I've decided to change up my diet plan. Up until now I've been pretty much 100% "in the box" on the HMR diet and it has been successful, but I've decided to stray.
The proponents and coaches of the HMR diet work very hard to keep people from straying, but they primarily are worried about people re-introducing foods that will work against the program - all the naughty bits that are verboten. The things (like cookies, donuts, cake, chips, fried stuff, pizza, etc.) that I was able to give up by following HMR strictly.
I'm glad for what you did for me, HMR, in getting my eating habits fixed and helping me lose almost 40 pounds. But it's time to move on.
I will be following a similar program of my own making, incorporating clean eating, eating five vegetables a day, and tracking, which are the best things I got from HMR.
I am getting one last "two week package" from them with entrees and shakes that would last two weeks, but I think I'll keep them for backups when I don't have access to the clean food that I'm incorporating into my own program. I haven't officially quit them as I have to call and talk to a real person to do that, and I imagine they'll ask "why" and I'll give some version of "I'm ready to move on, but I've lost almost 40 pounds and was very happy with HMR and I just can't afford it right now."
If I were to give the real reasons . . .
- The AFTERTASTE - When I started the program I was ready for someone to tell me EXACTLY what to eat and what to do, and that's what HMR does, and why I bought it. I read reviews that said the entrees weren't palatable, which I wrote off as people being picky. Bottom-line, if you're not REALLY committed to losing weight, you can find excuses in HMR as to why it doesn't work. I was so expecting horrible food that I was pleasantly surprised and thought the entrees were pretty damned good. And they were, for a while. But after three months of nothing else, you start to really notice the aftertaste. and that makes you think about what you're eating. The entrees are not refrigerated and have a long shelf-life, so I guess they're really like canned food, just not in a can. And you realize that what you're eating has to be highly . . .
- PROCESSED FOOD - In reading about eating healthy and clean, you can't escape all of the negative news about processed food, and you KNOW they're not wrong. The easiest way to identify how processed something is to read the ingredients. (This website https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/food-processed-5-ways-know/ has some great tips) And besides the entrees, the HMR shakes, although helpful, have a long list of ingredients. Not to mention that those clean eating proponents are not fans of any kind of protein shake - better to get your protein from clean food. AND, I accidentally learned (something I should have seen much earlier) that the shakes have . . .
- ASPARTAME - As I was searching the HMR website on how to quit the program, I happened upon a question/answer that said the HMR shakes have aspartame. Looking at the ingredients, it's in the top third, so it's not negligible to say the least. I am anti-aspartame. Besides the fact that it affects my husband so much that he has to avoid it at all costs, I had pancreatitis which might have been partially caused by aspartame AND if you don't know why not aspartame, just google it.
- The COACHING - In the beginning, the coaching is good. It helps you stay on track and gives you a sort of competition by seeing other's progress against yours. And if you are having trouble sticking to the program for any reason, you get tips on how to do it. But if you're not having trouble (which I wasn't) then it becomes a sort of monotonous chore each week. And if you don't show up two weeks in a row, they threaten to knock you out of the group.
Soooooo, I'm starting on my personal weight loss journey, using some of the tools I got from HMR, some things I've always known, and some help from the internet. Up to this point, I've lost an average of 2.5 pounds a week. I have two-and-a-half weeks to my July weigh-in, and I hope to do 2.5-3.0 per week to put me at or below 175. (Then I'll be caught up to my husband!)
Wish me luck!
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