapse next year. I feel more at home with my friends in UWL (Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss Program) and I believe in Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB), though I don’t agree with everything they say about weight loss and maintenance. Here’s a summary of what I’ve learned from these programs.
I like UWL’s calorie density approach. Chef AJ recommends eating “Left of the Red Line” which she defines as all foods having calorie density less than some amount. I draw the line just above chickpeas so my “red line” is 750 calories/lb. I try to eat only foods with calorie density less than this, or “left of the red line” (LOTRL). That means I avoid foods with higher calorie density such as sugar (1750 calories/lb), bread (1100), dried fruit (1300), nuts and seeds (2800), chocolate (2600), oil (4000), any combo of sugar, flour and fat; and of course, animal products. The high calorie-dense foods include a lot of WFPB foods such as air popped popcorn, whole grain breads, crackers, nuts and dried fruit. The reason I like avoiding these foods is that they are all very stimulating for me and make me want to eat more. I mean, really, nut butter and dates are sugar and fat. As far as food addiction goes, LOTRL makes more sense to me than just saying no to sugar and flour, because fat is just as addictive for me, and the combinations of all three plus salt are super stimulating (at least for me now, since my brain has adapted to LOTRL foods). Just one of those at a time, in small quantities, I can probably handle, but when you start combining them, watch out! That’s why nuts and dates combined should be outlawed. Haha, just kidding. But I’m staying away from both of them. Jeff Nelson (see Vegsource on Youtube) and Jeff Novick (See Dr. McDougall's discussion forums) have convinced me that I don’t need nuts for health. I get plenty of nutrients and fat from my starches and veggies and fruit. So, to summarize, I think limiting my foods to LOTRL works better for me than the BLE food plan which requires specific amounts of proteins, fat and carbs. That plan may make more sense for meat eaters, but for vegans, all our foods are mixtures of proteins, fat, and carbs in perfectly reasonable amounts.
However, what UWL leaves off and BLE includes is food portioning. The WFPB crowd loves to say that we can eat as much as we want and still lose weight. And Dr. Lisle says we won’t overeat if we eat only whole natural foods of low calorie density. I disagree. I and many others will binge on LOTRL foods if told I can eat as much as I want. Dr. Lisle says animals don’t overeat in their natural food environment and neither do we. Well, if I had a dog and I allowed him to eat unlimited roasted Japanese sweet potatoes (do dogs like that?) I bet he would eat more than he needs. I’ve tried various methods to portion control with UWL and they all work fine. These are 1) calorie counting. Weigh your food and add it to your calorie counting app. The apps make it easy by letting you enter recipes and copy your food from one day to the next. Yes I am aware of all the inaccuracies of calorie counting, but when you eat similar foods from day to day and you are only comparing to yourself, it’s accurate enough as an estimator of how much to eat, and it’s more accurate than listening to the many voices in my head. 2) Weighing out quantities of food. For me, 3 lbs of starch, 3-4 lbs of veggies, and 1 lb of fruit per day works well. 3) plate method. 1 large plate per meal: half starches, half veggies, and 1 fruit.
I also weigh myself if I think I need an extra guide to quantities. That helps me adjust how much I eat. I use a Withings scale which is connected to the internet and automatically enters my weight into a website called trendweight.com. This does a running average so I just follow the trend from the past few weeks rather than my day-to-day variation. I actually only look at it occasionally. I pretty much just eat the same amount every day, adjusting for hunger. But I like knowing that the data being collected can be used to adjust my amounts if need be.
I allow my quantities to vary day-to-day based on hunger. I just like limits to keep me from binging so I avoid snacking between meals (1 or 2 snacks is fine but they are just that: small meals). I've noticed when I calorie count that my calorie intake doesn't vary that much with activity level--just a few hundred calories usually. If I do all-day intense hiking, I am more hungry, especially the following day, so I eat more. But I have to avoid giving myself carte blanche to eat as much as I want every day.
