Body Recovery Record

As most people have noticed I have lost weight in 2019.  I have had a lot of quiet congratulations from people.  I know why it is given to me in side conversations and gentle whispers.  Because our culture has grown ashamed of our bodies.  Some of the nicer comments have said, "You look great!  I mean, you looked great before too!"  Which leaves a hanging unspoken, uncomfortable comment in the air:  But now that I lost weight I look better?  More acceptable?  More worthy?  No!  I look like a skinnier version of my fat body.  I have a smaller waistline and I fit into a smaller pant size, but I also have a lot of loose skin, and a lot of stretch marks.  Fortunately, I didn't lose weight with the intention to become more beautiful, acceptable or worthy.  I didn't even have a goal to try to lose weight!  

I was just trying to love my body.  Like I have been for the last few years.  And I really do love my body now.  I loved it last year and I love it this year.  As I was working my recovery 12 step program I was taught the process of surrendering things beyond my control.  One of the the big things that I have struggled with for many years was control over my eating and my weight.  I had success losing weight on the 6 week body makeover back when my first child was 3 years old and I spent the next several years fighting for control over my body.  I was fighting cravings and fighting the desire to eat foods that I was addicted to and fighting to make my body look a certain way through exercise.  Surrendering was about letting go of that struggle and trusting God to take care of me regardless of what happened next.  I was done fighting.  I surrendered my body, the way I viewed it and my desires to change it to God.

The next couple years I realized slowly as a result of that surrender how unhealthy my relationship was with my own body.  My spirit lives inside this body.  God gave this body to me as a gift.  The goal was not to force my body to look a certain way by the world's standard.  The plan God has for me is gain experience in this body.  A lot of spiritual religions talk about transcending the body, leaving it behind to gain enlightenment, but Christianity teaches that God will reunite our spirits with our bodies.  I believe that part of our goal in this life is to learn how to harmonize our spirit and body.  That the enlightenment will come from our recognition of the gift we have received from God in this one precious body and we start treating it as a divine gift.

With that approach I chose to start a Body Recovery Journal.  I wanted to try again to diet but with a mindful, loving approach.  I wanted to eat food and exercise with love in mind.  When I chose to eat something it was not to punish or control my body but to tend and take care of and enjoy my body.  When I chose to exercise it was not to force a result, but to enjoy my body's strength and ability to move and to challenge it appropriately.  I made no weight loss goals.

I used SMART Goals.  
Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Relevant
Time-bound

I also found it helpful to reference VAPID goals to make sure I was avoiding those:
Vague
Amorphous
Pie-in-Sky
Irrelevant
Delayed

For example, my first goal was to chart my progress every 2 weeks through a weigh in and measuring.  My second goal was to keep a food journal to help track my eating and macro nutrients.  I actually began with the 6 week body makeover food plan in mind and I worked really hard to make it work in my schedule.  Then my body started having health problems that really surprised me.  First I got gout in my right big toe.  I never had experienced it before and it was extremely painful.  I immediately researched what I could do and started eating celery.  There was no decent explanation for what caused it and I have not experience another flare up since then.  I have learned that when I set out with a plan and get blocked enough that it might be God's way of steering me a different direction.  My encounter with gout was not enough of a deterrent so the next thing that happened was my period stopped.  For 3 months.  As part of my religion I fast monthly from food and water for 2 meals but I decided to try a longer fast for healing.  It seemed like it worked because my period began again in January of 2019 and it followed my normal pattern.  I thought everything was fine until February when I had the heaviest longest period of my life.  After 3 weeks I called my doctor and got medicine to stop it.  The next period was worse and I went to the hospital.  I had several visits with my doctor and my sister recommended I try the Keto Diet.  So I did some more research and in April I pulled out my Body Recovery Book to try again with the Keto Diet.  The food journal was very helpful in the beginning when I was trying to calculate my carb and protein intake.  

Another SMART goal I made was a check-in at the 8 week mark.  In my calendar for tracking progress I made sure that every 8 weeks I would write answers to the following questions:  

How do I feel... spiritually? emotionally? physically?

I also decided to take a picture at the 16 week mark.  I used a  regular daily planner, but I divided it in half so I could keep the daily food journal log and the bi-weekly progress tracking.  Once I got the hang of my menu, I didn't worry about writing my food down every day.  I focused on daily goals like exercising in the morning before breakfast and making sure I ate enough protein.  I also noticed I could have goals of finding foods I enjoyed to replace the foods I was avoiding.  

