I guess any weight loss story must have a how and why right? My story includes losing 40 pounds in the last 16 weeks.

Well, today I’ll cover the how. I used a program, called 30/10 Weight Loss for Life*, that provided most of your food, that, to my surprise, I enjoyed! I may have only tolerated it some days, but that was more because I wanted a club sandwich! 30/10 is not available across the globe, only in the PNW, but I love love love it. Everyone there made it easy, they were kind, and it was so cool seeing how every part of me changed each week. They used InBody scale; it tells you ev-ery-thing about your body. Muscle vs. fat vs. water vs. bone, man it was cool.

The core of 30/10 is focusing on the majority of your food being protein and vegetables. There are still carbs and sugar within what you eat, but not much. It ensures that your body is still used to the foods, but not using those as fuel. When you completely cut something out, like sugar or carbohydrates, you end up craving those things…with the potential to binge on them later. Your body does need carbs and sugars, although not to the level that we (see: Americans) tend to consume. The protein and vegetables help the weight loss, and help with quicker weight loss, while the carbs and sugar keep your body aware of them, but not as attached to them. 

They also don’t want you to exercise. This was SHOCKING to me, honestly. I figured that I would need to being doing cardio, or at least weights, throughout. Especially since they were going to watch my muscle, I thought I’d need to do more.

I was wrong.

It is suggested that you only walk about 30 minutes a day. When your workout works your body harder than basic walking, it needs more calories. It also pushes itself out of “fat burn” and into “muscle building”. With the food they were giving me, I was eating less calories than I had been previously eating, and any strenuous exercise my throw me off. Now, I was not calorie deficient, I was still eating 1200-1400 calories a day. This put me in between the “lose weight” and “lose weight fast” calorie levels of those calculators you can do online. 

The program provides breakfast, lunch, and snacks. You make your own dinner, and add veggies into your lunch (either via salad or steamed or added to soup). Dinner is protein and veggies – based on the personalized calculations for me, it was a large amount of food. I was not prepared for that. Shockingly, I actually started eating less than I needed to because it was just so much food.

I ate my breakfast within an hour of waking up (most of the time) or when I got into work. My snack was around 10:30-11, lunch between 12:30-1, snack around 3:30-4, and dinner around 7:30-8. If I remembered, I would have another snack around 4:30-5 because it was a long time to go from 4-8 without food. My big weakness was forgetting those afternoon snacks. I often got caught up in work and when I looked up it was time to leave! Other times, I would make a silly excuse (like not having water in my water bottle to mix a drink) and I would procrastinate filling it. Then I would again be surprised when it was 5pm and I hadn’t had my snack!

Ok, but HOW?

As I approached my 40 pound weight loss, I started getting questions on how to get similar results without using a program.

Guys, its all protein and veggies.

Cut the carbs and the sugar down to almost nothing, and have protein and at least 2 cups of veggies at every meal. It sounds simple, but it definitely takes time to get your body used to it. My dad is following a sort of the program, but he is using fruit as his snack – something I am jealous of, because I can’t have fruit on the program! NOT that fruit is a bad thing, they are just helping to cut the sugar craving, even natural sugar.  I don’t even need to eat kale!! I hate kale! 

What do I eat for this weight loss?

Lots of things, seriously:

• Oatmeal
• Eggs (scrambled, over easy, hard boiled)
• Kodiak Cakes  
• Salad (of course its on the list but I don’t eat kale!) with Gazebo Room dressing (It’s my moms favorite, she gets boxes shipped to her since they don’t sell it in Washington, and then gives us bottles!) 
• Steak Bites and roasted Brussels sprouts 
• Zoodles with spaghetti sauce and Costco meatballs
• Chicken stir fry
• Taco salad
• Burrito bowls with shredded chicken and cilantro lime cauliflower ‘rice’ 
• Bratwurst with peppers, onions, and crushed tomatoes 
• Lemon chicken with asparagus and leeks 
• Steak strips with mushrooms and onions
• Low country boils (shrimp and veggies steamed in your oven in foil)

The list goes on and on!

Can you see why I feel OK with this commitment? I cut out a lot of the carbs in these meals (like potatoes, or I do minimal when I need to cut them up into a recipe) and they are still delicious and feel like REAL foods, not diet foods. When I eat anything on this list, I don’t feel like I am restricting myself of anything. I was pleasantly surprised by cauliflower rice and beet noodles especially. Truth be told, I get a bit tired of zoodles since I haven’t mastered the cook time to not get them soggy feeling, but when I feel like I “need” a pasta sauce, its ok. Regardless, I know I can follow this meal style even after I am off the program, because it doesn’t feel like restriction or moderation. 

After 5 weeks, I stopped avoiding alcohol and trusted myself to indulge every so often. I’ve allowed myself bits and pieces of “non-diet” life as I have gotten closer to my goal. This isn’t to self-sabotage, in fact it is the opposite. I have done this to show myself that I can still have progress AND have a slice of pizza, like I did at my niece and nephew’s birthday party. Moderation is the name of the game for me when I reach my goals, not restriction, and I want to practice that now. 

Great progress has been made, and for my body type and height,  I still have about 10 more pounds to go. Also, I need to work hard at building up my muscle. Thanks to the InBody scan, I can see where my muscle is. I always knew it was low, because HELLO I have no upper body strength, but I didn’t know it was almost too low. Your skeletal muscle mass percentage should be 100% – when divided by your body fat mass, it tells you your percent body fat. My skeletal muscle mass is about 93%. This means that it throws off my percent body fat, making it seem like I have more fat than I do, which makes it harder to reach my goals.

I am always happy to help share my meal planning and give advice! Want some right off the bat? Enter your email below and I’ll send you a FREE sample week of meals that I actually eat so you can build your own plan!

Have questions? Comments? Completely disagree with me? Sound off below in the comments! 

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