If you have landed here and are experiencing confusion, see the previous post!
On the other hand, if you came looking for this post, ignore the previous paragraph.
Prior to starting this program (and please understand, I call it a program for lack of a better word. It’s not a program in the program sense of the word), I had been instructed to “eat normally”. After 20 years of yoyo dieting, I wasn’t really familiar with eating normally. So for that week, I did not do keto, I did not do AIP (autoimmune protocol), I did not do paleo, I did not do grain-free, I did not do intermittent fasting, I did not do all the things I had tried for the past 20 years.
I ate like a “normal” person.
I ate breakfast.
I ate 3 meals a day.
I ate *gasp* bread.
I didn’t eat food I don’t like, of course. That would just be ridiculous. But you get the picture. I didn’t restrict anything.
Changes I made in week one
When I met with Coach Deb, we reviewed my genetic testing and based on those results and Coach Deb’s advice, I just changed up breakfast. We looked at foods I like, and foods I don’t usually eat, and came up with some choices:
- 2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt with 1 cup of berries
- BLA – ciabatta roll with bacon, lettuce, and avocado
- Buddha bowl – 2/3 cup brown rice with 1 cup stir-fried veggies and 4oz protein topped with sliced avocado (or not!)
I also received a free gift in a Thrive Market (affiliate link) order of Birch Benders Paleo Pancake and Waffle Mix and Joolie’s Cocoa Date Syrup, so you know I had to try them! They both contained clean ingredients and made a great breakfast. Thrive Market has some great products, and is really good about posting ingredients and nutrition labels, AND giving away free items when you order – plus their social impact is awesome.
Week one results
InBody results showed I had lost about 1.5 lb, gained some lean body mass, lost some visceral fat, and my inflammation was lower than the previous week. I was definitely having a flare-up the week before! I had also had labs done that week and my CRP was ridiculously high, which is normal for me with my inflammatory issues.
The InBody scan showed:
- Weight is down by 1.6lb since last week (total +0.7lb)
- Total body water down .6lb (total -+1.8lb)
- Lean body mass down 1.1lb (total +2.2.b)
- Skeletal muscle mass up .2lb (total +1.2lb)
- % body fat up .1% (total -.7%)
I’ll get more into the InBody results once I get my food sensitivity results and can combine those into the program so I’m actually having my nutrition planned in tune with my testing. For some reason, my food sensitivity results have gone astray!
What I learned
There was one day where I changed up my ciabatta roll and had 2 slices of bacon with melted manchego cheese (I’m trying to minimize dairy – personal choice, not a coach recommendation.) I learned that there is just as much taste in 2 slices of bacon as there is in 3 slices, and – of course – less fat.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned reading nutrition labels! This is the foundation of changing your food intake habits. If you buy food in a package, and it doesn’t have a nutrition label, don’t buy it! You need to know what you’re putting in your body.
I learned that, while I could previously sail through a morning with no food when I was intermittent fasting, if I eat breakfast, it has to really fill me up, or I’m hungry again very quickly. I learned that I should probably eat my biggest meal of the day in the morning.
This may present some food prep challenges because I start work at 6:15, and I really don’t have time to stop and spend a lot of time making breakfast, so I’ll have to put some thought into this! The Buddha bowls are great, because I can have all the ingredients pre-cooked and throw them in a bowl, but having the same thing for breakfast every morning can get old very quickly.
What I’m changing
I’m changing breakfast!
As I mentioned, I need this to be the main meal of the day. Something that will carry me through to mid-afternoon. Coach Deb and I talked about turning the day upside down, so that “breakfast for dinner” becomes the norm.
I usually eat dinner around 5pm, and I don’t find myself snacking after that, so I think that eating a light evening meal may work. I’ll see how that works for me this week.
You’ve seen my Buddha bowl recipe. This week the protein is changing – I had some ground lamb in the freezer, so I cooked that up in skillet with some onion, salt, and pepper.
Herbamare Herbed Sea Salt
The veggies change up every week. This week it’s onion, zucchini, red pepper, orange pepper, yellow pepper, cabbage, and mushroom – with a dash of Herbamare. I do love my Herbamare!
I used to get confused about how to account for the veggies in my tracker. And that can be a problem, depending on the tracker you use. Now, you could go about it the long way, and say you have a cup of stir-fried veggies, and try to work out the proportions of the veggies in each cup, and then put that in your tracker, but isn’t that going to a whole lot of trouble that you really don’t need to be bothering with? Let’s try it:
- 1/8 cup onion
- 1/8 cup zucchini
- 1/8 cup red pepper
- 1/8 cup orange pepper
- 1/8 cup yellow pepper
- 1/4 cup cabbage
- 1/8 cup mushroom
Maybe that’s it, but I know I didn’t have many mushrooms to put into the recipe, and if you’re not as hyperfocused as me, you may not really care. But I’m a little particular when it comes to tracking my stuff, so I’m really happy that I use the Cronometer app.
With Cronometer, I can put all my ingredients into one recipe, then when put the food into a storage container I measure how many cups there are, and put the # of cups as the # of servings in the recipe. When I eat a serving, I record it in the app, and I don’t have to work out any quantities. The app does it all for me.
What else is new?
Forgiveness!
This is a whole body journey, and your body includes your mind. For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been part of the Soul Learners membership, and last month’s soul lesson was forgiveness.
This is a lesson I need to learn.
I find it SO hard to forgive people, and I hold grudges forEVER. I hold grudges for so long I don’t remember why they started in the first place. I just know that the person did something to wrong or offend me or someone I love and I will not forgive them for that.
I know all the analogies about drinking poison hoping the other person will die, and such. And believe me, I’ve tried forgiving people. But if I say the words and don’t feel the feels, that’s not forgiveness. It’s like when your parents force you to say “I love you” to some elderly distant relative who you don’t even know. Words have meaning, and when you cheapen the meaning, the words don’t count.
And so it is with forgiveness.
It’s like when you say something so many times you forget what it means. Did you learn something in school by repetition? By rote? Did you repeat the Pledge of Allegiance in school every morning (I didn’t – I went to school in England)? Do you really know what you’re saying when you pledge allegiance to the flag or are words just falling out of your mouth?
So it is with forgiveness for me. I need to really feel in my heart that I’m forgiving a person who I feel has wronged me, and I think that’s why it’s hard for me to get my head around this.
My old, cold heart.
I had a revelation as I met with my fellow soul learners via Zoom. I listened to their stories of forgiving people who had committed transgressions against them much greater than those I was not forgiving people for. We often talk about love, and that to be able to love others you have to love yourself first. Well, this day I learned that to be able to forgive others, I need to forgive myself first.
What are you choosing?
And I cried.
And I’m still crying.
And every day I’m affirming “I forgive myself.”
Will it work? I don’t know, but I’m feeling the meaning behind the words, and I’m making sure that I don’t fall into the trap of repeating the words until they have no meaning. I think the fact that the words bring tears is proof that I’m not just paying lip service. I’m feeling the affirmation.