Hi Asscherhalo!
I'm a newb to the boards, but I just stumbled across your thread and read the whole thing. I'm so happy for you and your DH and for all your progress! Sounds like you've hit a very small stumbling block, but I'm sure you'll be dropping the weight again in no time, especially now that you have more mental energy.
I come from a very obese family on both sides, but have managed to maintain a slender weight til now by reading up a LOT on how to modify my eating habits and pushing myself a LOT to learn how to work out (and to actually leave my warm bed to go DO it!)
And I have a good idea that it's NOT a magical metabolism or my relative youth that's keeping me thin. I went to Europe for a month a few years ago (ONE month, mind you!) and was not able to maintain my normal eating and working out habits because I was backpacking constantly. Well, despite the constant walking, I managed to gain 20% of my original bodyweight. IN ONE MONTH! SO, I realized that no, I don't have a magical metabolism, it really is the way I eat and the things I do with my body that help keep my weight down.
I know everyone's different, but I want to share what *I* do in the hopes that any of it helps you at ALL.
NUTRITION:
The nutrition side of health is obviously more passive than the fitness side, so it's the one people usually try to change first. It takes the least amount of active energy (energy which, like you say, can be hard to come by after working two jobs, dealing with all of life's hardships, etc.)
Step 1 (easiest): is getting on a preplanned, regimented weight loss system like you and your DH did. Those systems are GREAT first steps! Their value is mostly in getting you started as easily as possible, getting you to a point where you see results, getting you to a point where you get EXCITED and want to/can give more energy to the weight-loss adventure.
Step 2: While still using the structure and ease of the Step 1 meal plan, beginning to branch out and teach yourself about nutrition and superfoods and proactively preparing foods in advance for those "sudden hunger" moments, or for when you get hungry and are just feeling too tired or lazy to go through meal preparation. I see that you have definitely moved into this stage and are really comfortable here. You gave up Diet Cola - CONGRATS!
This is seriously such a great place to be, because it shows that you are seeing results, that you're excited by those results, and that you're finding the time and energy to be even more proactive. Many people are never able to reach this place, so it is a huge accomplishment on your part!
Here are my favorite "recipes" for this step:
Tuna Fish Salad:
Canned tuna
Mayo (full fat, nothing "lite"! Those are usually worse for you
)
Relish
Hardboiled eggs (diced up very small)
On Sunday, mix up a HUGE tupperware of this stuff (proportions to your taste) and it's a great meal OR snack, depending on what you want to pair it with. It is super packed with protein, yummy, savory, creamy, very satisfying. I try to mostly eat it with celery stalks (I have ALWAYS hated greens. Challenged myself to take one bite of celery a day until I got acclimated, then started putting stuff I like on it - tuna salad or peanut butter, etc)
I prepared the celery stalks ahead of time: snap off and rinse, cut into 3-4 in bars, fill a bowl/tupperware with cold water, plop celery in, place into fridge!
Protein Salad:
Chicken breasts or tenders, rinsed, sliced into large-ish bite-sized pieces, cooked in pan
Canned black beans
Fresh baby spinach (I HATE spinach, but you honestly can NOT taste it under all the hot sauce and cheese!)
Block of cheddar
Paleo Hot Sauce (Frank's Red Hot, or something similarly natural)
This is seriously so easy to prepare. You cook ALL the chicken ahead of time and store in a tupperware. Open 1 or 2 HUGE cans of black beans, store in tupperware. Then, all there is to do when you're hungry (or when you're preparing your lunch in the morning) is:
-grab a huge mound of fresh spinach (it cooks down, so you can use a LOT)
-throw some black beans on there
-throw some cooked chicken on there
-grate some cheese over it (I started out with a ton of cheese and then slowly eased off on it once I got used to the slight taste of the spinach)
-douse with hot sauce. VOILA! Put a lid on that thing to microwave later, or pop in the microwave until the cheese is melted for an amazingly healthy take on a Buffalo Panini (Seriously, I modified this recipe over a year or two from my all-time favorite eating out sandwich, the Buffalo Panini. I slowly made it healthier and healthier)
It's super filling, super protein packed, and also super satisfying, because the cheese and the hot sauce hit all those flavor receptors that release dopamine into your system.