I like UWL’s calorie density approach. Chef AJ recommends eating “Left of the Red Line” which she defines as all foods having calorie density less than some amount. I draw the line just above chickpeas so my “red line” is 750 calories/lb. I try to eat only foods with calorie density less than this, or “left of the red line” (LOTRL). That means I avoid foods with higher calorie density such as sugar (1750 calories/lb), bread (1100), dried fruit (1300), nuts and seeds (2800), chocolate (2600), oil (4000), any combo of sugar, flour and fat; and of course, animal products. The high calorie-dense foods include a lot of WFPB foods such as air popped popcorn, whole grain breads, crackers, nuts and dried fruit. The reason I like avoiding these foods is that they are all very stimulating for me and make me want to eat more. I mean, really, nut butter and dates are sugar and fat. As far as food addiction goes, LOTRL makes more sense to me than just saying no to sugar and flour, because fat is just as addictive for me, and the combinations of all three plus salt are super stimulating (at least for me now, since my brain has adapted to LOTRL foods). Just one of those at a time, in small quantities, I can probably handle, but when you start combining them, watch out! That’s why nuts and dates combined should be outlawed. Haha, just kidding. But I’m staying away from both of them. Jeff Nelson (see Vegsource on Youtube) and Jeff Novick (See Dr. McDougall's discussion forums) have convinced me that I don’t need nuts for health. I get plenty of nutrients and fat from my starches and veggies and fruit. So, to summarize, I think limiting my foods to LOTRL works better for me than the BLE food plan which requires specific amounts of proteins, fat and carbs. That plan may make more sense for meat eaters, but for vegans, all our foods are mixtures of proteins, fat, and carbs in perfectly reasonable amounts.
However, what UWL leaves off and BLE includes is food portioning. The WFPB crowd loves to say that we can eat as much as we want and still lose weight. And Dr. Lisle says we won’t overeat if we eat only whole natural foods of low calorie density. I disagree. I and many others will binge on LOTRL foods if told I can eat as much as I want. Dr. Lisle says animals don’t overeat in their natural food environment and neither do we. Well, if I had a dog and I allowed him to eat unlimited roasted Japanese sweet potatoes (do dogs like that?) I bet he would eat more than he needs. I’ve tried various methods to portion control with UWL and they all work fine. These are 1) calorie counting. Weigh your food and add it to your calorie counting app. The apps make it easy by letting you enter recipes and copy your food from one day to the next. Yes I am aware of all the inaccuracies of calorie counting, but when you eat similar foods from day to day and you are only comparing to yourself, it’s accurate enough as an estimator of how much to eat, and it’s more accurate than listening to the many voices in my head. 2) Weighing out quantities of food. For me, 3 lbs of starch, 3-4 lbs of veggies, and 1 lb of fruit per day works well. 3) plate method. 1 large plate per meal: half starches, half veggies, and 1 fruit.
I also weigh myself if I think I need an extra guide to quantities. That helps me adjust how much I eat. I use a Withings scale which is connected to the internet and automatically enters my weight into a website called trendweight.com. This does a running average so I just follow the trend from the past few weeks rather than my day-to-day variation. I actually only look at it occasionally. I pretty much just eat the same amount every day, adjusting for hunger. But I like knowing that the data being collected can be used to adjust my amounts if need be.
I allow my quantities to vary day-to-day based on hunger. I just like limits to keep me from binging so I avoid snacking between meals (1 or 2 snacks is fine but they are just that: small meals). I've noticed when I calorie count that my calorie intake doesn't vary that much with activity level--just a few hundred calories usually. If I do all-day intense hiking, I am more hungry, especially the following day, so I eat more. But I have to avoid giving myself carte blanche to eat as much as I want every day.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
An update on my back-and-forth wishy-washy journey!
Here’s a review of my history with Whole Food Plant Based Eating (WFPB) up to my current status:
I became vegan on July 5, 2005, at the age of 45, because it seemed like a good idea to stop eating animals (and it was!). I waited until after the shrimp boil on July 4 in Biloxi, MS with my family. I didn’t know how to be a vegan so I read a book on vegan nutrition (Becoming Vegan, by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina). I got lucky because that is a really good book. So I accidentally started off by eating a healthy diet. My health improved dramatically and I was shocked because I didn’t think diet had anything to do with health (duh!). I looked around for clues and found Dr. McDougall and Dr. Fuhrman websites. I followed Dr. McDougall for a while and then decide Dr. Fuhrman had the best science backing him up so I joined the Fuhrman forums in 2006.
After about 5 years following Fuhrman I started going crazy with my eating, first bingeing on smoothies and date-nut desserts and even carrots and soups, and then going off plan altogether and bingeing on vegan junk food. The reason for the binges is that you think it is as a last supper kind of thing and you want to get in everything you can before you have to go back on plan. I think another reason is that I wasn’t eating enough. I got really thin after the first few years. You really need to eat a lot when you stay on plan--not so much when you go off plan a lot (the sugar and flour messes with your hormonal balance--insulin, lepton etc). I was influenced by a friend who decided to go the low-fat route and I joined her and we started following Rip and Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. McDougall. Oh what a disaster that was, lol. I binged on low-fat “Whole grain” vegan muffins and cookies. So that didn’t go very well. I figured out I need to stay away from flour and sugar.
