#DigestDiet Phase 1 Thoughts and Challenges

Today is my last day of Phase 1.  I’ll wait to post weight loss until I complete each phase but I’m liking my scale a little better. 🙂  Let me share what I’ve been doing in terms of food and exercise the last three days.

Phase 1 Foods

After gathering all the ingredients for the fat release shake on day 1, it was time to make the shake.  Believe me I was pretty inefficent and used too many utensils.  But the end result was pretty good.  After three days, I have the shake recipe memorized and am much quicker at whipping it up.

I’ve enjoyed trying different fruit/fat/flavoring combinations.  I think so far my favorite combination uses banana, peanut butter and cocoa powder.  Yumm!

For dinner I’ve made two different soup recipes.  The first one was the Hearty Mexican Chicken Soup.  My husband loved it as much as me.  He just requested I cut the squash into smaller pieces next time.

Remember the Swiss Chard I bought for the first time?  It went into the Lemony Lentil & Chard soup I made yesterday.  I loved it!  It was filling and very tasty.  Unfortunately, my husband didn’t like it and ended up eating something else.  He’s just not used to meatless meals.  I think he’ll like the next stage better.

The snacks I’ve had so far have been great!  I would never think of some of the combinations but they’re tasty, filling and even a little fun like these stuffed celery sticks.

Digest Diet Challenges

I was pretty surprised I wasn’t hungry the first day of the plan.  Usually, I’m starving for days on a new plan as my stomach adjusts to less food.  The combination of ingredients really work to keep you filled.  It’s also important to space your meals/snacks about 4 hours apart.

Having said that, there was one time I was very hungry.  For some reason Friday night I was “starving” and extra water didn’t’ do the trick and I was too lazy to make the Digest salad dressing and have a salad.  No, the leftover pizza in the refrigerator was calling my name…. and I answered by eating two pieces!  That’s been my only misstep.

Due to my piriformis injury I’ve not been able to do the recommended exercise.  The good news is that I’m getting some physical activity with the physical therapy exercises and I’m now allowed to walk 15 minutes each day.

The hardest part for me so far is, believe or not, the cooking.  I had given up a lot of cooking since we became empty nesters and even when I cooked it wasn’t as healthy so I wasn’t doing so much chopping of fresh vegetables.  I’m starting to get used to it though so we’ll see how I feel about it in a week or two.

Good Surprises

I thought I would miss my second cup of coffee in the morning but it really hasn’t made a difference.  I guess it was more a habit than needing that caffeine.

Maybe it’s a coincidence but I also feel like I have more energy.  Cutting off my use of artificial sweeteners has let me really taste the fruit and coffee.  I just use one teaspoon of honey in my coffee instead of two packs of sweetener.

Today we’ll go out and shop for the Fade Away phase foods.  Once again, I’m using the handy shopping list on the Reader’s Digest website.  Let me know if you have any questions.  How are you doing on your weight loss efforts?

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