The 7-Day Cabbage Soup Diet: How it worked for me

 The Cabbage Soup Diet (CSD) ... now there is a "blast" from the past. Ha ha. But seriously, it was a staple in the 80's and maybe 90's I think, but everyone did it at some point if you lived during those years and wanted to drop a few pounds quickly with minimal effort.  And spoiler alert, it works! I remember growing up my Dad used to do it in January every year. He , once upon a time, was a pretty big party guy and like someone ese I know treated the holidays like a free for all every year. See, I knew there was a reason, it's genetic. But after all of the Polish family food fests, office parties, neighborhood gatherings and country club shindigs, January 2nd always rolls around with tight pants and regret. So every year I watched him do this diet with discipline and enthusiasm because you get to eat food that tastes good, and he would drop probably 20-30 lbs. in a month. For real. Now first of all, he's a big guy  and was a big drinker (helloo water weight) so shedding weight comes a bit easier and quicker than it does for us ladies. But still, he would finish it up looking like a new man and I will always remember him saying how good he felt. 

I have been on the post menopause, there I said it, weight loss struggle bus for I don't know how long. It feel like since I hit my 30s but at least the last few years it has become exponentially harder to get that kickstart happening. To be honest my attempts have been somewhat lukewarm and half hearted, falling off the wagon was/is as easy as dispensing wine from a box if you know what I mean. A few weeks ago the old cabbage soup diet came to mind and I though should I? Could it? Can I? After a few days of that rolling around my cabbage I said yes. I went to the grocery store, bought all of the supplies and came home and made a huge pot of soup with a plan to start Monday, July 31st. And I did it. I journaled every day, tracked what I ate and how I felt. In short, real food, no processed chemical laden garbage, alcohol (maybe a smidge) or sugar. One evening meal on Day 4 my girls and I went out to dinner and to see Post Malone so I did not adhere that night. I ate what I wanted and drank reasonably so that I could enjoy the experience with them. Could I have stayed on plan? Sure. Make choices that make you happy.  

via GIPHY

Fast forward to the morning of Day 8 and I step on the scale to see that I am down 15.6 lbs. Can I get a whoop whoop? Now, was some of it water? Sure. Muscle? It's likely. Fat? FO SHO. Is this a sustainable way of life? No. Am I a registered dietitian, doctor, or social media "health coach"? No. I am just a girl who likes to eat real food and drink good booze, not work out too much. I may have a few emotional issues that feed the flames of over indulgence. Stress, sadness, anxiety, pretty much when anything goes wrong I try to assuage it with food and alcohol.  I mean it could be heroine or crack so I consider myself lucky. 

I am taking a few days off to focus on just hitting my macros, getting my protein in and intermittent fasting, which I also did during the CSD... 16 hours fasting, 8 hour eating window. I will start round 2 soon. I would like to lose 30 lbs. by my birthday on September 8th. Its not going to be easy but with the total amount I need to lose, and it's a lot, I am confident that it is doable with food and movement. 

All in all I think this is a great way to get a jump start on weight loss if you lack motivation and need to see results quickly in order to stay on track. It really could not be easier and also serves as a great detox from unhealthy, processed foods. I will continue to report here on how its going so come on back now and again if you are so inclined. 

Bye for now...

Cabbage Soup Diet • Diet • Weight Loss

The 7-Day Cabbage Soup Diet: How it worked for me

Friday, August 11, 2023

 The Cabbage Soup Diet (CSD) ... now there is a "blast" from the past. Ha ha. But seriously, it was a staple in the 80's and maybe 90's I think, but everyone did it at some point if you lived during those years and wanted to drop a few pounds quickly with minimal effort.  And spoiler alert, it works! I remember growing up my Dad used to do it in January every year. He , once upon a time, was a pretty big party guy and like someone ese I know treated the holidays like a free for all every year. See, I knew there was a reason, it's genetic. But after all of the Polish family food fests, office parties, neighborhood gatherings and country club shindigs, January 2nd always rolls around with tight pants and regret. So every year I watched him do this diet with discipline and enthusiasm because you get to eat food that tastes good, and he would drop probably 20-30 lbs. in a month. For real. Now first of all, he's a big guy  and was a big drinker (helloo water weight) so shedding weight comes a bit easier and quicker than it does for us ladies. But still, he would finish it up looking like a new man and I will always remember him saying how good he felt. 