I joined Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss program in Jan 2015. This is a low-fat WFPB program that doesn’t include flour and sugar. I did that for a month but I ate tons and tons of Japanese sweet potatoes and it made me very tired and I didn’t lose any weight.
About that time, Bright Line Eating came along. I wanted to lose weight for a dream-of-a-lifetime backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon so I joined the BLE bootcamp in Feb. 2015. There are 4 bright lines with BLE: 1) no sugar, 2) no flour, 3) meals (3-4 per day), and 4) quantities (weighed and measured). I hated the 3rd and 4rth bright lines, but I white-knuckled the program and stuck to it (mostly) until after the awesome backpacking trip. In retrospect, the weight loss plan was not a good idea for me, an active tall (albeit older) woman. It was way too little food. No wonder it was so hard. I got to goal weight in about 4 months, but then didn’t realize how much I needed to eat on maintenance, and I started going off plan more and more. After the backpacking trip, I gave up altogether and left BLE and waded through the sugar and flour weeks for a couple of months.
So now it was January 2017, and I knew again I didn’t want to eat flour and sugar (really didn’t want to), but I didn’t see the need for the 3rd and 4rth bright lines when you follow a WFPB diet. So I re-joined Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss program. I didn’t really have much weight to lose, I just wanted to get on track with a WFPB program that doesn’t include flour and sugar--and that’s Chef AJ’s program. I am forever grateful to her and her program because I did get off flour and sugar. I haven’t had any since April 21, 2017 (I had one slip-up after starting her program). So that is 551 days so far. However, guess what, I got really thin again because I wasn’t eating fat, and knew not to binge on Japanese sweet potatoes this time around. The way UWL and also Dr. McDougall’s Maximum Weight Loss program work is that you don’t eat any added fat and you only eat Whole Foods, and the idea is you can eat as much as you like. Well, I love to eat, so I ate a lot. I ate all day long. Then in the Fall, I started getting digestive issues. I think it was the winter squash combined with eating lots of raw veggies all day long (compulsively). I had loose bowels for about 4 months, which interfered with my hiking goals and life in general.
I started thinking: you know what, I need to reign in quantities and only eat at mealtime. Gee, that sounds like BLE’s 3rd and 4rth lines. So guess what, I rejoined BLE in Feb. 2018. I’ve been doing that since, and as of right now I have 180 days of following my bright lines. I’m happy to follow all four bright lines and I eat tons of food so am not tempted to go off plan.
In addition I find that I feel best when I eat a lot of beans and veggies and nuts and seeds and not a lot of starches and grains. That sounds like Fuhrman’s plan, so, guess what, I’m back to doing the Fuhrman plan. I eat tons of beans, veggies, some fruit, some starch if I want it, and 3.5 oz of nuts/seeds per day. My digestion is in good shape and I have a lot of energy. And I’m focused on other things in my life besides food. I eat simply and it takes less time that way.
So that’s where I am now: following BLE and Dr. Fuhrman. It seems to be working for me right now. But stay tuned for my next wishy-washy decision.
I became vegan on July 5, 2005, at the age of 45, because it seemed like a good idea to stop eating animals (and it was!). I waited until after the shrimp boil on July 4 in Biloxi, MS with my family. I didn’t know how to be a vegan so I read a book on vegan nutrition (Becoming Vegan, by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina). I got lucky because that is a really good book. So I accidentally started off by eating a healthy diet. My health improved dramatically and I was shocked because I didn’t think diet had anything to do with health (duh!). I looked around for clues and found Dr. McDougall and Dr. Fuhrman websites. I followed Dr. McDougall for a while and then decide Dr. Fuhrman had the best science backing him up so I joined the Fuhrman forums in 2006.