Protein Pancakes
2 eggs
1 banana
throw in bullet or bender (but seriously, a bullet is SUCH a great investment for healthy eating and it allows you to make single portion "healthy things" in like 92 nanoseconds.)
spray pan with coconut oil and go to town.
Now these CAN be a little bland for people who like flavor (like me) so you can add whatever your tastebuds prefer. I LOVE the flavor of hot blueberries (My biggest down fall when I weighed the most - 30% more than I do now - was blueberry muffins. I had at least one every day back then) so I throw a ton of blueberries into the pancakes while the first side is firming up and by the time both sides are done, the blueberries are starting to burst. Yummy.
And, TBH, I totally eat these with maple syrup. When I'm just trying to turn a meal into a staple, I give myself cheats. Once it becomes part of your life, THEN I start modifying for even better health. (I'll probably move to agave nectar soon)
Options: Protein powder
Cinnamon
Other berries,
Very thin-sliced sweet apples
cocoa powder
--CHIA seeds--??? lol That would be an interesting texture, but you seem to like them!
Teriyaki Chicken:
-Same prepared and cooked chicken as Protein Salad
-Gluten-free teriyaki sauce
-Quinoa
If you like breaded chicken, there's even a way of faking that texture/flavor with almond flour and flaxseed meal + seasoning and frying in a pan sprayed with coconut oil.
I, too, love Kale chips! And I always keep my house stocked with:
-- Almond/Coconut Milk(I think the brand is Almond Breeze... 60 calories?)
-- A "healthy" sweet, like KIND Bars Peanut and Dark Chocolate (healthier take on Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, another weakness of mine
)
-- Homemade mixture of cashews, almonds, dried fruit, dark chocolate, hazelnuts, etc. (I don't like walnuts, and we as Americans get enough peanuts in our other foods that we don't need them in our trailmix - plus, they are not really nuts, they're legumes)
Basically, I try to eat gluten as little as possible. This is NOT to say that I don't eat a couple of pieces of pizza if my roommate orders a pizza one night, or I don't grab something at Wendy's here and there. I definitely do! But for my day to day, I try to eat super healthy 80%.
(The reason I focused on cutting out gluten is that I realized that was the main change in my diet in Europe. I ate sandwiches that were 90% white bread and 10% meat/toppings --b/c that's the way they make sandwiches over there. And I drank beer. So. Much. Beer. Ahem, excuse me, I was in Brugges, and Amsterdam, and Koln! I tried to never NOT have a beer in my hand, basically. I actually caught myself sightseeing in a church once with a BEER in my hand! I meekly carried it back to the front door and set it outside, but I still to this day am unsure as to if that was actually bad. Europeans bring their beer EVERYWHERE! Anyways, I realized that it wasn't until my diet went from very little gluten to TONS of gluten that I ballooned up - EVEN WHEN I WAS WALKING ALL DAY EVERY DAY! So the gluten had to go
)
Portion size is easy. Use smaller plates. Honest to goodness, it really helps! I have these oblong plates that are about half the size of normal plates and I can fit about 2 eggs and 2 slices of bacon on there. That's it. After I eat that and drink my protein shake, I'm so super full.
So most days, I try to eat a TON of eggs (protein is very filling, and eggs are very lean - eggs are also one of the longest/slowest burning proteins, so its very good to eat them the night after you work out because that protein stays available to your recovering muscles all night and into the morning/ until you get more during breakfast), and whatever meat I'm having with the eggs -usually bacon (w fried eggs) or andouille sausage, cubed (mixed in w scrambled eggs)- then have a protein shake (1 banana, 2 tblsp PB, fill to top of cubed banana with soy/coco milk, 1 serving protein powder)
As you can see, I need to work on getting a LOT more veges. My diet probably has far too much sugar in it from all the fruit, and not nearly enough green goodness, but everyone's diet is a work in progress! But it helps me maintain a nice weight.
