Six weeks in, 27 pounds down!

So.

Remember when I said I knew I wouldn’t be doing low-carb forever because it’s just not sustainable? Well, Tom and I are now working on a new lifestyle change…and have both been quite successful. And the best thing is that it’s completely sustainable: 80% of people keep the weight off after a year!

It’s a program that I’d never heard of but that a Tivo friend had done VERY successfully—and a bunch of other Tivo friends were interested in it and all decided to do it—so we jumped in, too! It’s called Naturally Slim and it’s a different way to lose weight that you just can’t believe until you try it.

From their website:

There are no foods to buy, no points to count, no guidelines on what you can and can’t eat. Sound too good to be true? The secret to Naturally Slim is really simple common sense, and the method for success simply involves learning some new techniques about how and when you should eat. That’s it. No gimmicks, no fads, no crashing, flushing, suffering, sacrificing, and no long-term commitments.

In the just-less-than two weeks that we’ve been doing it, I’ve lost 8# and have not felt deprived at all. I am eating SO much less food now, it’s unbelievable—but the most unbelievable part is that I’m eating WHATEVER I want. Pizza? Yes. Garlic bread? Yes. Pasta? Yes. Bacon cheeseburgers? Yes. Guacamole? Yes. Bruschetta? Yes. The only thing that we are really cutting out right now (for the first three weeks of the 10-week program) is sugar (and wine for me)—so no ice cream, cookies, cake, regular pop, etc.—but that’s not a big deal for us since we rarely have that stuff anyway. We can add it back in weeks 4-10 (and beyond) as long as we do it the right way.

But I digress.

I’m not going to go into all of the details, but suffice it to say that once you learn how to listen to your body and eat the right way—following the principles you learn in the program—you may find that you only eat one or two meals a day (and smaller meals at that). It takes time and dedication to learn the principles and it’s not an overnight thing…but it does work.

For example, neither Tom nor I eat breakfast anymore. (Forget what you’ve always heard about needing to eat breakfast. Really.) So Tuesday I had eaten lunch with the kids around 12:30 (and I honestly shouldn’t have eaten then because I wasn’t truly hungry) and I wasn’t hungry at dinnertime, so I skipped dinner. I wasn’t hungry before bed, I wasn’t hungry when I woke up Wednesday, I wasn’t hungry at my usual lunch time, and I honestly wasn’t hungry when I finished making dinner at 6, but I ate a small portion anyway because it had been 30 HOURS since I’d eaten anything and it just seemed…wrong. But according to the principles, I should have waited. When was the last time—aside from being sick—that you didn’t feel hungry for THIRTY HOURS?! It’s both exciting and bizarre at the same time.

Now, I know you are skeptical, but I am not lying and saying I’m not hungry. I’m not starving myself. I’m LITERALLY not hungry. I definitely eat when I am hungry—and I will never starve myself (that’s why I liked low-carb—I could always eat something filling and never felt HUNGRY).

So, just be prepared if we ever have to eat with you—we may not actually eat. 🙂 Well, we will eat, but we might not eat when you do. That’s honestly the part that stinks and is hard to get used to—since you ONLY eat when you’re hungry, we often miss eating with the kids (we sit with them but we might not eat) and sometimes we don’t even eat together. There are ways to hold off on eating (say, if I’m ready to eat at 4pm but we’re not eating until 6pm) but you never eat early to keep on a schedule.

Granted, we are only on week 2 so we’re still leaning the ins and outs of what our bodies want and things could still change, but we have generally figured out our schedules. (Well, I thought I had my schedule figured out—lunch between 12:30-1:30 and dinner between 6:00-7:00—until that 30-hour span of not being hungry. Now I’m trying to work it out again. It feels like I’m headed toward being a one-time-a-day eater which isn’t common but not unheard of.)

So, things are interesting around here. But the weight—and inches!—are coming off so we’re both happy! I’ve added a tracker with my ultimate goal over in the right column under the kids’ age trackers—I’m over a quarter of my way to my goal in just six weeks!! Go me!