Update

Ok, so this hasn't been easy but I have decided that as important getting sugar out of my diet is, getting this weight off is even more.  I, for the last week have been counting calories. I have tried to make good sugar free choices for the foods I'm eating but calories have been my main driver. So far so good, I'm down 4.8 pounds from Monday! Much better than before!!  Thinking thin.

So sorry for the late update. Ethan started day care this week and although it’s an amazing place and the gal that runs it is outstanding, it’s still a little stressful for momma not to have him at the house. I miss him. The diet is going pretty good. I did weigh the other day and the scale said 216! I really think it helped to not weigh and of course increase my water consumption.

My husband has been making dinner some of the nights and he makes sure to use the low carb pasta and tries to stay within the guidelines, it’s not easy for a guy who if anything needs to gain about 15 pounds!

I have been going to Water Zumba at the Y on Thursdays and that’s a lot of fun, but one day a week isn’t cutting it I need to find a time in my schedule to fit in some type of exercise. It’s perpetually raining in Grays Harbor so walking isn’t an option with the baby. Of course I have the Y membership but I have Ethan in day care all day 8 to 5 and the last thing I want to do is take him to the Y day care as soon as we get home. My thought is that on my lunch hour from 12 to 1 I will have to find some way to incorporate exercise. I did buy a DDP yoga DVD for people who have extra weight and I have wanted to try that, so that may be what I do. I can’t wait for this rain to let up so I can take Ethan for walks in the evening but I think we have a good 3 months before that happens!

My goal this last week since he started day care was to use my lunches to get this house in order for when I go back to working at the office. It’s a challenge keeping everything clean and tidy when all you want to do when you get a chance is sleep or veg in front of the TV, but it’s really important that I de clutter it’s starting to affect me. I think all this “stuff” everywhere makes me eat more. I look around and it drives me crazy and what do I do I eat. So part of my goal with the de-cluttering is to see if it has a positive effect on my diet. I keep thinking if I wasn’t always so overwhelmed I would have more energy to focus on the diet. Can anyone relate?!

Shane and I signed up for what they call the Dirty Dash, it’s a run and obstacle course with lots and lots of mud. It sounds really fun, and I’m glad we signed up early so there is no getting out of it, but it’s a 4 mile run, so I’m hoping that I’m ready for it! I’m excited.

On March first I will be returning to the office and no longer able to work from home, the advantage of this is that there is a workout room for the employees and you can use this on your lunch and at breaks! I think this will be great for me!

Well hope everyone is doing well and here is to another week of eating healthy and thinking thin!

Ok, so this last couple of weeks has been a challenge for me, and I have decided to make a few small changes. First I need to stop weighing. Every time I weigh it is so disappointing that no matter how I feel, I get discouraged. I may not lose weight but I swear my tummy is smaller and I have more energy. I actually went on line and researched some other diets to see if they were going to help get that scale down. I’m so desperate for the scale to go down that I have started ignoring the positive health benefits that eating low sugar, low carb will have on my life. The second change is water. I say that I drink water, but one bottle of water is not going to do it. I need to be drinking a lot more water, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if I have sabotaged my weight lose by not drinking enough water in the last month. It’s such a simple fix but getting myself to do it is a little less simple! I really want to be successful, and I want to see results, but I’m making myself crazy with my obsession with the scale. So scale is out, water intake is up, and I feel renewed and empowered to start this week with a good attitude. I even made some egg muffins and put them in the fridge for breakfasts, I used bacon, eggs, cheese and seasoning, and put them in muffin tins and baked them at 350 for 20 minutes. They come out like little muffins and can either be reheated or eaten cold. The key to this diet is having things that are on hand to eat. When I start searching the kitchen for something to eat, and nothing sounds good you have to have options. 

Well guys I’m excited to let you know next week how I am feeling and all the new recipes I will be trying. By the way, sometimes I will just snap a picture of my meal and upload it because If I don’t I will forget to upload it, so that’s my reasoning for the random food pictures!! Here’s to thinking thin!

Egg muffins

Lunch, salad

Made a chef salad for lunch.

Lunch

Made a sandwich with Sarah Lee bread 14 carbs for 2 slices and put yellow peppers, cucumbers, ham and cheese and mayo.  Very fresh and yummy!

