My beauty experiment: Week 1 review

Week 1 was tough, I'll admit it.

To be honest, I was in a bad, bad way when I started this.  I was eating out several times a week, eating absolute junk at almost every meal, and had a wicked sugar and refined carbs addiction.  I had gained 30 pounds in a year and was at my highest weight in years.  And my weight was climbing every week.

I felt helpless.  Completely helpless and out-of-control.  And scared about what would happen if I continued down that path.   

I would love to say that this first week has changed all of that.  It would be nice to say I stopped eating refined carbs and took some supplements and all of my troubles disappeared overnight.

The victories:

• My sugar and carb cravings are nearly.gone.  
• My nails grew out long and strong practically overnight! (I'm crediting the fish oil) 
• I'm eating better on this diet than I've ever eaten in my life.  Seriously.  Absolute decadence!
• The bloating is dramatically reduced and I lost * pounds!  
• I feel great!

The challenges:

• I still feel insecure.  I desperately want to stick with this.  I'm so scared that I'm going to lose this!  I had a couple of weak moments that, if not for Dustin making me healthy food, I would have caved.  I know that path... I've been down it several times and I don't want to go back.
• I'm spending a lot of time planning and preparing food.  While this is enjoyable, I'm worried that I will get burned out.  What happens when I don't have the energy, inclination or time to plan and prepare for my meals?  Eating low-glycemic and gluten-free isn't familiar, and it takes time.
• This is more expensive than I'm used to.  I'm spending more money on food and supplements than I have in the past.  I just keep reminding myself that Americans spend the smallest percentage of our incomes on food out of any nation in the world.  I can shell out a couple of extra bucks for fresh, healthy food.  Good food costs money.  Bad food is, well, cheap.  You get what you pay for.

The plan:
I am trying to stick with this long enough to develop a new arsenal of go-to recipes and foods.  I learned to cook and eat based on my high-glycemic, wheat-focused diet.  Now I need to relearn how to eat.  I like what I see so far, but it is a challenge to start fresh.  Once I get "comfortable" cooking and eating with this type of lifestyle, then it will get easier.