Shangri-La Diet Week 1 Recap

Or, progress has not been made

My before picture. Ha! Can you find me? I find that a good trick to looking thin is to stand next to something as big as a house

My first week on the The Shangri-La Diet has been interesting. The good news is that it hasn’t been nearly as difficult as I thought it might be to swallow the oil. I did have some gastric distress early on, but it went away after the first 3 or 4 days. I feel good, lots of energy and pretty much my normal self. There has been some appetite suppression off and on although truth be told it’s probably within the range of normal for me and I have developed an aversion to meat. I’m wondering if it’s because I’m getting all the fat I need from oil? I can eat seafood and a little chicken but I don’t feel like pork or beef at all.

If you’re super interested in the day to day details, you can read my IHMMB thread.

Weight Loss Week One: NO

As you can see from this chart, I actually gained 1.2 lbs the first week! I’m not alarmed, it’s well within my normal range of weights. I speculate that it will take me longer to see results as my BMI is within the healthy range . One of the reasons I am participating in this diet is to see if it works for people with relatively small amounts to lose who are not considered overweight. My goal is 140 lbs, I spent my 20s in the 120s and while I doubt I’d ever get back to that weight, I would like to be a bit trimmer and feel more like myself again. I also want to stop this gaining trend as we have a strong history of diabetes and heart disease in my family.

Here's my real before picture. Ha! Do you love my jammies? I have a big fat scab on my nose that is quite ugly, so this is as good as it will get this week.

This week, I read Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think and it gave me some great hints on why I might have gained so much weight in the past 7 years and what I can do to eat more of the right foods and less of the not so great ones. If you have kids, I recommend you pick up this book because it gives ideas on how to do the same for your kids.

One huge thing the Shangri-La Diet made me realize was just how much hidden snacking I do. I always thought that I wasn’t much of a snacker, but those 2 hour flavor free windows sure proved me wrong! I don’t know how many times I had to stop myself from picking up something from the kid’s snack tray or eating part of their lunches. As Mindless Eating showed me, even 100 extra calories (a few crackers, a spoonful of mac and cheese straight from the pot, that 1/4 of a sandwich) can add up to several pounds over the course of a year. It takes 3500 calories to add a pound, eat an extra 100 a day and you’re putting on a pound every 5 weeks!

Luckily it works the other way, too and it seems that most of us wouldn’t noticed eating 100-200 fewer calories a day. Losing a pound every 5 weeks seems impossibly slow, but if you combine that with developing better habits that will last a lifetime, it seems like the way to go!

By the way, I found this new canola oil in the grocery today. It has 20% of your RDA of DHA per serving. I am going to put it in rotation with the ELOO and Walnut Oil.

Goals this week:

Eat more vegetables. Looking at my daily eating records, I’m not eating enough.
Incorporate more fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt to help with digestion and my immune system.
Continue exercising. Right now, most of my exercising comes from walking. Warmer weather has arrived and I am walking both boys to school as often as possible. I need to incorporate some toning exercises and continue to up my activity level.

How is everyone else doing? What are your goals this week? Any questions about my experience?