I was so excited about eating the dinner that I didn’t snap a picture—not that I have the SLR camera or the skills that the internet’s foodie bloggers have. But I did get to witness M gobbling down every last bite of his greens, which is worth more than a hundred photographs to me.

Although I’ve experimented with some lunchtime salads over the past week, this was probably my first time ever cooking up a dish of savory greens. The pecans and the kale brought out the best in each other and the dish was easy to make, a definite winner!

For those of you who are very comfortable and confident in the kitchen, I may not be able to adequately explain how triumphant I felt as we sat down to enjoy our meal last night. There is still so much I don’t know about preparing tasty and nutritious meals, but yesterday was a significant milestone for me and I know we will be eating lemon chicken and kale with pecans again before too long!

For over a decade I’ve craved one absolute fool-proof eating and exercise plan to follow with all my heart and mind, and yet each time I have settled on an official plan, I found one aspect of it that gnawed away at my belief in its “rightness.” There is just so much conflicting information out there.

I once read somewhere that diets are like religions: tempers and loyalties burn hot when the subject comes up. I have yet to whole-heartedly join any religion for the long haul, and I suppose the same is true about my weight-loss plan.

Maybe this is meant to be. After all, I didn’t start succeeding until I gave up trusting any one plan to tell me how to lose weight. At the same time, I don’t think this strategy would necessarily work for everyone; we are all so incredibly different even as we pursue common goals.

Participating in CrossFit boot camp, I hear a lot about the Paleo diet. I’ve read and continue to read a good amount on the subject; and yet I cannot bring myself to commit myself to it fully. In recent days, I have read two well-written but differently positioned posts: one an anti-grain manifesto and one a fairly balanced critique of the Paleo plan. My mind feels uneasy.

In the end, I will probably always be doing my own version of any pre-established plan I find. The person in me who just wants things to be simple and tidy is eternally uncomfortable with this. Part of me (and I’m ashamed of this) just wants to be a good girl who does what she’s told and follows the rules and gets an A. But in the end, life is just as much about art as it is about science. We are barely organized chaos at best sometimes, and can’t be straitjacketed or shoehorned into a mold that doesn’t fit us.

You may not be able to tell from this photo, but the two eggs in the upper right corner are both a pale greenish-blue color. I love it!

When I buy chicken eggs that have been gathered by hand on a nearby farm after being laid by well-tended free-range chickens, no two eggs are exactly alike. Just like snowflakes—or people. Some are slightly smaller than others. Some are darker brown, or pale tan, or speckled . . . or even the faintest of greens. All of them have vivid orangey yolks full of nutrients because the hens who laid them have been eating the things chickens are supposed to eat as opposed to being caged up and crammed full of “feed.”

I get a little excited almost every morning when we get the eggs out to make my breakfast omelet. They have personality, know what I mean?

The first week of my personal challenge, the only change I made besides attending boot camp three times per week was giving up diet soda. That turned out to be a doozy! I did it and I’ve stuck to my soda moratorium, but I have to say I found the process very challenging, both psychologically and physically.

During Week 2, I transformed my breakfast into a meal that’s heavy on the protein and produce (well, for me!). I’ve been eating 2-egg omelets with some veggies and chicken breast inside, with a small serving of fruit on the side of the plate.

This week, I’m mostly planning to hold steady, nutritionwise: in other words, keep up with the changes to my breakfast and stick to my newfound soda-free ways. That being said, I have introduced two small new changes to my usual routine:

1. M and I are cooking my omelets in coconut oil rather than my usual stand-bys, margarine or olive oil. I’ve heard great things about the benefits of this type of fat, and my boot camp coach recommended it as well. So far, so good. There is a very mild coconut flavor associated with the oil, but it’s not bad; just different.
2. I’ve switched over from peanut butter to Sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds and only 3 other ingredients) in my pre-boot camp snacks. This evening will be my first time taste-testing the Sunbutter!

I haven’t measured myself, but I feel like I’m losing inches on my body . . . the Size 14 jeans I bought during the winter holidays are already annoyingly loose. I keep holding off on buying new ones because I know that they, too, will only be transitional jeans. I found an old pair of Size 10s in the closet that still feel a bit snug to me, although M thinks they look okay; I figure in another week or so, maybe they’ll fit perfectly!

Tomorrow looks to be pretty jam-packed with errands, one of which involves visiting the farmer’s market to pick  up some eggs and green leafy vegetables. I’m working toward going Paleo with breakfast next week, and one thing I know I like that should do the trick is an omelet with spinach inside! I realize that I’ll have to expand my culinary repertoire at some point, but hey, it’s a start. I don’t think I’ll be implementing a super-regimented plan for going mostly Paleo; we’ll just see how things evolve. My co-workers who are participating in the official boot camp challenge are doing a fantastic job of revamping their nutrition; as for me, the diet soda thing is huge and I am going to make that my main non-negotiable for now, along with attending boot camp.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Luckily, I impulsively popped in on a co-worker who is doing the official Relentless Boot Camp Adventure Challenge, and she calmly talked me out of that idea.

