The Natural Police

I am terrified of authority- always have been. I immediately start to cry if I think I am being pulled over by the police. I once went to pieces and pulled myself over before I realized the highway patrol was after the car next to me. I think this is one of the reasons Weight Watchers works for me. There is a checks and balances system and the scale is the authority. Weighing in with a gain is like a bad mark on your permanent record and that spells scary disaster for me. I also know that if someone gives me free license, I will not use it well.

This is why last week was, well, confusing. In the rush to get fit for the wedding, I bought 12 personal training sessions. That was 6 months ago and I have only used 3 of them. With the wedding less than 60 days away, I met with my trainer, Austin, last week. He knows that I have lost 25 pound on Weight Watchers and that I am only 8 pounds away from goal. After a slightly painful training session, Austin sat me down and told me he wanted to have a talk. I felt scared, like he knew I had consumed a whole bottle of Rombauer Chardonnay the night before (which I had).

Instead, he wanted to share a perspective on how to get the last eight pounds off. Trainers love to make losing weight sound so simple. Austin said “Just get to the gym as much as you can and watch your diet.” Well, DUH! I frowned and told him I was already doing that. Then he asked what I was eating. As we are still without a kitchen, much of my diet is being cooked in the microwave. He stood up and said “Would you be up for a field trip?” Hoping there would be snacks at the end, I drove with Austin to the grocery store and here is what he said:

It is difficult for the body to get rid of processed foods. Even if the processed food is low in calories, the body might still hang on to it and treat it like fat. As we traveled through the story reading ingredients, I began to see his Au Naturale Philosophy. His basic rule of thumb is if you don’t know what the ingredients are, neither does your body. We compared energy bars & I left with a new type of bar, the Larabar (YUM!). I also purchased unprocessed peanut butter. That’s right, peanut butter!

I felt like I was speeding down the highway with my new unprocessed diet. I told Austin I was worried about the calories (aka points!). He encouraged me to let go for a week and see how I felt. So I did and here are my thoughts: I found that the unprocessed foods kept me full for longer. I felt a little guilty eating them, but they were good and felt healthy. In the end, I shaved off another pound last week. I think it will be a struggle to eat unprocessed, especially without a kitchen, but I am looking at labels for more than just points now. I will be interested to see how to merge unprocessed and points, but for now all I can think is “how can you argue with eating peanut butter with a spoon?!”