Eventually, I had to use my recovery tool of surrender again.  This time I needed to surrender my desire to eat popcorn, rice, beans and potatoes.  I missed them a lot but the Keto was successfully solving the problem that led me to it in the first place--namely the dysfunctional bleeding.  I didn't have control over my desire to eat those things but I could choose not to eat them anyway.  So I surrendered my desire to eat them.  I didn't know if God would take the desire to eat carbs from me or if I would have to struggle with it forever.  I did have an interesting experience.  The last time I gave in and ate popcorn, I was angry.  I was angry that Keto was the answer and that I didn't want it to be the answer.   I was angry that I couldn't just eat what I wanted when I wanted.  I was angry that I felt stuck in other areas in my life.  I got no pleasure or satisfaction from eating the popcorn and that added to my anger as well.  It has been months since I have eaten popcorn and I was at the movie theater last week and remembered the desire to eat popcorn.  I became aware of the smell of popcorn wafting from the seat next to me and it smelled...distasteful, slightly burnt and unappetizing.  Maybe, I will eventually feel no desire to eat popcorn.  I have never drunk coffee and never desired to taste it and the smell of coffee to me was similar to what I experienced when I smelled the popcorn.

Why does this matter?  What difference does it make if I still lost weight on Keto?  I think before when I tried to lose weight it was because I rejected my fat body and I wanted to have a specific outcome.  I did a lot of damage to my body over the years with that attitude.  I believe that attitude is prevalent in our mainstream society as well.  I think that is the reason the weight loss industry is getting so wealthy off our rejection attitude.  Because when that magic weight loss goal number is achieved without loving a previously fat body all that is discovered is a disappointment that the skinny body has not changed in it's value or worth.  Because now it is a skinny body with saggy skin and stretch marks and not the magical airbrushed magazine cover body imagined from the beginning.  I began my journey with love.  Part of my anger over the popcorn was because I loved my fat body and I was happy with it and happy eating popcorn!  I needed to mourn the loss of popcorn and mourn the change in my diet that I was resisting.  I have learned that mourning is a part of my process of change and that is part of my human experience.  I wasn't dieting because I hated my body and wanted it to change, I was changing my diet because I loved my body and wanted to give it what it needed.  I love my skinny body too.  My skinny body has equal worth and value to my fat body.  I will continue to love it and keep treating it like the gift it is.  You can congratulate me on my weight loss, and I will thank you politely.  But I am not celebrating weight loss.  I am celebrating my love found for my body.

Keto Journey

About one year ago I started having medical problems.  After a few months my sister suggested I try the Keto Diet to see if it would help with regulating my hormones.  I tried it and it did help.  The good results my husband saw led him to try it a couple months later.  After 6 months I have gotten a lot of attention from people about my weight loss and I get a lot of questions about Keto.

I am going to give you a review and some tips and you can do your own research if you want to know more or try this out for yourself.  Also I will be doing another post on what I used to track my progress.  I called it my Body Recovery Record.  A big part of my success came through the mindful approach to changes in how I treated and thought about my body.

#1  Is it hard?  Yes and No.

Every diet with restrictions is hard.  Before Keto I had done low carb before and it was hard.  I had done Mommy without Pounds and it was hard too.  Any time where you are going to be vigilant about what and when you eat is difficult.  Any lifestyle change where you establish new habits and veer away from what is considered normal is hard at first.  But when you find a groove that works for you it gets easier too.  When you focus on the benefits of the new habit you find enjoyment.  When you decide to get creative and innovative you find new ways to make it work for you instead of against you.

It WAS hard doing it alone.  The timing was a blessing though.  In the 2 years previous to this one I have been teaching my older kids how to cook simple meals and my husband supported me immediately by getting some freezer foods the kids could prepare for themselves as well.  So instead of cooking 2 meals for dinner everyday I was just cooking a family meal a couple times a week and my personal meals were either single servings or something I made in a batch and could reheat easily.

It was hard giving up some of my favorite carbs like french fries, rice, beans and especially popcorn.  If I wasn't motivated by my health issues I might have given up after a few months.  But then my husband joined me too.

He has been the innovator and creative thinker.  When you try to get creative and have to eat your failure literally, by yourself, for a week it can be discouraging.  When you have another person to help you it makes it so much easier.  I was timid.  I was only trying recipes I found online and I ate it and decided I would make it a staple or never eat it again.  With my husband at the helm, we started experimenting with the sugar substitutes because each of them leave a slight aftertaste on the tongue.  But in Utah I got to try Virgil's sugar free soda which used a "proprietary blend of erithitol, stevia, and monk fruit."  It made me believe we could do better.  Eventually we found a blend that we love and use in our sweet treats.  It was a lot of work pulling from each source so I did the math and now we measure it in cups and blend them together to use as our sugar substitute.  After making a few treats with this sugar blend I had the fortitude to look sugar in the face and say "I don't miss you, you don't treat my body right.  I don't need you anymore because I have a better option."  That was when Keto got a lot easier.

Day 1 picture

 246.5 lbs 43 inches waist

#2  What do you eat/what is a typical meal?

