Oops. So I forgot to update here at the end of weeks 5 and 6… but I suspect no one is reading anyway, so what does it matter!!
At the end of week 7, I’m down 6.5 kg. Which is awesome. Loss has definitely slowed down a bit though, with only 200g dropping in the last 7 days, but it’s still in the right direction.
Because of my lifestyle I was finding that I was ending the week with a few dinners left, and also it was starting to get pretty pricey to do the full 7 days of all three meals, so I decided to shift to buying breakfasts and lunches only (7 days worth). With that shift, I still wanted to keep up the two days of 16:8 fasting because I think that they’re one of the major factors contributing to my success. So from last week, I shifted to eating the supplied LnE breakfasts and lunches five days a week and eating sensible dinners on those nights, and on the other two days I fast until lunchtime then eat the supplied breakfast for lunch, and the lunch for dinner. I find it actually works really well, and I’m realising (because the lunch portions are smaller than the dinners) that actually that portion size is fine for me, and I don’t necessarily need the bigger dinners.
It’s such a shift for me, to be eating mindfully and only eating the portions I need and my body wants, as opposed to the portions my brain wants.
So I’m four weeks into my Lite n Easy experiment, and over the past week I’ve had more weight loss, but it’s significantly less than previous weeks. Over the last 7 days I’ve dropped 400g. That’s not bad in the scheme of things – it’s certainly 400g I’m pleased to see go – but in the context of the previous three weeks, it leaves me scratching my head. What changed? If I’m eating from a box and only eating the prescribed food, why the slow-down when I still have heeeeeaps of fat left to lose?
I’m pretty sure the answer is that I went down to a 1200 calorie plan. I spent the week obsessing a little bit about food – the 1200 cal plan really did have significantly less food, and there were more times in the week where I was feeling hungry but was out of snacks. The meal sizes were still fine, but realistically on LnE the lunch and dinner sizes don’t change between calorie plans, and that means that the 300 calorie difference has to be made up between breakfast and snacks. Going off what I’ve experienced, I’d say they lose about 100 calories at breakfast (only one egg instead of two, only one piece of toast, etc), and 200 calories in snacks (no nuts, no baked goods, no cheese, nothing savoury – only fruit).
So given that that was the main difference in my week from a food and exercise perspective, I’m thinking that maybe my body didn’t enjoy consuming only 1200 calories a day (and less on the two fasting days). I’ve gone back to 1500 calories this week, and yesterday I felt like I was overloaded with food. A tub of yoghurt added to breakfast, a packet of nuts, a piece of date and walnut cake – it made all of the difference in feeling satiated, and being able to forget about food again rather than obsessing. It will be very interesting to see what the scales say next Thursday.
So, week 3 is done and dusted, and I lost 1.3 kg – which brings my total weight loss to 4.2 kg in three weeks. Which I’m pretty stoked about, frankly.
For this coming week (which started yesterday) I decided to try the 1200 calorie plan, given that I’ve had food leftover pretty much every day on the 1500. From looking at the lists of food it seemed like they provide one less afternoon tea snack, but since receiving the order I’ve realised that the portion size of breakfast is reduced too, and all of the snacks are now fruit, pretty much. No more nuts, baked goods, dried biscuits, dried fruit etc.
I’m on my second day of 1200 calories and while there is enough food for me, it’s only just. And frankly I’d prefer a little bit more wriggle room in my day, having an extra snack for when I want/need it. Also, fruit for snacks all the time might be healthy, but it’s also a little bit boring.
So there it is – three weeks in, 4.2 kg down, and going really well. I’m not craving foods, I’m not missing out, I’m not starving myself, I’m not stressing about how to cook foods that work for me and my family in three different ways. I’m just eating, and losing weight.
Week 2 results are in, and they prove that week 1 wasn’t a fluke. In week 2 of Lite N Easy I lost another 1.4 kg, which brings my total to 2.9 kg so far (and actually when I re-weighed myself it was 1.5 kg for the week, but I’d already logged my results in my app so that extra 100g can just jump onto next week’s results).
I’m really happy with how it’s going – I’m eating heaps, and varied foods, and getting the results I was needing from a psychological perspective. Quick wins, but safe and sustainable wins. I’m still planning on being on LnE for about 6 weeks, but I can see myself wanting to stay on longer to really keep the momentum going. For week 3 (which I started yesterday) I decided to stick with the Jump Start program, where I do 16:8 fasting for two days. I’m finding those days pretty easy, and I think they’re having an effect.
During the week we had my daughter’s birthday party and I was a bit worried about how I was going to approach it food-wise. I ended up eating my full breakfast, then not eating again until about 2:30 pm when the party started. I then ate what I wanted to (mostly cheese, fruit and some fairy bread), but didn’t go crazy. At the end of the night we ended up ordering fish and chips for an easy dinner (we weren’t at home otherwise LnE dinner would have been the REALLY easy option), and I ate it but didn’t over-eat. Nor did I under-eat though – I enjoyed it.
