AARP Rewards Healthy Plate Contest, Week 2 May 10-16

I've stopped buying chocolate candy of all kinds.  No more after breakfast 'treats', or after lunch or after anything.  Instead I have a piece of a banana or apple to satisfy my sweet teeth (yes, all of them like chocolate candy).  

High cholesterol. Switched from butter to smart butter. No full fat milk or cheese, no egg yolks, no red meat meat or pork for awhile. Switched to brown bread, rice and pasta. Nothing out of a box. Fresh vegetables and fruits. No sweets. Should have done this a long time ago. My grandkids will benefit as well.

I have eaten well and exercised regularly over the past 4-5 years but my cholesterol was still high.  I was able to decrease it significantly over the past 2 years or so by adding more fiber to my diet...specifically steel cut oats in my overnight oats every morning! 

I have eaten well and exercised regularly over the past 4-5 years but my cholesterol was still high.  I was able to decrease it significantly over the past 2 years or so by adding more fiber to my diet...specifically steel cut oats in my overnight oats every morning! 

Do NOT worry about the sugar in fruit, there is fiber content that will control it. You need to avoid processed foods, NOT fresh from the farm anything!

I don't subscribe to fad diets. I will look at the logic behind them and pick and choose. What I want is a healthy diet I can stick with, not limiting any of the things we commonly consider to be healthy, with minor indulgences in the less healthy. I feel like I'm more likely to stick with it if I just limit the not so healthy stuff. I used to eat a half gallon of ice cream a week and polish off 2 2 liter bottles of Dr Pepper. Went too many months not looking at the scale and those 2 things alone caused me to gain 35 lbs. At first I limited both ice cream and soda to the weekends. Continued weight gain caused me to eliminate the ice cream completely. While I'm down to one 2 liter bottle of Dr Pepper per weekend, I'm considering reducing it to one 16 oz bottle on a Saturday. Might eventually eliminate that too. Both are for very rare indulgences, away from my regular diet. But I find that if I evaluate what's happening with my body and adjust my diet as I feel that I may still be over indulging, then I make the change gradually and stick with it better. This site has been immensely helpful in showing me what I need more of and what I should cut back on. I'm also working on my cheese intake. I'm a sucker for cheese LOL The addition of exercise has also helped immensely in my weight control efforts. However, getting hit by a car has put a temporary damper on my workout efforts. So I expect to gain some weight in the next 5 weeks. I'll gradually work back up to working out once my body has healed. But I won't be a pedestrian again so long as I live in the city 😉

My heartburn has gotten much worse since I gained so much weight over this pandemic. I don't believe I'm getting the nutrition that I need to not feel exhausted so I'm trying to lessen foods that have no nutritional value and get back down to a weight where I can enjoy seasoned food again because right now anything spicy is a no go. 

@AARPTeri I use Xylitol instead of sugar when I bake. Xylitol is natural organic sweetener, it has 40% less calories and 75% less carbs than sugar.  It has an extremely low glycemic index, so it's great for sugar-controlled diets.  It can't be metabolized by plaque bacteria, so it actually helps prevent tooth decay. 

I will not buy/eat anything that has GMOs or has been altered in any way.

I am eating a whole food plant based diet that has eliminated all meats and seafood, dairy, eggs, processed sugars and oil. A world of food was opened up to me when I chose to eat this way.  My biggest challenge thus far is finding a decent creamer replacement for my coffee, lol!