I have been on the post menopause, there I said it, weight loss struggle bus for I don't know how long. It feel like since I hit my 30s but at least the last few years it has become exponentially harder to get that kickstart happening. To be honest my attempts have been somewhat lukewarm and half hearted, falling off the wagon was/is as easy as dispensing wine from a box if you know what I mean. A few weeks ago the old cabbage soup diet came to mind and I though should I? Could it? Can I? After a few days of that rolling around my cabbage I said yes. I went to the grocery store, bought all of the supplies and came home and made a huge pot of soup with a plan to start Monday, July 31st. And I did it. I journaled every day, tracked what I ate and how I felt. In short, real food, no processed chemical laden garbage, alcohol (maybe a smidge) or sugar. One evening meal on Day 4 my girls and I went out to dinner and to see Post Malone so I did not adhere that night. I ate what I wanted and drank reasonably so that I could enjoy the experience with them. Could I have stayed on plan? Sure. Make choices that make you happy.  

via GIPHY

Fast forward to the morning of Day 8 and I step on the scale to see that I am down 15.6 lbs. Can I get a whoop whoop? Now, was some of it water? Sure. Muscle? It's likely. Fat? FO SHO. Is this a sustainable way of life? No. Am I a registered dietitian, doctor, or social media "health coach"? No. I am just a girl who likes to eat real food and drink good booze, not work out too much. I may have a few emotional issues that feed the flames of over indulgence. Stress, sadness, anxiety, pretty much when anything goes wrong I try to assuage it with food and alcohol.  I mean it could be heroine or crack so I consider myself lucky. 

I am taking a few days off to focus on just hitting my macros, getting my protein in and intermittent fasting, which I also did during the CSD... 16 hours fasting, 8 hour eating window. I will start round 2 soon. I would like to lose 30 lbs. by my birthday on September 8th. Its not going to be easy but with the total amount I need to lose, and it's a lot, I am confident that it is doable with food and movement. 

All in all I think this is a great way to get a jump start on weight loss if you lack motivation and need to see results quickly in order to stay on track. It really could not be easier and also serves as a great detox from unhealthy, processed foods. I will continue to report here on how its going so come on back now and again if you are so inclined. 

Bye for now...

Read More

Hello.

Wow, does it feel weird to be back here, banging on the keys to put up some content on the old dusty blog. What the heck am I doing you might ask? Goofing off on a Sunday afternoon? Well, I am not 100% sure which also seems to be pretty much the case way back when I was writing this thing regularly a hundred billion years ago. I really miss writing as a creative outlet for one, I miss the interaction too. Blogging in the early 2000's and teens was all the rage and I met so many cool strangers right here in this space, before social media was like it is today. Social media was kind of like the cherry on top of your blog sundae at that time. It was like a little extra thing you didn't have to have but was an amusing addition. Some bloggers loved it and devoured that cherry and others left it sitting in the bottom of the empty bowl.  And then everything changed. The blog sundae started to slowly melt away and the cherry was all you had left so most of us moved forward and started honing our "IG/mini blog post  with the emphasis on photos" style of blogging. And the real written blogs, especially in the lifestyle category kind of died or just changed in my opinion. At least that is what I thought.

