I’m back. Just like I said. Welcome to Week 1 of Doni’s Diet.
Last week I did a super vulnerable personal disclosure about my lifelong problem with my weight. I traced the beginnings of my weight problem back to my childhood.
This week, I’m in the present, decades beyond my chubby childhood. No more excuses. No more rationalizations. No more eating with abandon. No more using clothes to cover me and my shame. For that matter, no more shame, either.
With the help of Matthew Lister of Align Private Training, I know I can do this. I’m motivated. I want change. My birthday is in July, and that’s my goal date to have my body back. That seems doable. Where are all those AA sayings when I need them?
One day at a time … Easy does it …
I met with Matthew on Tuesday for our first official appointment. He weighed me. I was shocked by the number, but too numb to cry. He took my measurements, which was something I’d not done for years. I remember thinking when he said the measurement of my right thigh, that it sounded more like what a woman’s waist should be.
He took me through some stretches and moves to decipher my range of motion, so that when I start working out at Align, I won’t hurt myself on the road to health and fitness. I was heartened to see that really, I’m more flexible than I’d given myself credit.
Matthew’s big focus is body alignment, hence, the name of his company: Align Private Training. He said that ideally, our ears should line up with our shoulders, and our shoulders with our hips, our hips with our knees, and our knees with our ankles. When we get too far out of whack, our bodies assume that “old lady” profile, with the head stuck out like a turtle, and the shoulders and back curved. Not good.
I told him that really, I pride myself in having good posture. (I was thinking that he could save the alignment talk for people who needed it. I was there for weight loss and fitness.)
He took a before picture of my posture, and unfortunately, everything doesn’t line up properly after all. We’ll work on that.
See the green line that runs from my head to foot? That’s supposed to be lined up with my ears, shoulders, hips, ankles and knees. But on another note, do you know how much it pained me to post this photo of myself? I’ll trot this photo out again later, after I’ve lost a bunch of weight, with my after photo. Right now, it’s so damn embarrassing.
Finally, he took me through the “nutrition” plan, more commonly known as a diet.
He explained that every client has his or her own program, and it may fluctuate over time. More of this; less of that.
For me, at least now, he’s selected a plan that’s 23 percent carbs, 33 percent protein and 45 percent fats. This surprised me. I was expecting no carbs at all, and very little fat. Forty-five percent fat to me says croissant. Well, au contraire, because then I looked at what Matthew considers “fats”: nuts, nut butters, avocado, seeds, and about 1 – 3 tablespoons oil, such as for sauteing, or for a salad.
Speaking of salad, apparently, my bleu cheese days are over, because if I have salad, the dressing needs to be in the range of 35-calories a tablespoon. Tablespoon. Not a pitcher.
After I left the appointment I went to the store to stock up on fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt and canned beans. So much food!
I also bought myself a bouquet of my favorite flowers, Stargazer Lilies, as my own personal atta-girl to express how proud I am of myself for not just doing this, but for making it so freakin’ public.
I didn’t think I’d starve on this diet, but I was surprised to find that one of the biggest difficulties is actually eating all the required food for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and bedtime snack.
Even so, do I crave sugar? Yes. Do I crave carbs? Yes. But I’m not hungry. At least so far.
I’ve been on this diet for two whole days.
In my pre-diet period, I’d wake up not hungry, so I’d barely eat breakfast, and then I’d not eat much during the day, but after sundown, watch out. I was famished, and I’d eat a huge meal, usually with wine or beer, and invariably, no matter how much I ate at dinner, I was hungry a short while later. Enter night eating where I’d graze on crap food, the worst possible stuff to fall asleep on. Ice cream. Cookies. Popcorn with butter. Junk like that.
That’s over. No more of that.
There are a couple of other things, such as Matthew’s program requires I eat within an hour of waking. And that bedtime snack? It’s not negotiable, even if I don’t feel hungry. Two proteins and one fat before bedtime. And water, I need to drink about 60 ounces of it a day.
I noticed after I got the plan home that nowhere is alcohol mentioned. Or sugar. Or cheese (cottage cheese doesn’t count), or milk. I may have one slice of bread – the brown, dense kind – but that’s a “slow carb” that’s only OK at lunch.
I am still getting the hang of this new nutrition plan, and have probably consulted my little piece of paper 20 times today to look at the list of slow carbs, veggies, “snack carbs”, proteins and fats.
On top of everything else, I will keep a food diary of everything I eat and drink. But before that, I need to write out a menu of what I’ll be eating so I’m not scrambling at meal time to plan what to eat on the fly.
This is all so foreign. But that’s a good thing, right? The diet I’d grown comfortable with was not good for me.
I’ll meet with Matthew twice a week, and then the other days I’ll go to the Y and work with weights. Each week I’ll be weighed. I’ll let you know how I do with my weight loss (notice the optimism?) next week.
In the meantime, Joe is working on a whole section for our weight-loss journeys. We’ll have a forum, and recipes and diet and fitness stories.
One week down. I’m still here, and feeling fine.
How did it go for you?
