I went for my weigh-in today and did not gain but 1 pd during the 2 week Phase 3 process, which, considering the breakfasts I have been enjoying, is amazing. They had said you could gain a few as the glycogen reserves are replenished.
I bought pasta, potatoes and a few other things that I'm almost afraid to eat. One step at a time. I was so tired by the time I got home that I had my afternoon snack while putting groceries away, but I had 3 oz nuts instead of the allowed 1 oz before I caught myself, so I did not use olive oil in my evening salad and felt in control again. I'll have an IP banana pudding for dessert, the one of the lowest carb/fat item they have. I can do this !!!
The thing with Phase 4 is to get it in your brain that you can have fats at lunch, but little to no carbs (vegees don't count as a carb), and at dinner you can have good complex carbs like grains or legumes, but little to no fat. If your body takes in carbs, it first turns into glucose in the blood stream for immediate use as energy. If there is too much of it, or the carbs are high glycemic carbs (so they are processed much more quickly), the pancreas goes into overdrive and stores the excess as fat in the liver and fatty tissues in order to bring the blood glucose levels into a normal range. So, if you eat a lot of fat with that, it is more likely to just get stored as fat.
My coach said I can still use a little olive oil at dinner to do my stir-fry, which I really like. Breakfast is just like Phase 3, and you can add a fruit at dinner too. Since I didn't have fruit with my dinner, I think I'm gonna try a little mashed up banana with the banana pudding. Real banana....what a concept!
The amount of protein now says 7 oz at lunch and again at dinner. How you get that protein is up to you. I am going to experiment with using grains and legumes to make complete proteins, so I don't have meat all the time. For my weight, I am supposed to get about 77 g protein per day, so I'll have to get creative with it. Have also used some soy protein powder to up the protein when I needed it for breakfast (in my oatmeal) or lunch (in my home made soups).
Vegetable types and quantities are unlimited, but personally, I am going to watch that I don't eat potatoes every night, or any other high glycemic vegetable. It just makes sense.
Servings are whatever the standard nutrition tables say is a serving. With stuff that I buy in bulk, that doesn't have labels to indicate a serving size, I'll use tables that I got on the internet.
So, there is alot of freedom in this and we have to find our own groove, just like in Phase 1. I am totally psyched to do this!
One more thing...the 'splurge' day is great. You can have the things you've been missing while on Phase 1 once a week, then go into Phase 1 for a day. I don't NEED pasta with alfredo every night, or pizza every night, or enchiladas every night. Once a week is terrific! I'm sure I'll develop the same discipline with splurge as I did all the past year.
You have been very inspirational to me....I appreciate your posts. Enjoy this new stage!
