Fortunately for me, I lost 80 lbs BEFORE my husband dropped the bomb. I don't know how bad my depression would be if I was still really heavy. Weight loss has been a great booster for my self-esteem.
First, let me say the journey for me was simple. If I want to be more like Jesus (as he asks us to do), would Jesus be filling his body with junk & be overweight? NO. And I just don't mean junk food, but processed food with man-made chemicals in it. So, I prayed that God would guide me to be more Christ like.
The journey took me about 8 months - less then I thought it would. God helped me to overcome cravings & bad days.
I have some suggestions if anyone is interested. I went for a total health/total lifestyle change instead of a temporary diet. I was battling INFERTILITY (PCOS) & the potential of developing diabetes (highly likely)! I haven't had regular cycles since I started my period as a pre-teen, and after already going through fertility treatments, I decided to try total health & see where it got me. Within a month, I was having regular cycles (the past few years I was having ONE per year - IF that). Now, I've had regular cycles for 8 months. Amazing since I weighed less in High School then I do now & never had any regular cycles (then it was every 2-3months). I can predict the day now.
First, I did a detox through my doctor.
http://www.standardprocess.com/lit/brochures/purification&weightmanagementL3700.pdf I lost 8 lbs the first week doing this plan & about 17-18 lbs by the end of the 3 week period while eating totally healthy (greens, veggies & fruit), drinking lots of water & doing some light exercise. Don't get me wrong, it was hard, but kicked started my weight loss & helped me to feel SOOOO much better. Then, I continued a modified plan based on this for the rest of the time I was trying to lose weight (which added meat & a few other things to my diet). If anyone is interested, I can get more info for you.
Mainly, you get rid of ALL fried food (NO MORE FRENCH FRIES PEOPLE), ALL white flour (breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, cereals etc.), ALL sugar (sodas, etc.), & ALL caffeine too. I also eliminated starches like potatoes and dairy during the weight loss part of this diet. Did you know that YOU are addicted to white flour, sugar & cheese? It's not just caffeine that is addictive. I NO longer crave these as I did before.
I would eat lean meats, veggies & salads with water (1-2 salads a day with very light dressing (dressing has trans fats).
If you've got to have bread (cereal, muffins, tortillas), use Ezekiel 4:9 products, read more at
www.foodforlife.com . These contain sprouted grains (like God intended us to have) instead of white flour (which digests JUST LIKE SUGAR). Dr. Mercola calls white flour (along with white rice, white sugar & white table salt) WHITE DEATH!!!! Read about it.
http://www.mercola.com/2004/dec/4/grains.htmIF you need sweetener, use stevia
http://www.sweetleaf.com/ (naturally sweet plant native to Paraguay, not man-made chemicals like splenda, nutrasweet & others). Or you can buy organic cane sugar, Sucanat
http://www.wholesomesweeteners.com/featurednews.htmlDon't forget to throw you table salt out & buy sea salt. It actually is good for you & just as cheap. You can add sea salt to you meal withOUT any guilt.
Health food stores carry all the products above.
One great recipe (one of my favorite's) is Spaghetti Squash. We use it in place of pasta:
http://www.grizzlybase.com/useful/spaghetti_squash.asp I also love mexican food so now I get fajitas without tortillas & use lettuce as wraps. At restaurants I have to ask in advance to make sure they have the leaf lettuce (Both Friday's, Chili's & Red Robin do). I actually prefer the lettuce now to tortillas. Red Robin also has a lettuce wrapped burger & Friday's has an Atkin's menu which helps lower the carbs. But, don't confuse my diet with Atkin's Diet - they are not the same - I am not suggesting stuffing yourself with all types of fatty meats, cheeses, etc.
Wonderful ways to have a good meal without the high carbs. Also, be careful of ALL low fat foods - when food is low fat, you get more carbs which basically defeats the purpose anyway. I avoid all low fat foods & just eat in moderation now. My doctor told me that once I was done, I should eat 80% good, then I could use the other 20% as I wish & should be fine.
I want to also add that I have noticed an explosion of overweight kids - even sometimes with normal size parents. You have to ask yourself what is different then when we were kids. 1)Fast food & quick meal access (even the meals we bring home from the grocery store in a box - what is in that stuff), 2)sedentary lifestyle, 3) too many sweet drinks & sodas and NO water.
We now have spring water in our home to drink (has the minerals in it to break down the water in your body - it comes the way God intended). We get 5 gal. bottles of spring water at Home Depot. Tap water has many things added that are NOT good & reverse osmosis water has NOTHING in it at all so it must take minerals out of your body to process it.
Just some ideas for you. You can make some pretty small changes & make a big difference in your life.
