The bread, the scale and other things

So how is it going for weight loss, you may ask ? We have been following a nutrient dense diet with doing a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise in some form 6 days a week. Lots of fresh fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, fat free or low fat dairy and healthy oils. Other than fruits, sugars are limited to no more than 13 grams per serving and sodium is in the very low range. Sounds like a formula for success- so how is it manifesting? Nick finally broke the plateau he was stalled at, Bob has begun to lose again but my body is reading things very different. Loss stalled to about a pound or less, then gain, then stall, and gain some more. It seems that I am still losing and gaining the same 5 lbs. This has been going on for 2 years now, mainly because I keep ignoring the needs of my own body type. I drop the vigilance about starch servings and I can literally gain weight eating lettuce. I think I need to have the starch serving recommendations tattooed on my forehead !

Last week I lost 0.2 lbs and this week I gained 1.6 lbs - not a huge amount but I am taking it to be a heads up that I need to change what I am doing. While I am eating very healthy foods, I am eating too many starches for my body. This week I am going to try to drop most of these in favor of other foods. Fruits are good, veggies are good, meat and fats are good, but the starch group leads me into problems. I am not going as drastic as, say Atkins, but I do need to keep the starch servings down to less than 3 per day, and better if it can be kept to 2 and all of those must be whole grains.

It got me to wondering if there has been any serious thought about the connection between PCOS and these starch carbs. What exactly does it? So I hit Google to investigate, and was rewarded with a boatload of pages. It seems the most recent thinking is that PCOS may be a result of underlying gluten intolerance. Wow! It would make perfect sense from my experience. Perhaps if I adopt a gluten free approach to weight loss it might work. I don’t know if it would involve the hidden sources of gluten (such as that in sauces), but rather an elimination of the bigger sources would be enough? It seems that with PCOS eating whole grain, low GI (glycemic index- which means how it impacts your body as a sugar) grains and fruits with fat and protein works best (oatmeal with cottage cheese or nuts, whole grain crackers and nuts and so forth). Fruits should be eaten with protein as well- apples and peanut butter, strawberries and almonds and so forth. For many, the avoidance of fruits high on the GI index such as melons have proven to be helpful, but I don’t believe that has been a factor with me. It does merit testing out if simply cutting back grain serving does not help.

So my current menu is going to look something like this: Breakfast will be cottage cheese and fruit with a serving of granola (made with oatmeal, nuts, healthy oil and honey) or eggs with vegetables. Lunch will be a soup made with beans, meat and vegetables or a salad with meat and beans, and dinner will be meat or beans and vegetables and a starch serving of brown rice, bulgur or one of the healthier pastas. Snacks will be nonfat yogurt and fruit with granola or hardboiled egg and fruit or lunch meat with a veggie. It’s not radically different, but allows me some mental reminders for the nights when the guys really want something more carby for dinner.

So with this knowledge in hand we went grocery shopping and I added butchering to my Mount Chop Me weekly task. Big pork loins, slab of beef and assorted chicken and sausage things were converted into chops, roasts, stir fries and components for soups or casseroles. This week we got a late start due to Bob being called to sing for a funeral Saturday morning. As much as one would like to, you cannot schedule death, but rather life has to be arranged to accommodate it. We did not finish shopping till about 3 pm and once we got home I went into chopping mode. The guys helped put things away, sort through other things and we worked as a team. All the while the clock was ticking, and suddenly it was after 7 ( we normally eat at 5), chopping was not done and dinner was still about an hour off in preparation. We were all starving, so we consented to ordering one of those big round carby cheesy things with tomato sauce, sausage and veggies. It was good and necessary in this case, but I am kind of cringing at how it may affect me at next week’s weigh in. Rather than be upset by it, I am counting my blessings. We have a roof over our heads to store all this good stuff in, we have money and secure employment to finance it with (as a matter of fact Bob just got a raise and a Promotion at his 9-5 pay the bills and insurance job), we all understand why the big round thing was necessary and we have a place that makes a darned good one. I also have a whole week to follow the guidelines my own body has, so it will be a good week !