Wellness Wednesday: How I Lost 25 Pounds [the Healthy Way]

I've been wanting to share this losing weight thing with you guys for a while: how I lost 25 pounds without exercising, and while being healthy. I kinda hate to refer to it as a "diet" because the goal of it was not to lose weight but to become healthy--and through that, the weight inevitably came off. So when I say "diet" in this post, know that I mean "what you eat" and not "weight loss scheme" okay? And of course, exercise is ideal when you're wanting to get healthy, but during the time of starting this diet, I was definitely not able to exercise.

I shared a few weeks ago about a few of my many kinds of treatment for my many health problems, one of them being a gut repair diet to, obviously, heal my insides from the damage of gluten and all kinds of things over the years. I'm sure you've seen me refer to it like every time I post a recipe. This is called the Repairvite Diet, which, as it sounds, is intended to repair your insides, and it was followed by the Clearvite Diet to detox your system. As soon as I started the Repairvite Diet, I started losing about 3 pounds a week. Most people are on the diet for only about two months or less, but I kept encountering my own strange problems and so had a lot of setbacks that no one else ever has that prolonged the conclusion of it, so I was on it for a good five months. However, I simply stopped losing weight about two months in because I didn't need to lose any more. And I've stayed at that same weight since. I'm not a twig, as you can see in my pictures; I'm just where I need to be. And if I added exercise, you can bet any leftover flab would go away.

So, what does it entail, if I lost all this weight without exercise? A healthy diet. That's it. I took the Repairvite supplement, whose goal is of course to help repair my gut, but it's not required, and this diet is healthy for anyone, leaky gut or not. Without even exercising, simply removing all the crap of pop and refined sugars and more made me lose all that extra weight. Exercising would have really moved it along and helped me get even healthier.

But here's the deal with getting healthy and losing weight: If you want a change, whether you have health problems that need help, or you're overweight, or you just have those few last ten or fifteen pounds to lose, you have to want it. I was so desperate for health that I was willing to do things, like change my diet, that I would once have thought pretty radical and crazy and that I would never do. But I gave up favorite foods--for over half a year now--in this quest for health. I guess I had a choice, but as I see it, I really didn't. You have to want to feel better and be better. And f you really want to change, you'll do what it takes.

This diet is all about replacing unhealthy foods with healthy versions and removing processed, harder to digest foods in favor of clean ones. You don't have to go without chocolate and ice cream and cake and all that gluteny, sugary goodness you love. There are healthy versions of just about anything, "healthy" meaning gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free, and corn-free, among other things. There is no counting calories or anything like that. You can eat as much as you want of all the foods allowed on this diet. So, ideally, you don't really get hungry. This keeps your blood sugar regulated, which keeps your brain and body in gear.

An average meal on this diet, for me, is Easy Turkey and Veggie Fry. Or Honey Balsamic Chicken. But there are so many more options than those--I've just found a few I love and stick to them for a while, and then I find new ones to add. My mom started the diet several months after me and has her own recipes she's come up with and lives on. Being limited in the kinds of food you can have does not at all mean that you have to eat what's boring or things you don't like. I love the meals I eat on this diet and, if I ever go off it, I plan to keep them around because they're so good.

I'm continuing this diet for now, even though I've finished my time on the supplement, because I'm slowly testing what foods my stomach can handle. Right now I'm good with eggs, but corn is still being determined. There's a good chance I'll always be mostly on this diet, simply because eating well to get healthy is not something you do for a couple months and then go back to eating your Big Macs. This is a lifestyle change, and a consciousness of exactly what you're putting into your body.

Looking back before this diet, I can't believe how healthy I eat now compared to where I was a year ago. I also can't believe how many healthy foods I love now that I used to think were nasty; I just had to figure out a better way to make them--shocker, there's more ways to eat carrots and broccoli than just raw. Like Easy Fried Broccoli.

All this to say, you really can eat healthy, get your stomach functioning how it needs to, and feel better--not with some crazy pill, or starving yourself, or working out like a maniac and eating nasty foods. But just by taking the time to change what you eat--and discover meals you absolutely love that are also good for you.

This is all just from my own personal experience--you can read more about the Repairvite Diet here and here and, if you're interested, the Clearvite Diet here, and I highly recommend following the advice of a doctor like mine in your area over my advice, as I'm clearly not a doctor. I'm not getting paid anything to tell you about this diet (wouldn't that be nice!), just trying to pass along the good news that losing weight isn't as impossible or miserable of a journey as you might think. :)

P.S. Linking up with Be.You.Tiful Link Party, Let Your Light Shine, Anything Goes Linky