Diet...Accomplished!

Dave and I have officially finished the Body for Life program we were doing! I couldn't be more proud of myself for sticking with it and accomplishing something that was really, really difficult for me. The official program is 12 weeks long, and we did it EXACTLY right for EXACTLY 12 weeks. It was super hard, especially at first, and super awkward socially sometimes, but we stuck with it, never cheated, and got some great results! I am down 13 lbs, and am smaller than I was even before having a baby. THAT feels nice! But, beyond all the physical results, I got some great mental and emotional results, which might even be better than the physical weight loss. Here's a little run-down of how our diet worked.

We didn't really take before and after pictures (mostly because I was a little self-conscious of my weight). These are the pictures we took with my family just a few days before starting the diet. So, consider this a before shot...

...and after (13 lbs later)!!

We're holding things that we learned to like during this diet. I learned to like lifting weights (I'd never really done that before), and Dave learned to like beef jerky and cottage cheese, and he even learned to like Insanity!

The first component of our diet was the exercise program. So, every morning we would wake up, I'd feed the baby, and then we'd both head down to exercise. Lydia would always come with us and watch us. Dave would do his Insanity workouts, and I would alternate every day between aerobic cardio videos and weight lifting. We did this every day Monday-Saturday, and Sundays we would take a day off, which means 72 days of exercising and 12 days off in 3 months. That is crazy for me. Before the baby, I would try my best to exercise regularly, but sometimes I'd be too tired, or something would come up and I couldn't get to it that day. With this diet, I knew that I HAD to exercise (because I was 100% committed), and so I just made it work. On the days that were busy, I sometimes had to wake up an hour earlier than usual to make sure I could get my exercise in, but I always did it. That is a huge accomplishment for me!

Isn't she cute? She was the best exercise buddy ever.

She would hardly ever even make a peep. She would just mostly sit there and watch us so contentedly.

These are Dave's checklists for his Insanity program. Don't mind his shoes in this picture. Haha. He didn't miss a single day of exercise either, and was really improved by the end of Insanity.

The other big component was eating. The idea behind it is that you have 6 mini-meals a day, with each meal having a portion of lean protein, a portion of carbohydrate, and a portion of vegetables for at least 2 of the meals. You might be thinking, "Seriously? 6 meals a day? That's a lot of food!" It's not if you do the portions correctly. The Body for Life book says that a portion is as big as your fist. So, you have a fist-size portion of lean proteins, carbs, and vegetables at each meal. Here's where it got real tricky for me. I don't really like a lot of meat, so finding ways to get a protein at each meal without having a meat overload was kinda hard. I had to learn to like things I didn't really like before. I learned to like yogurt - and learned to even like greek yogurt, which has a TON of protein. That was huge for me. I learned to like turkey bacon. I learned to like meatloaf (sounds sick, right? But my mom's is SO good!). I learned to like Muscle Milk protein powder. I learned to like peppers. I learned to eat a lot more vegetables. I learned that whole wheat pasta tastes just as good as regular pasta and that a whole wheat tortilla is almost as good as a white one. :) I learned that my previous eating habits included pretty much just carbs (fruit, bread, pasta, crackers) which wasn't balanced at all.  I've learned how to eat a more balanced diet and that it doesn't have to taste gross. I actually enjoy eating most of the foods we were allowed to eat on our diet. The whole food thing was pretty eye-opening for me. Here's a sample menu of our meals from a typical day:

Meal #1 - Protein shake

Meal #2 - A few slices of turkey bacon and oatmeal

Meal #3 - A turkey wrap on a whole wheat tortilla, with spinach inside. (Dave put a little greek yogurt on his - I couldn't ever quite get to that point).

Meal #4 - Chicken salad sandwich in a whole wheat pita pocket with beans or carrots on the side. The chicken salad was made with fat-free miracle whip, some slices of celery, and a few almonds mixed in.

Meal #5 - Chicken, brown rice, and broccoli. We'd cook some chicken in a crock pot all day just with fat free cream of chicken soup, water, and a Lipton onion soup mix. That would give us a little bit of gravy for our brown rice as well. This was usually what we considered "dinner", even though all the meals were the same size. We'd usually make extras to have for another meal the next day.

Meal #6 - Greek yogurt with a few strawberries and a little sprinkle of granola. I had this meal EVERY night for 3 weeks and never got sick of it. It always tasted like a treat to me. I loved ending the day with something sweet - it made my mind think I was actually eating a treat.

This is what our pantry looks like - sugar free sweeter, sugar free syrup, Muscle Milk, Raisin Bran, oatmeal, protein bars, beef jerky, multi-grain crackers, and whole wheat tortillas. Haha. Can you say DIET?? :)

And our fridge. TONS of greek yogurt (told you I had it every night!), strawberries, fish, spinach, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, shredded chicken (for chicken salad), apples, carrots, and other fresh veggies. 

See? Not too horrible, huh? I actually grew to really love this food. It took a lot of planning to figure out what we would eat each day. We had to really plan out what we needed to buy at the grocery store, and we had to bring our own food to more than one family party and look really silly so we could make sure that we were eating "approved" diet food, since we wanted to be 100%. 

Now that the diet's over, we are definitely not going back to the way we were before. We're going to be a little more loose (i.e. we don't have to bring our own food to parties anymore and we may sometimes have 2 carbs with our protein at a meal, and can have a little ice cream with a movie on the weekend), but we're pretty much going to eat the same food in the same sort of way because it WORKED, tasted good, and kept us feeling strong and healthy. We had free days on this diet where we could eat whatever we wanted, and it is amazing the difference we felt in our bodies when we ate well and when we didn't. You know the expression, 'you are what you eat'? Well, it's pretty much true. We found that if you feed your body good things, you feel good and can perform well. If you feed your body junk, you feel crummy and slow. Don't get me wrong - I am still planning on giving myself treats every once in awhile. I'm not turning into a weird health nut, but I am cutting out probably 90% of the treats and junk I used to eat. It's just not worth the extra pounds and feeling crummy, and your body doesn't need it. It just doesn't.

In the end, I learned to control my appetites, and I learned that my spirit is in control of my body. My "spiritual man" is stronger than my "natural man". It feels SO awesome to feel like your body isn't in control and that you have power over your body. It is incredibly freeing. Elder Russell M. Nelson in the last general conference said this, "A pivotal spiritual attribute is that of self-mastery - the strength to place reason over appetite. Self-mastery builds a strong conscience. And your conscience determines your moral responses in difficult, tempting, and trying situations." I feel like I have achieved self-mastery in one physical aspect of my life, but that it will help me in other aspects of my life as well.

If you don't think you could ever do something like this - think again. I didn't really think I could. But, I just told my brain that I had to and that I couldn't cheat, not even once. And that is all it takes. It's a great feeling overall - to feel healthy, and to feel like you have control. I did it, and that just proves to me that anyone can do it.

So there's my long rant about our crazy diet. If you made it to the end, congratulations! Now go and do something healthy. :)