I know I haven’t posted an update on the diet in a few weeks. I think I left off a month ago where I had lost 6 pounds, then stalled out. I kept gaining and losing the same 1-2 pounds back and forth, back and forth…for weeks nothing worked.
I was really frustrated and felt discouraged, especially considering I was doing this restrictive carb diet–to restrict and not see progress SUCKS.
Just a reminder– I wasn’t doing a true low carb diet, but I was trying my hardest to keep the carbs down. On workout days I was somewhere around 85-100 grams of carbs for the day (no bread, rice or pasta products at all) and on rest days I was somewhere around 50-75 grams for the day.
I tried many times to get that number down but let’s be honest here. If I am going to REALLY try and do a low carb diet, I need to cut out all fruit (don’t want to do that) and a lot of other stuff…I mean, I hit 15 grams of carbs with just my coffee creamer in the morning. 🙁 Not going to cut that out!
We had an awesome cheat meal last weekend: breakfast for dinner!
I’d been craving pancakes lately so for dinner last Sunday night Michael made us pancakes and bacon. I used light syrup which cut the carbs in the syrup by half. This was also the first time Logan tried pancakes. He loved them! 😉
My lunches last week were really good. I was kind of sick of my meat and cheese rollups and needed to change things up. I also needed a break from the high sodium diet that comes with eating meat like that. It’s not the best choice, honestly.
So for lunches this time I did salads. I cooked up some ground turkey with low sodium taco seasoning and I had big green salads topped with veggies and the taco meat.
I had a hard boiled egg and some Greek yogurt with fruit for snacks. I also supplemented some snacks with low-carb protein shakes. It was nice to change things up and eat something different.
Weight Loss
Now for the weight loss aspect…A month ago I was staying about the same and just couldn’t get over that hump. We went on vacation to Bend and I was afraid to weigh myself. 🙁 I hadn’t worked out much in Bend, or when we got home (I was sick), and my diet hadn’t been great. We ate pizza and sushi and drank beer in Bend…but I got on the scale anyways and surprise surprise! I finally lost the weight that I’d been gaining and losing over and over again.
That was a nice surprise. So I am back in the upper 160’s and feeling a bit more motivation. It also kind of motivated me to maybe try doing a true low carb diet to see if that jump starts things further. I have 12 pounds to go to get back to pre-baby weight, but ideally 15 pounds to go total.
I also emailed my doctor. I spelled out my typical diet, calories and weekly exercises. She responded with “um wow! You’re kinda already doing everything right…” SIGH. I know! And it’s not working!! Her only suggestion (besides the usual, drink more water, eat real food not from a package) was to cut my calories from 1600 to 1400. So for the last week I’ve been at 1450 calories. We’ll see what happens when I weigh in next week!
Elaine
Just curious-how did you lose weight the last time around? For me, what worked before always has worked better than trying something new. And, by way of encouragement, since you’ve done it before, you know that you can do it again!
Lisa Eirene
That’s a good question! How I lost the weight originally was reducing my calories to under 2,000 a day (somewhere between 1500-1800), counting my calories, cutting out all alcohol, pizza and ice cream and working out. It was slow and steady but it worked.
This time around I tried to do something similar and it did not work. I’m not sure why it didn’t work when it worked before. That’s why I’m trying something different.