First Week of 2015: Progress Report
Originally posted by renewmom at First Week of 2015: Progress Report
So far so good! Believe it or not, I'm down 8 pounds as of yesterday. In this first week of 2015, I went back to the basics with the Virgin Diet: avoiding all seven of the high-FI (food intolerance) foods (gluten, dairy, sugar, corn, soy, peanuts, eggs). While I have been faithfully avoiding gluten and dairy, since those are the foods I react to the strongest, I had backtracked in terms of sugar and would have eggs about once a week, most weeks. It happens to be much easier for me to completely avoid corn, soy and peanuts. But I'm going through the three-week process I've done every January for the last couple of years, of avoiding all seven foods for three weeks and then testing, one week each, the foods that J.J. Virgin says are safer to work back in: gluten, dairy, soy and eggs. (She advises people to continue to avoid sugar, corn and peanuts for various health reasons, not just food intolerance.)
What I think has helped me the most, though, is returning to her guidelines regarding water and meal times. She recommends drinking 16 ounces of water half an hour before eating, limiting water consumption to 8 ounces during a meal, waiting a half hour and then resuming water consumption. This has helped me to follow the meal guidelines of eating every four hours with either one morning or one afternoon snack, and ceasing to eat at least several hours before bedtime. (These, by the way, line up with recommendations of other nutritionists I've read since first discovering the Virgin Diet three years ago, including one dietitian who specializes in advice for women diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, who tend to gain weight easily and have a lot of trouble losing weight.)
In addition, I'm taking Cleanse Smart, which is designed to rid the body of toxins. I will note, by the way, that I do a similar cleansing regime about every 4 to 6 months and don't normally see these sorts of results.
The Virgin Diet doesn't stress counting calories, but I've found that tracking my food intake and exercise via the LoseIt! app helps me pay attention to what I'm eating. Also, they're currently having a January challenge, which I joined just for the heck of it, and the rewards and reminders they send to for doing things like eating fruits and vegetables or tracking your intake have been great positive reinforcement.
Interestingly, I did not exercise that much this week, because I'm still recovering from my Christmas flu. I didn't attend my kickboxing class at all last week and only did one day of water aerobics. This week, I'm hoping to get back into my normal routine. It will be interesting to see what happens. I forgot to take my measurements the first week, but already I feel like my clothes are fitting better, and my face in the mirror seems less bloated.