Today’s my favorite day

“What day is it?’ asked Pooh.

“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.

“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

Natalie’s teenage daughter – beautiful, smart, friendly – “broke down” the other day, this time because she didn’t have a boyfriend. It was one of many times during the week her daughter would take the tragic outlook on a life circumstance.

Ever the patient mother, Natalie usually comforts her daughter with sympathy. This time, while her daughter was getting ready for school, Natalie stood outside the bathroom and read her the Pooh quote, which Dr. Wyatt had shared with us the week before.

Her daughter predictably rolled her eyes but, “at least she listened to me,” Natalie laughed. She has since printed it off and posted it around her house as a reminder to think positively.

“I believe so strongly in positive thinking…with it, you really can do everything you want,” Natalie said.

Maybe some of you are rolling your eyes right now, just like Natalie’s daughter. Maybe it sounds overly simplistic.

In the past, I always got frustrated when I was in a bad place and people said, “Just think positive!” It felt patronizing, like they weren’t listening, like any problem, no matter how complex, would go away if I just turned that frown upside down.

But that is not what Drs. Wyatt and Hill are talking about. Many people fail to change because of their state of mind. Almost anyone free from disability can exercise right now and make a choice to eat this over that right now; the issue is almost never the basic ability to do the task at hand. Instead, it’s the myriad of mental roadblocks.

“I’m too tired.”
“I don’t have the right shoes.”

“I can’t tolerate the way people look at me at the gym.”

“It will suck so bad if I can’t have that cookie right now.”

“I can’t find time to exercise.”

“I’m not a morning person.”

Anyone who has failed to change has said a variation of one of those negative phrases, probably hundreds of times – myself included. Just as Natalie said, if you embrace the challenge with a positive attitude, you can almost always make things go your way.

So instead of “I’m too tired” you say “I will be less tired after I work out.” Or instead of “It will suck so bad if I can’t have that cookie right now” you say “I will feel so proud of myself for not eating that cookie right now.”

The docs’ goal is to train us to realistically see the challenges in front of us but turn them in a way that makes them work for us instead of against us (what they call the Colorado Mindset).

As I mentioned earlier, this diet isn’t really about trimming our waistlines or building a six-pack. The fat itself is probably not what makes most people unhappy – it is what the fat symbolizes: lack of self-esteem, lack of strength, unhappiness, perpetual pessimism, self hatred, etc.

For those of you looking to see if we will succeed after these 16 weeks and beyond, spend less time looking at the scale and more time noticing our sunnier dispositions.

(You can already bet your money on Natalie’s success).  

The Indulgence

In Phase II, at one meal a week, we may now eat whatever we want. The only rule is that we must plan ahead for it.

Drs. Wyatt and Hill justify this luxury in three ways. First, because we continue to increase our weekly exercise time, one fatty meal probably won’t go straight to our hips (though some still worry it will). Second, because this is the anti-long-term-deprivation diet, the docs never want our favorite food to be more than seven days away, as they like to say. And because it’s only once a week, it teaches us to savor our food and refrain from mindless eating.

Sounds pretty good to me – it sure makes this diet more bearable (though, really, the diet is kind of enjoyable). So I was pretty stoked about this indulgence meal. I could go to any restaurant and not have to find the one, usually tasteless item compliant with the diet.

At an upscale greasy spoon, I ordered pizza and wine, and shared a dessert. Pizza is one of my favorite foods, and I love sweets, so I fully expected to feel comfort from consuming these foods that in the past have made me feel happy, warm, and satisfied.

The thing is, though, it wasn’t like that at all. It was anticlimactic. The food didn’t taste as good as I remembered, and afterwards, my energy spiked from the simple sugars, then crashed into lethargy. It felt uncomfortable.

Sometimes sensory memory is nostalgic. That is, it remembers things better than maybe they were, so when we go back to them, we are disappointed. Maybe I did misremember the experience of eating comfort food. Or maybe my taste buds are changing.

It made me wonder if the indulgence had been worth it and the following week, I looked forward to it a little less than I had the week before.

I suspect this was Drs. Hill and Wyatt’s plan all along. 

What we’re eating: Phase II

A couple weeks ago, we began the six-week-long Phase II. Back in the highly restrictive Phase I, many of us couldn’t wait to let certain food back into our lives. Now we can have fruit again, string cheese, avocados, pistachios, tortillas, brown rice, pork and several others.

How exciting for us!

My initial reaction was to celebrate by eating all the food I’d missed. But no sooner had I cracked a full egg (yolk included!) did I realize I couldn’t go back to the way I ate before the diet. Yes, we could let food back in, but not without the caveats and limitations meant to train away our impulsive eating behaviors.

For example, there’s a new category of foods called “rebuild carbs” that includes string cheese, ricotta cheese, berries, apples, Ezekial bread, whole wheat pita bread and a few others.

