Days 26 - 31

I've officially been on the diet a month. It's definitely changed a lot, and changed me a lot. I've lost a total of 20 pounds in the last month, and that's basically with zero exercise, just changing what I eat.

It's been a really crazy week so I've splurged once or twice, but still no meat! I'm realizing how many carbs it's possible to eat when you're eating vegetarian. For example, you can get chinese food from hole in the wall places that use fresh veggies and whatnot, but they still have highly processed sauces and noodles. You can get some vegetarian soup, but who doesn't like bread with soup? It's very easy. Bread and veggies go great together.

I know this is a super long post, but I've not updated in a while and I just feel like sharing these ideas that come to mind.

Unfortunately the best way to eat healthy is to never eat anywhere but home. It certainly gets old, and I've only been doing it a month. There are obviously plenty of things to eat at home. I ordered a book a few weeks ago with lots of plant based recipes and I've been dying to get it - it's taking forever to get here. I'm really hoping it will open up my mind to things I can eat. I feel like I've been eating a lot of the same things, apples, bananas, avocados, oranges, lemons, sweet potatoes, celery, carrots, nuts and seeds, and lots and lots of water. All great things, sure. However, if that's all you eat it's sort of tiring.

That's one of the biggest draws of processed foods and popular restaurants - they can have virtually any food, any time, even when none of it is in season. It's a modern spoil that has changed the way we think about eating. I'm really trying to "unthink" this whole process and relearn how to eat. I think part of it is just getting used to it. Everything in moderation. I'm sure once this "diet" is over I will still be eating healthy and really trying to avoid processed foods, man made foods, meats, and of course fast food and chain restaurants. A burger every now and then won't kill me, but in general I find it much easier to eat vegetarian / vegan than original expected.

I have essentially been overweight by various amounts my entire life, even if just a little bit. I don't think I've ever been my "medically recommend" weight, ever. That's really the ultimate goal of this diet, to lose the weight and keep it off, revitalizing my life and my habits, and hopefully turning my body into a high powered fat burning body rather than a "dieting" body. I want to be able to eat more things that I want to eat! I want to be able to able to have a burger more than once a month. I want to be able to not worry about gaining weight. I want to have a very high metabolism and be like all of my skinny friends that can eat basically whatever they want and never gain an ounce. Seems like the life.

A friend of mine is a vegetarian for religious reasons. I know, Religious reasons. He basically feels like killing animals is a form of murdering God's living creations. Which sure, makes sense, but it's sort of "overkill." Yes, pun intended. I don't get caught up in animal rights this and that. I think cruelty to animals is wrong, but come on, chickens and turkeys don't have that long of a life anyway, and otherwise they'd just die and get eaten by wolves somewhere in the farm. It makes much more sense to use animals and animal products to help aid in population.

However, like I said, this Forks Over Knives documentary has really opened my eyes to think about how MUCH animal products Americans consume. It's a lot...pounds meat and dairy every day, and usually only ounces (if any) vegetables and fruits. And if not meat, it's refined products like sugar, white flours, pastas, etc. 100% Whole Wheat is where it's AT!

Until next time. My goal is to lose another 25 pounds in the next 56 days (i.e., the number of days until my wedding!) There's no way I'm losing 25 pounds in the next 30 days, but hopefully I can at least lose 15 or 20 by my wedding. My long term goal is like I said - to get to my medically "appropriate" weight, which for my height, 5'11, is anywhere from 160-190 depending on build type, genetics, natural body shape and bone structure, etc. Sometimes people just have wider builds - their bones can't just shrink all of a sudden and make them skinny as a pole. Other people have very narrow builds and could probably NEVER get fat just based on their body shape - okay maybe not never but it's very unlikely.

I'd say I have more of the wider/athletic build, wide shoulders like my dad's, long legs and shorter torso like my dad's as well. That's no cop out or anything, it's just the truth. So I guess my end weight goal is to be about 185. Let's backtrack a little bit - the biggest I ever got was freshman year in college: I weighed 256. I didn't look "obese" or "very fat" even though I was really about 70 pounds overweight, again because of my height and build. I never wore clothes that were tight or accentuated my body in weird ways, and if I ever mentioned my weight to skinny friends of mine they'd be like "whoa, really? You don't look like you weight that..."

Regardless, I lost a handful of pounds and got down to about 210 after 6 months or so, gained some back and then hovered around 230 forever. Drove me nuts! I started this diet weighing about 228lbs, so I've lost 20lbs. Now back around 208, I'm feeling great and hoping to lose another 25 ish to put me down in the healthy range for my height. 185 seems like a dream to me. If you can believe it, I've not weighed under 200 pounds since Freshman year in high school. Granted, I grew up quick; I was 5'8 as a Freshman and about 210lbs. I only grew 3 inches in ALL that time since then, but I can now fit into clothes I wore my freshman year in highschool, which yes...for some reason I still have.

Aside from pounds, I have dropped a pants size and a shirt size. I was wearing about a 36-38 waist and usually an XL shirt (L sometimes). Now I'm on my last two belt holes on my 36s and I can fit into mostly 34s and one pair of 32s! That's pretty exciting for me. Shirts have all gravitated to larges and ONE medium. Wow! I haven't worn a medium in I don't even know how long. Probably never. Granted, it's not even a shirt I like, but for whatever reason it's a medium and I can wear it!

Another miniature sub-goal is to lose as many INCHES as possible before May 10th. Why May 10th? I'm going into the tux place to get any final measurements for my tux before they order it for the wedding. I told them I was dieting and of course they said many people do, so I needed to come back in and get double checked in case I lost a lot. Which, I have and I will have lost a lot!

So anyway. That's the goal. 185 as soon as possible, and as many inches as possible by the 10th of May (40 days from now). When I look at it from the standpoint of "it's just 25 pounds" it doesn't seem that bad. When I start thinking about "you haven't weight 185 in forever," it seems intimidating.


EXPERIMENT UPDATE:

I'm going to try to eat only raw foods for the first ten days of April and May as an experiment, so nothing cooked or processed whatsoever. That's TRUE unprocessed foods. So not even granola or bread or anything like that. Pretty much ONLY raw fruits and vegetables for two weeks, just as an experiment. That way I'll have sort of a burst of diet reaction to jumpstart this month as well as another burst right before I have to get remeasured on the 10th!