Eight

Stages Two and Three—Grounding and Stability

In this book I have included recipes you can use in the Grounding and Stability Stages of the Quick & Clean Diet—a time when of course you can continue to use any recipes from the High Motivation Stage—but there are no specific meal plans for these stages. The reason is that both stages are open-ended. You’ll be staying on the Grounding plan until you reach your goal weight, and how long that takes will depend on how much you have or want to lose. Next comes the Stability Stage, when you should no longer be thinking of this as a “diet.” Once you reach your weight loss goal, you’ll have made the Quick & Clean way of eating your lifestyle for the rest of your life! You’ll know what you can and can’t eat to maintain your weight; you will have found which foods you like and don’t like; and, hopefully, you’ll have developed a repertoire of Quick & Clean dishes of your own. In other words, you won’t need me to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be eating anymore.

Grounding

Notice anything? Do your clothes fit better? Do you feel hopeful about getting into your favorite old jeans very soon? Or maybe you already can! At this point you should be feeling better overall. You’ve just spent two weeks correcting your eating habits and clearing your body of toxins. Your cravings should be gone, and you’re wanting to eat healthy foods. I know that at the end of the first fourteen days, I was feeling pretty good. I was more in control of my eating habits. I didn’t crave all the salty or sugary foods I had in the past. I was sleeping better and had more energy.

I still wanted and needed to lose more weight, but there were a few foods I was missing. That’s how the Grounding Stage of the diet evolved. At this point you can reintroduce a small quantity of good grains into your life.

If you want a piece of whole grain toast with breakfast, fine. A whole wheat wrap for lunch? Great. Just stay away from the refined, processed white stuff—no going back to Wonder Bread, if that’s what you were eating before. For me, my new toast was a slice of Food for Life Ezekiel Bread with cashew butter. What about some brown rice with dinner? Why not? You can even have pancakes if you want.

But your metamorphosis is hardly over. In this Grounding Stage you will continue to lose weight, but most likely at a more gradual pace. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, having a wider range of healthy foods in your diet will help you stick with the plan. Being too restrictive for too long is simply too difficult for most people. Stay with this stage until you reach your goal weight. Then move on to Stability.

DURING THE GROUNDING STAGE YOU WILL:

• Continue to eat all the foods you did during the fourteen-day challenge.
• Continue to avoid corn and potatoes.
• Continue to limit legumes.
• Continue to avoid bananas, mangoes, cherries, and pineapple.
• Continue to avoid all alcohol.
• Add back ½ cup of any grain on the Foods to Love list (chapter 4) or 1 slice of whole grain bread per day.
• Have 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks or glasses of wine a week, if you like (and by that I do mean no more than 2!).

Stability

You’re there! You’ve reached your goal weight. Congrats! Now you can focus on maintaining what you’ve achieved for the rest of your life. I hope you feel good, because you’ve worked hard and that little bit of sacrifice was worth it. Those dream jeans fit. Go out and get that slinky strapless dress you’ve been wanting, because it will look great on you, and you deserve a reward for giving yourself the greatest gift there is: a dynamite body and much better health.

Your body should respond to foods differently. Like me, you may taste certain things you used to love and think they are much too sweet or much too salty. And you probably like the way your butt looks a lot more than you like the doughnuts at the coffee shop down the street. Now, when you think of a snack, think of one that’s Quick & Clean—maybe a few frozen grapes or an apple with cashew butter.

At this point you can eat any of the Foods to Love (chapter 4), including all the grains. Just remember that portion size still counts. No matter how healthy a food is, when you overeat you’re going to become overweight.

Drink wine or alcohol in moderation, but remember, it’s still empty calories!

Don’t see this stage as an invitation to throw everything you’ve just worked for out the window. It’s important to reflect on how hard it was to get here and how important it is to stay here—not just because you love the way you look, but because you care about your health. Don’t throw it all away by returning to those bad habits.

See this segment as an opportunity to really experiment with healthy foods. Keep broadening your food base so you never get bored.