After about 5 years following Fuhrman I started going crazy with my eating, first bingeing on smoothies and date-nut desserts and even carrots and soups, and then going off plan altogether and bingeing on vegan junk food. The reason for the binges is that you think it is as a last supper kind of thing and you want to get in everything you can before you have to go back on plan. I think another reason is that I wasn’t eating enough. I got really thin after the first few years. You really need to eat a lot when you stay on plan--not so much when you go off plan a lot (the sugar and flour messes with your hormonal balance--insulin, lepton etc). I was influenced by a friend who decided to go the low-fat route and I joined her and we started following Rip and Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. McDougall. Oh what a disaster that was, lol. I binged on low-fat “Whole grain” vegan muffins and cookies. So that didn’t go very well. I figured out I need to stay away from flour and sugar.
I joined Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss program in Jan 2015. This is a low-fat WFPB program that doesn’t include flour and sugar. I did that for a month but I ate tons and tons of Japanese sweet potatoes and it made me very tired and I didn’t lose any weight.
About that time, Bright Line Eating came along. I wanted to lose weight for a dream-of-a-lifetime backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon so I joined the BLE bootcamp in Feb. 2015. There are 4 bright lines with BLE: 1) no sugar, 2) no flour, 3) meals (3-4 per day), and 4) quantities (weighed and measured). I hated the 3rd and 4rth bright lines, but I white-knuckled the program and stuck to it (mostly) until after the awesome backpacking trip. In retrospect, the weight loss plan was not a good idea for me, an active tall (albeit older) woman. It was way too little food. No wonder it was so hard. I got to goal weight in about 4 months, but then didn’t realize how much I needed to eat on maintenance, and I started going off plan more and more. After the backpacking trip, I gave up altogether and left BLE and waded through the sugar and flour weeks for a couple of months.
So now it was January 2017, and I knew again I didn’t want to eat flour and sugar (really didn’t want to), but I didn’t see the need for the 3rd and 4rth bright lines when you follow a WFPB diet. So I re-joined Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss program. I didn’t really have much weight to lose, I just wanted to get on track with a WFPB program that doesn’t include flour and sugar--and that’s Chef AJ’s program. I am forever grateful to her and her program because I did get off flour and sugar. I haven’t had any since April 21, 2017 (I had one slip-up after starting her program). So that is 551 days so far. However, guess what, I got really thin again because I wasn’t eating fat, and knew not to binge on Japanese sweet potatoes this time around. The way UWL and also Dr. McDougall’s Maximum Weight Loss program work is that you don’t eat any added fat and you only eat Whole Foods, and the idea is you can eat as much as you like. Well, I love to eat, so I ate a lot. I ate all day long. Then in the Fall, I started getting digestive issues. I think it was the winter squash combined with eating lots of raw veggies all day long (compulsively). I had loose bowels for about 4 months, which interfered with my hiking goals and life in general.
I started thinking: you know what, I need to reign in quantities and only eat at mealtime. Gee, that sounds like BLE’s 3rd and 4rth lines. So guess what, I rejoined BLE in Feb. 2018. I’ve been doing that since, and as of right now I have 180 days of following my bright lines. I’m happy to follow all four bright lines and I eat tons of food so am not tempted to go off plan.
In addition I find that I feel best when I eat a lot of beans and veggies and nuts and seeds and not a lot of starches and grains. That sounds like Fuhrman’s plan, so, guess what, I’m back to doing the Fuhrman plan. I eat tons of beans, veggies, some fruit, some starch if I want it, and 3.5 oz of nuts/seeds per day. My digestion is in good shape and I have a lot of energy. And I’m focused on other things in my life besides food. I eat simply and it takes less time that way.
So that’s where I am now: following BLE and Dr. Fuhrman. It seems to be working for me right now. But stay tuned for my next wishy-washy decision.
Friday, December 1, 2017
LOTRL One-year Challenge
Following Chef AJ’s UWL (Ultimate Weight Loss) program has been really good for me. It seems to be the easiest program I’ve tried. Now this is just me. I think for a lot of people, it would be the hardest because we don't eat flour and sugar. So to each their own, that is for sure. The reason is works for me is because of calorie density. I find that I have a hard time controlling my intake of any foods of high calorie density, even the healthy ones, like whole grain breads, or nuts or dates. In Chef AJ’s program she draws this red line on her calorie density chart and says to eat only foods that are Left of the Red Line (LOTRL). Her line is around 650 calories per pound but since chickpeas are about 700, I use that as my number. i.e., the red line is just to the right of legumes which are the highest calorie density of the “permitted” foods.
