Cohen Journey: 3-Month Mark!

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Hmmmm, I’ve been counting the days actually and as of writing, I’ve been on Cohen for 89 days, weee!!! And I’m even happier to report that I didn’t deviate at all in any of those days. (tap on the back for me :D, LOL!).

It really helps that I like what I eat and that I enjoy seeing my progress as I go through this Journey.  I do have some tricks that I believe helped me even more to stick to Cohen.

1)      Batch weighing – I buy stuff during weekends and I weigh all of them so that its easy for me to just pull one bag and prepare it to my liking.

2)      Batch cooking – I know a lot of Cohenites  don’t favour batch cooking as they believe its not as accurate as cooking meals separately but I must say, I wouldn’t have been this successful if not for batch cooking.  You see I’m a busy working mom and anything that will make my journey easier, I’m all for it.  The trick is to be as scientific about it as possible.  Like for example, I always batch cook Nilagang Baka. 

-          How do I do it, I weigh my beef for 5 days (so for example my allowance is 100g per day then I would weigh 500 grams).  After that put all of it in a boiling pan, sprinkle enough salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and ginger powder.  After that, I put ample water and boil meat till tender.

-          After the Beef Nilaga is cooked, I let it cool a bit then I separate the meat from the broth then I weigh the meat.  I divide whatever the cooked weight is to the number of portions I cooked (e.g. I cooked 500grams of beef and the cooked weight is for example 400grams then I divide that by 5 giving me 80 grams so I pack 5 portions of 80 grams each, the same thing that I do with my broth, I weigh the broth and divide it by the portions and pour it on the meat portions seal and put on the freezer.

-          So every time I only need to get one portion of this batch cooked beef nilaga heat it and add the veggie allowance.  Easy peasy.

3)      I always treat myself with fruits (my favourite of which is mango), this curves my cravings for sweets

4)      I have recipes for tamad days and recipes for when I feel a bit more into cooking that way I have a food handy for every mood.

5)      I just let it be, if I loose 5lbs in 1 week, fine, if I loose 2lbs, fine.  So long as I know that I’m sticking to my program, I let the weighing scale be.

I wouldn’t have succeeded thus far if not for these points above.  I’m really excited to embed this lifestyle into my own and I’m getting there.

So how did I do so far, I’ll give the latest update (Day 89 – that is a bit more over than 3 months).

Start Weight                 - 236.4 Lbs ( I know, I was huge!)

Current Weight             - 181.6 lbs (YEY!!!!)

Total Weigh Loss         - 54.8 lbs (YEEEEYYY!!!!)

Next biggest challenge…. Our trip to Manila…..  

Cohen Journey: Two months in!

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Time flies when your having fun :D.  I have completed 2 months on my Cohen Journey.  Actually I’m on my 9^th week, I just didn’t manage to post a second month mark last week.  

I’m happy to report that I have no deviations for the past 2 months (and almost another week).  Yey!  I really enjoy the food that I eat and I’m not desperate to eat things that I used to eat before.  

During my second month, I met one challenge that really defined my commitment to this lifestyle.  This month, we went to Brussels for a long weekend so I really had to psyche myself.  I had to prepare beforehand and make sure that I have all the meals that I would be eating before we left.  I had to carefully plan my meals and snacks and buy all that I require.  I’m really glad it all worked out.  I almost had a glitch though, we were supposed to be home by dinner of Sunday but we were invited to have dinner.  So I had to tell the host that I’m not eating coz I’m on a special diet and she understood and didn’t force me to eat.  I had to wait till much later that evening for my dinner but it was all good in the end, still no deviations!

There are instances when were in social functions and people would be eating around me and sometimes it entices me to have a taste but in the end I don’t give is so all is good.  I believe this is good practice for when we go for our holidays in the Philippines.

I still get some urges to eat chocolates and sweet treats when people around me are having them but my will overpowers my sweet tooth (or sweet jaw) :D.

This month I lost 16.0 lbs and in total I have already lost 39.8lbs.  Yey! Hurrah for Cohen. 

I just wanted to share, my most favourite food is shrimp salad.  Thank God for shrimps, just mix them with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper and they are heavenly.  

I’m so excited to finally achieve my goal!!!

Cohen Journey: 5 weeks on the road

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I have completed my 5^th week on Cohen with no deviations yey! So far everything has been great.  I don’t feel deprived and no cravings, well except for those times when we went to dinner parties and I just drink cola and everyone is feasting on a sumptuous dinner :D.  However, the sacrifices far outweigh the benefits and rewards of sticking to my eating plan.

In the past months, I have bought dresses that are a dress size (or two) smaller thinking that I will wear them when I’m thinner.  It has been months though (or for some a year or a bit more) and they still hang in my closet with their tags on looking lonely and craving to be taken out of the dark corner of the abyss that is my cabinet.  

However, this all changed on my fifth week on Cohen! It was in the morning, it was still a bit early and I was thinking of what to wear when all of a sudden, an idea clicked inside my head, seriously, I could almost see the light bulb pop on top of my head (teehee).  I thought, why not try how much further am I from actually wearing this dress that I have bought months (I’m not even sure if it was a year ago) from mango.  I was so excited while I was slipping the dress through and lo and behold, it fits!  I was so excited that I didn’t change clothes anymore.  The dress that I have so longed to wear for the past months finally fit! Ecstatic!

I was so excited that I just went on about preparing to go to work and went off my merry way strutting my way about showing off this blue dress that finally saw daylight.  When I got home that evening and while I was changing my clothes, I laughed so loud when I realized that due to my excitement, I completely forgot to take the tag off!  Good thing it stayed inside the dress and didn’t show :D.  In my defence, I didn’t plan to wear it, I was just trying it on to see how much more I had to lose to fit into it (LOL!).

I clearly remember the day that I bought that dress, there was a sale on Mango and I bought 3 dresses and out of the three I have only worn 1 dress in the past, the two are a dress size (or two) smaller.  So encouraged by my success the previous day, the following day, I tried on the other dress and my oh my, it fits!  Happy, happy me!

I have rummaged through my closet and started sorting out the clothes that fits me again…. I’m slowly conquering an entire closet of my clothes from previous years that all fit again!

I’m so encouraged and psyched to keep on going, this really is an amazing journey

So far I have lost 29lbs!