Things I (mostly) don't eat:
Bread
Pasta
Rice
Any grain that contains gluten
Milk (used to eat a high fiber cereal every morning, LOVED - and I think was mildly addicted to - Milk. SO MUCH SUGAR IN MILK!)
Cheese (WILL eat it here and there, but mostly eliminated)
Yogurt (Love it and used to eat it a ton, but realized it was a weight gainer for me)
Bread was really hard to let go of because I loved toast. I loved bread with PB, with tuna salad, as a PB&J, with BBQ, with apple butter, etc, etc, etc, etc But I just reduced slowly. Instead of a sandwich and two pieces of toast every day, only a 1/2 sandwich and one piece of toast. In my experience, if I want a change to STICK, I have to make the change incrementally or I'll develop some weird sort of reverse psychology and obsess over the thing I'm trying to cut out. (or if I'm trying to introduce something INTO my diet, and I try to force it on myself, I'll just hate it even more, you know what I'm sayin')
FITNESS:
I think you've figured this one out on your own! (Not that you haven't figured out nutrition - but who doesn't love new, easy recipes???)
I remember not knowing one darned thing about how to lift weights/use the machines/ run on a treadmill (I always fall on those, to this day. I think it's connected in some way to my propensity for motion sickness). I was in college and my new roommate was a gym nut and invited me to go to the gym with her. I wound up just following her around and literally writing down everything she did and having her explain her movements/breathing to me. I swear, for the next MONTH after that, I just went to those exact machines and did those exact workouts b/c I KNEW I was doing it right! I didn't have to worry that I was using a machine wrong, or that I'd look stupid standing there next to a machine, squinting at the stupid diagram, trying to figure out why the chest muscles were highlighted red and how that had anything to do with the contraption before me. You at least had the help of some personal training! That helps greatly with the intimidation factor, if you can afford it.
Even now, Ive been working out on and off for YEARS, and I still go read fitness blogs that outline good routines, and I'll search each of the exercises on youtube and watch videos of the motion, and even write it down on the sheet of paper I take with me to the gym. And I'll bring that sheet of paper with me for the next 3 or 4 gym visits until I get used to the routine enough that I can remember it on my own. In that way, I've slowly gained confidence at gyms, but the process always starts over a little at a new gym. The machines are different, things are in the wrong place, etc. I just switched gyms and am experiencing this right now. I find myself just walking around, squinting at diagrams again, pulling at knobs and pressing on pedals to see if I can adjust a seat here or a pivot point there.
Mostly, something I started doing a few years ago that really helped me lose the Europe backpacking weight was to ration my eating for the day around my workout. I'd save 60% of my calories for after my evening workout (I worked 7am-7pm at the time, so worked out at 7:15 4 times a week) So my daily eating would go something like:
Morning meal: 20% daily calories
Lunch: 15% daily calories
1 hour pre-workout 10%
Dinner 55%
Saving most of your calories for right after a workout means you'll get more out of the workout and also get more out of the food you just ate (more likely to get used repairing muscle or burned because of a revved metabolism than it is to get stored) If you work out after work, it's also really satisfying to get to end that day with that full, happy feeling (and it helps me get to sleep! I can't sleep on an empty stomach)
Sorry about the NOVEL
But can you tell I'm super passionate about health and fitness? And stories like yours get me so excited. I love seeing your before and after pictures - we need MORE! How do you feel you're going to do with winter approaching? If you need extra motivation, be sure to read inspirational blogs, or listen to audiobooks on clean eating, little things like that to keep you focused on your goals!