This is tough to answer.  Keto confuses people because it is a HIGH fat LOW carb diet.  Really low carb.  Really, REALLY low carb.  It cuts out a lot of typical foods so it is easier to tell you what I can eat instead of naming what I cut out.  I CAN eat nuts, seeds, a small portion of berries, proteins like meat and fish and the greenest most cruciferous veggies plus avocados, also coconut milk and almond milk and heavy cream are good too.  I have to be careful of tomatoes, onions, garlic and peanut butter etc. but I can have them in small amounts.  So my goal for each meal is to have 70% of my calories from fat, 23% from protein and only 7% from carbohydrates and this is based on a calculator I use from Keto Karma.  I began with looking up keto meals and read from websites and picked stuff that looked good to try.  I started shopping for ingredients at the stores and built up my pantry with my new diet staples.
One of my favorite breakfasts is a waffle made from eggs and almond flour topped with fresh berries and whipped cream.  Another one is a cereal I made from toasted nuts and seeds with homemade coconut yogurt.  I like eating leftovers for lunch so for dinner we make a variety of things and eat them throughout the week. This week is cheesy, bacon wrapped chicken tenders and coleslaw made with an apple cider vinegar dressing.  I also got some asparagus spears from Costco and cook them with coconut oil as an alternate side.  Lucas adapted my favorite mug cake recipe to make donuts last night in the microwave with silicone baking mats.  That was my dessert after lunch today.  We have some taco meat with all the favorite toppings in a bowl or cook some Italian seasoned meat and add fennel for the sausage flavor and Rao's marinara sauce and eat it on spiralized zucchini noodles (zoodles, or zuddles?) for our keto spaghetti.  Cream cheese is another staple for us because we make creamed spinach, alfredo sauce and my favorite, keto cream cheese danishes (where we perfected our sweetner blend the first time).

14 weeks later

220.5 lbs 38.5 inches waist

#3  Is it healthy?

This is also tough to answer.  The long time Keto eaters have been keto for 10 plus years and look fit and healthy so I want to say yes.  But you can do this diet in an unhealthy way too.  I have had to pay a lot of attention to my body and how it is affected.  I take supplements, I take probiotics.  I look for ways to include veggies with my meal in reasonable portions.  I know I am doing it right when I don't have cravings between meals.  Typically, I feel full after a satisfying meal and don't need to eat for hours.  I like that a lot about this diet.  I have had to watch carefully to make sure I was getting the macro nutrients my body needs and not letting the sweet treats take the center stage.  I also use intermittent fasting which is another aspect of keto dieting.
The biggest indicator of the benefit to my health besides the weight loss of course, is my hormones have improved drastically.  I don't experience PMS to the level I used to and my periods cramps are barely discernible and I saw a big reduction in bleeding (which was the major problem that came up in the last year).  I have hope that when I achieve a healthy BMI I will see a big improvement in that area.

18 weeks later

190 lbs 35 inches waist

#4  How much weight have you lost?

So far I have lost 50 pounds.  It is very noticeable.  I have also been doing exercise, mostly Yoga and a some cardio like walking and Zumba.  I also started a Body Recovery Journal.  I measure and weigh myself 2 weeks apart and every 8 weeks I check in with myself on how I feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I made a goal to take a picture every 16 weeks.  An interesting thing I noticed was that I did lose the same number of inches in my bust, waist and hips in the first 20 pounds lost.  I thought my waist and bust were going down faster than my hips but they all shrunk pretty evenly.  Measuring was helpful because some weeks I weighed in and lost 1 or 2 pounds but had shrunk half an inch.  My 2nd picture day I had gained 1.5 pounds but I was an inch smaller in the waist!
Lastly, I made sure my goals were not outcome focused but SMART focused.  Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Timebound.  For example, I will drink 64 oz of water a day.  I will do one yoga video when I get up before breakfast.  I will use veggies as my main carb for lunch and dinner.  I will go to bed by 10:30 pm.

2 weeks later:  Time for a new Day 1 outfit since the old one is too loose!
This was taken 3 days after Thanksgiving ;)

187.4 lbs  35 inches waist

I will be sharing our Ultimate Keto Sweetner Blend recipe on a new tab called Creative Keto Recipes.  When we come up with something new that we don't see posted by long time Keto Bloggers I will post it in that tab.  By the way the biggest complaint I have about recipe blogging is the huge story I have to scroll through before I can see the recipe.  No need for that since my blog is and will remain ad free.  If you want to support me financially go buy a printable in my etsy shop *wink, wink.  My husband created his own pancake recipe that isn't cream cheese based and we may be close to a hot chocolate recipe as well.  My sister is trying our sweetener blend in some regular recipes to see how it does with regular baking as well. 

My biggest encouragement is for you to do your own research and decide what you can reasonably do for yourself.