My commitment to this Low-SOS (salt, oil, sugar) vegan journey began on March 16, 2015. I have completed 134 days. Soon I’ll be celebrating my 20TH WEEK ANNIVERSARY… and I’ve lost approximately one PAINLESS pound per week.
I had been eating sparkly clean, until I picked up this nasty summer strep throat a few weeks ago. It really threw off my groove. I stopped exercising (too tired). I stopped munching on raw veggies. I ate too much bread. I cheated on the sugar as I pounded down far too many sweet sodas to soothe my miserably ragged throat. But during this illness I only gained a few pounds, much fewer than I felt I deserved! Still I worried. I found myself doing something I don’t believe I’ve ever done, I was worrying about the scale!
I’m over these wacko two week weigh-ins!!! Numbers freak me out. I want to live free of them! Weigh-in days are becoming far too stressful. I feel like I’m working madly just to reach some silly magical number. I’ve decided to stay away from the scale, and to NOT wrap a measuring tape around this waistline for many months! I won’t even say how many, just until the spirit moves me.
Click here to listen to what youtube’s High Carb Hannah (who lost 50 pounds in one year living this way) has to say about weighing ourselves:
She recommends an average weight loss of one pound per week… hey, that’s what I’ve been doing on accident! And like Hannah I’ve done it eating all I want, and exercising just as I see “fit”, and no more.
EATING ABOVE THE LINE
Yes, I am committed! I will continue this lifestyle forever, making most of my food selections ABOVE THE GREEN LINE in this table:
(Or you may CLICK HERE to download this table)
Not detailed enough for you? How about THIS version:
(Or you may CLICK HERE to download this longer version)
The key is something called calorie density. This is a measure of calories per pound of each food item in the list. The items higher positioned on the chart have fewer calories per pound, so we can eat one POUND of the higher positioned items & be consuming fewer calories than eating the same amount of lower positioned items! You might tell yourself: ALL U CARE TO EAT, ABOVE THE GREEN LINE… AND ONLY OCCASIONALLY BELOW IT!
A fellow who really promotes this concept of eating plant dominant, low calorically dense, minimally processed foods (mostly above the green line on my chart) is psychologist Dr. Doug Lisle. Here’s his highly sophisticated version of my food density table:
He and Dr. Alan Goldhamer describe in their best selling book The Pleasure Trap a “fascinating new perspective on how modern life can turn so many smart, savvy people into the unwitting saboteurs of their own well-being.”
I love this guy and I can’t really say why. He draws me in when he explains his theories, and he often makes me laugh because some of his ideas I find delightfully silly! Here he describes how freely eating certain foods (the ones listed above the green line on my chart) will automatically regulate your weight, “…if you’re a relatively young person (your weight) will regulate down about two pounds per week, so literally in the 20 years it took you to gain 40 pounds you can unwind it in 20 weeks!”
Okay, maybe I’m only “relatively young enough” to effortlessly lose one pound per week, instead of two… or more likely it’s my tendency to dip down below the green line a bit too often. I do, but what the heck, I’m still losing the pounds and I’m having fun doing it!
Take a listen to Dr. Lisle, he’ll make you laugh! And print out my calorie density chart, paste it to your refrigerator door, and eat most often ABOVE THE GREEN LINE!
Chow! …oops, I mean CIAO! 🙂