There are so many emotions that I feel from this diet.  I am so proud of myself for sticking to this diet, for eating better and really embracing this lifestyle.  I am amazed at myself for not missing meat and in fact with all the research I have read part of me is repulsed by it.  I am also discouraged and I want to embrace that for a minute.

I have not lost any weight for the last 2 weeks.  I am not sure why.  Well logically I can guess.  I probably eat too many nuts a day.  I probably eat about 400 calories a day of nuts. I just crave them, probably the protein and fat.  Also avocado, I love them! So if I eat one a day it is another 240 calories.  Then the rest is beans and fruit and veggies.  You would think that wouldn’t be a lot of calories.  The funny thing is that the junk I use to eat was a lot worse.  I mean the chocolate and the salty snacks.  But I guess a calorie is a calorie no matter what.

What really annoys me the most though is that I care.  I don’t want to care.  What does it matter? I am eating healthy foods not junk all natural all good for you.  The worst I have eating is a little agave nectar.  But I still care.  That is the bottom line, I care – that is how I feel.  I want to lose weight.  I want to get smaller clothes. It is one of my goals for doing this diet.  So I need to change what I do.  I need to explore the balance of eating healthy and not eating too much.

So what changes can I make?  First, no more than 2 oz of avocado a day.  If I eat more, then none the next 2 days.  Second, no more than 1 oz of any kind of nuts (including nut butters) a day.  Really!  Just throw a little in a salad and that is all I get.  No in between snacking on them.  One cup of beans, that is all – just one cup.  The rest is fruits and veggies.

So I better go get a scale then so I know how much an oz is!

This weekend was hard. We celebrated some birthdays and I had to be very tough on myself.  We went to a restaurant that honestly had no good for you food.  Even the salad had bacon, eggs, cheese and fried onions on it.  But I was prepared. I got the salad minus all that stuff, which left a salad with tomato, lettuce and cucumbers on it.  I brought with me some kidney beans and walnuts and just made it my own.  The funny part is that everyone felt terrible and stuffed after and I felt great.

Also, eating veggies like that takes a long time to eat. I use to be the first one done and start snacking on everyone else’s food, but I was actually the last one done with that big salad. It was nice, I could focus on my own food and didn’t worry about anyone else’s.

Then came the cupcakes….

Oh, I wanted to taste one of those so bad.  Also, my in-laws have a lot of candy laying around like jelly beans.  I wanted to just taste one, just one.  Back to the cupcakes.  They look so delicious.  There was just chocolate (I don’t care about that one), then there was a chocolate salted-caramel one and a strawberry lemonade one.  They not only sounded delicious, they looked so good.  I just kept my distance.

One thing that helped a lot, is that I told my family that my doctor put me on this diet for 6 weeks for health reasons.  So once your family knows, then they are looking out for you.  My kids do the same thing.  You can’t eat that right mom?

The bottom line was, that even though those cravings were bad, with planning I could do it.

I actually started my eating plan a few days earlier, but not fully.  I wanted to see if I could eat that many fruits and vegetables for the most part without having terrible cravings or a “you must do this” attitude.  So for Saturday and Sunday I ate mostly fruits and veggies.  I got a headache on Saturday, but it wasn’t too bad.

Yesterday was my first big day, and so far so good.  The only thing I don’t want to get rid of right now is the coffee, but I have only been drinking one cup with a splash of milk.  For someone who has more cream with her coffee this is a big accomplishment for me.

I am surprised by how I don’t feel starving. I really thought with no animal protein that I would feel sick.  I really thought that I would have terrible cravings and would be hungry all the time.  So far, I haven’t felt that.

I feel like I am preparing a lot of food.  I feel like I am cutting up everything all the time, but I don’t seem to mind.  The ritual and the presentation of fruits and veggies are so beautiful that it makes me more mindful of what I am eating.

I can feel that I am starting to sabotage myself.  I can sense that I don’t want to eat a salad.  I can hear that inner voice saying, “Not salad again. How boring. Can’t you eat something else?” I am not sure where it is going, but I do know that it is there.  I will let it be there and have its opinion. And then I will go and cut up more vegetables.

I love watching life just happen.  We sit and struggle through it most of the time, but if you just really watch and listen all answers will come to you.  Some will work and some just point you in the right direction.  It is just a fascinating process.

So, for me, the message came from Facebook.  A friend of mine posted a video about a book.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkt_X-dUvEE

It was an interview where Dr. Oz interviewed Dr. Joel Fuhrman about why people are overweight and how loosing weight through nutrition is easy.  For some reason it stuck with me.  I was fascinated by what he was saying.  Skeptical, but fascinated.

I have been through so many diets and changes in my life.  Just like most people, it is my struggle that seems so frustrating.  I believe that you get certain issues that help you through life.  These struggles are what keep you going.  We all have to Kill our Budha to go forward and my Ego is attached to food.

So, on a whim (which I do all the time) I bought the ebook Eat to Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.   And I dived in.  Now, if you are like me, you want to know what you are getting into.  I have read so many diet books that I feel like an expert, so I went right to the plan in Chapter 8.  I read – you will need to eat a pound of raw vegetables and a pound of cooked vegetables a day, plus at least 4 servings of fruit, and a cup of legumes. No animal products, no oils, no starches, no processed foods.  You can add a small amount of nuts (one ounce a day) or a small amount of whole grains, but that is if you want to lose weight slower.  So, of course, I did what everyone in my situation would do – I cried.

How will it be possible to do this? How can you manage a diet like this in the world we live in? How do I eat like this and not disturb my family’s eating? It really felt hopeless, and at the same time I knew I needed to do it.

So I talked to my husband, I saw my doctor and decided to go for it.  My goal for this blog is to document all that happens on this phase of my journey.  Mostly for myself – to be accountable for what I do.

So here’s to me!  Wishing myself good luck.

I see this “game” all the time on my teenagers Facebook page. I guess a kid writes “Truth is…” in their status and then if you like the status, they go to your wall and post “Truth is” and then something they think is true about you.

So you see things like:

Truth is I think you are a great person.

Or Truth is, I don’t know you that well but you seem nice.

Hopefully, they don’t post disparaging remarks, but I digress.

For me it is time to post my truths as I know them about myself.  So here it goes:

 Truth is…

I weigh more than I should.

I am considered obese by the BMI experts.

I am pear shaped, so that makes my weight deceiving.

I am a solid size 16 on the bottom.

I am a large on the top.

My skin breaks out all the time.

I am tired all the time.

I have a hard time sleeping most of the time.

I have had feet problems for years.

I have IBS, which I think is just a general issue caused by not eating properly for so long.  Which causes pain in my left side most of the day.

But the truth is…

All this will change starting now!