But we may not eat these all at one time and rarely in combination with each other (unless you do half servings of two). We also must eat them in small, measured portions, and we can only have a total of no more than three reignite and rebuild carbs per day. So while we have more food choices, in many ways it seems like we have fewer, because we have to practice frugality more than ever before.

For example, if I want one string cheese stick, that means I can only have two more non-veggie carbs the rest of the day. So if I want my small, non-fat latte with skim milk, and a Phase I muffin, then I’m out of non-veggie carb options the rest of the day, meaning no berries, bread or rice. It doesn’t seem that hard until you realize you’ve gone through all your carbs on breakfast food and coffee.

No matter how hard this is, the justification for the rules is obvious.  Beyond the science of fat burning, eating this way keeps impulsive behavior at bay; it teaches us to acknowledge what our mind wants to do but overriding it with what our body wants to do. 

Usually, on highly restricted diets, impulses go crazy when we have freedom again to eat whatever we choose. (Some scientists believe your body releases a hormone when you lose fat that falsely signals that you are starving, thereby slowing your metabolism and encouraging eating.) Before long, we’ve gained the weight back and learned almost nothing.

Many people who have dieted experience this – they learn to live in a world of extremes. Either you eat nothing or you inhale everything and your body reacts in a primal, I’m-just-trying-to-survive way. In this world of extremes, you are unchanged on a deep level.

What I love about this diet is how changed I already feel – physically, yes, but more importantly, mentally and behaviorally.

For those who are curious, here is the complete list of new food allowed in Phase II:

• Shellfish
• Buffalo, ostrich and venison
• Pork (tenderloin and Canadian bacon)
• Whole eggs
• Ezekial bread, whole grain pita or tortilla
• Barley
• Brown rice, wild rice and rice cakes
• Quinoa
• Beans
• Sweet potato or winter squash
• Fat-free and low-fat cheese (reduced fat string cheese and part-skim ricotta)
• Select fruits (apple, grapefruit, blueberries, strawberries or raspberries)
• Avocado
• Olives
• Pistachios

The Why

I’ve never really been on a diet before this, so I don’t know for sure, but I suspect one of the biggest differentiators between the Colorado Diet and others is not the quick weight loss, the combination of foods, the phases, and maybe not even the exercise – it is the therapy.

More than anything, the Colorado Diet implores us to deeply question our habits, thought processes, perspectives and motivations in a way many have never done before. I often leave class feeling like I’ve just attended group therapy and when I read the book it feels like an exercise in behavior change.

For example, a couple weeks ago, Dr. Wyatt had us figure out our “why.”

“Why do you want to lose weight?” she posed rhetorically to the class. She brought up the example of the person who wants to lose weight for their high school reunion. “That’s not the real the reason.” Then she turned to us. “And the reason you think you’re here might not be your ‘why.’”

She explained that most people in their interviews said they wanted to lose weight for their health, but at the heart of it, each person has a deeper, more unique motivation. Although there’s nothing wrong with a surface-level motivation (fit into that wedding dress, win a weight loss contest), Dr. Wyatt explains, lasting weight loss comes when we connect our motivation to our life’s purpose.

The following week, some Colorado Dieters shared with the class their “why’s” they had spent the week discovering:

“Show my grandchildren that our culture does not have to be about fried food.”

“So I can get back to being the person I was when my wedding rings still fit.”

“To be a role model for my girls.”

And here is what Courtney had to say:

“Happiness is a choice. The decisions that I make can affect my health, emotions and state of being. For many years, I have been comfortable with the victim mentality of believing that I was just born to be short and chubby. It is time for me to believe that I am not the victim, that I can be self-confidence and that I am able to influence others in their health decisions. My ultimate reason for wanting to lose weight is to increase my self-esteem. When you peel the onion of my life, you will find a person who appears very confident on the outside; however, deep down is not. The ability to change my appearance into something that I actually like, or love, would be a first for me…Not only do I plan to be an influence, but, I believe I have an obligation to promote a healthy lifestyle for my boys and my patients as I practice as a nurse.”

Here’s to Courtney finding her self-esteem and becoming an influence, and to the others on this diet brave enough to dig into who they really are and why they are here. As the docs say in the book, “They’re what will motivate you after people have stopped complimenting you on your success.”

Getting Uncomfortable

At our first Colorado Diet class, Dr. Wyatt warned us that throughout these 16 weeks, we would have to get uncomfortable.

“True change takes place outside your comfort zone,” she had said, and proved it when, later that night, our trainers made most or all of us pretty uncomfortable in our group workout.

“I haven’t exercised like that, in like, ten years!” Natalie had said to me as we both winced in pain from the burpees, planks, butt-kicks and lunges from the night before.

For Natalie, though, it was about more than just a physically grueling workout. She hadn’t been to the gym in years and wasn’t exactly looking forward to reacquainting herself.

Gyms can be intimidating, which deters some people from working out at all. There are those gyms that make you feel uncool just for walking in. These are the gyms where people do their hair and makeup to work out; the kind of place where you can practically smell the steroids; a place you go to be seen. At these gyms, rows upon rows of treadmills and ellipticals and Stairmasters point at a mirror, where you watch yourself and everybody else. It feels like the center ring, and it makes me self-conscious.

