What I am starting to figure out is that to sustain a healthy weight and a very healthy eating lifestyle that lowers my risk for disease and keeps the inevitable aging process more "graceful" is that I must make a few essential permanent changes:
1) PREMEASURE & PREPLAN: I must be very mindful about portions and mindless snacking. No more just grabbing a jar of raw pecans and nibbling for 30 minutes straight while reading or watching tv. Probably eaten 1 cup of nuts per night this way! PRECOUNT the nuts and lay them out in advance and put away the jar. PREMEASURE the milk I add to my teas and coffees; PREMEASURE the blueberries. PREPLAN the wine and drink only 5 oz. And as for dark chocolate, when I get to phase III when I am allowed to resume requiting my love affair with the silky substance, I must PREMEASURE my 1/2 oz and not just keep breaking squares off my Scharffenberger Dark bar. I am so GUILTY as charged with unconscious snacking.
2) FOCUS ON THE FOOD choices: The types and ratios of food that I have been eating for many years are very much in line with what Keri Glassman advocates in The O2 Diet. I have just been eating them in larger quantities and without full awareness of ORAC points. I am getting pretty dang good at memorizing the high ORAC value foods, so that it is very easy for me to hit the 30,000 ORAC points she recommends. If I eat a Granny Smith apple and a cup of berries every day and include 1 tsp of cinnamon sprinkled on my apple, coffee, berries and oat bran, nibble on pecans and walnuts for snacks and focus on artichokes, broccoli, red cabbage, asparagus, red bell peppers sprinkled with oregano and other herbs and spices as daily staple vegetables and the requisite 2 cups of green tea, I'm GOLDEN!
3) DRINK THE WATER with lemon juice as often as possible. At first it was really hard for me to get in those 8 glasses of lemon water in per day. I think I have discovered a system: I drink I glass of water with lemon with my vitamins and iron when I very first get up. I fill a 24 oz water bottle and squeeze 1 lemon into it (the most tart ratio I can tolerate) and drink that before lunch. I do it again after lunch and drink it before dinnertime. Then when I go to bed, I drink one last cup with my nighttime vitamins. This way, I am not saving it all for evening and disrupting my sleep with multiple trips to the potty.
4) Daily log of intake and self care. So far, I have failed miserably at this. Instead I have devoted that time to blogging, buying and prepping the food and developing routines that are easy to implement. But I can see that without logging my intake in the future I could veer way off course and return to my old ways. But I HATE BEING so anal and rule bound. I prefer taking a lighter albeit CONSCIOUS approach with these things.
Next time I'll chat about the easy routines and tricks I have devised for my new eating lifestyle. If anyone on the planet is reading this and living "The O2 Life", please feel free to comment and leave your tips for easy and delicious ways to stay on track!
PS in phase II I have noticed my HQ is more often at 5 (not hungry or full) than 6 (slightly hungry). MUCH better! I still hit that 6 point about an hour before each snack and meal, but at least I don't feel that way 90% of the time! My hopes are that in phase III I can stay close to 5 HQ most of the time.
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