A new food plan

Today at my LAWL appointment, I stayed the same-- 187.8. And the counselor (Jodi, one of my favorites) said "I have exciting news for you!" Waiting to hear she's set a wedding date or something else wonderful in her life. "You get to move to a new plan today!"

I knew at 187 I'd go down to the next level plan, meaning LESS FOOD. I was just expecting to have .8 more pounds to get there. No biggie, I like new things and I got a cool new "gold" food plan book with my portions, etc, in it.

THE NEW PLAN--
I now get to eat less protein, 2 oz less in general--thank goodness, I was having a hard time eating 5 ounces of cooked pork chop yesterday. 5 ounces of meat is A LOT! when you weigh it on a scale. And 7 oz of cooked chicken is HUGE-- much better to eat 5 oz of cooked chicken. So I'm good with that.

But I also lose a vegetable. WHAT? A veggie gets taken away? It's ONLY 1/2 a cup of cooked veggie or 1 cup of salad, but I love me my veggies and I don't wants to lose 'em. I never thought I'd say THAT. Has hell frozen over? Anyone? Anyone? This from the girl who grew up eating peanut butter (Jiff) on bread (white) and Campbell's (accept no substitute) tomato soup made with milk; oh, and cereal a couple times a day. (Seriously, this was my diet for most of my childhood and teens.)

One of my friends from church who started LAWL a couple months before me, had said she doesn't measure her veggies. She figures they're vegetables, how many calories can they have? I couldn't believe it when she said that, and thought to myself-- um, yeah, that's true but there's a REASON they give you portion sizes instead of saying "unlimited" veggies. I haven't seen her for a few weeks, and am not sure how she's doing, but I think her loss was going okay but not fast. And that's fine, if that's the way she's going to do it. It's her body.

I personally measure everything (okay, sometimes I'll grab a handful of lettuce because I've measured it enough to know my handful = 1 cup). Cause I want this weight off this year and I'm not paying an arm & a leg to LAWL to languish about with 1/2 pound losses every week. So if they say 3 veggies, I'm eating only 3 veggies, measured properly (okay okay, I'll start measuring my lettuce again).

So this is week 10-- 10 weeks of filling in my food diary every day. 10 weeks of meeting with a counselor and weighing in 3 times a week (two of those weeks I went only twice because a kid or I was sick). 10 weeks of weighing my proteins, fixing my eating faux pas (too many frozen meals! too much cottage cheese! don't eat 12 baby carrots at once, only 6 at a time!), measuring broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, salad dressing, peanut butter, etc. 10 weeks of feeling better a week at a time. 10 weeks and 19.2 pounds gone.