So. The time has arrived for me to stop Lite N Easy and try something that might be more suited to my body chemistry..
I have found the excessive amount of breads and starches on this diet to cause a lot of bloating and gas. I began to think maybe I have a gluten problem and grains were not my friend but now I am 99% sure I have a thyroid problem.
One big hint that it might be thyroid – the last blood test a couple of years ago showed my TSH levels to be on the low side and my doctor and I talked about it then and decided to wait and see. This time I’ll be asking for the medicine to fix it. I have a lot of the symptoms seen here, too.
I have a doctors appointment this week to organise the blood test and make certain of that. In the meantime I am going to start making some huge changes eating wise.
I have been reading about the Paleo diet for a long time, and have always wanted to try it but the truth is, it takes a lot of organisation and effort to be able to eat that way full time and with my working hours.. it wasn’t the right time to have a go at it. So I am making up a slightly modified version of the Paleo diet for myself. I might not be quite as strict with the Dairy to begin with, though I am pretty sure I can cut it out of the meals I am a cheese addict and I need one small allowance on sugar.
I’ve ordered a bunch of coconut oil and other coconutty items which should arrive hopefully Wednesday. I have been cooking with coconut oil since mid last year (while I was on the L&E, I was cooking with it for the other half) and I prefer it to the other oils.
The one thing in that package which will be vital to making this change to begin with is coconut sugar. Yes there is not supposed to be any sugar on the Paleo diet but my one vice is coffee and I believe I can do without sugar everywhere else but in my daily double shot latte. I have been cutting that back as time goes by and I am down from two sugars back to just one.
Now that the silly season is over, I’ve cut back my hours a little and have made a couple of investments into items necessary for making this change, and will be making some more investments this week.
The biggest time killer is food preparation with this diet. I don’t have time every day to be endlessly cutting and chopping, etc. But I do have 2-3 days off each week, so if I can get organised on those days and have everything ready to go for the following week, that would work. Inspired by Melissa Joulwan over at The Clothes Make The Girl – see her Paleo 101 for everything you need to know about Paleo, I have a plan for my days off this week.
The slow cooker arrived today, the deep freeze should be here tomorrow, containers for food storage will be my task on Wednesday, Thursday will be a Costco and fruit and veg visit, Friday will be a huge cook and food prep day, with a slow cooker meal done each day after that to get some variety of items in the freezer ready for when I arrive home from work as well as fridge ready meals to cook.
I have a text file chock full of recipes I am eager to try which I have collected from a number of Paleo websites over the past few months. Quite a few of them are slow cooker recipes. I have never used a slow cooker before and I bought a combo slow cooker/pressure cooker, just to make life even more challenging lol. :)
On the one hand I am kinda grr this is a lot of work I am giving myself and on the other hand I am pretty excited about making this change.
I will of course, relentlessly blog about it all. :) So you are joining me on this journey, yays!
I have learned a lot from my time on Lite N Easy but right now, today, I am the exact same weight as I was when I started with it. Though my weight has gone up and down during my time on L&E, it generally has stayed within 2kg of my current weight. I do not think this is the fault of Lite N Easy at all – I know people who are on it and losing significant amounts of weight.
I blame my faulty thyroid and low metabolism.
And realistically, I have to blame those things, because when you are on a 1200 calorie diet, exercising 5x a week for 30 minutes + and seeing no weight loss.. and then you step up the exercise, and still nothing? Something else is going on here.
Good on you for taking control and stopping something that isn’t working for you. I’ll be stepping down to the 1200 calorie plan on LnE to see if it helps me lose some weight. I’m still below where I started, but not by much.
I’ve heard of the Paleo diet but never had the energy to try it for myself. I can’t wait to see how you go with it. :)