Feminine 101

In January 2024, I began a “health journey.” This is to share where I came from, what I’ve achieved, and how I got from point A to point B. Please note, I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or any other sort of health professional. I’m just a woman who took her health in hand and made some changes. If you wish to start at the beginning of my story, you can click here.

1. I drank a ton of water. I have a 20 ounce cup that I refill and empty four times by 10:00 am every single day. Beyond that I probably drink three more, minimum, throughout the course of the day. I do not think that this is the one “trick” you need to lose weight. But, taken to an extreme, it creates some interesting effects.
   1. Years ago, I read that, if we answer every feeling of thirst by drinking soda or sugary drinks, our bodies begin to interpret thirst as a craving for those same things. But, if you keep your thirst sated, then you entirely undercut this trained response. 
   2. Another element of this is that I replaced everything I drink–except coffee–with water. It wasn’t until much later that I allowed myself the occasional sugar-free energy drink. And, only on special occasions, did I allow myself a special drink at the coffee shop which I counted as a dessert. 
2. I ate natural, healthy sweets and snacks before eating less wholesome food.
   1. The tip that I read was to train your body to resort to wholesome snacks before less wholesome. If you crave salty chips, start with salted almonds or in my case cashews. I know they’re fatty, but they’re way better than chips. If you crave a cookie or ice cream, start with dried fruit or grapes. My go-to is dried mango because it tastes like candy. I did eventually go search out some pre-packaged fruit leather with no added sugar so I could easily just grab them.
   2. This has a two-fold effect. It helps you fill up on the healthy stuff so you don’t over-indulge in the unhealthy and it makes you think about what you’re putting in your mouth. Anything that slows you down and interrupts bad habits is well worth doing. 
3. I limited “unnatural” sugars to one serving a day.
   1. Diabetes is a serious concern so this was taking a stab directly at that. Plus, sugar addiction is as powerful as cocaine addiction, so I knew I had to get it under control. 
   2. Baking is one of my superpowers so cutting sugar entirely was unrealistic. Why would I do something that renders one of my strongest skills useless? There had to be an allowance for this somewhere.
   3. Initially, I leaned into this one hard. I would limit my desserts to one or maybe two a week. I figured that doing a more extreme version of my end plan would probably not hurt. 
4. I ate between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm or between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm.
   1. This rule was really just to keep me from snacking at night. That’s a nasty habit and it will sabotage any weight-loss efforts in a hurry.  
   2. I have cream (plain heavy cream) in my coffee every morning. There, I admit it. I stopped having sugar and, early on, I had just a tiny drop of cream because I just can’t stand it black. But now I let myself have as much cream as I want. 
5. I ate very clean for lunch and smaller portions for supper.
   1. Every person I read talked about eating clean. They said to do your own food prep rather than pre-packaged food. For supper, I was already doing this. But any fool could look at the rest of my diet and quickly see the problem. My lunches and afternoon snacking were out of control. 
   2. So “clean” for my lunches meant being able to name the ingredients. I had a smoothie made with cottage cheese, milk, fruit, and honey. I would eat celery, peanut butter, and apples. I would have sliced ham, cheese, and nuts. Initially, I made oatmeal, too, which is very filling. Also, I have really dialed back the excess carbs such as bread in my snacking.
   3. For supper, I am unwilling to make myself something different from the rest of the family and, since I love to cook, I’m already making high-quality food from excellent ingredients. But I was through having seconds. I remember the first night on my new rules, I actually put half the spoonful of food back because I had served myself too much. That was a real turning point. 
6. Employ 5-2 fasting to cope with feasts and stalls.
   1. This was not added until much later. Essentially it involves fasting for a day in a week. That may involve 0 calories to 500 calories. Be warned, I did this for about three days in a row just to see and that’s bad. DO NOT DO THIS EVERY DAY. That is starving yourself and it’s an eating disorder. 
   2. That being said, I realized that sometimes you can’t prep and plan all the foods. Thanksgiving exists. Christmas, date night, Easter. All of them involve a huge spread of food so I needed a method for dealing with these. This was my solution.

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I picked a date and a weight that I would aim for–mine was a very aggressive goal. I calculated how many pounds I would need to lose on average per day. I used that average to set smaller waypoints so that I was sure to mark my accomplishment. When I reached the first, I bought myself a cookbook; the second, I rewarded myself with a pair of shoes. One blogger had remarked on the importance of celebrating progress and I have to agree. When you have so far to go, the first ten don’t feel like much, but the needle is moving and that is worth noting. 

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That’s it. Those were my rules. This was what I settled on as things I could live with forever. I weighed myself nearly every day because it was interesting to watch how things fluctuated over time. In my mind, I’ve built a bit of a graph to mentally track things.  For instance, my cycle, early on, meant that I would not lose an ounce. I came to understand and expect that. But in later months, I would lose a pound for sure during that time! I still don’t understand it, but there it is. So, don’t give too much power to that number not moving on a daily basis. When it does, it’s super exciting. When it doesn’t…well I don’t think I’ve ever actually, physically wrung my hands in frustration before. Even so, this is what worked for me.

To continue this series, click here.