I’ve been successful on the UWL program and have been at my goal weight for about 6 months. I’ve been abstinent from flour, sugar and alcohol for 225 days as of today, and from any added salt for 40 days. I’ve only been LOTRL for about 10 hours. LOL. --Because I occasionally have slip-ups with nuts and dates. After so many days abstinent from flour and sugar I’ve lost my cravings and temptations for it (I hope I don’t jinx myself with that statement!). So I feel so much more at peace around food this holiday season than in the past. I would like to feel that way around nuts and dates, and it seems a good way is to try abstinence from them also. So I’m curious to try an experiment of going LOTRL for one year, with one exception: I will allow up to 1 oz of seeds in a day. I hope they won't be triggering as the whole point of this challenge is to give me peace of mind around food. But I also want the best health for myself and eating 1 T of ground flax/sesame seeds gives me peace of mind around getting some healthy fats in. And there might be times when backpacking or for weight management or some other health reason that I want to include more (up to 1 oz).
By the way, I keep track of the number of days of abstinence or other countdowns (and ups) with the “T-0” app on the iphone. I don’t pay much attention to it. Every once in a while I think, hey, I wonder how many days I’ve been abstinent, and then I look at the app. So it’s not something I think about much at all. I’m more trying to live my life.
Kristi asked what I eat in a day (below in the comments). Here's what I'm eating right now: Each meal has a starch, about 1 lb of veggies and a fruit. My typical starches are beans & grain (oat groats, quinoa, etc), sweet potato, squash, or potato. At breakfast I include chopped mushrooms with curry powder and 1 T of ground flax/sesame seeds, sort of as a delicious tasting supplement of healthy foods. Fruits are whatever is in season. Right now that's grapefruit, pomegranate or apple. Veggies are cooked greens from my garden (I have a freezer full), raw carrots, brussels sprouts, beets, cabbage, and other winter type veggies. In summer I like sweet corn and watermelon, in the fall squash, in the spring, fresh greens and berries.
I’ll post here occasionally to let you (me) know how I’m doing.
So the challenge is on, Dec. 1, 2017- Dec. 1, 2018.
I’ve been successful on the UWL program and have been at my goal weight for about 6 months. I’ve been abstinent from flour, sugar and alcohol for 225 days as of today, and from any added salt for 40 days. I’ve only been LOTRL for about 10 hours. LOL. --Because I occasionally have slip-ups with nuts and dates. After so many days abstinent from flour and sugar I’ve lost my cravings and temptations for it (I hope I don’t jinx myself with that statement!). So I feel so much more at peace around food this holiday season than in the past. I would like to feel that way around nuts and dates, and it seems a good way is to try abstinence from them also. So I’m curious to try an experiment of going LOTRL for one year, with one exception: I will allow up to 1 oz of seeds in a day. I hope they won't be triggering as the whole point of this challenge is to give me peace of mind around food. But I also want the best health for myself and eating 1 T of ground flax/sesame seeds gives me peace of mind around getting some healthy fats in. And there might be times when backpacking or for weight management or some other health reason that I want to include more (up to 1 oz).
By the way, I keep track of the number of days of abstinence or other countdowns (and ups) with the “T-0” app on the iphone. I don’t pay much attention to it. Every once in a while I think, hey, I wonder how many days I’ve been abstinent, and then I look at the app. So it’s not something I think about much at all. I’m more trying to live my life.
Kristi asked what I eat in a day (below in the comments). Here's what I'm eating right now: Each meal has a starch, about 1 lb of veggies and a fruit. My typical starches are beans & grain (oat groats, quinoa, etc), sweet potato, squash, or potato. At breakfast I include chopped mushrooms with curry powder and 1 T of ground flax/sesame seeds, sort of as a delicious tasting supplement of healthy foods. Fruits are whatever is in season. Right now that's grapefruit, pomegranate or apple. Veggies are cooked greens from my garden (I have a freezer full), raw carrots, brussels sprouts, beets, cabbage, and other winter type veggies. In summer I like sweet corn and watermelon, in the fall squash, in the spring, fresh greens and berries.
I’ll post here occasionally to let you (me) know how I’m doing.
So the challenge is on, Dec. 1, 2017- Dec. 1, 2018.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Walk to Farmer's market
While some of my friends are battling hurricanes, others fires, and others are going to church, we're having a beautiful day in Wisconsin and I chose the outdoors as my church, by walking to the Farmer's Market, 2.5 miles away. Part of the route goes through a nature conservancy, which is nice. I took my big backpack because I am not good at moderation in my produce purchases. It weighed 29 lbs when I arrived home, LOL! Here are some pictures of our very enjoyable morning.
