Trudging the Road of Happy Destiny

[JohnLarson]

I am getting more involved in the plant based community on Facebook. Good support there.

I have decided to keep things simple. Most days I will have oatmeal w/banana for breakfast. Lunch & Dinner will be centered around potato. I am going to more along the lines of MWL and avoid whole wheat breads while eating more vegetables.

I am a little under the weather, but feeling a little better. I have not exercised.

[JohnLarson]

Even though I have a cough, overall I feel pretty good.

Work is a bit of a struggle as a few accounts that I thought I would land fell through. I would like to think it was out of my hands...

My food has been on track. I turned down a free lunch at the all you can eat sushi place and a free lunch at a bar, both would have been impossible to follow this WOE at.

I have decided to do a 14 day plan where my meals are the exact same. Sort of a Mary's Mini. I will start next Monday.

My meals will be:

B: oatmeal w/banana
L: 2 baking potatoes with green beans (frozen)
D: romaine salad, 2 baking potatoes, broccoli (frozen)
S: TopChip Potato Chips, Pickles, Carrots

I will refrain from going out to eat during this time. I think I have been back on program for 10 days now following mostly MWL. I think the restricted meal plan will help reset my tastes and help me from overeating. I want to change how I think and react to food.

Yesterday I made a really good tasting soup/stew with some frozen Ore-Ida hash browns, mixed vegetables with tomato soup as the base. I had it for lunch and dinner. Today, I skipped breakfast, I was not feeling too great, but for lunch I had the left over soup and rice and beans, plus a big salad.

[JohnLarson]

Thanks LynnCS, it is the success stories of others and the journal section that reinforce that this does work.

I have decided to start my set meals on Saturday, that is the day we go shopping. Until then, I will eat what I had originally purchased. I have some fresh brussel sprouts and lots of peas and carrots to eat before Saturday.

I made brown rice and pinto beans yesterday and had them for lunch and dinner. I think I skipped breakfast as I was a little under the weather. I feel better today and had a big bowl of oatmeal (1c) and a banana. I did not do any exercise, but I did fix our water heater and while at the hardware store, my wife checked to see if there was any yellow tomatoes, she knows I love them and had not planted any, so they had some and we came home with 4 tomato plants and tomato cages. So I have 16 tomato plants this year. I am glad I love tomatoes. One of these years I am going to plant potatoes. I think I could live off just those two. I am so grateful I am not allergic to either, I love them both.

Besides my cough, I feel really good. I have really gotten back into reading and learning. The support from just reading an article or watching a video is very important. I also learned something new about the MWL program the other day.

Guidelines for Healthy Eating in MWL book, page 67.
1. Eat until you’re satisfied
2. Graze
3. Allow time for digestion
4. Chew foods thoroughly
5. Restrict variety

Variety has always been important to me and it is why following the Starch Solution way of eating for life makes perfect sense. I had never thought of restricting variety, but now that I have read up on it, I understand it. While good tasting food is important, it can't be the main reason why I eat. For me, I need to put food in it's proper place. I am not talking about eating plain oatmeal three times a day, but I know that besides tasting good, my food needs to have nutritional value and not be bad for me. My Mary's Mini will be a way to restrict variety, which I never knew was a guideline for MWL.

[JohnLarson]

I have been eating up my rice and beans. I have some corn on the cob I am going to have in a few for a late lunch. I am excited about my 14 day expierement. I am going to track the cost also. So today and tonight I will feast on some non-potato starches.

I might start a thread just about it.

My cough is getting better. I am fairly sure I will have good weight loss to report tomorrow morning.

[JohnLarson]

Weighed in Saturday, down to 233.2.

Crazy busy weekend. I put off starting my Mary's Mini until Tuesday, which is tomorrow.

I had tacos today. I made plenty of chips.

Not much time to write right now. I wanted to get my loss in and to check in.

[JohnLarson]

Second day of Mary's Mini.

I really like the frozen broccoli that I picked up.

I am also eating my food in a certain order: salad, vegetables, vegetables w/potato.

[kalehi]

Hi John,

Thanks for your journal. I have been following your posts for a time, and I really appreciate your honesty and insights!

I just want to let you know that a lot of people read, and are inspired by what you write here!

Thanks,
Lynn

[JohnLarson]

Thanks kalehi & LynnCS, I can only hope that I am as helpful to others as others have been helpful to me.

So far three complete days into my Mary's Mini. It has not been that hard at all. My mornings have been the same anyway. Having the daily meals has not gotten boring, but it has only been three days. Last night, I was not that hungry so I did not eat any potatoes. I woke up and was not all crazy hungry either, so that was cool.

