Congrats to Hubs!

After one month of BFC, Hubs is officially down 23lbs! I am so proud of him!!!

Shine: Diet soda makes you fat

I read an interesting article on Shine about diet soda making you fat. They never come out and say it, but it sounds like the aspartame suppresses leptin making you feel hungry when you really aren't. (At least I think that's what Dr. Lustig would say about it!) There are plenty of naysayers in the comments, but I think there is more there than just the correlation between being overweight and drinking diet soda.

The article describes that the researchers observed how the brain reacts to sugar and aspartame. Basically, there's more of a "satisfaction" response from sugar. So, aspartame makes your brain expect that satisfaction, but it doesn't get it, so you want to eat.

One of the basic ideas on the BFC is that artificial sweeteners trigger cravings. Cruise does recommend Stevia, however, because it does not have an impact on blood sugar and therefore does not create cravings. This has been true so far for me, anyway.

Great news, everyone!

I am back down to my pre-birthday weight! Whew! That was a scary few days watching my weight go up two pounds when I was trying really hard (except for the birthday craziness!).

Hooray for being 10lbs lighter than I was in May! I hope my progress continues on this same path so I'll be at least 7lbs lighter at the end of July. Oh man-- I can't wait for the day when I can tell people, "Yeah, I lost 20lbs and still ate chocolate every day!" :D

It's funny how people's reactions differ when I tell them about the BFC. Some brush it off as a fad diet ("Oh, so it's like Atkins?") and others act like it's a temporary fix ("So, when can you eat normally again?"). What they don't realize is that eating like this is normal. It's not a "diet" as in "a way to lose weight" but rather a sustainable way of eating. There's no reason to ever change how I eat again. This is it.

What the what?!

Ok, so I'm starting to think I shouldn't be allowed to weigh myself every day. I'm up another pound since yesterday! Another whole pound?! Grr!

Hubs thinks it'll just take some time to smooth out the kinks in the system. I need some patience, I guess!

Admittedly, I am pretty stressed out right now, too. If it's true that cortisol makes you gain weight, then maybe that's what's happening. Or maybe I'm not drinking enough water (I thought I was!).

Whatever it is, I just need to stick with it and not get down on myself! Positive thoughts-- that's what we need!

Dang it, Birthday!

Well, I've paid the price for my birthday splurging. I'm up a pound since Friday. Grr! I'm so mad at myself now! Its wasn't even very satisfying all that extra sugar! Overall, I'm still down 9lbs, but that's the same as last week.

My dad will tell me that I'll see a big drop in the next few days because that's how it seemed to always work for him. He's been a very successful dieter... a number of times. He also has tried many different plans, but he's amazing at sticking with it whereas me-- not so much. At least I wasn't.

Now, everything's changed. I have a diet-buddy in Hubs and I don't think I'll ever go back to how I used to eat. When we were in that cycle of overeating, we did not feel good about ourselves. My idea of showing Hubs I was thinking of him was to buy him his favorite candy. We kept up this cycle together-- each enabling the other. I'm so glad that we both decided to start on this journey at the same time.

No cravings? It's true!

So, I'm sure you're all saying, "Blobba, you are such a freaking liar! You must have terrible cravings all the time!" Not so, my friends. And this is the first time I've changed my eating habits when I didn't have unbelievable cravings!

While part of this I attribute to Leptin (see previous post), part of it I attribute to losing my taste for sugar. I can honestly say that I don't crave sugar anymore. Here's an example:

It was my birthday this weekend, so I decided I "deserved" to splurge. (I guess the way I think about food hasn't completely changed yet!) Hubs took me to a Mexican restaurant and I was going to go crazy! But when it came time to get whatever I wanted, guess what I did? I got something that would be totally acceptable on the BFC.

The truth about overeating

A brief history of my dieting shows that I've tried almost everything! The Diabetics Diet, Montignac Diet, Carbohydrates Addicts, Dr. Phil, Atkins, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, low-cal, all-natural, blah, blah blah! With all those diets, I have experienced two things that made success very unlikely: deprivation and cravings.

Those of us who have dieted know the feeling: "If I can just stick with this-- that brownie will not defeat me!! Must. Not. Eat!" Most diets focus on cutting things out. Less calories! No carbs! Low fat! Don't! Don't! Don't! It's all very intense and stressful. But food shouldn't be that way.

Food should be tasty, but we should be able to-- and want to-- stop eating when we've gotten enough nutrition. There's a hormone whose specific purpose is to tell us to stop eating. It's called Leptin and it sends messages from your cells to your brain to stop consumption. At least it's supposed to.

Bygones are bygones

Two years ago (!) on this blog, I kept track of an earlier weight-loss effort that was mildly successful. I had gone to a weight loss doctor and reduced my calories while taking phendimetrizine and B12 shots. The pills made me jumpy and the shots were a waste of $15/week. The diet was good, though. My biggest complaint was that I had awful cravings almost constantly. Either I just wasn't ready to change or there was something wrong with the diet.

Flash forward two years and I am back in the same place... almost. In the mean time I got married and gained what I had lost, plus 15 pounds. :( After talking to his doctor, Hubby reported that there was this video we had to watch and book we had to read. The doctor was putting Hubs on a diet. Being the supportive wife I (hopefully) am, I sat down with him to watch this video about the evils of fructose and what has happened to the American diet over time.

The video was a presentation by Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D. to the UC Medical School. I can only term it as life-changing. It was like a light went on and I could all of a sudden see where I was at. Why had I gained 20lbs in one year of marriage? How about all the soda I had been drinking? The daily dose of candy or ice cream? Yeah... it was that simple. And besides that, what were those restaurants putting in everything we ate? The short answer was this: fructose.

And the book? It was the Belly Fat Cure by Jorge Cruise. Now, I am not generally a fan of diet books (although I've read and tested a bunch!), but the simplicity of the plan is what got me. It was an easy way to implement what Dr. Lustig had recommended and it didn't take a lot of changes to our everyday life.

So, how are we doing? Great! Hubs has lost 20 lbs and I have lost 10lbs this first month. Yes, it's true-- two sugar-loving, junk food junkies have totally changed how they eat and it wasn't even difficult. One month into this new life and we're feeling great and seeing changes every day.

The best part? No cravings. It's crazy!

If you want to see the video (it's long-- be forewarned!), it's on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

To read about the Belly Fat Cure (BFC), click here: blog.jorgecruise.com/images/Report_v3.pdf