A Healthy Lifestyle Change

I am starting a new diet, sorry, no, I mean a HEALTHY LIFESTYLE CHANGE! Using the “21 Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health” by Neal D. Barnard, and “Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health by Gene Stone as my tools, I am going on a plant-based/vegan diet! In the 21 Day Weight Loss book, he suggests writing about how you feel, and I feel like doing it by blog. So, join me on this adventure if you like, if not no problem, I just want to write it all down for myself!

I hope this works for me. I have tried all kinds of different diets, etc, and nothing seems to work completely. I did the South Beach Diet in 2003, and lost a lot of weight. I was down to a size 8!!! But then as soon as I started eating carbs again, I ballooned back up!! I have heard that happens to a lot of people. I have tried weight watchers, and I lost a little bit of weight, but I found it just too annoying to count points. I hate counting calories, points, etc. It is much easier for me and my brain to just not have something than to have to moderate it and have a little bit and count what I had. Just doesn’t work for me. Cutting out carbs was very very hard. It seems to me that there are not as many substitutes for carbs, especially bread. There is nothing like a warm piece of bread. I think a vegan diet is going to work better, just because I can still have carbs, and there are so many substitutes (taste-wise) that I can eat instead of meat or eggs or cheese. These are my hopes anyway!!!

One thing I am a little worried about is my soy intake. I had some hormonal problems a couple of years ago, and I believe that part of it was caused by drinks I was having that had plant estrogen in them, which is also an ingredient in soy. I am afraid if I have too much soy, I will have those hormonal problems again. Hopefully, the soy in the veggie meats and tofu won’t be enough to cause a problem. I don’t like soy milk, so I won’t be drinking it, so that will help lower the intake. I am not sure, this worries me, but I don’t think I can NOT have veggie meats or tofu either, otherwise I am going to have less variety and be less likely to stick to the diet. We’ll see how it goes. I know what symptoms to watch for…..

So, here we go.