Questions, Answers, and Getting this Train Rolling Again

This was asked of me as a comment to my last post:

Do you drink your coffee with actual cream and still lose weight? I love it and it is such a treat, but I like a lot of it in my coffee and I'm not losing. Just wondering if you can help.

One of the things that makes the Belly Fat Cure an easier diet to switch to is that you don't have to give up everything – just the processed nonsense we really have no business eating in the first place.

Coffee is one thing I thought I'd have to give up, as I used to shovel about 6 tsp. of sugar into an 8 oz. mug – don't even get me started on my 16 oz. mug! I already drank my coffee with cream before starting the diet, so how could I possibly lose the sugar and keep the taste?

Previously I had tried to cut back on sugar on my own, with no knowledge yet of the BFC. I tried Stevia in my coffee – blech! It has a celery-like twang in the aftertaste that worked just fine with grapefruit, not so with coffee! I eventually settled on Sun Crystals, not realizing they contained sugar anyway!

So a few days into the BFC, this was back in March, I decided to just pour a little extra cream in my coffee and omit the sugar. And deal.

I didn't have to deal! A touch more dairy and I didn't even miss the sugar. In fact, I preferred it!

Per the advice of Jorge and the BFC literature, I started drinking cream in my coffee rather than 1/2 & 1/2, to trim down some of the sugar that's present as lactose. Light cream was only 8% of the daily fat, something we don't tend to really worry about on the BFC, so I didn't feel like I was trading one vice for another.

In April, though, I ended up pulling a muscle, an injury which escalated in May to a herniated disk and a pinched sciatic nerve. I have had to suspend my martial arts training due to this, and I ended up almost reversing my beverage poles. Instead of drinking many many servings of water to prepare for class, I was drinking just water with meals and having coffee (and caffeinated, where I used to drink decaf) all. day. long!

Eventually I realized I needed to cut back. And caffeine isn't good for muscle health, nor is it good for nervous system health. Not to mention that fat, proteins and calories, while not counted on the BFC, still need to be consumed according to common sense. 7 cups of coffee, made with a heavy hand on the cream, is NOT common sense! And this diet does not work without the water!

Between the cream and eating what was available due to my injury, rather than making extra trips to the store and such (while I found I could drive on the meds I was given, I still didn't relish the thought), I gained back 4.5 pounds over weeks 10 - 12 on the plan, and almost two inches on my gut.

I scaled back on the coffee, and switched to decaf. Now I have two cups in the morning, and maybe two cups in the evenings, though as it gets hotter that isn't as appealing. Four cups may sound like a lot but when you're cutting back from practically taking it intravenously, it's an improvement.

Last week we returned to the plan full-force, and I started drinking at least 72 oz of water per day. In addition, there was the major find of the magnesium powder that made taking vitamins palatable again, so I added back all my vitamins, plus a hefty dose of magnesium.

Last night's weigh-in saw a loss of 5.2 pounds compared to last week, and my waistline is headed in the right direction again.

So the TL;DR version of my answer is: Yes, you can enjoy your coffee with cream! Just avoid the sugar, and only have the minimum amount required to soothe your soul. Avoid caffeine if you can (the way this plan works, coffee and tea are pretty much our only caffeinated beverages now), and definitely ignore the sugar bowl!

Yesterday our shipment of probiotics and psyllium powder arrived, so I added those to my diet this morning. I expect only improvement, even if the powder on my toast made it a bit hard to swallow. I'll experiment to find other ways to include it.

As for my injury, I've been seeing an acupuncturist, upping the magnesium and water, and last night I felt improved enough to try some yoga. If I want to return to my martial arts classes I need to remind these muscles how to stretch!

Added reading, as if I didn't throw enough at you, here's an article, unaffiliated to the BFC but supporting the theory behind our diet: lifehacker - what sugar actually does to your brain and body