In the past when I’ve been eating LCHF/keto a meal like that would have completely set me back, as carbs being reintroduced to my system would have bloated me and brought me out of ketosis. Instead, I was absolutely fine. I still lost weight. I didn’t bash myself up. I ate sensible portions. And although I wouldn’t have had a calorie deficit for the day, it wasn’t disastrous in the context of the whole week.
J was asking me the other day what habits LnE is helping be break and form, and I listed off a whooooole lot, so I’ll probably come back and write a different post about that. Also about how I plan on converting those learnings across to ‘real life’.
Week 1 on Lite n Easy is done, and I’m now on day two of week two. Yesterday morning I stepped on the scales to measure my progress, and I’m pleased to report that there is some.
One week of Lite n Easy 1500 calorie meal plan, with two days of 16:8 fasting (roughly 1000 calories on those days), and I’m down by 1.5 kg.
1.5 kg is great – but I’m always skeptical about weight loss like this at the start. Was I particularly heavy on the day I started because I was bloated? Is this an anomaly, a blip? Will it stick? All these answers will be revealed by the time the end of Week 2 roles around I guess.
This week has had a couple of nights with dinners with other people, where I definitely didn’t eat in line with what I would have consumed if I’d eaten the LnE meal. Last night with my family was one of those (plus a cupcake from a friend, inhaled in the car). Tonight I’m out for dinner with a friend, so I’ll endeavour to make the right choices – no alcohol, and a smaller portioned meal. Not restricting what I’m eating, just how much of it I eat. Maybe an entree, or something with a lot of salad.
Tomorrow I’ll do my first of two 16:8 days for the week – starting eating at lunch time, and skipping breakfast and lunch. Looking at my diary for the week ahead I’m not sure when I’ll do my second day of that – on Sunday, when I would ideally do day 2, I’m donating blood in the morning, which definitely requires eating food. Monday is my daughter’s birthday party, so also not an ideal day to do it. Actually, maybe it’s the perfect day to do it?! I do know I’ll end up eating food that isn’t “from the box”, but once again I’ll work on portion size and not going apeshit with my eating. It’s a test.
I guess with all of those hiccups and social events this week isn’t going to be as great results for me on the scales, but I’ll keep at it. I think I might even do the ‘jump start’ option with the 16:8 days again next week, if it’s helping me achieve what I want to achieve (which it seems to be).
Day 5 of LnE, and going well. The mental battle over “that meal is too small for me” is still there, as evidenced by how I’m feeling about my lunch today, but it’s teaching me a lot of lessons.
Because I’m doing the ‘Jump Start’ plan, I have two days in each week where I don’t have breakfast or morning tea. It’s effectively a 16:8 fast setup – eat within an eight hour time frame each day, then fast for the rest.
Over the weekend I gave my two first fasting days a shot. I’d only intended to do one over the weekend, but it worked well, so I decided to do Sunday as well. Surprisingly I did quite easily – with the aid of long black coffees with a small slash of milk, and with soda water, I was actually fine. On Saturday morning I also had a PT session, but considering I never eat before that anyway, it wasn’t a big change for me. All it meant that instead of getting home and eating a snack at about 10:30, I held off, had another coffee, and waited to eat lunch until about midday.
From my rough calculations, omitting breakfast and morning tea meant that in addition to the fasting periods, I had about 1000 calories each of those days. Surprisingly not that bad in terms of hunger – more an adjustment of mental space than anything else.
I’m actually finding that I’m not getting through everything I’m being given. I’m saving the ‘morning tea’ piece of fruit each day to have with/after dinner in case I’m still hungry then, but really not needing it at all. I’ve also spread out how I’m eating breakfast on most of the days, which eliminates the need for that morning tea. Most of the breakfasts are eggs and something else on toast, or cereal and then toast. I’m not a big breakfast eater first thing in the morning, never have been, so I’ve got myself into the terrible habit of having coffee at home, dropping my toddler at daycare, and then buying food from a servo or drive through on my way to work. It’s never good food, either.
So with these LnE breakfasts I’m eating the cereal at home, then the toast once I get to work. Or on the hot breakfast mornings, I’m eating the eggs and extras at home, then the toast at work. For example, this morning’s breakfast was one egg, tomato, cheese and avocado on toast. I cooked up the egg as a thin omelette, spread the avocado over it and topped it with chopped tomato. I ate that at home, and then when I got to work I had the two pieces of toast with cheese. It worked really well – I had enough food to kick off my day and get me through to work, and then I could eat the toast when I was actually hungry. My only issue was that I WAY over-seasoned the tomato. I’m pretty sure the avocado was pre-seasoned (it came in a tub :S)
And now its 1 pm, and although I’m normally starving by 12:30, I’m still at my desk and not particularly hungry. So that’s good I guess! I’ll just eat lunch when I’m hungry, and go from there.
Well, my Lite n Easy order has arrived, and I’ve started. Here’s some initial thoughts I had while I was opening the box and unpacking it:
Wow, that’s a lot of food
Wow, that’s a lot of packaging
Shit, those portion sizes are tiny. I’m going to be starving, this isn’t going to work
Wow, there’s so many snacks. I don’t even know if I’ll eat them all
Wooooaaaah so much of this needs to go in the freezer. Quick, empty the freezer!
