This Reader, 64, Lost Weight & Look at Her Doctor’s Reaction

Hello Everyone,

As always if you haven’t yet read Aunt Bea, the how-to is underneath by short bio on the right of the screen, but you can always email me for a copy: Wendy@theInspiredEater.com.

Let’s begin:

Pearl One

I received this email from a reader last week:

Good Morning Wendy,

Great encouragement today. I had a very positive doctor appointment yesterday. Both nurse and female doctor wanted to know how I’m losing weight; throwing it away. I told them. Doctor said my lab work reflected the weight toss. Fabulous!

I’m recording my blood pressure now every week or two and if it starts to consistently be below 120, my doctor will take away one of the medications. A nice positive to weight toss.

— M.

Possibly going off a medication?! Congratulations, M.! Super exciting.

M. continues to lose, and it’s interesting to note that we don’t have to whittle down to a size 10 to see real health benefits. Sometimes losing ten here and stabilizing (once called plateauing), and ten there and stabilizing brings exciting news from the doctor. ♥

Pearl 2

I want to be crystal-clear: I’m not anti-heavy. I think it’s completely wonderful that our culture embraces the “well-insulated” among us. I wish young-me could see the careers of Ashley Graham, Oprah, Melissa McCarthy and Rhetta. Young-me would have been too astonished to speak. I was “healthy” during the Charlie’s Angels era; it was a painful time.

Today, I love that the world is catering to those who need a seat belt extension on airplanes, trendy clothes, and even furniture that can support larger weights.

It’s beyond cool that these days the young people label themselves as “thick” or “healthy” when discussing their weight. I also love that in this century we have all sizes on TV shows (Orange is the New Black and Good Girls take top honors).

If you’ve been following for awhile you’ve heard me say this before: if having a terrible life without seat belt extenders and cool clothes helped, we’d all be a size 4. It’s actually the opposite: being good to ourselves is the starting point for attaining the real rewards.

Need a great read for the weekend? Check out this memoir on a phenomenal man (he’s a writer by trade so keeps the story super interesting): Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson. ♥

Pearl Three

Our March topic: Using time as a supportive tool. I’ve never met the person who wakes up and chows all through breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack, but goes really whole-hog for dinner and dessert.

Here’s why we’ve never met her.

I doubt she exists. Neither you nor I know anyone who inhales all day and all evening because largely we don’t overeat all day long.

We all have smart eating hours and not-so-smart eating hours in a day/evening.

My point: since we likely maintain a smart eating lifestyle for most of our day, let’s begin by acknowledging ourselves for keeping it healthy at, say, breakfast and lunch. Note the times of day when you’re eating healthy food for fuel (rather than for fun).

Only then can we explore our hardest moments. Tease out which hour of the day  and which days or evenings sees you reaching for 10,000 calories.

The hard moments are the perfect place to explore what’s going wrong and how to make a better plan for long-term success. Write in your journal about how you’ll stop yourself from overeating at night or on the weekends or whenever your hardest moments arise ( I use books, motivational podcasts and often just go to sleep early).

There can also be hard environments (I eat candy at work because I’m stressed) or hard people (I have an eating buddy, ’nuff said).

If you want more details on breaking an overeating habit read here: How to Conquer Your Evening Sugar Cravings and Disrupting An Annoying Food Craving. ♥

Pearl Four

Pear Four we talk food. Have you ever noticed how many junk foods can be wadded up into a ball and tossed in trash basketball-style? (We’re talking about you, Hostess Cupcakes). And that, conversely, healthy food gives us more bites on the bite-o-meter (equaling more mouth-happiness)?

Well, today we’re discuss how to add more ingredients to add more bites to our lives.

That said, take a look at how to up the bites on favorite foods:

After the fun of Omicron in January I developed an odd need for childhood cereals. Turns out, TOTAL cereal isn’t all that exciting until I remembered to add a sliced half banana. Sure enough: extra delish bites.

A reader is the queen of sandwich stacking. She adds thinly sliced apples and pepper jack cheese to her protein sandwiches. Yum.

Inspired by the queen, I now stack my black bean burgers on whole wheat with thickly sliced cucumber, and green sprouts (and mustard). Omg. Excellent.

Additionally to my very large lunch salads (greens, cucumber, petite carrots, baby tomatoes) I add fake chicken (high in protein) from Trader Joe’s or sliced, cooked polenta also from Trader Joes.

I think we’re always on the right track when we’re working healthy foods into our meals more crunch, more health, more mouth-happiness. ♥

Pearl Five

Look for the discomfort that precedes the distraction, focusing in on the internal trigger.” ♥

I put wild bird food out each morning — the guys go bananas for Costco’s — and kick back with my coffee to watch Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, the beautiful woodpeckers, and tiny finches eat their breakfast.

As you go about your day, remember that there’s no way to “fail” when you’re living the smart eating lifestyle, if you overdo it, journal-write about what likely triggered you, buy flowers for yourself and get on with life.

♥, Wendy

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