“I need a soda,” I said.

“No you don’t,” she said, smiling serenely.

Pause. Resentful resignation.

“Ohhhkay.” I plonked my butt down in a chair in her office and chatted for a few minutes, and before I knew it, the impulse to self-sabotage had passed.

Boot camp was tough for me last night. There were lots of push-ups. I do modified push-ups, but even those I do poorly. I was way behind most of the group as a result. It was kind of demoralizing. But I can’t give up, you know? My co-workers started boot camp several months ago in no better shape than I am in, and now they can crank those modified push-ups out and I bet one of these days they’ll be doing full push-ups! As for me, although my legs are pretty strong, my core is weak. Coach suggested doing planks on my non-boot-camp days to work on those muscles.

I’m doing multiple things that make me uncomfortable at this point in my journey; in some ways, it’s a lot like the very beginning. I’m pretty stressed out, anxious, and self-doubting at times as I take on a new exercise regimen (with other people, no less), give up an old crutch (diet soda), and look ahead to making even more nutritional changes. I just have to remember that this tangle of emotions is part of making changes, and that things have a way of becoming “comfortable” again if you just stick with the changes for long enough.

• Eggs and egg whites (try them in a scramble or omelet with veggies)
• Try a good breakfast cereal high in protein and dietary fiber, such as Kashi Go Lean.
• Make a low-cal smoothie with a scoop of cottage cheese, some frozen berries, a little milk or soy milk, a dash of vanilla and sweetener of some sort, and a scoop of protein powder if you want more boost. Blend with ice and drink it down, or take it to work and drink it after you arrive.
• Whey protein shakes
• Greek yogurt
• Turkey and chicken (grill a family pack all at once and then eat throughout the week in salads, pasta, quesadillas, etc.)
• For sandwich eaters: Substitute additional meat in place of cheese, and try eating sandwiches open-faced (with one piece of bread rather than two)
• Try eating 1/4 cup of oil- and salt-free nuts as a snack.
• Try a protein bar such as Premiere Nutrition protein bars (30g protein), Pro-Max, or a Zone bar. Many of these are available at Costco or Target.
• Roll sliced turkey around a pickle spear, cut into slices, and take to work as a snack.
• Smear some peanut butter on celery.
• Use low-fat ground beef or turkey and mix up to half with chopped vegetables to make a meatloaf.
• Buy frozen chicken sausages at Costco or Sam’s Club (13 gr protein and 100 calories), split open and brown without oil in a pan—then slice and eat with mustard.
• Cook a turkey burger (add a big scoop of salsa to the meat for flavor and moisture) and eat on a bed of salad greens with a soy peanut dressing.
• For dessert try 3 or 4 dried apricots each with a whole almond on top. Tastes a bit like an oatmeal cookie without the subsequent cravings from eating sugar.
• For another dessert option, take some cottage cheese and mix in a bit of unsweetened cocoa and some Splenda (or the artificial sweetener of your choice).

Special thanks go out to Anonymous Fat Girl, Babbalou, Carla, Heather, Hot Mother, and Quix for these suggestions!

The difference wasn’t statistically significant—a difference of just a few points—but I felt absolutely gutted. Like one very important motivator for my weight-loss journey (my health) wasn’t immediately getting whipped into shape, and that meant that my whole effort was a big fat failure. Suddenly the 23 lbs I’d lost seemed like a hollow victory. I went to bed with a heavy, disappointed heart Friday night. I felt like the reason my cholesterol hadn’t changed for the better must be the fact that I still eat lots of refined foods with long ingredient lists.

Saturday I was up and fighting again, determined to eat only whole foods and make all my meals from scratch at home and be the saintly picture of good eating habits. I decided I would actually cook something instead of microwaving a dinner. I purchased an armload of fresh local vegetables at the farmer’s market and M and I set about chopping them up. I’m not sure why I chose Butternut Squash Soup as my recipe . . . I guess because it always sounds so good when other people talk about it. But I am the girl who doesn’t even like pumpkin pie because of the texture, so evidently I was living on Planet Delusion, thinking somehow this pumpkin-family soup would totally not be the same. Basically, the soup came out more like my idea of baby food. Even M couldn’t eat more than a few bites, although he struggled valiantly. My virtuous experiment was a virtuous fail. I went to bed Saturday night feeling, if possible, even worse than I did Friday night.

Sunday I woke up and took a good look around. It was drizzling outside, and we had grocery shopping at Wal-Mart to do. The cold glare of reality was upon me.

I really dislike failing at things. I do believe that the physically healthiest diet is one of whole foods and lots of vegetables. That being said, when I started this whole weight-loss shebang, I told myself I was going to totally abandon rules about what I had to eat, as long as I got used to eating less, period.

