Surprising Changes

Happy Friday! We've all made it to the end of another week and I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Tulip Time is in full swing in my home town with thousands of tourists roaming the streets to check out the tulips and all things Dutch. During Tulip Time, wherever you find crowds, you'll find food wagons. We have food wagons lining our streets for blocks and there is absolutely NOTHING on-plan available from any of the vendors. My husband refers to them as "gut wagons" because they not only fill the gut, they also fill it out :-). In our fat, pre-Take Shape for Life/Medifast days (and with me needing to lose 120 pounds and my husband needing to lose 50, "fat" was definitely the word), "dinner" during Tulip Time would usually mean grazing from one wagon to another. I'll spare you the gory details, but each stop meant spending money on high calorie/high fat foods with almost no nutritional value. By the time we'd eaten our way from one end of downtown to the other, our wallets were empty and we were miserably full and feeling bloated from all the grease.

What a difference Take Shape for Life/Medifast has made! Last year I was a few pounds short of my goal and my husband has just reached his, so we stayed as far away as possible from the gut wagons. Now that we've been at our goal for just about a year, we certainly could belly-up to the wagons again, only we don't want to. I had a little bit of something from one vendor, but it was a little bit and it was from ONE vendor. You know what? I didn't want any more - I really didn't. I completely avoided most of the food wagons because I knew I'd feel miserable after eating there because I just don't eat fried, fatty food any more.

When I started on this plan almost two years ago, I really expected that I would return to all of my old, favorite foods after I reached my goal. While a lot of food has come back, in moderation, of course!, other foods haven't and won't. It's not that I can't have them, I just don't want them anymore.

People told me that my taste buds would change on this program, but I don't think I really believed them. I can name pretty much on one hand the things that I don't like, and they are the things that most people aren't fond of (liver, anyone? lol). Other than those few things, I've rarely encountered a food item that I didn't like. It's not that I don't like those former fatty, fried things anymore - it's really a matter that I don't want them. Who would have thought it possible?

I realize now that staying on plan and eating food that was healthy for me really changed how I view food. I prefer a much "cleaner" food - baked or grilled rather than fried, and sans the fattening sauce. I like the way it tastes, and I like the way I feel after I eat it. No more bloated, over-stuffed feeling after a meal because Take Shape for Life/Medifast taught me the difference between being full and being satisfied.

So as you're staying on plan, more is happening than just losing weight, as wonderful as that is! Whether you realize it or not, this plan is teaching us new and healthy habits, habits that will help us stay at our healthy weight for the rest of our lives. Not a bad deal, is it?