Turns out people are still writing blogs but mostly as a side bar to what ever social media outlet they have the biggest presence on, most likely Tik Tok or Insta. So say all this to say I am not sure what I am really doing here or where this will go but I have a few things to say about a few things and rather than moving and starting over it seemed kind of nice to think about maybe just redecorating a little bit. After all, all my old content still lives here and the domain is paid for and I don't feel like migrating to a new platform and thinking of a new name and all of that bullshit. Maybe at some point I will but, not today. 

The truth is, I have been looking back a lot lately and not in a bad way because I normally don't recommend that sort of thing. Sometime things happen in life that force you to reflect on the past. I'll save some of that for later but for now looking back has me remembering things that made me feel good and added richness to my life. I feel as though the last few years for many reasons, I have lost some of my focus, purpose and drive. I think back to certain times in my life when I really liked who I was and mostly felt good as opposed to loathing all of the things so much. Can we go back in time and experience those times again? No but perhaps if I reintroduce some of the atomic habits I had then that made me better, the same will be true today. I think so anyway, we'll see.  

To be honest I don't even care if anyone reads this because it just feels good to dump everything out here that is in my brain. In the old days I feel like blogging really kept me on track and accountable in some weird way. I felt like if I wrote it in my blog and even one person read it then I had to follow thru on what ever it was. It was a good way to track and execute goals, ideas and plans for the future while documenting in real time what was happening in my life. Again, I am sure no one really cares but one thing I know is that if you are going thru something there is a 100% chance someone else is or has too, and you just never know how putting it out there could impact another person. 

I am not sure how much I can do here given my job, family and other responsibilities but, we shall see. I just finished a big detox and that is the first thing I really want to talk about, so stay tuned. 

Hello.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Wow, does it feel weird to be back here, banging on the keys to put up some content on the old dusty blog. What the heck am I doing you might ask? Goofing off on a Sunday afternoon? Well, I am not 100% sure which also seems to be pretty much the case way back when I was writing this thing regularly a hundred billion years ago. I really miss writing as a creative outlet for one, I miss the interaction too. Blogging in the early 2000's and teens was all the rage and I met so many cool strangers right here in this space, before social media was like it is today. Social media was kind of like the cherry on top of your blog sundae at that time. It was like a little extra thing you didn't have to have but was an amusing addition. Some bloggers loved it and devoured that cherry and others left it sitting in the bottom of the empty bowl.  And then everything changed. The blog sundae started to slowly melt away and the cherry was all you had left so most of us moved forward and started honing our "IG/mini blog post  with the emphasis on photos" style of blogging. And the real written blogs, especially in the lifestyle category kind of died or just changed in my opinion. At least that is what I thought.

Turns out people are still writing blogs but mostly as a side bar to what ever social media outlet they have the biggest presence on, most likely Tik Tok or Insta. So say all this to say I am not sure what I am really doing here or where this will go but I have a few things to say about a few things and rather than moving and starting over it seemed kind of nice to think about maybe just redecorating a little bit. After all, all my old content still lives here and the domain is paid for and I don't feel like migrating to a new platform and thinking of a new name and all of that bullshit. Maybe at some point I will but, not today. 

The truth is, I have been looking back a lot lately and not in a bad way because I normally don't recommend that sort of thing. Sometime things happen in life that force you to reflect on the past. I'll save some of that for later but for now looking back has me remembering things that made me feel good and added richness to my life. I feel as though the last few years for many reasons, I have lost some of my focus, purpose and drive. I think back to certain times in my life when I really liked who I was and mostly felt good as opposed to loathing all of the things so much. Can we go back in time and experience those times again? No but perhaps if I reintroduce some of the atomic habits I had then that made me better, the same will be true today. I think so anyway, we'll see.  

To be honest I don't even care if anyone reads this because it just feels good to dump everything out here that is in my brain. In the old days I feel like blogging really kept me on track and accountable in some weird way. I felt like if I wrote it in my blog and even one person read it then I had to follow thru on what ever it was. It was a good way to track and execute goals, ideas and plans for the future while documenting in real time what was happening in my life. Again, I am sure no one really cares but one thing I know is that if you are going thru something there is a 100% chance someone else is or has too, and you just never know how putting it out there could impact another person. 

