Share my month long journey

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Hello everyone!

I started the Virgin diet 1 month ago. I did it with my husband, mother, and brother.

So there I started at 24 years old and about 5'5.5 weighing 158#. Wasn't happy about that. We all weighed Sunday morning, and still continue.

The diet was expensive to start, not going to lie. Especially since 4 of us were doing it. We all live together and since I am in school and my brother works part time, as do I, we couldn't go as "organic" as we wanted to. We did our best and only bought grass fed and cage free when it was on sale (which was pretty much never).

According to the book we had to do meal replacement shakes, preferably two per day for the first cycle. We needed "special" protein powder which, the closest we got was $50 per flavor and wouldn't last us a week. Everyone hated the protein powder. We all stuck with it for week 1. And to be honest, I felt like the chemically driven protein powder had more chemicals and crap in it than other American food, so who is really winning here? Anyway, I only continued the shakes minus the protein powder and instead we cooked breakfast meat for the protein portion of the shake. Everyone else ate the meat and did oatmeal or gluten free bread with cashew butter spread.

After week 1, the expensiveness got less but we started making modifications. We allowed the males one piece of bread (the gluten free bread was gross and expensive) with peanut butter. Yes I know we just brought back 2 of the 7 things we were supposed to leave out. I figure, sue me. I wasn't eating either of those things, just the boys and we will see how they reacted (which was fine). By week 2 we decided to hell with the no corn rule. I can see why she doesn't want us to have it. We all came to an agreement that as long as we bought organic corn to eat or organic corn tortillas we would be ok. We started making our own tortilla chips and we would have taco night.

After reading this you are probably thinking, what I didn't cut out permanently. Well, to be honest, all of us cut out soy, and dairy for sure. Cheese and butter were a huge issue for us. Gluten was definitely cut out as well as sugar/artificial sweetener. Oh and eggs but I do miss them and might bring them back for the sake of something different to eat in the morning.

I still do the daily shakes. I put in a handful of spinach/kale, handful of frozen mixed berries, and 1 oz of flax seed or chia seed. And water. And a banana for creaminess.

Now I know you read all that, you are like what are your results! I just wanted to let you know and be honest about the modifications and how we worked them in. But I will give some advice and that is to read EVERY label before buying anything. Oh and you will mostly be buying fruits, veggies, nuts/seeds, beans, and meat. Isn't pricey once you start planning meals. The diet gets easier as you get used to the idea.

Ok so after 1 month of this diet, with modifications and basically no exercise: I currently weight 149#

Ok I know that doesn't sound like much at all but seeing as my goal weight is be 130# and I lost 9 of the 28#. That is a lot to lose in one month for someone so close to their goal weight.

My goal now is to continue the diet, cheat once a week for one meal and add in exercise. I will post again once I make it to that weight. I hope you enjoyed reading and you can message me for questions!

Thanks for reading!

Replies

  • elenagking
    elenagking Posts: 16 Member
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    Congratulations! Losing 9 lbs in a month is very good for someone of your beginning weight!

    Some things that we have done to help with the cost are to go meatless on most meals. For dinner, we will either have brown rice, rice/quinoa pasta, or quinoa and vegetables (usually frozen). We also eat beans instead of meat with vegetables. Dry beans are very cheap. I make them in the slow cooker and freeze them in baggies for use later. When we do eat meat, we try to buy it in bulk when it is on sale.

    Frozen vegetables are also a great money saver if you can get them on sale. Canned tomatoes are another great "stock up" item when they can be found at a good price.

    Some stores offer price matching. This saves our family lots of money!
  • xoxoalys
    xoxoalys Posts: 10
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    Thanks!

    Good ideas! We currently use beans to replace meat and we are trying to limit canned or frozen items.

    Still comes out sort of expensive but nonetheless. How are you doing on the diet?