Friday Favorites-The Fast Metabolism Diet

Let's be honest, losing weight is hard work.  I'm not talking about losing the 5 pounds you gained from eating too many bread rolls after Thanksgiving.  I'm talking about real weight that you put on over the years, only to wake up and look in the mirror 20 plus pounds heavier thinking "How did I become this person?".  It's never a good feeling having extra weight attached to your hips.  A lot of people will argue loosing weight is easy by simply eating healthy and working out.  Sure that works, but "healthy" can be a lot of things to a lot of people.  If it was that easy, millions of Americans would not be obese.  It's not so black and white.

Thanks to a slow metabolism and horrible genes, I have struggled with the scale most of my adult life.  I go up and down and up again, and I have tried almost every weightloss program out there.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. After having 2 kids, my old weight loss methods just have not seemed to be effective.  It's as if every child I have has sucked something out of me, and it is harder and harder to get back to my normal feel good self.  I always thought nursing would magically take the fat away, but I learned that I am one of the lucky few moms that gain weight when nursing since their body hangs on to food to provide for the baby.  Awesome.  So, when I stopped nursing I decided to do a strict no carb, no sugar diet.  I was determined to get back in shape.  For two straight months, I didn't even allow myself one M&M.  I was so excited when I weight myself and saw I was down 8 lbs!  I decided to reward myself by eating like a normal person for one day.  I didn't binge on anything crazy.  I just allowed myself to have some bread with dinner and a cookie for dessert.  What happened next shocked me.  One day, one SINGLE day of eating normal food caused me to gain 9 lbs!  I was speechless.  In that moment, I realized my strict two month no carb, no sugar diet was not helping lose fat.  I had lost water.  A lot of water.  It is physically impossible to gain 9 lbs of fat overnight, but it is easy to gain water, and water weighs a lot.  I was devastated.

After consulting with my good friends Ben and Jerry (which is probably the LAST thing I should have been doing), I decided to man up and figure out why my body was not responding like it should to healthy eating and exercise.  I made an appointment at a clinic for women that had really good reviews dealing with hormone issues.  Making that appointment was the best thing I have ever done.  During my one hour consultation, I learned so much about myself.  Basically, my hormones are so jacked up that I could eat lettuce every day and STILL gain weight.  I didn't even know that was possible.  My blood was drawn and sent to a lab to be tested for specific hormone indicator levels, and I get the results back next week.  In the meantime, I was instructed to read a book.  And that's where the Friday Favorites comes in.

The book is called The Fast Metabolism Diet, by Haylie Pomroy (There's an app too!).  Here is a little about the book from the website:


"On The Fast Metabolism Diet you’re going to eat a lot, and still lose weight. What you’re not going to do is count a single calorie or fat gram. Instead, you’re going to rotate what you’re eating throughout each week according to a simple and proven plan carefully designed to induce precise physiological changes that will set your metabolism on fire.

• PHASE ONE (Monday-Tuesday): Lots of carbs and fruits
• PHASE TWO (Wednesday-Thursday): Lots of proteins and veggies
• PHASE THREE (Friday-Saturday-Sunday): All of the above, plus healthy fats and oils
• Repeat for four weeks!

Each Phase focuses on different whole, healthy foods to calm your adrenal glands, reduce stress on your liver, and feed your thyroid so it can produce the hormones T3 and T4, the superstars of a fast metabolism. You’ll reduce stress, too—and as a result, put the damper on the belly-fat hormone, cortisol. By keeping your metabolism guessing, you’ll get it working faster. This isn’t just a theory; it’s the results-based product of Haylie Pomroy’s successful programs. It’s worked for celebrities, for athletes and for people with chronic illnesses who need to lose weight, doctor’s orders. Now it’s going to work for you!"


I hate reading and I will admit, I was a little hesitant to buy the book.  I mean, there are probably a million weight loss books out there, so what makes this one so special?  And if it works, why does the whole world not know about it?  I had so many hesitations in my head, but I decided to take a leap of faith and just read it.  What's the worst that can happen, right?  Well, I am so SO SOOOOO glad I read it.  For the first time ever, I feel like someone gets me.  I have hope and I am excited.  I don't even feel like Haylie's program is a diet.  It's more of a combination of eating certain foods that makes sense and causes your body to react by burning fat.  Just like cross fit exercises confuse your muscles and cause your body to get fit, The Fast Metabolism Diet confuses your metabolism and causes it to speed up and burn, burn, burn away fat.  It's not a fad diet, it is science.

I spent this whole week preparing to start the diet on Monday.  I made a grocery list, shopped for all the things I needed, cooked recipes from the book for 2 straight days, and stocked my freezer full of soups and chili that will help me follow the diet with my busy schedule.

I've never been so excited to start a diet than I am to start The Fast Metabolism Diet.  Today I made chocolate chip cookies to get it out of my system before committing myself to a new lifestyle, but I really don't have a desire to eat them.  Just reading the book has changed my outlook on food completely.  If nothing else, I am so grateful for the knowledge I have gained about the things I put in to my body.  I am excited to find out the results from my hormones, get them fixed, and start my Fast Metabolism Diet journey.  So, for at least the next 28 days I will be posting recipes and results from my Fast Metabolism Diet experience.  If weight is something you are struggling with and have yet to find an answer, I would 100% recommend getting this book.  I have my mom and sister reading it right now, and they are starting the program with me too.  I haven't even started the plan yet, but I am that confident that amazing things are going to happen.  So, stay tuned for my results and as Haylie says, I hope you look forward to seeing less of me.