There’s a group on Facebook called Vinnie’s No Sugar/No Grains Ladies. Even though it’s a ladies group, they’ve invited me and several other men to join. The group shares all things no sugar/no grains that we talk about on the podcast, as well as helping each other out in staying on track to reach their goals. I usually make a daily trip to the group to see what’s going on. I saw this post today by Karen Kaufmann Whitlock. I thought it was pretty cool, so I’m sharing it with the rest of my audience. Enjoy…
So ladies (and sexy gents), I just hit the one month mark of NSNG! This is a long post so grab your bullet coffee and take a seat… After a month, I am feeling great and can’t believe how easy it really has been. As someone who used to eat desserts, fast food and other processed snacks every single day that is saying A LOT! Despite the crazy eating habits I exercise a lot so wouldn’t have said I needed to lose weight but definitely felt like I wasn’t as fit as I could have been. Like if you took a fit person and slathered them with a layer of buttercream frosting. Mmmm buttercream….I have crossed the finish lines of two iron distance races still feeling like I had work to do. If you can exercise 20 hours a week and still feel like you look doughy it is time to look at other aspects of your life. I knew I needed to clean up my nutrition. As they say, you can’t exercise away bad eating. I read a ton of blogs so I have read a little bit about most of the lifestyles out there from vegan to vegetarianism and fruititarianism. I knew I could not stick with any of that long term – too many rules, not enough variety or too much counting and calculating. NSNG seemed like the perfect fit. Very straightforward and easy to follow. I am not trying to go hard core ketosis even though I enjoy peeing on a stick and bragging about it as much as the rest of you. I simply cut out the sugars and the grains. After a month, I am down 5 pounds. I am basically at ironman weight right now without having to put in all the exercise. Pretty amazing considering I was not exercising even at normal “off season” volume last month so basically that loss is due to changing my eating habits.
My husband, Rick, has been on the plan about a week. He just came downstairs to tell me that he took his belt in a notch this morning. He is down 6 pounds. (We are hoping the lifestyle change will help control his slightly high blood pressure and high triglycerides without the need for meds– that is what convinced him to give it a try – he is still on the meds now but are anxious to see if the numbers change at his next appointment). It has been a little tougher for him as he is picky when it comes to veggies. Thankfully, he loves salads so we have been eating a lot of salads. I also made the tomato soup Mandy posted and loved that so he is branching out :)
When I jumped into this lifestyle last month, I decided I would do it in phases. I have a serious Diet Dr. Pepper addiction. I knew I couldn’t let sugar, grains and my diet cokes go all at once. That is a recipe for craziness. Month one was full on NSNG with a side order of diet cokes as usual. Today begins month two. As someone who was literally raised on Tab and Diet Shasta I am thinking this might be the harder habit to kick. We’ll call it giving up diet coke for Lent but am hoping it will extend past 40 days. Here we go – no sugar, no grains, no diet coke. Whew….
