Snail Pride and Pounds (Day 13)

Spoooooky! Day Thirteen is also Halloween! Happy Halloween, support-team! I don't have a costume, I didn't get invited to any parties, and we don't have Halloween candy in the house so it won't be too big of a challenge to be good today -- awesome! :)

This pumpkin believes in me! Yaaay!

It is Monday today, so that means accountability day with my dad. He's also on a weight-loss journey and we're keeping track of our weekly weight together for motivation. My parents are both pretty awesome-- I'm actually hoping to do a post about them coming up soon-- if they agree-- so put on the peer pressure in the comments, people!

Anyway, Monday is the perfect day for the weight update since it provides a little motivation for the weekend to keep with the program. I can't speak for my dad, but this morning I weighed in at:

240 POUNDS!

Though I didn't post it, that's 4 pounds down from last Monday and 10 pounds down from my weigh in with Seamus in early October! Actually, yesterday and the day before I weighed in lower, so hopefully this is a high mark in a low week.

I'm not dwelling on this for long, because weight is just the tiniest, teensiest part of this journey. So many strange things can influence what the scale tells me. Sometimes I think my scale hates me because it will tell me one number, then I step back on four seconds later and it tells me another. Though, as I mentioned before, I do weigh myself every day, only Mondays does my weight matter even in the slightest.  With that in mind, let's celebrate SNAIL PRIDE!

Gary the Snail... a role model for all of us. Meow.

Allow me to elaborate. Yesterday I told you all about how I'm eating less of the same foods with minor changes when I feel like it. Changing 24 years of poor eating habits is not something that's going to happen overnight. Making any meaningful change takes time. That's why the first tiny goal around eating was simply to track my calories and make an attempt to keep them below 2000 on an exercise day and 1500 on an non-exercise day (never less than 1200 calories, which is starvation at any size, weight, gender or height).

Saturday my friend Andrew, a nursing student and all-around smart dude offered to explain Glycemic Index to me. I have no idea what this is. I believe it has something to do with sugar based on the "Glyc" prefix. I generally believe that knowing about something is better than not knowing about something in most cases. However, I told Andrew that I wanted to wait to work on my Glycemic Index (can you even work on your Glycemic Index?).

What does this even mean?

 Why would I turn him down? Because, A) Andrew will happily explain this to me when I ask him to, later and B) Knowing what I know about nutrition already makes food choices kind of stressful. Adding another factor would make things difficult for me right at the moment. The trick is to think like a snail. Keep it slow and simple. Maybe ooze on some stuff.

I have a vague idea of what my food-related goals are going to look like:

• Weeks 1-2: Track calories. Attempt to reduce to 2000 on exercise days and 1500 on non-exercise days to ensure a caloric deficit.
• Weeks 3-4: Learn to love fruits and vegetables. Eat at least 2 vegetables and 3 fruits per day. Learn 2 new recipes to make veggies more accessible and delicious.
• Weeks 5-6: Get the required amount of protein in a day. Learn 2 new recipes with lean protein. Since by now I'm hopefully building muscle, protein is going to be important.

Notice at this point I am not removing anything. Including fruits, vegetables and lean proteins should eek out some foods that shouldn't be there without a feeling of "DO NOT TOUCH!" This is a slow, slow, slow replacement plan. Starting in week 7, I'm working on staying below healthy limits of things-- still not removing anything.

• Weeks 7-8: Sodium. Stay below the recommended amount of sodium in a day. Learn a way to remove some sodium from a mainstay food. 
• Weeks 9-10: Sugar. Stay below the recommended amount of sugar in a day. Explore different ways of sweetening things such as honey or truvia.
• Weeks 11-12: Catch up weeks. Inevitably one of these sets of goals will have been very difficult for me and need another few weeks of focus to solidify it. 
• Weeks 13-14:  Advanced nutrition. Learn about Gluten, Glycemic Index, Ph levels, eating vegetarian and vegan, different types of fats, vitamins and minerals-- whatever anyone wants to teach me! 
• Weeks 15-16: Try some advanced nutrition!

Weeks 17-18: To Infinity and Beyond!

So you see how this is a very very very slow process of changing my eating habits. Goals are cumulative, so since weeks 1-2 were about calories, they stick with me throughout the rest of the goals. So starting in week three, 2 veggies and 3 fruits for the rest of forever and so on and so forth. 

Food is meant to be enjoyed. There are some days where I'm going to eat a piece of cheesecake with salted caramel. I will miss an apple. Maybe I will never grasp Glycemic Index.  And that will all be okay as long as I am trying. 

I'm the little snail that could!

The point is that snails do not stress out. Snails go slowly, intentionally, and they get where they're going-- provided they avoid salt.