So...
How've you been? What's new and wonderful in your world? Been a long time friends and I have got a lot to say tonight so why not settle in with a nice cozy cup of tea and share an adventure that's been over two years in the making. It's cool. Go make your tea... I'll wait.
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You back? Good. Get comfy it's gonna be a long one. Do you remember Mastering The Method, my blog about fitness, food, and let's be honest everything Tracy Anderson? If you were a reader or if you know me (even a little bit), you know that one of the biggest challenges I've faced in my post 30's life is balance where my diet is concerned. I could never find it. Like my exploration with fitness I tried everything that everyone ever recommended to me from The Kettle Bell Goddess workout to Physique 57, P90-X to practically every single DVD that fucking Beach Body ever pumped out until I hit upon a little Mat DVD created by Tracy Anderson and then I knew I'd found my path?
Yeah, my food journey has been even longer. Oh lordissa so much longer and filled with lots more ups and downs and bumps in the "rocky road" - lil throw back to ice cream there for all my sugar-junkies out there. I call us junkies because if like me you crave sugar it becomes your crack. I tried it all. All the quick fixes cleanses and detoxes, the master cleanse where you only drink like water with cayenne pepper and lemon and maple syrup, remember that one? That ended in a giant vat of pasta. Yikes. Or what about the cabbage soup diet. Still get a twitch whenever I smell cooked cabbage.
I have been a vegetarian for a million years so naturally Skinny Bitch caught me for a while. The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone was a fave but I think I just made and ate way too many of her vegan chocolate peanut butter cups. I read French Women Don't Get Fat, The China Study, The Every-girl's Guide to Diet and Fitness, just about everything that Bethenny Frankel has ever written - but I'm sorry if you lack balance and more importantly control, going to a party and having just one mini-quiche ain't gonna cut it biatch!
Gawd. Did no one understand me? Insert uncontrollable sobbing.
I could go on for pages but I think you get the idea noble reader, you're not an idiot. In fact chances are I'd say you're nodding along with me going "me too! I read that one" and perhaps for you one of those books or plans or cleanses or practices or diets worked, but for me? Not so much.
Of course, I'd never been one for diet changes. As a teen and into my 20's I had one of those enviable metabolisms that could burn pizza like lava cutting through a forest. But once I hit my 30's I was lost and the middle-aged spread started taking over. I just could not understand how I could no longer eat whatever I wanted without side effects. Was there no God?
Hello - Abcentric anyone? I mean geez. I've said it before, I began to resemble a marshmallow stood on toothpicks, or like a watermelon in Lycra. Not pretty.
When Tracy came out with her book, I dove in and I was fully committed (for 30 days). Because it was only 30 days. I could do that. And I did. Her diet worked. I lost over 20 pounds which on my frame was a lot. But it was so low in protein and calories I was suffering all sorts - from migraines to light-headedness and a serious lack of energy. I don't even think that Tracy recommends that diet anymore - we've all evolved.
The long and short of it was this... I managed to keep half the weight off. I went from the 30-Day Method book to 90 days on Metamorphosis (loosely following her diet plan) but from there?? I floundered. Yes I did stick with Continuity and thank goodness for Live Streaming, but I wasn't able to get back to that fab ab weight without starving.
I could never seem to get that other half of the weight off and dammit I wanted to.
You and I both know that exercise is only part of the equation. We gotta eat right. But what the hell is that anyway? I thought I'd found my way with Kimberly Snyder's Beauty Detox Solution and her glowing green smoothies - still love her and the smoothies are a part of my life but they aren't right every day. I continued to see-saw, two pounds off, four pounds on and was beginning to feel like my life was a continuing failed diet. That is a very depressing place to live my lovelies. Once again I'd resigned myself to a middle-aged metabolism, fine with my weight but not super comfy in my own skin.
Silver lining?? Have a look.
Yep it says I have achieved my goal but it took 28 months not 28 days people. That's rather disheartening. Eleven pounds that took over two years? If I was marketing that shit no one would buy it. I mean I know they say the last five pounds are the hardest but come on.
If these are my golden years I was feeling like I got given fool's gold.
7 pounds ago I was in a pit. I'd all but given up on what or how to eat and was working on being "fine" with the way I was. Nothing wrong with that, it just isn't like me to give up. I was going to be "just over" for the rest of my life.
Luckily for me I have magic people surrounding me. People whom I love, respect, admire and adore. One such magical woman is a fantastically amazing beautiful British woman named Sophie. You will want to know her too. She is so genuine and warm and generous and I'm sorry Soph, I'm gonna say it - THIN! I don't like her because she is thin, I like her because of who she is and she just happens to be thin. I'd show you a picture of her if I didn't think she'd murder me and also if she didn't have copious amounts of dirt on me lol.
Anyway, this one fine day we were messaging back and forth and in my pudgey pity party I said, how do you do it? You're almost as old as me (not really but she's more than 30 so close enough by my calculations) and her answer was simple. She said she eats clean.
Well what in the fuck and God's good name does that even mean?!?
