Sunday, November 18, 2012

{Seattle Sutton's} Experiment

For couple of months I had been thinking about trying SeattleSutton's Healthy Eating (SSHE), and this summer I finally signed up. I wanted to write a summary/review to remember my experience, but I never got around to it. Finally I've gathered a few journal entries from my first few weeks and included edited versions for the sake of this blog entry, and wrote down some thoughts.

Journal Entries

Monday, July 23 - It was the Monday after a couple of weeks of crazy so I made sure to set a reminder on my phone to go pick up the food. I ordered one week...we'll see how it goes. First dinner was twice baked potato, spinach, meatloaf and spiced apples. other than the raisins or whatever they were, it was pretty good! 
Tuesday, July 24 - First full day of SSHE food. It was OK. Dinner was probably the least tasty, but not bad.  
Wednesday, July 25 - SSHE is going OK. Day 2 complete. Ate oatmeal for breakfast...didn't think I'd do that ever :) Was really hungry when I got home so I ate bread with PB&J. Hopefully I'll see a drop in the scale after this week is done. I have to decide tomorrow about next week’s order...still thinking, but it might be worth a month or so trial. I like the portion control it gives me: no seconds. 
Thursday, July 26 - Picked up my 2nd half of my first week of food from SSHE  I'm kind of getting to like this convenience! The food is good and stretching my taste buds for things I don't normally eat. I feel pretty good about how much food except last night I had a large bowl of cereal to accompany my meal. I know the next thing I need to do is to add back in exercising and then maybe I could make some smoothies to help me be full. I'd like to get a magic bullet so I can make them easily. Maybe that will be a goal of mine after losing some weight...say 5 or 10 lbs?
Sunday, August 2 - Have been sick all weekend. Coughing and coughing. Started middle of week just a small, dry cough, but it got worse and worse each day. Not sure if it's allergies or what. Finally got Muscinex cough medicine today. Starting to feel better. 
Tuesday, August 7 - I started SSHE 3 weeks ago. Last week I only did a half week on the program because of multiple events around meal times. Considering I still lost a pound, I'm pretty proud of my success so far. I think what I'm learning most from the SSHE program is portion control is key and making calories count. I really enjoy the variety of vegetables and fruits I've been able to try. I like fresh pineapple! I didn't know before I ate it 3 times in one week. That doesn't say a lot for variety, but I also had apple, peach, and orange in a week! I could never get have that much variety by shopping on my own. 

Thoughts on SSHE

SSHE has two program options: 2000 or 1200 calories each day. I chose the 1200 calorie option and part of the 1200 calories included 2 glasses of milk each day. I started drinking the milk, but when I got sick with a nagging cough, I switched to rice milk and within a couple of days I was feeling better.

Overall, SSHE was a way to jump start some weight loss and to date I've seen about a 10 lbs loss. I liked how you could order week by week and even order a half week. Not having to commit to a month or more at a time was convenient.

I decided SSHE is not a long term option for me mostly because of the cost ($120/week), but also the food does get a bit repetitive even though they have a 6 week menu rotation. I noticed the meals I didn't really like would end up in my freezer for a later time when I didn't order, but then they didn't look very appetizing to me when I was ready to eat them.


Life After the Experiment


In September I started working out regularly again after a 3-month break, and I think working out has helped me maintain the weight loss SSHE prompted. In the past two-three weeks I've started to see about a pound or so loss each week. I think the new loss is due to a focus on planned eating (menu planning!) and an increase in my workouts from 30 min., 3 x per week to 45 min., 4-5 x per week. I took my measurements this weekend and was pleasantly surprised I was down an inch in my waist.

I read some weigh loss blogs and they talk about non-scale victories (NSV):  In the past few weeks I've had a few people notice my weight loss which has been very encouraging! Also my clothes are starting to feel big on me. I'm looking forward to some shopping in the near future!



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