Overall, I'm having a good week. I feel good, rested, and fed... all relatively speaking. I'm going to chalk up last weeks long term bad mood to hormones and call it a day.
As I'm typing, I'm enjoying my last meal of the day, turkey breast (4oz) and a 6 oz sweet potato. I put cinnamon on my potato and it's so delicious! I wish I could eat more. But I'm not done yet so I will continue to enjoy every bite. I was so happy on Tuesday to get the OK to eat some vegetables with some of my weekly meals. I'd been getting really bored with eggs in particular and I asked (well, begged actually) Lisa to allow me to have some chopped up veggies in my eggs to make them more tolerable and interesting. Lisa explained to me why veggies are not on my diet and I'm going to share that information with you.
Last night and again today, I have had 2 different friends express concerns about my current diet. I can understand and appreciate their concern for my health. Sometimes a friend has to speak out and say, "Rachelle it's probably not safe for you to jump off that cliff without a shoot of come kind" (even tho I might be holding a perfectly good umbrella). So this part of my blog is for those friends and anyone else who might just be wondering why I can't eat fruits and vegetables! How ridiculous is that? What about all the vitamins/minerals and fiber that you get from them? And the calories are really not substantial, so what's the harm?
So here's the deal with the fruit. This is easy to understand... all fruits have sugar and the body processes sugar the same whether from God's creation or from a bag. Most fruits are mostly water and do not contribute much to the vitamin pool that some seem to be so concerned about. Your better fruits to eat are berries for fiber, bananas for potassium and oranges for vitC...all of which I can eat outside of the 8 weeks of "contest prep" diet. Again...sugar = no no. So fruits are out. Do I miss them? YES! Can I live without them for 8 weeks? YES! Will I get scurvy? NO! Do I take a good multivitamin? YES! OK?.. is everyone OK so far? Not so difficult to understand.
Moving on to vegetables. Here's the basics. If I'm hungry, I need to put food in my body that will fuel my muscles and help me to reach my goals. I would have to eat 6 cups of lettuce to get the same calories as 1 sweet potato. The potato will be more satisfying, and will give me the calories that I need then and there versus munching all day on a bag of lettuce. The exceptions are more dense veggies like broccoli, peppers, sprouts, but still not as good as the awesomeness of the sweet potato - God's perfect carbohydrate, just like eggs are God's perfect protein. If I'm so desperate for something crunchy, I can certainly munch on a piece of celery, (after all..even anorexics eat celery) but then move on! I don't need to eat 5 pounds of vegetables to satisfy a craving! (although I probably COULD at this point....I don't need to) So what about the fiber? I get the fiber I need thru the whole wheats that I eat. WW sandwich thins, WW bagels, oats, and Kashi Go Lean cereal (which, I might add, does almost too good of job...with the "cleansing"... you know...) And if you think that you can't lose fat without fruits and veggies then you really do not have a good grasp of how a human loses weight. Don't you watch Biggest Loser?... Calories in vs Calories out! Jillian says it all the time! It's the basic component of weight loss. You do not need fruits and veggies to lose weight.
So how are we doin' with all this? Here is the bottom line for me. I'm doing this thing. It's 8 weeks of extreme dieting, yes, but I'm not going to die... or lose my teeth... or get sick. So please don't harsh my dreams mellow, ok? If you can't encourage me, please just trust that Lisa will not steer me down a path to scurvy. This is how it works, and that's why more people choose NOT to do it. It's hard! It's the hardest thing I've ever done! But I'm OK, friends. Thank you for loving me enough to give a shit, but please stop with the downward pull or you will find me pulling away. I'm jumping with my umbrella and you can't stop me. But you can be waiting for me at the bottom of the cliff with a big pizza, a bag of frosted animal crackers and some cheetos ("Baked" please...cuz they are healthier :-)
I love you all!!
Well said!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I had great guidance!
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