I've read Tosca Reno's book, (told you I've read them all) I've heard all about clean eating but it's so vast how the heck do you narrow it down? My friend Janice even came up with a brilliant cook book called Easy Tasty Clean that was fantastic and brilliant (and Janice I love you!) and still I could not get the weight off.
So Sophie was good enough to outline an average day/week of eating and I thought it sounded reasonable, but it was like sooooooo simple. How could it be so simple? The diet industry makes bazillions of gazzillions of dollars off diets...
She followed the plan outlined by Dr. Alejandro Junger, M.D. in his book Clean. I know you know it. I knew it; it had been on my shelf for years because someone at some point had recommended it. I'm sure that I may have even recommended it to you my brilliant readers, but I'd never really taken it in. Sure I'd skimmed it, tried it for a few days but detox -schmeetox, you've done one you've done them all and I was so much more about the pre-tox part where you load up on chips and candy, chocolate and cake just so you have a store-house of sweet memories to get you through the famine. I could not wrap my head around it.
But something got the better of me. My health. I was coming off a nine-day migraine. Hear me! Nine days. I had black outs, vomiting, my body was basically holding me hostage. Earlier this year I suffered from a kidney infection that led to a heart infection (no laughing matter) and most of the time I was so exhausted I could barely drag my ass out of bed so you can imagine I wasn't exactly the dream team on the mat. I was phoning it in. I felt rotten just generally. Something had to give.
So I thought screw it, it can't get much worse and Dr. Junger says I only have to give him three weeks, 21 piddly little days. I gave Tracy 30 I suppose I could hand over 21 more to a respected doctor - I mean Jeez the migraine had me for 9. Did I want to go through that every month?
I got out my trusty little journal and I filled out the questionnaire. Damn if I didn't answer yes to nearly every question. Yes I get lots of headaches, bad ones. Viruses, check. Bloated after meals, check. Puffy eyes and face, check. You mean that wasn't just an inevitable sign of old age?? Check check and check to dark circles, bad breathe and sugar cravings. Was this guy inside my head or what? I wrote it all down followed by day one - took my weight, my measurements and my photo. Gross. You'll never see that one sorry. But here is my trusty journal, isn't she so cute??
I was honest and I kept track every day for 21 days. I won't go into details of the book because this post is long as it is, but trust me you'll want to read the it. The plan was dead simple to follow just as Sophie promised me it would be. You get a smoothie for breakfast, a good healthy solid lunch, and a soup or smoothie for dinner. Then you wait a full 12 hours or more before starting up again the next day. I thought I would starve to death. I didn't fancy the idea of cooking every day. Plus there were things I didn't want to give up. I lived on banana smoothies, no bananas? Eggs where my go to protein and they were not allowed? No peanut butter, what? Tomatoes were off the list too? No dairy, no caffeine, no sugar, no gluten? What? WHAT?!? Was this some sort of Gwyneth Paltrow diet? Why yes it was. Check out the intro to her cookbook "It's All Good" and you'll see it there in black and white. I'd read this before how had it not sunk in?
What in the world was I going to eat. I sure as hell wasn't going to eat chilled cucumber soup with dill, I don't care how hungry I got. This wasn't going to work. I'd forgotten the Shamandments. Number one, be Shannon. I was not now nor was I ever going to be Gwyneth. And Shamandment number 13, make it your own. If I was going to give this my all, I was gonna make it my bitch. I was gonna own it. I suspended my distaste for weird smoothies and just gave in to what Junger suggested and the result, while not always delicious or my favorite, was colorful and kept me full through to lunch. Check out the pretty rainbow of smoothies.
Can you tell the ones with blueberries and raspberries are my fave? Look how full it is. I never did try to have juice, it just doesn't fill me up. I've got to have protein and while I did have to give up my PB, I gained almond butter and sunflower seed butter and I added such lovely things as dates. Junger suggests sweetening with Brown Rice Syrup, which during that first 21 days I did, but just prefer the wholeness and flavor of a good medjool date.
Lunch was trickier. I made a lot of quinoa and just added a variety of veggies which most days ended up looking a little like this.
Huge fan of micro-greens so have them every day. Sometimes sunflower sprouts, some days kale, arugula, or radish sprouts. Whatever I can get my hands on. But a kid can only take so much quinoa.
It was time to make a change. I did something I swore never to do. Ever. Like never ever. I made fish. I'm so sorry beautiful salmon. I love you swimming freely in the sea, but you absolutely sustain me. I began steaming it and alternating it with the quinoa. It is amazing. I feel sad because I hate the fact that something has to die to keep me alive - but no more headaches? Energy getting out of bed and on the mat? I had to accept that perhaps my diet really had been lacking.
Nothing fancy here. I'd gotten into the habit of steaming up three pieces of salmon at once so that was three lunches taken care of. Then I'd do a couple of cups of quinoa and that would be lunch for the rest of the week, just rotating fresh veg. It got me in and out of the kitchen very quickly.
