What I Wish I Knew BEFORE

THINGS I'D WISH I'D KNOWN IN THE BEGINNING:

1. Veggies don't have to be raw. Holy cow did we eat a lot of raw carrots...Cooked, steamed, canned, frozen, air-fried. Veggies are veggies.

2. 10/10...like what the heck is that? Then I realized you get 6 oz. of veggies for lunch and 14 oz. at dinner. There is no way (having gastric bypass) I can eat 14 oz. of anything. 10/10 means eating 10 oz. of veggies at lunch and 10 oz. at dinner.

3. Dinner salad doesn't have to be salad. It can be any kind of veggies.

4. If there are more than one of you doing BLE at home, buy a scale for each of you. Yes, do it. There's nothing worse than being hungry and waiting for a scale.

5. You will get "hangry" when it is time to eat. Like get out of my way, give me my food now, hence having multiple scales is a good thing.

6. You will have days when you weigh more. See the picture. I've had days when it goes up, but CONSISTENTLY it is going down. Especially for women during certain times of the month. Just trust the process and get off the scale.

7. DRINK WATER! Keep some by you at all times. If you wake up in the morning and you are parched, you didn't drink enough the day before. I like to think of it as the body needs a way to flush out all the fat.

8. Look for recipes. Your current eating habits probably don't account for eating this many veggies and fruits. So look for recipes. There are some great Facebook pages dedicated to no sugar and no flour recipes.

9. You're going to screw up. You got to this point because you don't have healthy eating habits, it takes time to get there. Forgive yourself and move on.

10. The voice in your head, nagging for rewards, IS REAL! Don't listen to him. You've got this.

11. Reach out if you have questions or need help.

    1. Facebook pages:

       1. Bright Line Eating® OFFICIAL

       2. Brightest Eaters for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

       3. RECIPE IDEAS no sugar no flour made easy

    2. Bright Line Eating Website

One thing that has helped me so much is preparation. I make sure I have what I need each week. I only shop 1 day a week, as shopping is not a good thing for me, though I'm enjoying it more as we hit up the produce, meat, dairy sections and we are out.

Finally, I set a goal to eat like this for 1 year. Period. 1 year. Sorry family of 4, but we are committing to doing this for 1 year. Right now we are almost 9 weeks in and EVERYONE is still on board. And to be honest, we are all so much happier.

Vernacular:

NMF - Not my food

NSV - Non-scale victory

BLE - Bright Line Eating