I am not sure how much I can do here given my job, family and other responsibilities but, we shall see. I just finished a big detox and that is the first thing I really want to talk about, so stay tuned. 

Read More

Fit To Fat To Fit

Well hey there! I'm checking in with myself and with all of you as well since I am going to write some stuff here in this dusty old blog space of mine. So it's May 1st and 4 months of 2019 have passed us by. I just started my 7th round of Whole30 because quite frankly the last 3 months have been a free for all. I have been all out of sorts eating and drinking all the things, moving minimally and just generally being extremely unproductive in my health goals and health maintenance.

I did a January Whole30 and it sucked big donkey balls. I am pretty sure I was in a bad mood for the entire month and I couldn't wait for it to end. And when it did I immediately reverted back to Holiday-free-for-all Amy who still shows up every November like that one annoying relative who stays about two hours longer after the holiday party is officially over. Rude. But I did complete the January Whole30 by the book so there's that. I did not however, weigh myself so I am not sure how much weight I lost. I could tell I lost some but I decided that I didn't need the scale to measure the success of my January Whole30 or at all for that matter. I was wrong.

I got on the scale today, Day 1 of this round and as I suspected it told me quite a story. I think it actually cried a little too but that's not important. I know that a lot of people say throw out the scale, go by how you feel, your weight fluctuates every day anyway, you can be healthy at any weight and don't let the scale dictate how you feel about yourself, blah, blah, blah. But for me, when I don't get on the scale I can deny what is really happening to some extent. Ignorance is bliss right? Maybe I need to unbutton my pants because I dried them on high heat? Surely it has nothing to do with the nacho mountain that now resides on my posterior region.  But seriously, getting on the scale is necessary. And I don't think you can be healthy at any weight as much as the anti-fat shamers would have us believe. Just go visit a nursing home and tell me how many old fat people you see there. You won't because there aren't any.

I say all of this to say, I got on the scale today and the number was really, reeeeeeallly ugly, but I didn't feel horrible. It doesn't define me. It was not a surprise and I don't hate myself. The scale did not dictate how I feel today. I have been making bad choices and I earned that number with every glass of wine, slice of pizza and piece of chocolate I crammed down my gullet for the last 3 months. But it is OK. I know that every second of every minute of every day that I am breathing is an opportunity for me to make a different choice and that is HUGE!! I also 100% know that in just a few short days of being on Whole30 I will start to feel markedly better. Since I won't be cheers-ing to anything else for awhile cheers to that!

Whole30

Fit To Fat To Fit

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Well hey there! I'm checking in with myself and with all of you as well since I am going to write some stuff here in this dusty old blog space of mine. So it's May 1st and 4 months of 2019 have passed us by. I just started my 7th round of Whole30 because quite frankly the last 3 months have been a free for all. I have been all out of sorts eating and drinking all the things, moving minimally and just generally being extremely unproductive in my health goals and health maintenance.

I did a January Whole30 and it sucked big donkey balls. I am pretty sure I was in a bad mood for the entire month and I couldn't wait for it to end. And when it did I immediately reverted back to Holiday-free-for-all Amy who still shows up every November like that one annoying relative who stays about two hours longer after the holiday party is officially over. Rude. But I did complete the January Whole30 by the book so there's that. I did not however, weigh myself so I am not sure how much weight I lost. I could tell I lost some but I decided that I didn't need the scale to measure the success of my January Whole30 or at all for that matter. I was wrong.

