Duffy’s WFPB Journey — February 2014

Overnight Steel Cut Oats have been a fantastic breakfast find! When I eat them, I’m not hungry for a mid-morning snack. And they’re yummy!

If you want to see how I make oven fries, I posted some pictures on my blog.

Weight loss: How much, how fast

It’s not easy being a living, breathing fat storage machine, aka a woman. Since I’ve been overweight since childhood I don’t really know what my normal-weight body would look like. But I’m beginning to suspect I have the ‘curvy genes’ Dr. Doug Lisle speaks about in his presentation How to Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind. This being the case, I’m going to have to eat lower on the calorie density scale than someone with slimmer genes in order to get down to my ideal weight.

That being said, I would love to be losing at least 4 lbs per week, every week. That’s not happening. However after my January frustration I did lose 7 lbs, 1.5 lbs, 4 lbs and 3 lbs for my weekly February weigh-ins. So a total of 15.5 lbs this month. That’s pretty decent, all things considered!

IBS: What to do next?

One of the biggest health issues impacting my daily life (aside from my actual excess fat) is IBS-D. I haven’t had true diarrhea, except maybe once, since beginning this way of eating full-time, 100%. However I still have constant urgency, at its worst in the morning. When I need to go, I need to go now, right this second, excuse-me-can-I-cut-in-line, gotta-find-a-bathroom-in-the-next-minute-and-a-half-or-this-is-gonna-get-ugly. It’s always an emergency. I re-read the section on colitis in Dr. McDougall’s Digestive Tune-Up and found that his suggestions were:

1. Eat a starch centered, whole food plant based diet
2. Eliminate gluten
3. Do an elimination diet

I’ve got #1 covered. The only remaining source of gluten in my diet are the bread crumbs in the carrot loaf, of which I still have half a dozen servings in my freezer. I intend to use those up and then continue on 1-2 months gluten-free to see if this clears up. If it doesn’t, then I suppose I’ll have to consider an elimination diet…. not something I’m looking forward to!

Questions and Support from Friends

I suppose everyone gets these questions eventually. I finally started getting them this month… well-meaning friends and colleagues have asked me:

• Where do you get your protein?
  • Snarky Answer: The same place the cows get it.
  • Real Answer: All plants have protein. Broccoli even has more protein per ounce than some cuts of steak!
• Where do you get your fat?
  • Snarky Answer: Umm, I think there’s enough on my body to last a good, long while.
  • Real Answer: All plants have fat, even lettuce. Potatoes for instance, are about 1% fat.
• Aren’t potatoes like the worst food for you?
  • Snarky Answer: Not as bad as beer! (This came from a conversation where a friend was telling me how much money she spent on beer each month. I joked that I didn’t spend any money on beer, but I sure spent a lot on potatoes!)
  • Real Answer: No, potatoes are nutritionally complete all by themselves. They’re very healthy and have been a staple in the diet of many long-lived, healthy populations. They get a bad rap because of how they’re consumed: fried, with butter, sour cream, cheese and bacon.

I have been fortunate not to encounter anyone trying to stop or detract me from my way of eating. Many do not understand, but they’re kind and sincere in their questions. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I have a few colleagues at work who consistently check in on me, wanting to know how I’m doing with my New Years Resolution to eat 100% WFPB for all of 2014 and encouraging me. One colleague in particular recently returned to an all-vegetarian and mostly-vegan diet, telling me that she was inspired by my dedication to a plant-based diet, and she wanted to feel her best again. Like me, the first health issue she had that reversed was acid reflux. What a joy it is to never have to deal with that again!

On Valentine’s Day my supervisor put a heart-shaped box of chocolates in each employee’s mailbox… except mine. In mine, she left a package of nuts and seeds. I thought it was an incredibly thoughtful and supportive gesture…. even though I’m not going to eat them because they have oil on them. Right now they’re stashed in my car to give to someone in need.

Will power: How am I staying on this plan?

The short answer is: I’m not using willpower very much. In Doug Lisle’s talk on The Willpower Paradox, he explains how researchers discovered through a series of experiments that the power in willpower is glucose. In other words, if we are to resist succumbing to foodie temptations, we need to have eaten recently.

I work at a preschool as a Speech-Language Pathologist. I teach several classes per day and consult in others, all of which have a snack time. Even though I’m doling out snack foods that are not WFPB several times per day, I’m no longer tempted by them on a regular basis. There have been two exceptions this month. Once I was tempted by the scent of ‘Nilla Wafers, which brought back a childhood memory of making banana pudding layered with ‘Nilla Wafers, with my uncle. To keep myself in check, I read the ingredient panel on the box and reminded myself I do not want to put those things in my body. The second time occurred last Thursday when I was helping another class with their pizza making. Both the scent of mozzarella cheese as it was grated and the scent of the pizzas baking awakened, to a comparatively small degree, a craving in me even though the actual sight of the pizzas was rather off-putting to me: so oily and grease-laden. Even though I wasn’t truly hungry, I ate a banana while keeping an eye on the toaster ovens. The craving dissipated. The power in willpower is glucose.

My Next Steps

There are several areas that I’ve identified that I need to work on over the upcoming months. In no particular order:

• Resolving IBS-D/ urgency if it is possible to do so through diet
• Adding exercise
• Increasing vegetables
• Not eating when I’m not hungry and stopping when I’m satisfied

At the moment I’m not particularly motivated to commit to any of them since I have a rather large project for my current doctoral class looming over my head this month along with increased caseload and other pressures at work. I feel like I have enough on my plate. Nonetheless, I know that I can do this… the same way one eats an elephant: one bite at a time… (Is that a poor analogy for an herbivore? TeeHee) and that it would be a disservice to myself to tell myself I can’t. In January I worked on staying 100% WFPB. In February I worked on adding vegetables. In some future month I’ll work on increasing them. For March I’m going to work on adding exercise… and to make it realistic, I’m going to have my goal be to walk 15 minutes 2 times per week. It may not be much in the bigger scheme of things; its certainly not an hour of cardio per day like is often recommended for weight loss. But its what I can do now, this month. It’s a start.

Questions for You, the Reader

So if you’ve made it to the end of this rambling post, I thank you for reading and supporting me in my journey.

Sometime this month I hope to be taking progress pictures! I took “before” pictures and decided to take progress pictures every 50 lbs. I’ve definitely seen more roominess in my shirts and a coworker noticed on Thursday that I’d been losing weight; I hope the camera shows it, too.  🙂

If you feel inclined, I’d love to hear from you…

• If you lost weight eating WFPB, what was your average weekly loss?
• Do you eat the same things over and over like me or do you eat a lot of variety?
• What are your favorite go-to meals?
• Do you snack?

Until next month-

Duffy