Pt III: The Be Well 365 Experience with Terri Johnson
….continued:
What did you eat for you cheat meal?
Terri: My first cheat meal was at my granddaughter’s birthday. And I had a hamburger, and French fries, and birthday cake. And then I got extremely sick. After being so long without all the high sugar and high carbs, the sugar on that birthday cake made me very ill. My body had changed. It had become my friend. And it wasn’t before. Now it is.
Dr. Lopez: It’s great negative reinforcement,
Terri: Oh yeah.
Dr. Lopez: when you eat clean and you’re doing really well and then all of a sudden you try a bad meal, it may or may not work, but, you know, at least you tried it, you said ‘you know what,’ I’ve had people say this ‘it’s not as good as I thought it would be.’
Terri: Yep, that’s exactly what happened. Who would’ve thought me, the one who loved sweets and cakes and pastries and all this stuff would get sick on a piece of birthday cake.
Do you still have those cravings ever, though?
Terri: Not for birthday cake. (laughs) Uh, yeah. I used to get cravings. Usually you can find something to substitute it, uhm. You know, when I’m, I’m having a real bad time with the, uh, I just want something ooey and gooey and chocolaty. Well, I still have chocolate mouse as a backup, you know. Uhm, there’s lots of sugar free candies and things like that out there that uhm, when you just gotta have a little something sweet, just pop a sugar free hard candy in your mouth and suck on it for a while and eh, it’s okay. Uhm. On my cheat meal, I will uhm, plan for it. It’s a, you know, it’s like you have this, okay, I want big plate of beef enchiladas with flour tortillas with, you know. And that’s what I’ll have. You know, if we go out to a restaurant, that’s what I’ll have, is that one big cheat meal. I usually feel a little too full afterwards, or, you know, not quite right, but then the rest of the week I behave myself and I get back on, you know, until I allow myself one cheat meal a week until the next week and then I’ll say ‘okay, lets try something different. I’ve got enchiladas out of my system, lets go to the Chinese buffet.’ There’s lots of things at Chinese buffet you can eat that aren’t that bad. You know, lots of chicken and vegetable dishes, uhm, I’ll have, I’ll grant myself a little portion of rice, you know fried rice, just a small portion. It doesn’t taste as good as it used to. Uhm, and then for desert, they usually have these buffets, they usually have lots of fruit, so I’ll pig out on melon, and strawberries, and bananas and whatever’s there.
That’s great. What’s your next goal? Now that you’ve already exceeded your original goal, what do you hope to accomplish next?
Terri: Keeping it. I do not ever wanna gain the weight back. Ever, ever, ever. I felt so horrible before, and I feel so good now, and I feel so good about myself now. I don’t ever, ever want to gain that weight back.
What advice would you give someone who was in a similar situation to you who might be struggling with their weight, or even their self confidence?
Terri: Uh… Easy one: don’t give up. Uhm. Give it a try. Listen to Dr. Lopez and her staff. Listen to, uhm, you know, try different things to, like, if they hit a plateau, cause that was my down point, when I hit those plateaus, and uh, she’s got some good pointers on how to, uh, you know, trick your metabolism into kick starting again, uhm. Change up your routine a little bit. Instead of parking at the closest space to the front of HEB or Wal-Mart or whatever, pick one further away. Take those few extra steps. Ten steps. You know, what’s it gonna hurt? It helps. It’s little things in life that really help.
So Dr. Lopez, I’ll ask you. What is the biggest difference you noticed in Terri from the start of her, from the first time you saw her until now, aside from maybe the weight loss?
Dr. Lopez: Her confidence. I really do see that. She’s happier, she’s very happy with herself, and she’s confident. You know, a lot of patients come in, and when they’re really struggling with weight, it’s normal human nature not to feel confident, not to feel the best, cause you’re kind of in this negative funk, right?
Terri: Correct.
Dr. Lopez: But as you go through, you start realizing ‘wow, it’s working, it’s happening. Yeah, it’s not gonna happen overnight, but it didn’t come on overnight. It’s a slow, progressive process, and yes, you hit plateaus, but the most important thing is working through them, realizing what they are, plateaus. They’re like a little stumbling block, and you will get –ast that as well as long as you are patient and continue with what, you know, what we know is, uhm, good practice, you know.
Terri: I also had a lot of support form the (intelligible) people at work. You know, once you lose that first 10, 20 pounds, people at work notice. ‘Oh, you’re losing weight, you look good.’ Yeah.
to be continued…
Does your story sound like Terri’s?
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