Even our gym, the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, can intimidate you with its high-tech key system, (a virtual personal trainer of sorts), that may take some time to learn. (Although, the staff are available and eager to help).

Natalie, who’d stayed away from gyms for so long, mustered a lot of courage to go alone for the first time, where she had to navigate the system, ask for help and actually get on a machine (but thankfully, not in a spectator atmosphere). But she did it all with a smile, and did it again the next day and the next, a champ through and through.

(Props to the other Colorado Dieters who may empathize with Natalie, or who endured their own discomforts, in the effort to become healthier people).

Of course, Dr. Wyatt is totally right, and all of this is good for us. I remember other times in my life when I had to get uncomfortable (anything from piano recitals to living abroad to high-pressure internships). I was often scared and hated a lot of it, but was a changed person when I emerged on the other side.

This certainly won’t be the only time we feel uneasy – in fact, we should probably look forward to it.

Julie lost nine pounds!

On Monday night, we weighed in before class to see how much progress we made in a week; Dr. Wyatt sent out the week’s “biggest losers” (in terms of percentage of weight lost) the next day.

There was Julie at the top of the list, having lost 9.8 pounds or 4.5 percent weight lost. Way to go, Julie! (And a pat on the back to everyone in the group because each participant lost some weight throughout the week).

So what did Julie do?

“Following the plan exactly (I didn’t cheat once!),” she wrote to me. “Drinking lots of water (five to six 25-oz bottles each day), planning ahead for the next day’s meals, leaning on support people, keeping promises!”

Looks like Julie’s the example to follow and the one to beat.

(Overall, Children’s Colorado’s employees lost 19.7 pounds in one week. We’re feeling proud!)

What we’re eating: Phase I

Last night we started the second week of Phase I, which is the “lose a lot of weight in a short period of time but thank goodness you don’t have to continue like this forever” phase (a win-win).

In this first phase, we must eat a highly restricted diet six times a day (to keep our blood sugar even) and we must eat only the foods the doctors recommend because those are most effective for burning fat and reigniting the metabolism.

Here are the Phase I rules:

1. You must eat a lean protein at every meal.
2. You must pair that protein with a recommended carb at every meal.
3. You can have "reignite carbs" (see below) no more than three times a day; you must eat a veggie carb at least three times a day.
4. You may have healthy fats at no more than two meals a day.
5. You can use as many low-cal or no-cal sweeteners, spices and herbs as you want.
6. You can eat as many vegetables as you want. 
7. Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. 
8. Don't count calories -- measure portions.

Here is the exhaustive list of foods we’re allowed to eat (each in specific quantity):

Lean protein: chicken breast, turkey breast, extra lean ground beef, lean cuts of beef, egg whites, plain, non-fat Greek yogurt, tuna (fresh or packed in water), white fish, tilapia, cod, mahi mahi, snapper, salmon (also counts as a fat), fat-free cottage cheese and protein powder.

“Reignite carbs”: pumpkin, unsweetened almond milk, non-fat milk, steel cut oats or old fashioned rolled oats

Veggie carbs: asparagus, broccoli, carrots, baby carrots, Brussels sprouts, kale, artichoke, cauliflower, celery, cilantro, salad greens, mushrooms, cucumbers, green beans, onions, summer squash, tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, snow peas, radishes, scallions, green chilies, hot and sweet peppers

Healthy fats: olive oil, canola oil, almonds and walnuts  (these are the only four we’re allowed to ingest, for now)

(A warning on the top of our Phase I food guide tells us that if it’s not on this list, don’t even think about eating it – they’re not joking around.)

I don’t know about everybody else, but when I looked at that list, I grappled to find combinations that I would find satisfying. Where was the cheese? The whole grain bread? Egg yolks? The fruit? How would I ever build six meals a day from those few ingredients?

How were we going to cook tasty meals from this seemingly bland list and how would we keep food from getting boring (and how do we keep our kitchen stocked with lean protein when it goes so fast)?

In class tonight, some participants shared creative recipes for zucchini lasagna, zucchini spaghetti, meatloaf, and spiced almonds. Our guest speaker, who had also done the Colorado Diet, made delectable snacks for us: roasted cauliflower and rosemary blinis topped with eggplant caponata, seared, spice-rubbed tuna and baby kale. Yum.

That snack was easily the most delicious food I ate all week.

I had so been going about this in the wrong way. I am already sick of cottage cheese on spinach, tasteless Greek yogurt flavored with sugar-free jam, egg whites with mushrooms, protein shakes. I love to cook but didn’t know what to do without my familiar recipes and ingredients. In truth, I really haven’t given my new diet the chance to convince me that healthy food can be tasty without oil, butter, salt or fat.

Look at what the others were doing – they were totally making this diet work for them. Lesson learned. Real change means getting creative.