Sunday, February 12, 2012

Young Mothers

Sister Hinckley has said this about motherhood:

“It is the mothers of young children I would like to address first. These are golden years for you. These are years when you will probably do the most important work of your lives. Don’t wish away your years of caring for small children. Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans. This is a time of great opportunity for you to build the kingdom. When you teach children to love their Heavenly Father, you have done one of the greatest things you will ever do. If you can be a full-time homemaker, be grateful. If not, you must do what is best for you. I for one have never felt a need to apologize for my role as a full-time homemaker.

“These are busy, busy days for you. I have seen women in all kinds of circumstances—Chinese women working on road repairs, European women working in the fields, Asian women sweeping streets—but it is my opinion that … Mormon women are among the hardest working women in the world. They plant gardens and they bottle the produce; they sew and bargain shop. They go on the heart fund drive. They take dinners to new mothers and the sick in their neighborhoods. They take care of aged parents. They climb Mount Timpanogos with Cub Scouts, go to Little League games, sit on the piano bench while Jennie practices, do temple work, and worry about getting their journals up-to-date. My heart bursts with pride when I see them come into church on Sunday, some as early as 8:30 in the morning, their children all clean and shiny, their arms loaded with supplies, as they head for classes where they teach other women’s children. They scrub their houses with little or no domestic help and then try to be the glamour girl in their husband’s life when he arrives home at night. But remember, my dear young friends, that you are now doing the work that God intended you to do. Be grateful for the opportunity”

You win... you always do.

I didn't think it would really work, so I did it prove it wrong.
Well, I was wrong.

We bought the book entitled The 17 Day Diet. It promises you that in just 17 days, you will lose between 10-15 pounds. So we bought the e-book on our Kindle App, and went grocery shopping to buy lots of chicken, tilapia, salmon, turkey, lunch meat, yogurt (lots), eggs, and a hefty amount of fruits and vegetables. You can eat an unlimited amount of lean meats (chicken, turkey, salmon, etc.) and an unlimited amount of vegetables. You can have fruit (besides bananas) until 2pm and need to eat 2 probiotics per day--we chose yogurt. Oh, and tons of water. It's not a terrible diet. If anything, it's incredibly healthy. Here's a sample of what I would eat:

Morning: Omelet with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, red/green peppers. Yogurt. Strawberries. 100% juice.

Snack: Orange

Lunch: Spicy Grilled Chicken salad with steamed vegetables on the side and a few sprays of Wishbone Ranch. Delicious.

Snack: Carrots and cucumbers

Dinner: Grilled Salmon with lemon and dill weed served with garlic green beans and steamed carrots. And a diet Dr. Pepper.

Dessert: New and awesome Dessert Yogurt Parfait- Grasshopper (it even comes in a clear parfait cup). They're about 50cents each if you buy in bulk at Sams.

*If you're on your you-know-what, you can have 1 oz. of dark chocolate. that's almost a 1/4 cup of dark chocolate M&M's. Or dark Chocolate Dove squares.

Now I'll admit, my first 4 days made me angry. I have never taken sugar out of my diet before. Apparently I had a bit of an addiction. But after that, I was fine. And really, today it doesn't even sound good. It's also very "cleansing" with the yogurt and vegetables and water... which is an objective of the diet.

So what are my results?
Now keep in mind I'm only 5"1. I started this diet weighing 132 (which according to the book puts me about 27 pounds overweight. yeah right. I'm not 11 anymore.), I ended it 17 days later weighing 122. Yep, my pre-marriage weight. First time in 6 years.
10 pounds!!!!!!! or 8%!!

And you're probably right, it's probably all water weight or something and I'll probably gain it all back almost instantly. But... it has been 4 days since I went off the diet, and so far so good. I'm definitely being more cautious at my portions now though.
Traditionally, in this diet there are 4 phases, 17 days each. With phase 2, you slowly add in brown rice and whole grains, and so on and so forth. If you don't get to your desired weight, after completing phase 2, you go back to phase 1 and continue on your journey. You really should do all 4 phases. However, because I feel absolutely fine at where I was before, I'm only doing 1 phase. It was really just an experiment.

Oh and did I mention... there was no exercise involved? Just a strict diet! Boo-Ya!!