After a rough first day, I realized I was never going to keep this up for very long this way. I needed to change something. After all, my goal weight was 9 kg away ( well, 8,5 kg after the first day - at least that). What I was doing might be effective, but not sustainable.
My first problem was that I was eating three meals per day. While these were healthy meals made up of vegetables and low-fat meat, I wasn't starving myself and ate normal portions. However, I've always eaten more than 3 meals per day. While my "extra meals" (outside the "normal" three: breakfast, lunch dinner) consisted more of snacking than of real meals, the quantity deserved the title. It used to be due to a high metabolism, making me feel faint with low blood sugar already before the next meal. Habits are hard to beat so I continued doing this throughout the years. On top of that, I absolutely love snacking. As quitting cold turkey was much too difficult along with all the other things I quit (sugar, fat, sugary drinks), I decided I needed a replacement, a safety blanket if you will. A healthy one of course. I kept my three meals per day; breakfast, lunch and dinner, but added two allowed (healthy) snacks per day. I started out with whole grain crackers and vegetables, but soon switched to fruit as I needed a little sugary kick in the afternoon.
Second mistake I made was to watch my portion sizes. Going from an extremely unhealthy lifestyle to fruits and veggies in small portions is a bit hard to swallow. Even healthy food contains calories and as these food items were new to me, I wasn't sure which ones were the most calorific. I therefore used my phone application to determine which foods were most calorific and started eating the low-cal food in unlimited portions (I'll explain more about which types of food in a later post). You should know that I have food allergies that already limit my diet. I'm allergic to eggs, nuts, bell peppers and many fruits apples, pears, cherries, plums, the list continues). As far as the fruits go, I can eat them cooked but not raw. Strange, I know, but I figure it must be related to a protein change when you cook them. This was limiting me to some extent, especially nuts are often used in diets to calm your stomach and supply healthy fats and on top of that I wanted to use fruits to replace my sugary snacks. The point is that even I managed to keep a varied diet using this logic. If I can, anyone can.
By trying to eliminate sugar altogether, I was either skipping my coffee/tea or having it without anything. I can now drink tea or coffee without any sugar, but this is a hard habit to drop and you will need some transition time. I searched for a replacement for my sugar in my coffee and managed a little better. I'll post more on sugar replacers later as there a thousands of alternatives.
Having a small snack and a coffee in the afternoon does wonders, especially since your energy is fading under a low-cal diet, at least in the very beginning. Finally, these small tricks helped level my mood, but as I remain strongly emotionally connected to my stomach, I wasn't a peach neither. But it was bearable, at least for me. And I'm happy to say my boyfriend is still with me so I guess it was bearable for him too.
A little note to the girls; if you don't mind risking pushing him away, this could be an excellent test to see if your boyfriend is marriage material - if he can survive this, he's a keeper!
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