I did a blog post about this in pictures and I thought you ladies and gents might enjoy the pictures. It's amazing to think about how things change over time!

Here's an approximation of what I used to eat on a standard day:



Here's an actual day from my diet calendar the first month I started dieting:



And here's what I eat now:



It didn't happen over night. That was an evolution that took over two years. SO much happier eating what I eat now Here's the blog post if you want to read it.


When I posted it, I started thinking about that Starbucks coffee (which I switched to unsweetened when I started losing weight) and this week, I'm weening myself off it. I started realizing that I drink it out of compulsion and not wanting the caffeine headache rather than really enjoying it anymore. It's been a bit challenging, but I'm 5 days into it and the caffeine headache is finally subsiding. Looking forward to seeing how this affects me generally. Curious if you guys drink caffeine?

I drink coffee - typically one to two cups per day, made with 1 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp creamer. Sometimes I get a sweetened iced coffee from Starbucks. I don't notice a difference headache wise either way.

WOW--creative to say the least...To think I used to think nothig of eating 10 oreos in a sitting....shameful! Caffeine headached are bad...I am now done to maybe one to two diet cokes a week (from 3-4 a day) and I definitely feel better. I always have my bottled water or crystal light with me now :-)

Ten oreos? Heck, I'm being generous. I'm sure I ate the whole bag on multiple occasions and thought nothing of it.

I LOVE IT! Great job on the visual...if I posted what I USED to eat in a day...it would probably take up a full page!

It's amazing how we grow to love the healthy stuff..eh? Thanks for posting this.

Lol Joy - I'm sure I had plenty of "Full Page" days myself! What I find really nuts is that I would have SWORN up and down I did not overeat and that I ate pretty healthy and I was just fat because of bad genes or I was meant to be big or something. Was I ever delusional! I feel like I walked out of a fog and saw the truth. Calorie counting and my food scale put it all in perspective for me big time.

SO amazing that we can change our minds. I am grateful for that every single day Don't get me started on how much I love exercise now!

Those are great visuals, k8yk. Thanks for sharing them. I stopped drinking caffeinated beverages a few months ago. I haven't really noticed any differences. I've cut way back on un-caffeinated soft drinks too, and have found that I'm losing my taste for them.

I love this idea! I think I am going to steal it and post pictures of my own if you don't mind. This could become a new sticky like before and after photos.

I still drink caffeinated beverages. I like the sensory experience of coffee: The heady warm rich smell and the taste, particularly of darker blends. I don't foresee giving it up. I am all right with drinking about three cups a day. Now and then I swap out some of those cups for different kinds of tea, green or Earl Grey or spiced chai (without milk).

If I made a collage like this, I'd include not only the food, but pictures of me -- my hands, most likely -- performing various food preparation tasks, from scooping up washed vegetables from my sink to perpetually slicing or dicing onions and other vegetables to mixing in bowls. The collage would be about the cooking skills I've acquired & what I have learned about food, just as much as the foods that I prepare. And there would also be the planning: I had to learn to find and evaluate recipes, where to shop to get the best or least expensive ingredients, set aside the time to go shopping for food, and then go through the food prep. That has really changed my life a lot, almost as much as the food that I'm consuming.

I don't know that I'm technologicallly savvy enough to make a collage, but I may give it a try... I was just thinking about all I used to eat yesterday as I was remembering that in the past a lunch I had to make at home was often an entire frozen pizza, where yesterday it was quinoa pilaf with grilled chicken.

LOVE IT! ...What I find interesting too is the trend from 'everyday foods' that are products full of whites (sugars/salts/fats), to diet 'products' (subway (bread is full of HFCS)/baked lays, etc) to REAL WHOLE foods and LOTS and LOTS of it. That's been the trend in my weightloss journey too. Started off eating lots of products, then, I restricted calories (probably too heavily) by eating calorie reduced/artificially sweetened products (lean cuisines, diet pop, diet foods...) to now: I eat anything I want: catch is: only if I make it. ...I don't think there's a single food product in my house anymore. Its all whole foods that I make recipes with. I eat so well that I have zero desire to overeat or eat 'food product'. ...I figure if it has anykind of advertising on the package its not worth my money.

...I still drink my starbucks grande pike with skim and cinammon periodically, but my DH makes our cofee most of the time.

Thank you so much for posting this. ...Like Saef says too, it would also be worthwile to show one of the techniques we've learned with food. I love my cutting board and my chef's knife. I actually keep a cutting board in my cubicle at work with a knife. ...I use the thing DAILY (my coworkers think I'm weird because I also stand all day, but whatever at this point I do whatever I need to feel good and stay healthy)!!

I think we can agree that weight loss and maintenance boil down to:

knowledge (fundemental understanding of metabolism (properly calc. calories/macro nutrients), the cardiovascular system & intelligent training, and nutrition, self-esteem/body image and understanding our own bodies).

Techniques (planning, prepping foods, cooking/baking, training (strenght/cardio), stress/emotional manangement, etc)

Tools (cutting boards, knives, measuring spoons/cups, scales, free weights, whatever one may need)

Love the name of your blog by the way!

Biased from my own perspective - what I spotted right away is the explosion of color in your new way of eating. My diet choices are heavily influenced by not eating "beige food". The collage is prettier to the eye as well as the tongue now!

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy the pictures

When I posted this on my facebook page, someone said "What I see is how much longer it takes to prepare all the stuff in the last picture. The first and second are so much more convenient."

This is absolutely true. We have to take time to take care of ourselves the way we deserve. Americans spend less time and money (percent of income) on food than any other developed country and look where it's gotten us? I used to say I didn't have time. But what I didn't have was drive. It IS so much easier to hit the drivethru. But so much less rewarding. There's nothing worth having that isn't worth working for. That time I didn't think I had? Apparently I had it. I just changed my priorities.

If we make convenience our number one priority- we lose out on quality and we find out the hard way what the consequence is. It's worth it to take the time to do it right.

Well, I did one for a typical "before" day:

www.ScrapWalls.com/view?v=128160

Then I tried for today...but what I eat varies SO MUCH. By season, by hunger level. Which was striking to me by itself. It was not hard for me to make a day for my old diet - I ate Wendys probably 5 times a week (no joke), the other two nights were taco bell, I either had a sandwich or some processed crap for lunch, and then some sugary and or junky snacks. Easy.

Now? We eat something different for dinner every night, prepared based on what we could get in season and at the farmer's market in bulk. In Spring, my collage would be brimming with asparagus, broccoli, greens, pork, strawberries...now, it's all stone fruits, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, etc...in Fall and Winter it'll have a lot of winter squash, root veggies, chili, soups, stews. And even within a week in the same season, there would be so much variation. I truly can't pinpoint a "typical" day, which is in itself a huge change.

Side question k8yk - I saw pics of your salsas on your blog, do you have recipes that you would share?