I got on the scale today, Day 1 of this round and as I suspected it told me quite a story. I think it actually cried a little too but that's not important. I know that a lot of people say throw out the scale, go by how you feel, your weight fluctuates every day anyway, you can be healthy at any weight and don't let the scale dictate how you feel about yourself, blah, blah, blah. But for me, when I don't get on the scale I can deny what is really happening to some extent. Ignorance is bliss right? Maybe I need to unbutton my pants because I dried them on high heat? Surely it has nothing to do with the nacho mountain that now resides on my posterior region.  But seriously, getting on the scale is necessary. And I don't think you can be healthy at any weight as much as the anti-fat shamers would have us believe. Just go visit a nursing home and tell me how many old fat people you see there. You won't because there aren't any.

I say all of this to say, I got on the scale today and the number was really, reeeeeeallly ugly, but I didn't feel horrible. It doesn't define me. It was not a surprise and I don't hate myself. The scale did not dictate how I feel today. I have been making bad choices and I earned that number with every glass of wine, slice of pizza and piece of chocolate I crammed down my gullet for the last 3 months. But it is OK. I know that every second of every minute of every day that I am breathing is an opportunity for me to make a different choice and that is HUGE!! I also 100% know that in just a few short days of being on Whole30 I will start to feel markedly better. Since I won't be cheers-ing to anything else for awhile cheers to that!

Read More

Current Status....

We are currently in the third month of the year, winter appears to be over for the most part and we just turned the clocks forward. This year hasn't gotten off to a bad start for me exactly but, I wouldn't say it's going all that well either. It's just blah. It's blah and it's my fault that it's blah. Somehow, somewhere over the end of last year/beginning of this year I got off track. I lost all of my motivation and my mojo. I went from being super motivated and checking off the goals daily to couch surfing and Netflix binges. I don't know exactly how it happened or why but I have been having a hell of a time righting this ship. So, I find myself here writing it down to see if maybe this will help. Letting go of this blog and checking in at least semi- regularly here is something I regret and it used to help me stay on task if I am being totally honest. If you have ever written a blog, especially the lifestyle variety where you get to talk about anything you want, it kind of becomes your journal, your book of lists, the place where you outline goals and highlight the good, the bad and the ugly sometimes too. It kept me honest but I just ran out of time or maybe I gave priority to other things and the blog just faded away.

2018 was an awesome year for me. I set out in January with very measurable and specific goals. I blogged about them, wrote them down in prominent places in my home and told people, even the ones that seemed crazy and unattainable. And guess what? I mostly achieved them all, if not exactly, in one variation or another that translated to a win/win for me. It was a banner year for about the first nine months and I was flying high... and then I started slipping. By around month twelve I was looking a little something like this....

I blew off mostly every bit of side hustle that I had gained momentum on with my Whole30 coaching business, this blog, creating recipes, social media content, the newsletter I kept not sending out and I just kind of hibernated the month of December away like a miserable potato of the couch. My old pals stress and anxiety got the best of me cause you just never know what triggers them (cough, cough, holidays) but I was determined to turn it around with my January Whole30 because that always works for me. Except this time it did not. Yeah.

It didn't work. I did not have enough coaching clients signed up to make an effective support group so I bagged that. Fail. My Williams Sonoma pop ups in December were small but I "hoped" (key word here) people would sign up for the classes I was teaching there in January. Only a few did so I cancelled those too. Fail.  I feel like the wheels came off my January Whole30 right out of the gate and I never did quite recover. It was the worst Whole30 of the 6 that I have done. The. Worst. Ever. I stuck to it but after the first week or so I was kind of miserable but I couldn't quit. What kind of Whole30 coach quits a Whole30? Truth be told a human one. Maybe I should have let that one go or maybe it's good that I didn't but either way I did the damn thing. Then it was February and the shit show kind of started up again. 

So here I sit in March, looking over my 19 for 2019 and somehow I have managed to cross one off the list... shocker. Yet I have not even given any of the others a single thought since the day I wrote them down. So this is where I am starting, with my list of goals for the year. I think my biggest problem  and the main reason why I get soooo off track is I forget to focus on taking the smaller steps toward achieving the bigger goal. I got really good at that last year for awhile and it worked. I was doing a checklist every day and shit was getting done and I was taking better care of myself because that was on the list too. And I totally thought I had my shit together then, I got lazy. I guess I thought I was a pro.

