Hi! I want to chime in!
I am not seeking to lose any weight, actually for me it's the opposite. But I wanted to share something I stumbled upon.
Try this: making the base of what you eat green vegetables. Don't restrict amounts, and do by all means eat all the other things, except eat it with a full plate of *green* *leafy* vegetables (prefer them over roots). For example: broccoli, leaks, Brussels sprouts, green beans, spinach, cabbage, Kale...
The idea is not to restrict anything: it's to add. Add vegetables, lots of them. Raw and cooked.
Some time ago I was eating my breakfast which consisted that day of coffee with cream, a piece of bread with peanut butter, a yoghurt and some fruit when I felt like a dry overfill, suddenly it was all too sweet. This made me pounder. I realized a lot of what I ate contained hidden sugars. Closing my eyes over that fact did not make it go away. I wondered what would happen if I switched the bulk of what I ate from processed starch to vegetables.
Here I want to say that I considered myself already pretty healthy, being active, eating "well", in a varied way, with good portions, already with a little bit of veggies and lots of fresh fruits, taking vitamins etc.
Yet I tried. Not cutting anything else out, I ate the veggies until I felt full at every meal. I even tried some in the morning! Imagine, Brussels sprouts for breakfast. YIKES! But I also ate the bread and the butter and the nuts etc. Just added the vegetables, lots of them.
I discovered some veggies tended to make me gag, so I envisioned my plate of veggies like a medication, ate it slower, but swallowed it all. I tried them sprinkled with olive oil and lemon juice, Wafu dressing, warm, cold, cooked, raw...
I went through a real detox! The first week had its unpleasant moments. One day I started to sneeze uncontrollably. The next, I felt nauseated. In the first few days, even though I did eat lots and slept sound full nights, I fell asleep everywhere. No harassing fatigue but rather good baby sleep. I soldiered though and ate my veggies (and the rest). I couldn't believe how strong the effect! It was like I was getting off some kind of hard drug.
The benefits were also instantaneous and outweighed the disadvantages: my energy soared. I started to sleep full nights and feel refreshed like I hadn't felt in a long time. At first I lost weight, (which alarmed me, so I upped my grains and protein). My muscles became stronger, more compact, and more efficient. My face started to loose its puffy appearance. At first it was puffy only in the morning, now even this is starting to go away, and my skin is clearer. I had some recurrent pimples that healed themselves. Mind clarity, memory, peace and calm, happy feeling...
If you restrict what you eat, you will feel weak and therefore will not be able to profit from your physical activity. You will be less inclined to do anything and your mood will also suffer. You face will become gaunt. But if instead you *add* good nourishing foods to your diet, the reverse will happen, and the nourishing food will slowly replace what used to make you store fat.
