Friend of Julie: The List

I  went with a friend to a Boston hair salon in March 2010 and I spent a lot of time and money with poor results: a horrible new hairstyle. What I realize now is that I was focusing my energy in the wrong place. A new hair style would never lead to the real change I wanted in my life. The real change I was seeking, came to me while following Julie's program.

Left: January 2013
Right: March 2010

These changes came from the program, but I had a big part in this change too. There were promises I needed to keep, rules I needed to follow, and I had to keep out of my own way to let the process work. Recent comments on this blog inspired me to write about this important aspect of this program: rely on yourself - you have the answers to your food questions.

Julie teaches us everything we need to know and how to train ourselves to stay on program. If you don't know the answer about a specific food, go quiet for a few moments and think about what you heard in class. I often ask myself "what would Julie say?" Using questions from those two comments, my though process would be to think along these lines:

Can I have hummus? Hmm, what is hummus? Beans. Beans are dried. Oh yeah, we can't have dried foods. Okay, no hummus. What else can I have?

What about coconut creamer? What is it? Half-and-half isn't allowed, so this probably isn't either. Also, since I don't read labels, I'm not able to really answer this one. Better skip this item. Milk (in any form) is a freebie, so I'll stick with milk. 

I'm still having the urge for sugar. Do I blow my progress if I eat one lil chocolate. Will I stop losing? Oh yeah, I agreed not to eat sugar. Julie says that when I have sugar, my body wants more sugar. A trick she taught is to push the thought of eating sugar back each time it comes to me. [Remember the visuals she did when she talked about this.] The more I push back on the thought, the weaker it gets. Focus on protein for a few days and this craving will go away.

Kefir is loaded with probiotics it's like liquid yogurt. It's a healthy choice and I keep it to a minimum. Oh, yeah, we're not allowed things that are "like" yogurt, we're only allowed (two per week and only with a protein) the brands Julie told us about. I really want the probiotics, so I'll look for them in another form.  [See recommendation by Nutrition Now PB8 Probiotic Acidophilus.]

If you find there are too many things that you don't know if they're on program or not, you may consider going for a refresh. You don't have to wait until you are completely off program to go in to see Julie again. I went to see Julie to continue learning the program and sometimes to get an extra boost to help me before I went on vacation. At a refresh, you can learn, once again, what's on program, what's not on program, and why certain foods are not good for us to eat.

There are times when I want to know how much weight I've lost. What is wrong with weighing yourself? A few things come to mind:

1. We promised Julie we would not weigh ourselves. 
2. Our body wants to know how much weight we've lost so it knows how much to gain back. If we don't know how much we weigh, then we're less likely to gain back that weight. 
3. Like sugar, when you push back on urges to get on the scale, they will go away and most often a weight drop follows. Visualize the motions that Julie does when she talks about pushing back thoughts of sugar or going on the scale.
4. Isn't reason number three enough to keep you off the scale?

I too have been caught up in the idea to weigh myself on the one year anniversary date. As the date of my second year on program approaches (1/29/13), those thoughts surfaced once again. I shared my well thought out thesis, of why I should get on the scale, with one of my friends. She reminded me of how fatal knowing that number can be and I came to my senses before getting on the scale.

I don't post a list of program foods on this blog for many reasons. One reason is that Julie encourages us not us to think so much about the program. The thinking process I described above is about retraining our brains rather than getting caught in our heads. We need to re-program our brains to this new way of eating and we can find the answers within ourselves. We learned all we need to know if the first classes we took from Julie. Another reason I don't post a list of foods: I don't work for Julie and such a list may cause legal (copyright) issues.

This way of eating is expensive. When I talk to my healthy friends, I find that their foods, which of late are quite similar to what I'm eating, are expensive too. Healthy food costs a lot more than package and fast food, but not eating healthy foods puts a big price our bodies. The high cost of eating well is more about government food pyramids and marketing than anything this program sells. Our economy drives the cost of food. It is wrong that healthy foods cost more, but if you do some research, you'll see why many of the "pyramid" foods are not good for our body.