I spied an apple tree in the conservancy and batted a nice juicy apple down with my hiking stick.
At the market
Heading home, turtles!
Pack full of produce!
29 lbs! and this was after going to another farmer's market yesterday, LOL.
At the market
Heading home, turtles!
Pack full of produce!
Saturday, September 9, 2017
UWL Live in Las Vegas
I was at Chef AJ’s UWL Live Event in Las Vegas last week, and it was fun, festive and inspiring, as expected. The speakers were Chef AJ, John Pierre (JP), Alan Goldhamer, Doug Lisle and Kerrie Saunders. I’m a big fan of Alan Goldhamer and Doug Lisle so that was great fun hearing them speak. I also learned a lot from JP. I already knew AJ's material but she's very fun to listen to. And Kerry Saunders is very nice. I'm not as interested in her material since I'm not worried about my body numbers. I’ve been following UWL since January 2017. Actually I joined back in Jan or Feb 2015 but then I joined Bright Line Eating a month later and ignored UWL for a few years. Then I came back to it after getting tired of the BLE food plan and the weighing and measuring. I like to eat with the seasons and not measure out the same quantities of starches, protein (too much), fruit, and fat every day.
So I came back to UWL in Jan 2017. Why? Two reasons: 1) I wanted a healthy vegan program that doesn’t include flour and sugar, and this is the only one; and 2) I wanted to try out the calorie density approach. Well, I didn’t realize how great reason #2 would be. I followed AJ’s advice to eat “Left of the Red Line” (LOTRL) or calorie density less than 700 calories/lb. This means no nuts, seeds, or avocados. This was hard at first because I had it drummed into me by almost all the Whole Plant Food experts that you need these high fat foods for your health; and because I was kind of addicted to them. Well, I learned that I tend to overeat anything ROTRL (right of the red line, calorie density greater than 700 calories/lb). So it’s not food addiction so much as it’s the pleasure trap of high calorie foods. I really like to overeat them a lot. So eating LOTRL has made eating a lot easier. I just eat until I’m full, stuffed even (I'm a ways away from mastering the “Hara Hachi Bu” technique) and then I stop. I don’t binge and I’m fine until I get hungry again. I’m combining this with Intermittent Fasting--that is, eating an early dinner and not eating again until breakfast, and that seems to work really well, giving me a break from eating and thinking about food, and resetting my appetite it seems. I'm at my goal weight. Here's an interesting effect of not eating any overt fats: no effects at all. My skin isn't dryer, my nails are fine, my hair is fine. Honestly I'm surprised. I thought at least I'd need more lotion. Most people around me seem to have dryer skin and nails than me. I suspect that's from poor circulation from heart disease, and dryness from excessive salt intake. I'm sure results vary, but I sure don't have any problems from not consuming overt fats.The real test of UWL will be this holiday season. Will I make it through without falling off the deep end of processed eating? I'll report back in January!
Here are some pictures from Vegas. The program was video streamed and you can purchase it here.
Early Friday morning walk in Las Vegas with Colleen, before it got hot:
We walked for about 3 hours and probably covered 6 miles (didn't walk fast). After that, I was thrilled to find out there was a lap pool at the hotel. I swam 40 laps, (I'm guessing it was a 25-yard pool, so 36 laps is a mile). Then in the afternoon I spent about 30 minutes the fitness room. That's how you spend a fun day in Vegas when you don't consume sugar, oil, salt, flour, caffeine, or alcohol, LOL. And then we went to the "Meet and Greet" later than afternoon:
AJ making an announcement:
had to get a picture with AJ!
AJ and JP
There were a few Q&A's and these were quite informative and hilarious. Dr. G always usually held up the "NO" sign and Dr. L the "Maybe". I think they agreed once at the end, I forget what it was about.
Lovely dinner at Panevino with wonderful companions.
The testimonials were incredible, just incredible. I am still humbled and floored by them. Here is the amazing Scott family
Another enjoyable Q&A. I submitted several questions, all of which were answered.
A summary of the difficulties following this path by Dr. Lisle. He introduced a few new concepts, the Conditioned Cram Circuit, and the Extinction curve for cravings, which includes a burst at the beginning and various spontaneous spikes throughout. He just did a webinar on this which hopefully will be on Youtube soon.
and of course, slot machines in the terminal at the Las Vegas airport.
