For the past year I've been on a nutrition journey. I've gone from being severely obese (BMI 37.8) to feeling good in a bikini! I started this journey wanting to loose 70 lbs, and once I hit a little over my half-way mark I stopped!
What happened?
I had lost 40 lbs by cutting out all process foods as well as refined sugars and carbs. I still haven't had a slice of bread in over a year! While I felt great and noticed a lot of beneficial changes, I started to focus more on my health than on my diet. Also, I wanted to take the training wheels off, and see if I could maintain at this weight. So for 6 moths, I stopped logging my food and gave myself the liberty to eat what I wanted. I managed to keep the weight off, but after 6 months, I knew that I needed to go back to logging my food and making conscious food choices. For about a month last summer I was able to maintain a primarily raw food diet. I felt great, had more energy, slept better and looked great. However, I started to wonder if this diet was really the healthiest way to go.
As fall crept in, I felt like the diet conflicted with my social life and I abandoned it. I still wasn't eating as badly as before I started my journey, and was still primarily gluten-free.
This winter, I tried to go raw again. Let me tell you- winter is NOT the best time for this kind of lifestyle change. I then started cutting out red meat. I tried to eat raw and would have fish once in a while and mostly raw (sashimi). This still didn't work for me. I found that when I cheated on the raw diet, I CHEATED! My mentality was if I'm going to be bad, I might as well be BAD! Again, no real weight gain here. As any pounds gained, were quickly trimmed down by going back to raw.
I then thought "wait! why not try vegan for the winter then try raw again in the summer?" This didn't really work for me because I was still in the Dukan-mode of thinking "Carbs are EVIL!" and well it left me thinking that the only things I could eat were fruits and veggies before I could eat them raw and now I could eat them cooked. Well this didn't help! I'd much rather eat them raw anyways!
This week I found the missing link-- COMPLEX CARBS; whole grains, beans, legumes, wild rice, etc...
From the Dukan diet I had this association that these kinds of carbs would make me FAT (again), but maybe I can balance being healthy with trying to loose weight. I mean if I can maintain for 6 months eating things like chicken wings and Ben and Jerry's, I should surely be able to stabilize eating lentils and hummus, no? Here we go again, I love me a good experiment! I have a feeling this won't be a quick weight loss program, and that I'll have to workout regularly to kick things into high gear, but the rewards will be worth it!
Seems kind of weird to have a Vegan- Dukan Blog - doesn't it?
