Many of you know that we’ve made significant changes to our diet over the past year and a half. We started with buying more organic produce and other food items, along with switching our meat to grass fed beef & hormone-free chicken. We also started drinking organic milk and bought organic butter, yogurt, cheeses, etc… We bought eggs that came from free-range chickens and cut out aspartame and as much MSG as possible from our diet.

All of these changes made a significant improvement to our health. I’m convinced of this. We’ve lost weight collectively as a family, feel better, and don’t struggle constantly with stomach issues.

But as we’ve continued on this journey to healthy living and as we strive to prevent diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease from attacking our bodies, we’ve come to realize that we need to go a little bit further in our diet changes. Over the last few weeks we have worked to transition our diet to one that is mostly meat & dairy-free. Instead it’s a whole foods plant-based diet where we consume lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains including pastas, rice, and breads.

The result so far?

I have more energy than I’ve had in a long time, and I lost 2 lbs. last week! That means my current weight is 203 lbs.

Here’s what my overall progress looks like:

Beginning weight: 220 lbs.

Current Weight: 203 lbs.

Goal Weight: 170 lbs.

# of total pounds I want to lose in 2012: 50lbs.

# of pounds to go until I reach my goal: 33 lbs.

Total # of pounds lost to date: 17 lbs.

I’m also mentally keeping track of how much weight I’ve lost post-partum. Elisabeth is 6 months old now, and since I’ve come home from the hospital, I’ve lost 45.5 lbs.

Here’s what my post-partum results look like:

Weight on the day I came home from the hospital: 248.5 lbs.

Weight 6 months post-partum: 203 lbs.

Total weight loss post-partum: 45.5 lbs.

I know I said I’d share a picture this week, but Elisabeth came down with a fever last night, and we had a rough night. I was up at 2am with a sick baby, and she had to be nursed constantly, so….this basically means I haven’t combed my hair yet. I’ll post a picture as soon as I can. Elisabeth is still sick, and I’m hoping this fever doesn’t last long or worse….spread to our other 4 children.

Its been way too long since I last updated my weight loss progress  (3 weeks, I think), but I’ve lost another 2.5 pounds! My current weight is 205 lbs.

We are still juicing and finding new, yummy ways to create delicious, healthy juices. The kids are drinking more juice, too, and I’ve started adding more carrot into their apple juice to ease them into the vegetable juices.

I mentioned in my goals post that we are transitioning our family’s diet into a whole foods plant-based diet that’ll include very little meat and only a small amount of dairy (mostly butter). We’ve made the switch to rice milk and almond milk for cereal, coffee, recipes, etc… That change was pretty easy.

The recipes we’ve tried for meatless chili, pizza (using vegan cheese), and vegetable soup were winners, too.

I’m planning on writing more about our diet changes and sharing recipes on The Sensible Mom in the future.

Here’s how my weight loss progress looks now:

Beginning weight: 220 lbs.

Current Weight: 205 lbs.

Goal Weight: 170 lbs.

# of total pounds I want to lose in 2012: 50lbs.

# of pounds to go until I reach my goal: 35 lbs.

Total # of pounds lost to date: 15 lbs.

Next week, I’ll share an updated picture of how I look.

How’s your weight loss progress going?