I have not been as physically active as I had planned. Things are just busy. I know they are not too busy, but that is the best excuse I have right now. I need to learn just to go for a walk or something. The treadmill really does suck, no matter how much I try to trick myself into liking it.

I have an event filled weekend coming up. Saturday, I will be out of town and I will need to figure out how to do my meal plan while away. It might just be salad and potato if I can't find steamed green beans or broccoli. I will not be eating anything non-MWL. I am fairly certain I will be able to stay on my Mary's Mini. On Sunday, I am leading up a workshop that is going to have pizza at it. I will eat before hand and I have, for the most part, lost my desire for pizza.

I think I am on the right track, I can already feel my clothes fitting a little looser. I still have a long way to go and I am prepared to lose it slow. I figure if I am losing and not gaining, then I am on the right path.

[kalehi]

The treadmill really does suck, no matter how much I try to trick myself into liking it.

Haha - me too! You nailed it. The times I have gone to the gymn and tried to run on a treadmill have not been very enjoyable. I know it is a good workout, but I just can't seem to enjoy it. Five minutes of that, and I'm outta there.

I think that is why I enjoy reading nayasmom's journal so much. She is out running in the mountains, with all kinds of nature things happening (including bears!). That is really the way to go, in my opinion. I do understand that it is not an option for everyone.

[JohnLarson]

I like going for walks. I might try going for a run/walk.

Sunday I ate some SAD pizza, long story, no real good excuse, lack of planning on my part. Back on my Mary's Mini on Monday, so far so good. I am most likely overeating my topchips as snacks. I can tell my pants are a little looser.

[kkrichar]

Hi John,

Just wanted to say I always run/walk now days. If I don't add walk breaks things start to fall off. It ain't easy getting old. Anyhoo, I'm up to 9 miles on my long run so the walk breaks really do help. It allows me to go farther than I would if I only ran as far as I could go without walking. I have a Garmin GPS watch that has a run/walk feature. You set the number of minutes you want to run and the number of minutes you want to walk and it beeps to tell you when to switch. It's nice to not have to spend the whole time looking at my watch to time the breaks. Before I bought that watch I had a GymBoss which does the same thing. I got it at a local running store. It's clips onto my shirt or shorts and beeps when it's time to walk and run. Much less expensive than the watch but I do love my Garmin.

I may have mentioned this to you before but I found one treadmill work-out that I enjoy. It's an interval run that I use to work on speed. It's 2/2/1: 2 minutes walk/2 minutes run/1 minute sprint. I usually do a 15 minute warm-up and then repeat the 2/2/1 6 times. The whole workout last 45 minutes and it's a challenge. Of course, you could shorten the warm-up or the number of repeats. I save that workout for rainy days during the summer.

Good job getting right back on the plan after the pizza incident.

Kelly

[JohnLarson]

One of these days I will find some sort of physical activity I like. I have been slack on my morning push-ups and sit-ups also lately.

Food has been good, so far my Mary Mini's going well. I am really liking the broccoli. I had not been eating much of it in the past. I also have really liked eating the TopChips as a snack and I am getting pretty good at making them. I think I want to get another single rack so I can cook two and prep two. RIght now I am doing just doing cook one and prep one. I figured out how to program a button for 3:49, which makes them perfect.

I have noticed my clothes feel a little looser, but I have to keep my expectations in check. My goal is to keep my food simple and get used to eating real food. Besides my oatmeal and salad dressing, nothing has a label on it, which is cool.

My garden is coming along. Something ate my cucumber plants and some tomato plants. I bought some more tomato plants and put them in a different area. I also have a fake owl, I hope that stops the little nibbling that was going on last year. I went from 10 tomato plants to 16 this year, I am very excited. So far the plants are doing very well.

[JohnLarson]

It has been over a month, my Mary Mini's did not work. Being in "Diet" mode is not good for me.

I am going to do what I did two years ago. I am just going to take it one day at a time.

No meat, dairy, oil, flours. Do something physical each day. Really not that hard. This plan works.

My weight is up, my blood sugar is up.

Food today was good. Oatmeal w/ banana for breakfast. Lunch & Dinner was brown rice and broccoli with a little soy sauce. I did the treadmill for 30 min. I also did 10 sit-ups and two sets of 5 good push-ups. I also messed around with my 15lb dumbells.

I have way too many size 34" waist pants and shorts from last year that I want to wear. This is crazy. I know this WOE works. I really do like the food. I just fell into SAD eating and not caring.

I am back.

[Starch Chick]

I am back.

Good for you, John!

[kkrichar]

Great to see you John. The good news is you already know how to do this and you know it works. You inspired a lot of people and now you can just look back at the documentation you kept to inspire yourself!!