Your Jeans Are Too Tight
Okay, so your jeans are too tight (or, for a few of you too loose), and you’ve resorted to wearing pants with elastic waist bands like yoga pants or Spanx, and dresses - because its finally warm enough and no waistband. Me too!
We all know the basics of what we SHOULD be doing to be our healthiest selves. But it’s difficult to do it 100 percent of the time. Last week, I mentioned 5 of those things:
1) Drink plenty of water
2) Get a dose of sunlight within two hours of waking
3) Prioritize protein
4) Make a bedtime routine
5) Mindful movement (including muscle-building)
But where do you start? What can move the needle the most and the fastest? Years ago I thought the answer to that was cardio, but that was just the fitness/diet culture at the time. The answer is, what you eat and drink will have the biggest affect on how you feel and look right away.
Fresh back from my long weekend experiencing my sister and brother-in-law’s hospitality in NYC and the excellent restaurants, sights, and entertainment (thank you, Anna & AJ!), I started re-reading The Virgin Diet Cookbook, looking for healthy recipe ideas to jumpstart my eating routine. (The author’s last name is Virgin - it’s not as racy as it seems)!
About 8 years ago, I stumbled upon The Virgin Diet book in a used bookstore and snapped it up. It promised “Drop 7 Foods, Lose 7 Pounds, Just 7 Days.” And, as a child of the ‘80s & ‘90s, being slim (too thin?) is so culturally engrained into my psyche, that I consiously and I’m sure subconsiously, am always striving for that perceived ideal. Even though, now, intellectually, I know that thin does not necessarily equal healthy. So, back when I first read this book my motivation was vanity. I wanted to lose weight. And, it worked!
Now, my want to feel better, build optimal health for me in this season of life, and yes, fit into my jeans. After 8 years of reading more books on health and nutrition, listing to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, and trying different styles of eating like low-carb, Paleo, intermittent fasting, etc., and becoming a certifed health coach through the Institutue for Integrative Nutrition, I still come back to the philosophy in The Virgin Diet: Food intolerance a hidden cause of weight gain. And, now I know from my education and research, that food intolerance, or food sensitivity, is also a contributor to other metabolic and health issues.
Wouldn’t it be great to feel better, and look better too? Yes, I want that! And, to fit into my jeans. That’s why I’m re-starting a modified version of The Virgin Diet, which eliminates the top 7 foods that are people unknowingly intolerant to:
Gluten
Dairy
Soy
Eggs
Corn
Peanuts
Sugar (alcohol is categorized as sugar in this book).
After a week of being free of those foods, you’ll start to feel better. And, if food intolerance is, in fact, an issue for you that is causing symptoms like weight loss resistance, joint pain, GI issues, brain fog, among many others, how will you know? You will know by methodically testing each of those foods, one at a time by adding it back in to your diet for a day, and then recording how you feel. Did any symptoms appear? Write them down, so you’ll remember, the cause and effect.
After four weeks of testing the top 4 food intolerance foods, gluten, dairy, soy and eggs, you will have so much new, empowering information about what works for your body and what doesn’t. You’ll have more sustained energy, clearer thinking, and feel better than you have in a long time. Also by this point, if you’ve stuck to this plan, you’ll be much less inflamed and bloated, and hopefully you’ll be back in your favorite jeans by now - yay!
If you’d like to join me, in my “fit back into my jeans” challenge, I’ve created a free guide on how to prepare for and go about eliminating and testing the top 4 foods that are causing hidden weight resistance.
Here’s the link to download the guide. https://stan.store/Marie_Ruzek_Coaching
