Teresa,
I can so relate to the realization that I am just plain lazy. I have tried so many diets in the past and never stayed with them for more than a couple of weeks. When I would jump into a diet I would be just miserable all day and very cranky with my family. Maybe you will find this helpful. At the advice of my chiropractor, who knows a lot about nutrition, I began slowly transitioning my eating habits toward an 80% 'raw foods' diet. Now, I never ate fruits and vegetables regularly before. I lived on fast food, although I would try to make 'healthier choices' by having grilled chicken, no condiments, etc. So when my chiropractor suggested eating a raw foods diet (and transitioning my husband and son over to it as well), I thought 'yeah, right.' I had visions of doing it for a week and being so absolutely miserable that I would quit.
Here's the interesting thing. Because I am transitioning so slowly, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be. I have only been doing it for about 2 months, but I am feeling so much better already. If you are like me, what really motivates you is feeling good physically and getting comments from others after you begin to lose weight.
Here's what I did:
Week 1-2: stop eating dairy products (this was the hardest one for me since I think I lived on cheese but it actually made it possible for me to stop taking the allergy medication I had lived on for years). Also, add eating 1 whole fruit with every meal. Lastly (and this was a hard one for me), I began to cut out diet sodas by cutting my daily soda intake in half.
Week 3: add another fruit to every meal but try to make it a different color of fruit. Also, eat the fruits at the beginning of the meal. So now you are still eating as you have before, but you are eating 2 different fruits before you eat your normal meal. (by this time I was feeling really good)
Week 4: still eating the 2 fruits at the beginning of every meal, choose one meal a day to be just a big salad. Now you can put fruit, raw nuts, any vegetables you like on it. I like slivered almonds and dried cranberries. Choose an organic dressing without any dairy in it. I like the Balsamic Vinagrettes which now come in a lot of different flavors. If you get hungry at night, you can have as much more salad as you want.
Week 5: keep doing all of the above, but now add a salad to another meal during the day and eat it and your fruits first. Now you are eating primarily fruits and vegetables in your diet. Surprise!
Okay, so here is where my laziness started to get the best of me. All of a sudden during week 5 I started feeling really tired and wanted to sleep all the time and my body started doing strange things: strange bowel movements, a strange menstrual cycle. The weird thing is that underneath all of that I STILL was feeling better than before I started eating the fruits and vegetables. The chiropractor said this stuff is normal as your body starts to release all of the toxins that have built up over years of existing on fast food, fat, salt and animal products. He also said it would last a couple of months but then after that I should feel better than I ever have.
Have I stuck to the change 100%? No. I think I have followed the plan about 4 days out of every week but I still feel better. When I fail, I just make sure to do it right the next day and I still feel the benefits. Besides, I am now eating more fresh fruits and vegetables that I ever have before. You know what? I'm starting to think that it wasn't laziness that kept me from losing the weight as much as it was the unhealthy state that my body was in. I didn't have the ENERGY to exercise and I'm starting to think it might not be so hard to start walking a little more.
Lastly, my suggestion to you would be to find a knowledgable nutritionist or vegan who isn't crazily 100% non-animal foods (let's face it, I could never live that way), but that knows how to help slowly transition you and help you find good alternatives when you eat things other than fruits and veggies. Also, my chiropractor helped me to feel better by adjusting me frequently during the beginning of the change in order to help me to feel better physically. When it's easier to move, it's easier to handle life!
I keep thinking about how Dr. Phil always says that diets don't work. It's changing your lifestyle that works. Now I've found that transitioning slowly was the key for me. I thought I had to jump in cold turkey! Hope this helps. If you want to try this way and to correspond while we do it, I'd be glad to. If you decide to do things the way I'm doing them, I can let you know what steps to take as the chiropractor tells me what to do. My email address is joymarv@hotmail.com.
I hope at least some of this is helpful to you!
Joy