So I came back to UWL in Jan 2017. Why? Two reasons: 1) I wanted a healthy vegan program that doesn’t include flour and sugar, and this is the only one; and 2) I wanted to try out the calorie density approach. Well, I didn’t realize how great reason #2 would be. I followed AJ’s advice to eat “Left of the Red Line” (LOTRL) or calorie density less than 700 calories/lb. This means no nuts, seeds, or avocados. This was hard at first because I had it drummed into me by almost all the Whole Plant Food experts that you need these high fat foods for your health; and because I was kind of addicted to them. Well, I learned that I tend to overeat anything ROTRL (right of the red line, calorie density greater than 700 calories/lb). So it’s not food addiction so much as it’s the pleasure trap of high calorie foods. I really like to overeat them a lot. So eating LOTRL has made eating a lot easier. I just eat until I’m full, stuffed even (I'm a ways away from mastering the “Hara Hachi Bu” technique) and then I stop. I don’t binge and I’m fine until I get hungry again. I’m combining this with Intermittent Fasting--that is, eating an early dinner and not eating again until breakfast, and that seems to work really well, giving me a break from eating and thinking about food, and resetting my appetite it seems. I'm at my goal weight. Here's an interesting effect of not eating any overt fats: no effects at all. My skin isn't dryer, my nails are fine, my hair is fine. Honestly I'm surprised. I thought at least I'd need more lotion. Most people around me seem to have dryer skin and nails than me. I suspect that's from poor circulation from heart disease, and dryness from excessive salt intake. I'm sure results vary, but I sure don't have any problems from not consuming overt fats.The real test of UWL will be this holiday season. Will I make it through without falling off the deep end of processed eating? I'll report back in January!
Here are some pictures from Vegas. The program was video streamed and you can purchase it here.
Early Friday morning walk in Las Vegas with Colleen, before it got hot:
We walked for about 3 hours and probably covered 6 miles (didn't walk fast). After that, I was thrilled to find out there was a lap pool at the hotel. I swam 40 laps, (I'm guessing it was a 25-yard pool, so 36 laps is a mile). Then in the afternoon I spent about 30 minutes the fitness room. That's how you spend a fun day in Vegas when you don't consume sugar, oil, salt, flour, caffeine, or alcohol, LOL. And then we went to the "Meet and Greet" later than afternoon:
AJ making an announcement:
had to get a picture with AJ!
AJ and JP
There were a few Q&A's and these were quite informative and hilarious. Dr. G always usually held up the "NO" sign and Dr. L the "Maybe". I think they agreed once at the end, I forget what it was about.
Lovely dinner at Panevino with wonderful companions.
The testimonials were incredible, just incredible. I am still humbled and floored by them. Here is the amazing Scott family
Another enjoyable Q&A. I submitted several questions, all of which were answered.
A summary of the difficulties following this path by Dr. Lisle. He introduced a few new concepts, the Conditioned Cram Circuit, and the Extinction curve for cravings, which includes a burst at the beginning and various spontaneous spikes throughout. He just did a webinar on this which hopefully will be on Youtube soon.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Eating while traveling
Here's how I'm eating on the road. I'm traveling by car with my instant pot so can eat however I want. I don't want to spend much time with food prep while vacationing. Here is the food I prepped for the next 3 days:
Salad (two large bowls per day): organic greens (1 4 oz box for each day), organic mini-bell peppers, organic cucumber (one for each day). These were the nicest looking organic vegetables in the Safeway grocery store. They also had organic baby carrots and organic sugar snap peas that looked fresh. It was quite a good selection I thought.
Cooked veggies for breakfast. This was mostly frozen and not organic: onion, sweet potato (this was the one fresh item), collards, spinach, okra, brussels sprouts, corn. This will be a filling breakfast!
Then I have canned beans in the car to eat as needed. And the hotel sometimes has good-looking bananas at their free breakfast. I didn't see any fruit at the store that made me want it. But I probably just didn't look hard enough. I usually can't resist cut up watermelon.
Salad (two large bowls per day): organic greens (1 4 oz box for each day), organic mini-bell peppers, organic cucumber (one for each day). These were the nicest looking organic vegetables in the Safeway grocery store. They also had organic baby carrots and organic sugar snap peas that looked fresh. It was quite a good selection I thought.
Cooked veggies for breakfast. This was mostly frozen and not organic: onion, sweet potato (this was the one fresh item), collards, spinach, okra, brussels sprouts, corn. This will be a filling breakfast!
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