But dinner was going to be the tricky part. There was no way I was drinking juice or making some gross cold soup from the book so I had to deviate, but was always careful to stay away from no no ingredients.
I'd whip up a soup out of things I had on hand or picked up just for that. Leeks, onion, garlic, with a little cauliflower and zucchini, throw in veggie stock, cook for a half hour then blend and voila, liquid lunch ( or in this case dinner )
This was soup pre-blender.
I'd make enough for 4 or five days or even enough to freeze some. This was Sophie's best advice. Plan and prepare so that through the weeks you have no excuse. (Love you girl) Still life gets busy and I couldn't always make homemade soup, so yes I did have a smoothie a few times at night, but never felt as good the next day as when I had a hot soup. I started picking up soups from the Sunflower Kitchen. Ready made, whole ingredient soups, with nothing contraband in them. They worked a treat.
This is one of my faves, Egyptian Lentil, yummy.
I was also never going to give up chocolate or Starbucks, lets be honest here. But I kept these things on with restrictions. Starbucks was not allowed more than three times a week and no dairy - luckily Starbucks now offers coconut milk and it's so good in my mocha I'll never go back to dairy. Sweet! As for chocolate? Green & Blacks is the only thing I will allow and it has to be dark. No exceptions.
Sophie and I then convinced our Third Musketeer Natalia to give it a go. Now I am not certain what she is doing now that her 21 days are over, but during the course of her Clean experiment she lost around 7 pounds too and was feeling pretty damned good and dare I say proud of herself for having gained some control. Way to go girl!
So how is Clean different than anything else? I lost the other half of the post-meta regain which was super awesome but it wasn't exactly the first time I'd done that and regained it again! (yeah that was a confession a long time coming) I retook the questionnaire and nearly every question I had answered yes to only three weeks prior was getting a no answer. Did I have a cold or feel flu-like at all? Nope? Puffy face? Nah uh. Headaches, nope. I was still really super tired though. So what to do now that the 21 days were over.
Here's the lesson, the rub, the difference with Clean and other diets. This sort of became a way to eat that was no longer about losing weight. I will say it again, it was no longer about losing weight. You see when you go on a diet to lose weight or with weight-loss as your only goal, you will lose the weight if you stick to said diet whatever it may be. But once you reach your goal and go back to your old ways, the weight comes back. If you do something as extreme as Live Streaming or you run marathons or some other form of intense exercise, you might keep some or most of that weight off, but diet plays a huge role in our weight especially as we age.
I wanted to stick with Dr. Junger's plan for a variety of reasons that no longer had to do with my weight. I felt better, nay I felt good eating this way so I stuck with it (with modifications of course) And to my great delight my arthritic hands ached less in the morning, I was almost never bloated unless I strayed into a bag of potato chips or a fried breakfast.... What! It happens. And my headaches are fewer and farther between and have more to do with that time of the month than anything else. Plus I feel lighter mentally.
I have introduced a few things back into my diet - I'll take milk in my tea and that's a daily ritual. I've had eggs but they gave me serious gas so I avoid them. I tried bread but it no longer has power over me. Even pizza! I just don't seem to want that stuff anymore. Did I drink the kool-aide or swallow some magic pill? Perhaps. But I really enjoy lentil stew and feel good about nourishing myself with whole organic good-for-me meals.
I feel balanced.
Will I stay this way forever? I doubt it. Wagons were meant to be jumped off. But I wrote this post as much for me as I did for you. Want to know why? Because it took two long years to get those 11 pounds off, much much longer to find a healthy control over food, and because once I saw that wonderful congrats on my Lose it App, I took a day to just eat whatever I wanted. Not only did I wake up feeling crappy, but I gained three and a half pounds. Over night! It took 28 months to get off 11 and I gained 3 1/2 over night? So not fair. But I know how to get it off and I feel good.
Plus I know this is realistic. I can do it anywhere even on the road. I might not carry my vitamix with me everywhere I go, but chances are I can grab a healthy smoothie - like this baby from the Juice Press in Soho. I love that!
Thank you Sophie and thank you Dr. Junger! I finally have mental freedom from cravings and food madness.
I want you to feel good too. Just throwing terms like "clean eating" or elimination diet around mean nothing unless you have tools that are accessible and shit you can incorporate into your day to day life. Trust me, I tried "The Plan" by Lyn Genet and that lasted a day because she had all these very fussy recipes and weird ingredients that I would never use nor have time to prep. Life is short, I want to enjoy it by eating yummy things that don't take hours to make and I want to have chocolate and fit into my skinny jeans.
I am a "have my cake and eat it too" kinda woman. (I guess in this case it's have my Green & Blacks and eat it too.)
If you've made it all the way to the end of this post I commend you. It is now after midnight, so technically no longer Tuesday or a super full moon. Whew. No wonder I took so long to share this, it was a lot. Thanks for hanging in there. I look forward to more of these chats. And I want to hear how you're doing. Did you try Clean? Are you managing your cravings? How're you feeling? Lemme know, I want to hear from you always.
Loads of love and giant hugs.
xo
Shan
