Since my last post I have stayed the course with my low carb eating, and reading a lot about weight stalls, because my stall has been a couple months long! I read that sometimes people stall because of a food sensitivity. The main foods people are sensitive to are gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, corn and sugar. Well, I think we've all already given up sugar and artificial sugars. I use only stevia, erythitol, and "Just Like Sugar" (which is made from chicory root). Peanuts - I don't eat a lot of peanuts or peanut butter so that was easy to give up. Corn - that's been out since I started the BFC. Gluten - After reading "Wheat Belly" in January I decided that wheat is probably not good for us on a lot of levels that don't even have to do with weight, so I gave that up also (that includes beer). Soy is a little trickier because it's hidden in a lot of stuff. I'm not going out and getting soy products but that's about as far as I went with limiting soy. Well that leaves dairy and eggs. There is not much left to eat if I give up eggs and dairy, or at least that's what I thought. I finally decided to try to give up most dairy. So I started out giving up my beloved heavy cream in my coffee. I have to have something, so I tried canned coconut milk.
So that's where I'm at now. I did all that rather gradually to see if it would have any effect on my weight stall. Well today when I weighed myself I am FINALLY down almost two pounds. I know that doesn't seem like much in all these months but I'm hoping I might have broken through my plateau - at least a little. I'll keep going like this for awhile and see if it keeps working.
I know a few of you were wondering how my working with Maria Emmerich went. Well, I only did the minimal health assessment and advice from her. I have to say that she is great about responding to your emails. She always wrote right back. Unfortunately her advice was always to"keep going, your doing great", even when I didn't think I was. It was her suggestion that I give up dairy right from the beginning, but that was something I couldn't do cold turkey and in fact haven't done 100% even now. She gives you a lot of handouts about nutritional supplements you should take and there are A LOT. She also wants you to start with a "only proteins and fats" week to get you burning fat. Well that was a hard week and I didn't lose any weight. After that she wants you to start with some sample menus that she sends you. They are super restrictive. I added up the first couple days of foods on "My fitness pal" and they were under 1000 calories each day. That's too little for me. As written in her "Healthy Metabolism" book she thinks we should play around with our meals each week. One day a fats and protein only day, one day an overeating day (and that means go up to about 1500 calories), one day an intermittent fast day (skipping all foods after lunch). She says this fools our body and ups our metabolism. It probably works, but I just couldn't get that hardcore about my eating and my life in general. I still think she is great and super helpful and knows her stuff, so I took some of her advice and utilize a lot of her recipes into my diet. Her Shamrock Protein Shake is delicious and I have it most mornings. Also LOVE her Chocolate Flaxseed Muffins and keep a bunch of those on hand when a shake is not enough. After the muffin I drink a ton of water and it seems to expand in my stomach and keep me full a lot longer - at least until the next meal.
So that's about it right now. I'll keep you posted on how all my modifications go. I want to feel good in a bathing suit this year and now that Spring is almost here, summer isn't long away.
