Simply Successful!

I am tired! I was busy at work, and I had a college student shadowing me. She is a patient of mine, going into her Junior year of college, and considering optometry. It is so weird to realize that I am old enough to have a college student following me around! This is the 2nd patient I've had shadow me, and I am happy to do it, but it makes me feel like I'm performing even more than I usually do, so it's exhausting.

Today was my first day doing Simply Filling, and I loved it! For breakfast I had unfrosted Mini-Wheats with skim milk and a banana...I was SO happy to have a bowl of cereal after a month of eggs and leftover meat for breakfast! I also had an iced coffee with skim milk. For lunch I had turkey on light multi-grain bread with tomato. Instead of mustard or fat-free mayo, I spread some fat-free chipotle ranch dressing on it...delicious! I also had some cherries and a few bites of peach (I never got the chance to finish my peach...I was that busy!) For dinner I made multi-grain shell pasta and topped it with sauce I made by browning ground beef with mushrooms and garlic, and adding canned tomato sauce to it. Jarred sauce is not ok on SF because it has...SUGAR!!! I will probably have some grapes later. After my first bowl of pasta I wanted more (it had been a LOOONG time since I'd had pasta.) The one thing about SF that makes me nervous is the idea of eating "until you're satisfied." Ummm, if I could do that, would I have a weight problem??? I took a little more and, about half-way through, I realized that I was starting to feel a little bit full. Instead of just finishing what was there, I put it back in the pot with the rest. Now I have lunch for tomorrow. Go me.

I definitely feel like my experience with W30 has made the transition to SF pretty easy. I am used to (and very good at) reading labels, and I do not have a problem eliminating processed foods and sugar (artificial sweeteners are allowed on SF, but I am choosing to limit those as much as possible.) I've also decided to stay away from things like fat-free cheese, fat-free mayo, etc. I did buy a fat-free salad dressing, mainly because SF limits olive oil to 2 tsps a day (anything over that has to be counted.) I would prefer to save my 2 tsps for cooking, like I did tonight to brown the ground beef. One reason that I am avoiding fat-free cheese is that I have not found organic fat-free cheese...I'm not even sure that it exists. I also don't particularly like fat-free cheese (for example, I could've had fat-free ricotta with my pasta tonight, but I HATE fat-free ricotta!) I have also read that many fat-free products have a lot of added sugar to give them more taste. Why avoid fat and overdose on sugar? Makes no sense.

The whole low-fat thing is the one issue I'm wrestling with after doing almost two W30's. On the W30 you are encouraged to eat healthy fats, like olives, olive oil, avocado, nuts, etc. Aside from 2 tsps of olive oil, none of the things I just mentioned are "free" on SF. During a W30 if you are hungry, you are told to make sure that you've eaten enough fat. I'm having a hard time deciding what I believe and what I want to do. I think that I may end up adding some avocado or olives to a salad or sandwich, etc., perhaps once a day. I'm not sure. The only time I felt hungry today was at the end of my work day which was at 7pm, and I was ready for dinner. Overall this seems like a very doable plan for me, and the perfect transition from W30 back to a more long-term sustainable way of eating.