I am not. I've been on the struggle bus before and it doesn't last forever. I actually feel better just having written this all out so... mission accomplished. Where do I go from here? I think Sherwin Williams. Paint is 30% off this month and a fresh coat of paint on anything is quite cathartic, plus it's on my 19 for 2019 to do some painting.

Cheers!

19 for 2019

Current Status....

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

We are currently in the third month of the year, winter appears to be over for the most part and we just turned the clocks forward. This year hasn't gotten off to a bad start for me exactly but, I wouldn't say it's going all that well either. It's just blah. It's blah and it's my fault that it's blah. Somehow, somewhere over the end of last year/beginning of this year I got off track. I lost all of my motivation and my mojo. I went from being super motivated and checking off the goals daily to couch surfing and Netflix binges. I don't know exactly how it happened or why but I have been having a hell of a time righting this ship. So, I find myself here writing it down to see if maybe this will help. Letting go of this blog and checking in at least semi- regularly here is something I regret and it used to help me stay on task if I am being totally honest. If you have ever written a blog, especially the lifestyle variety where you get to talk about anything you want, it kind of becomes your journal, your book of lists, the place where you outline goals and highlight the good, the bad and the ugly sometimes too. It kept me honest but I just ran out of time or maybe I gave priority to other things and the blog just faded away.

2018 was an awesome year for me. I set out in January with very measurable and specific goals. I blogged about them, wrote them down in prominent places in my home and told people, even the ones that seemed crazy and unattainable. And guess what? I mostly achieved them all, if not exactly, in one variation or another that translated to a win/win for me. It was a banner year for about the first nine months and I was flying high... and then I started slipping. By around month twelve I was looking a little something like this....

I blew off mostly every bit of side hustle that I had gained momentum on with my Whole30 coaching business, this blog, creating recipes, social media content, the newsletter I kept not sending out and I just kind of hibernated the month of December away like a miserable potato of the couch. My old pals stress and anxiety got the best of me cause you just never know what triggers them (cough, cough, holidays) but I was determined to turn it around with my January Whole30 because that always works for me. Except this time it did not. Yeah.

It didn't work. I did not have enough coaching clients signed up to make an effective support group so I bagged that. Fail. My Williams Sonoma pop ups in December were small but I "hoped" (key word here) people would sign up for the classes I was teaching there in January. Only a few did so I cancelled those too. Fail.  I feel like the wheels came off my January Whole30 right out of the gate and I never did quite recover. It was the worst Whole30 of the 6 that I have done. The. Worst. Ever. I stuck to it but after the first week or so I was kind of miserable but I couldn't quit. What kind of Whole30 coach quits a Whole30? Truth be told a human one. Maybe I should have let that one go or maybe it's good that I didn't but either way I did the damn thing. Then it was February and the shit show kind of started up again. 

So here I sit in March, looking over my 19 for 2019 and somehow I have managed to cross one off the list... shocker. Yet I have not even given any of the others a single thought since the day I wrote them down. So this is where I am starting, with my list of goals for the year. I think my biggest problem  and the main reason why I get soooo off track is I forget to focus on taking the smaller steps toward achieving the bigger goal. I got really good at that last year for awhile and it worked. I was doing a checklist every day and shit was getting done and I was taking better care of myself because that was on the list too. And I totally thought I had my shit together then, I got lazy. I guess I thought I was a pro.

I am not. I've been on the struggle bus before and it doesn't last forever. I actually feel better just having written this all out so... mission accomplished. Where do I go from here? I think Sherwin Williams. Paint is 30% off this month and a fresh coat of paint on anything is quite cathartic, plus it's on my 19 for 2019 to do some painting.

Cheers!

Read More