Its one day before the first day of the last week of the six week challenge… Did you follow that? I’ve been following the Eat to Live 6 week program for the last 5 weeks and I’ve decided that after week six I’m going to start the six weeks over again but this time without soda and with a work out routine.

So far I’ve lost 22 lbs – tomorrow that should change to 23 or 24 lbs lost. The number of pounds lost in the sidebar are from 308 lbs – which I weighed when I started this blog a few years ago.

I need to drop another 3 lbs to match my lowest weight while training for a marathon. But to be far, I was only at 263 for a day or so… I’d like to see the 250′s soon, but I don’t want to rush it.

Not bad… I feel like I’m slowing down and the diet is getting a little tired…

I had a lot of salt this week – I plan to be a bit more strict going into next week. I’m half way through the first 6 weeks of this program. In the next three weeks I plan to phase out soda.

For the last three weeks, I’ve been following the “Eat to Live” program. It’s not been too difficult; I’ve not felt starved or even hungry and I have lost weight. I’m not saying its been a breeze or that I haven’t had cravings (mostly for salt), but I don’t feel like there are a lot of rules and there isn’t any calorie counting.

Last night I experience something new – completely different than any other diet program I’ve been on. It started when I made a soup for dinner – I made it from split peas and a few other assorted beans along with onions, cucumbers, spinach, garlic and carrot juice. Even after three weeks of not eating high sodium food or adding salt to my meals, I felt like the soup needed salt, but that’s not new.

While I was eating the soup, I felt like it was just ok. But after I finished my bowl and sat for a while, it happened. I found myself thinking about how good it was. I don’t mean I felt good about my healthy meal. The longer I sat there the more fondly I thought of the meal.

I don’t feel like I’m able to articulate exactly what I mean here. It might help to contrast with my prior eating experiences. In the past, when I’ve had a slice of pizza or a doughnut, I’ve enjoyed the meal while I was eating it. The taste of a warm glazed doughnut was awesome while I was eating it. But afterward, I have often felt remorse for my food choice and even the memory of the taste of it was bad.

This was an almost exact opposite reaction. I ate a meal that was just ok, but afterward I found myself thinking about how good it was; complete satisfaction, not remorse or regret. And as I look back over the last several weeks, I realize that I’ve had this same reaction to almost every meal. A salad that wasn’t bad at the time is remembered as amazing later.

This has huge implications for me. Let me explain; in all animal behavior there is tendency to herd. In humans, herding is a basic concept where you make decisions based on what the crowd is doing, like getting in a long line based on the idea that if it has a long line, there must be something good at the other end.

In Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational, he introduces the concept of self herding (p39). Self herding is described as getting in line behind yourself – making decisions based on the fact that you have made that same decision before and if you have made that decision several times before, there isn’t a lot of thought required in making that same decision again. I’ve written about before (Starting a New Routine – Trying Not To Get Inline Behind Myself)

I don’t believe my “decision” to eat pizza and doughnuts was based on this self herding behavior – at least not in years. At first maybe it was, but I believe salt, sugar, and fat are addictive and making the decision to eat foods high in one or more of the three but are also low in nutrition was an addiction more than a food choice.

My point is that if I am without effort on my part, remembering my meals as amazing and delicious even if they were only so/so – then it might be easier to see the “line” of me making good health choices growing longer and longer and to follow the herd…

I was hoping to be in the 260′s but its difficult to be upset about a 5 pound weight loss.

I know this is a weight loss blog – but I need to take a quick moment to say – please please please call your sentators to have PIPA voted down!!! Here is more information:

http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/help-stop-sopa-pipa/

This Sunday will be week two. My second weigh in. Last week I lost 13 lbs – which sounds like amazing biggest loser style weight loss, but I know it was mostly (if not entirely) water weight.

This week I shouldn’t be able to say that, so if I lose a lot of weight, its likely “real” weight loss. My problem is – what is a lot of weight? And what if I don’t? If I lose two pounds, I know I should be happy… but I know I won’t be.

I don’t know what I want to see on that scale. Currently I weight 275 lbs – according to last weeks weigh in. If I weigh in at 270 lbs – that would be a 5 lb loss, but would I be happy? If I lose 10 lbs I would be at 265 lbs – would that be a good number?

I just don’t want to be discouraged. Eat to Live is a great program – at least, I think it is. I guess Sunday I will find out if it measures up to the scale…

Ok – I’m almost two weeks in to the “6 week challenge” of the Eat to Live program. My first post (Linked Here) wasn’t really about Eat to Live specifically but close enough that I consider this part two.

For those that haven’t heard of the book – its a vegan-like dietary plan. I say vegan-like because the author (Dr Joel Fuhrman) doesn’t go so far as to say never eat animal or animal by-products but he does say not to eat processed foods. So a vegan may be ok with eating soup from a can or a frozen dinner that isn’t made with animals or animal by-products but Dr Fuhrman would not be.

You can google (or bing) “Eat to Live in a nutshell” to get every other bloggers summation of the program, so I’m not going to add mine. I suggest you actually pick up a copy of the book or if you have a long commute to work like I do, get the audio book from audible.com.

I have lost some weight (mostly water weight). When people ask what I’m going, I explain the plant based whole foods diet and they always ask if I’m hungry all the time. I’m not. I actually really enjoy the food and I’m never left hungry.

I’m not suggesting this is an easy diet necessarily. My biggest challenges are not with the food but the restrictions. I like salad. I like bean soups. BUT I also like pizza and cake and ice cream!

Anyway – I’ll keep you posted…

First week after changing my dietary habits and I’ve lost 12 lbs! I’m sure its water weight…