1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
6. Eliminate any added oil.
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:I was feeling like a total failure this morning and didn't want to post but upon looking at my weekly tracker MWL checklist, I changed my mind. I used the smiles (and frowns ) this week instead of the direct "yes" and "no" words because I feel that many areas were successful . As I look at my checklist I see an area that needs work just at lunch time (#5) and I also see that just two days were needing more work and thought (Tuesday and Wednesday). I don't know what happened Tuesday but remember feeling kind of negative on that day . Wednesday was the weekly visit to my daughter's house to watch my special needs grandson. I feel like I fall apart when in their kitchen and I feel like their snack cupboard just grabs me and pulls me in !
I have thought about my Wednesdays and will try to change up my meal next week to be either a cold lunch or have one item to heat up so I can almost avoid their kitchen. They have a tri-level house so I can just keep myself on the low level with my grandson and be just fine ! They have a fridge there too so I can store my lunch. I will do that this coming Wednesday and see how it feels.
I like how Stephanie reflected on her last year doing this ! I would love to do that one year from now. I have read a little about self-efficacy. It has been discussed a few time here on this board. I think that believing that I can do this is exactly what has been missing but this cannot happen if I just sit here feeling bad. I know I have to work this program and see success week by week.
I like using my weekly tracker as it shows me that my week is mostly successful. I track meal by meal, day by day so there are lots of checks in those little squares. It also pin-points the areas that need attention and what days need attention. Then I know how to make those small changes to make it work.
Have a wonderful week everyone ! See you next week !
Marilyn
squealcat