I’m going to need to find extra time in my morning to cook and eat breakfast at home
Wow this is a lot of food
These portion sizes are tiny. I’m going to be so hungry. No wait, the snacks….
This is confusing. How do I know what I’m eating each meal?! How do I figure out which food to take to work?!
So there you go. Many conflicting, confusing thoughts as I unboxed the box.
Breakfast this morning was a two egg omelette with some roast veggies and cheese, and a piece of toast. There were very, very minimal veggies, but actually when I cooked it out they were a good amount. There was also very, very little cheese – but when I ate it, the flavour actually balanced well. Which probably goes to illustrate exactly why I’m needing a weight loss intervention like Lite n Easy – I eat too much cheese, and too much butter, and too much cream… on everything. It’s definitely a hangover from my LCHF/keto days, when it was perfectly ok to eat the delicious fatty food, but now that there are carbs in my life again it is decidedly not ok.
For the rest of today I’ve got grapes (morning tea which is probably going to end up being arvo tea), some kind of pork and slaw deal for lunch, a fruit cup, and corn chips and salsa. I do have a dinner there, but we’re out at my families tonight for a weekly meal. I knew going into this that Thursday nights wouldn’t work for the LnE meals, but that’s ok – we eat healthily there, and I’ll just watch my portion size. And say no to the wine.
I feel guilty, and I feel stupid, because I enjoy cooking. I know how to meal plan, I know how to meal prep. I shouldn’t need to buy pre-prepared meals that are over-priced and under-seasoned. But I do need them, it turns out.
My self control is limited. Very limited. My inner monologue argues with itself, so half of my says No to the chocolate while the other half yells YES!!!! My thinking is that by getting every single gram of food that I can consume in a day sent to me in a neat little plastic-wrapped bundle, it’s easy to say ‘no, that didn’t come in the Lite n Easy box, you can’t eat it’. That’s the theory, anyway.
So I’ve gone with LnE’s ‘Jump Start’ pack, which effectively means I’ll do 5:2 for two weeks, then switch back to their normal plan. I guess if I like the 5:2 I’ll stick with it. On the fasting days you don’t get sent breakfast or morning tea, but get lunch, arvo tea and dinner.
So look, that’s that. My first order will arrive next Wednesday (because I accidentally ordered two Hello Fresh boxes this week, so we have a LOT of food in the house and it was irresponsible to bring more in). So what I should be doing is making small, healthy changes to my diet in the mean time. Ha. Not happening. Well not yet, at least. I’ll try.
It’s January 1, and yes that’s no reason to get started, but it’s what I’m doing. Let’s face it – any day is a good day to start.
It’s been two years since I had my daughter, and not only did I never lose the baby weight, I gained an enormous amount. Postpartum depression and the medication that goes with that certainly don’t help, and in fact are probably a contributing factor in it all, but my lifestyle is terrible. I’ve dug myself into a hole that is incredibly hard to see a way out of.
I had huge success with LCHF before I got pregnant – I lost 13 kg. Then the first trimester kicked in and wheat was the only thing that was stopping the morning sickness, so I ate cheese and bacon rolls every morning, followed by egg and bacon mcmuffins in the second trimester. In the third I was diagnosed with fasting bloods-related gestational diabetes (so not related to diet), I switched to LCHF and completely controlled by blood sugars that way, and I stopped gaining weight for the remainder of the pregnancy.
Anyway, here I am two years on, 20kg+ heavier than I was when I got pregnant, and feeling like crap. I decided to come back to this blog while I was sitting on a park bench watching my partner run around a playground with the toddler, and I had absolutely no energy or physical motivation to join them. My knees hurt, I’m getting sick more often (thanks daycare bugs), I’m bloated, my mental health isn’t great, I’ve gone up several clothes sizes, my gut is getting bigger and is full of visceral fat. The hole I’m in is getting bigger, and even harder to get out of, and so I guess that’s the motivation. Get out of the hole before the hole gets so big that I’m stuck forever. Not that I know a way out right now.
I’ve tried LCHF since my daughter was born – for about a month – with no success. The previous time I ate that way a month would have seen me dropping the kgs quickly, but this time, nothing. So even though it’s the only direction to go, to cut the carbs, I’m hesitant. It’s a lot of effort for maybe no results. Do I start with an egg fast? What if that does nothing? How do I cook for/eat with the rest of the house if I’m just eating eggs? How long can I actually keep that up for? Lots of questions. No answers. But I’m figuring I’ll write bits and pieces down here and see where I land anyway.
The salsa and avocado dip isn’t 100% compliant – I’m struggling with a good salsa alternative though. It comes in at 3.9 g of sugar per 100g though, approximately 2.9 g per serve, so it’s ok. The avocado dip isn’t ideal  – but neither is the price of avocados!!! And once again, I’m not eating much of it.
On the Right Track 