Look on the bright side…

I’ve been hear­ing from oth­er peo­ple who were on Slim­gen­ics or oth­er weight loss pro­grams and a com­mon thing I have been hear­ing is that they all quit or changed pro­grams because they were tired of hear­ing what they “could­n’t” have.

Yes, I am on a restrict­ed diet (my day con­sists of 3 pro­tein, 3 fruits, 4 veg­gies, 1 fat, 3 starch­es, 3 of their snacks, 80 oz. of water). I can only eat items that are on their approved list. (Which to be hon­est, is even more restrict­ed with Amy’s allergies).

Am I miss­ing what I can’t have? Yes! very much so. I would love to have a nice pas­ta dish, or a slice of piz­za, actu­al choco­late or even some cake. (Side note: I haven’t cheat­ed once yet!!!)

Am I tired of going some­where and find­ing out con­stant­ly what I can’t have, because its not on my list…or because I don’t know what is in it? Yes, it can be a real pain in my over­ly large (yet shrink­ing) behind.

But am I get­ting results? YES! I have dropped 30 lbs in 7.5 weeks! I can­not deny that this pro­gram IS work­ing. (And it feels like I am doing NOTHING…)

I knew going into this that I would need to give up things to get to my goal. I knew that it was going to be chal­leng­ing (which, to be hon­est, it gets eas­i­er everyday…)

I know that I will reach my goal and that all my foods I miss will be slow­ly brought back into my meal plan.

If not eat­ing them for a one year will help me lose weight and gain con­trol over my eat­ing habits…then I can wait to get them back (and get them back responsibly).

I think that is a big­ger pic­ture that these same peo­ple are miss­ing. It’s not about what you can­not have. It’s about your goal, and this is one way to get there.

It makes me won­der, did they think they were going to be able to eat all the same foods they have always eat­en and lose weight? Isn’t those same foods what got them there?

Weight loss is about chang­ing behav­iors and chang­ing eat­ing habits.  Eat­ing “smart­ly” and not just eat­ing.

Things have to change for your body to change the way you want it to. You have to look on the bright side and keep your goal in your sights…and if they can’t see that (and are only con­cerned with what they are giv­ing up), then they were not ready to lose weight in the first place and were just going through the motions.

Even though I have been lim­it­ed with my food options, Amy and I have been very cre­ative in using what we are giv­en, and mak­ing it work for us and eat­ing things we miss. Feel like Piz­za? Then we use our 1 toma­to, and spices, a slim bun, and veg­gies and some chick­en and make our own piz­zas (no cheese of course). Want a muf­fin? Then we use our pan­cake “snack” and mix in our fruit and make it into a muf­fin. Same with fudge cake.

It’s tak­ing what your giv­en and find­ing solu­tions to what you need. In oth­er words, when you’re giv­en lemons, you make lemon­ade (with splen­da), you don’t take the lemons and chuck ’em at people…

Just some Food for thought (see what I did there?)