Saturday, February 4, 2012

And now for something a bit more drastic...

So, I've changed my eating habits quite a bit over the last 8 months and I feel a LOT better, (sleep better, have more energy, less depression) but the bottom line is that my weight has not gone down as I had hoped. Sigh... So now I'm faced with the conclusion that in order to get the weight off I must do much more than eat an organic cave man type diet.

However, I did discover that I have some major problems with wheat, rice, corn and most other grains, and that potatoes are a blood sugar buster for me as well. If I consume any of these I get serious cravings that go on for the rest of the day. And forget sugar! What a disaster that is for me. I can't control what I eat if I'm having constant sugar crashes all day. Veggies and meats just don't destabilize my blood sugar so I can eat them without fear but not enough to take off a lot of weight. I can't even go into the coffee thing here.... just shoot me...

Then I remembered the juice fast, colon cleanser program I went on two summers ago where I lost about 17 pounds and thought, hey, I can do a modified version of that. Here's the link to see my day by day experience of that since I blogged about it on my other defunct blog, Rawvenge. I say defunct because I just cannot do a completely raw diet and quit posting there. My protein requirements are just too high. This particular colon cleanser was a program I bought from Blessed Herbs. It worked just as it said it would (WARNING! My photos are very graphic and not for the faint of heart. Don't say I didn't tell you...) and they have very good customer service as well.

Then I ran into a product, Almased, that I thought might be helpful with my blood sugar problems and protein needs. I did some research online for Almased ( a weight loss shake) and was pleased with what I read, so I bought 3 canisters and have been having a shake for breakfast for the last week. It's pretty good, and fills you up without contributing too many carbohydrates. I make mine with about 8 oz. of fresh raw milk that I get from my local health food store, 2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder, stevia and extra powdered whey. I put the whole mess into a BlenderBottle and shake it up. Because of the cocoa powder, I get my caffeine fix (this was a HUGE problem for me, as my coffee cravings have kept my carbohydrate levels way too high). Yeah, I'm STILL on coffee. Worst habit I ever started and if I could take a time machine back to college and undo that addiction, I would!

I got out all my info from the colon cleanse, made the broth, fired up my juicer and Vitamix blender and got going. And then ran headlong into a series of sugar crashes that knocked me out! Back to the drawing board... Apparently, fruit and veggie juices are just too sugary for me (straight veggie juices don't taste so great to me). So now I'm going to flounder a bit while I figure out what to do next. I think that juicing takes all the fiber out of the fruits and veggies and that the fiber is what keeps my blood sugar stabilized, so I may only juice things like ginger and put the rest in the Vitamix to blend up whole. I wanted to do fruit and veggie juices for the nutrition, but I'll have to see if I can get it to work. I'll need to be on this for months, so an unstable blood sugar just won't work for me.

I'll have to keep you posted on that as I go along. In the meantime I may switch to doing the Almased for all three meals and see how that plays out. I'll also be adding psyllium caps to keep my bowels moving, as things have been moving a little  S L O W......