BELLY ACHE

I have a "green apple" belly ache. Actually it is NOT a green apple belly ache, it is a raw cauliflower belly ache. And this is opposed to the raw broccoli belly ache. All are painful. All result in a lot of gas -- translate that as pain in the gut and shshsh... "farts." Could that be farts, or fasts or whatever. Pain nonetheless.

The Sonoma Diet is big on these raw first tier vegetables. Free food. Eat as much/many as you like. Great fiber. Low calorie. Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, Nothing is ever said about the abdominal gas OR the abdominal pain. The pain is almost unbearable. Doubling over pain. Hard to get through the afternoon at work. Hard to get through the evening at home. What is going on? Don't know. Just know that there is pain, there is gas, and maybe, luckily tomorrow the scale will register minus at least a pound. Maybe.

OOooops! 122 Pounds

The scale hasn't hit 120 since March. Maybe the Philly Cheese Steak last evening did me in. OR perhaps it was the two Blue Moon beers. Hmmm. Beers. Doesn't look right. One beer, two beers? Seems like the plural of beer should be beer -- no "s." Oh, well, I digress.

I whipped out my Sanoma book and copied out the Phase One food lists. Will stay on the Phase One program until I get back down below 120. Weight Watchers strongly discourages checking the scales more than once a week. For me, this is just stupidity. So maybe the extra IS water. So what? Get rid of it. The weigh in every day works for me.

AND, this is the important part -- this works for ME. May not work for you or a kazillion other people. I am just saying that daily weigh ins keep me on track.

My mother was an inveterate dieter. Also an habitual exerciser. Mom was attractive, took good care of herself, and was proud of her looks. And rightly so. BUT, and here is the real stickler, she was always at me to be thinner. I got to believing that she would love me more if I was admirably thin. And this is stretching into my fortys and fiftys. I wasn't obese but I was always twenty to thirty pounds overweight. When my husband died in 1992 I weighed in at 175. Well, I guess that is a little more than twenty or thirty pounds. A few months of dinners consisting of vodka and popcorn brought me down to 135. I have since passed on the vodka, and with Sanoma, pass on the popcorn except for very special occasions.

Achieving my ideal weight AFTER Mom died was kind of a waker upper. Did I care? Initially, I said that it didn't matter. Then, after I lived with it for a bit, I realised that it DID matter. A lot. I wish she could see me the way she thought I should be. I wish she could see that I'm not any smarter and not any prettier. I wish she could have loved me for ME.

Sanoma Dieting

I started on the Sanoma diet May 1, 2006 at 153 pounds. I was a real stickler and adhered to the first ten day regime. On the eleventh day I started adding in the allowed foods. The nutrition plan is set up so that any idot can follow it. Works for me.

Along about mid-July Bill and I went on vacation to Tennessee. I weighed in at 142. I followed the breakfast and lunch guidelines but relaxed on afternoon beers and bread at supper. Wine too. Potatoes once or twice. Upon our return ten days later I was at 144.5. Not bad. And cutting back to the eating plan was easy with an occasional beer and hamburger on a Friday evening.

By October when I visited my sister, Jacquie, in Indiana I was at 127. This was almost the six month mark. I had dropped from squeezing myself into size fourteens to a size 12/10. The twelves were comfy, the tens fit nicely.

I could never have done this without the participation and support of the people in my workplace. Diane started on the diet that March and when we began to notice her weight loss, asked how she was doing it. "The Sanoma Diet" by Dr. Connie Guttersen, R.D., Ph.D. was purchased and read by several of us. In fact we joked about buying a case of them to hand out to patients who came into the office who were obviously in need of some sort of nutritional guidance -- translate that as being FAT.

Diane tried some of the recipes in the book and raved about their ease of preparation and marvelous taste. I was too lazy and stuck to plain food. But then, Bill and I were eating separate diets and we needed to keep it simple. The one thing that I did try was quinoa (keen-wa). This is a very tasy little grain that is high in protein and easy to prepare. Bill likes too.

I am happy to report that I am now into a size eight weighing in at between 121.5 and 117. I wiegh myself daily and keep a record on graph paper taped to the bathroom door. If I go over 120 I know to cut back or portions or food choices, if I get to 117 I know to relax a little.

It has been a wonderful journey. It is a good eating plan. It is my intention to follow the plan for the remainder of my life.

Look it up; try it out; be healthy.