I’m still 20lbs from my goal weight, but I’m still also 35 or so pounds down from a year ago. I can’t blame my nutrition or training plan or trainers for my latest weight plateau. It’s purely me cheating while dealing with a new puppy and slacking off to snag some extra rest. Now that she’s sleeping through the night well, I’m regrouping.
A lot of people ask me what I’m eating now and that’s a rather interesting question to answer. The most accurate answer would probably be “plant based, ayurveda-ish,” but then I need to go into a lengthy explanation of what that means.
Basically, I’m eating mostly vegan meals, although I’m still not 100% on that. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the full discipline to eat fully vegan and I also don’t know if things will shift as the weather does and I’ll be back to including more animal products again. I know I do like eating plant based as much as possible and I’d like to keep that going as much as possible, but I also am not so rigid about it. In an average week, I *maybe* eat meat or dairy 1 time, if that. Weeks can go by without me eating any animal products at all. I do take vitamin supplements just in case, particularly for B vitamins and folic acid.
The ayurveda part is a little more complicated. I began learning about ayurveda as I was learning about yoga and was intrigued, but I really started playing with it when my husband’s digestion didn’t return to normal after his last cancer surgery. Ayurveda is basically a holistic medical system that goes back thousands of years in India, with particular emphasis on digestion. For me, learning more about this helped me finally relieve all my acid reflux symptoms and now my stomach feels better than ever. We’re still trying to find something that can help my husband that he can stick to, but for me, this has really been helpful. I’m still learning and exploring it and figuring out where my balance is and what fits into my busy life. For example, someone adhering to strict ayurvedic principles would cook each meal fresh and never eat leftovers…well…that just doesn’t work for my lifestyle. I still food prep, but I’m mindful to include fresh vegetables wherever I can and to use ingredients that support my health. If you’re interested in more information about ayurveda, a podcast and website I really like is Simple Ayurveda by Angela. I’m part of her simple ayurveda collective and working through all the learning material she has in there, which is a lot! She’s really good at simplifying concepts and coming up with realistic, real world examples that you can fit into a modern lifestyle.
And I’m still doing 2 protein smoothies a day. I may need to get a new blender soon as my current one has gotten quite the workout!
When I stick to the macro plan my trainers have laid out for me and keep up with my steps and workouts, I definitely see the results. Now that I’m sleeping regularly, I look forward to being more on top of all of this and getting past this last plateau!
Geek Yoga 