Here is what a typical work day’s food looked like before I enacted my plan: Oatmeal or cereal at home; king-size candy bar mid-morning plus maybe a few mini-candies; Lean Pocket lunch; king-size candy bar mid-afternoon; ordering in a large Mexican meal for dinner; cupcake or candy for desert.

And here’s a typical work day while sticking to my calorie budget: Oatmeal or omelet with banana at home; apple and Fiber One bar mid-morning; Lean Pocket lunch; Kashi crackers and 1 oz cheese, pineapple mid-afternoon; Lean Cuisine personal pizza dinner; Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich desert.

I’m not entirely ignorant on the subject of nutrition; I realize that there is a lot to criticize in my “weight loss” eating pattern. That being said, I have actually been able to stick to this general plan. For almost three months. That is almost unheard-of for me. I still have a lot of weight (almost 60 lbs) to lose, which may in itself be what it takes to bring my cholesterol down.

I do feel certain I need to improve my food plan. However, I have to start where I am, as they say. For me, cooking an omelet is a big deal that I am proud of. I am no Betty Crocker, or even Hungry Girl! But I am willing to start moving toward more whole foods, to gradually eliminate some of the super-processed foods I eat. I am going to try making one new recipe a week at home—and no, Butternut Squash Soup is not on the list! I still purchased some of my usual low-calorie “favorites” at the grocery store yesterday, but I also picked up a new whole-grain Healthy Choice meal with a much shorter ingredients list and I snagged some hummus. At the farmer’s market on Saturday, we also bought farm-fresh eggs, baby spinach, and tangerines—all of which are on today’s menu.

I am imperfect. Can I be okay with that? I have to be. If I’m not, I won’t be in this weight-loss (and eventually maintenance) journey for the long haul.

I won’t let that happen, this time around. I have a Thanksgiving plan:

1. Keep physical activity and fitness in the forefront of my mind. In fact, I’m going to double up on workouts a few days this week. Normally I either ride my bike to work or do a lunchtime elliptical workout on work days; weather permitting, I’ll be doing both activities on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I’ll be taking Thanksgiving off from working out, and on Friday and Saturday my boyfriend and I will hit the gym together.

2. I will eat a normal breakfast on Thanksgiving Day, and I will eat whatever I want (without counting calories) for Thanksgiving dinner and dessert.

3. Unlike last year, I will not be bringing a plethora of leftovers home (my boyfriend and I will be enjoying the holiday meal at my grandmother’s house). The only exception might be pumpkin pie, which he likes and I do not (it’s a texture thing).

4. I will go right back to sticking to my usual calorie budget (1700/day) on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We have a second Thanksgiving dinner to attend that day, but I will be counting calories and tracking all my food, so I’ll stick to budget-friendly foods.

Do you have a Thanksgiving plan? Share in the comments!

In terms of my plan, I don’t see myself making any big adjustments until perhaps after the holidays, unless my weight plateaus. At the same time, I am reading and information-gathering about weight lifting and about eating in such a way that would optimize muscle growth, because long-term, I do believe my eating habits will need some changes for me to be a successful loser and maintainer. As I lose weight, I do not want to eventually be required to live on 1200 calories per day forever, or even 1400 calories. Nor do I want be constantly required to up my cardio time to burn the same amount of calories as my body becomes more efficient with those movements. And if I play this game strictly by the lady-mag cut-calories rule, I could see things coming down to that. I could also see myself being a thin person who is still kind of flabby, despite being at a “healthy weight.”

I’m reading The New Rules of Lifting for Women, and although I don’t know if I will have the confidence to do its strength workouts by myself off the bat, I do see myself heading in that general direction in 2010. Perhaps I’ll shell out the bucks for a personal trainer to get me started; in this case it would probably be worth it.

In terms of eating more healthfully with an eye toward muscle-building, I think I will need to eat more protein than I have been. SparkPeople breaks down my macronutrient ratios (fat/carbs/protein) for me in its reports, and I consistently come in on the very low end of the advised protein range—whereas my carbs are often a little higher than the high end of the recommended range. So yes, my eating is somewhat out of balance.

I have been making small changes to begin remedying this issue. For one thing, I am having omelets for breakfast several days per week now. This is something that came about when I got a bit bored with my food about a month into my program and my boyfriend and I figured out that, actually, making omelets isn’t too hard! I notice that on the days I have omelets for breakfast, I tend to be less hungry/have fewer cravings mid-morning. And obviously, my macronutrient ratio is a little more balanced, because I’m getting extra protein from the eggs.

I think I will use the next month and a half or so as time to experiment gently with adding more protein and some veggies into my regular meal plans. I don’t want to shock my system (psychologically if not physically), but I do want to keep improving what I’m doing at a rate I can handle.