Breakfast

Had scrambled eggs with ham and toast Yum

So I’m finished with week two, and again I made it. My weight loss this week was 2 pounds, but I will admit even though the scale is only down two pounds my stomach does not look as big. The bloating seems to have somewhat subsided, so now instead of 11 months pregnant I only look 6 months…baby steps! Also this week, no more headaches and no more feeling like my life will end without sugar. I have to tell you that when you get past that feeling of, “this sucks” you really do start to have more energy like Mr. Cruise tells us in his book. There were times I didn’t think I was going to make it and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to make it. I was getting discouraged about the menial 2 pounds a week and then I started thinking if I lost 2 pounds a week and kept it up, I could be at my goal weight before the end of the year. I could be thin, I could feel good in clothes.  This could actually be a really good thing. If my expectation is only 2 pounds a week and not 7-14 then I won’t be disappointed when the scale only goes down a little and I will be ecstatic when I surpass my goal on those rare weeks when I lose 3 pounds a week. I think a lot of this is perspective, if my perspective is that I have to lose some crazy amount of weight each week then I’m going to feel like a failure and I’m going to ultimately quit.  If my goal is a healthy achievable 2 pounds a week, the sky’s the limit, I can do this, I can be successful I can be thin.

My husband is having trouble with not eating sugar, I expected this. He tries to be supportive but in the end I think I’m going to have to take his support a little at a time. I thought he would go on the diet with me and he would see the benefits of us changing our lifestyles together, but when I bring him dinner and it’s a pork chop and asparagus, he can’t help but ask if I forgot the potato or rice or something with starch in it. The vending machines at work have become a bit of a habit for him in the last few weeks, he is always looking for change so he can grab a snickers or his statement the other day was, I’m not getting candy I’m getting a granola bar, it’s healthy…ummm ya I’m thinking he doesn’t get the concept! Lol. If anything he is a little underweight so I’m not really pushing it, although I really think that cutting out sugar is a healthy thing to do for anyone.

This picture is of my lunch! bagel, cream cheese, bacon, turkey meat and baby spinach . So yummy.

 

Today is week one! I have made it through the first week, not without challenges but the main thing is that I stuck to the diet and I am still alive!
First things first, I definitely had some withdrawal symptoms, by about 3 pm I had a headache like you would not believe, almost every day, I have taken more Advil in the last week then I have in the last year! I’m also very tired and feel pretty crappy.  I’m hoping that this is just because I’m starting something new, from what I read everyone has tones of energy and feels amazing when switching to this lifestyle, so I have high hopes for the coming weeks.
I have some new goals for this week, I would like to drink A LOT more water this week, I did not lose a lot of weight and I have to be honest I stuck to the diet completely, no cheats not even a bite, so all I can think is that I'm not drinking enough water. I would also like too, for the week, write down everything I'm eating, because sometimes I think maybe I'm not paying close enough attention to portion size, I have tried, but I'm hoping that maybe I have missed something and that is why the weight hasn't just fallen off like Mr. Cruise promised! I still have faith that the diet will work, and it must be something that I'm doing wrong.
I told my husband that I was getting frustrated with my lack of weight loss, and he said "it's only been a week, and even if you don't lose weight, it's so much more healthy not to be eating all the junk food"...spoken like a skinny person. But he is correct, and there is a reason he is thin and I am not, so I have vowed to not let the lack of weight loss upset me, oh and just so you know I did lose 2 pounds, and per all the diet people they say that is a healthy number to lose. I guess I just thought that since I have so much to lose that the first week would have amazing results. I think for me it's week 2 that is going to have amazing results!!!
I took a bunch of pictures on my phone of what I have been eating but I went to upload them today and they are gone (not sure how), but I took a few more this morning of some of the things that I use for my meals, and will share them with you! 

 

 

this stuff is really good, I'm not a fan of diet food, and I really like this.

this only has 1 gram of sugar, 6 carbohydrates. 2 grams of fiber. It's really good, I stock up every time I go to Trader Joes! You wont be disappointed it's really yummy!

this was my lunch today, it's scrambled eggs with cheese and pepperoni with sour cream and salsa, and it looks less then appetizing but oh my gosh It was really good.


ok, wish me luck this week, I'm excited for what this week holds- thinking thin!

day one! lets do this

Ok so today is day one of my journey to a healthier me.  Last night was a busy night being New Years Eve.  We stayed up way too late and got up late, so by the time I ate my first meal it was already lunch time.  For lunch today I had a flatbread pizza.  Very simple I just got out some flatbread (zero sugars), I used Trader Joes three cheese red pasta sauce (about 3 tablespoons), spread it out, covered it with cheese and put it in the oven at 350 for about 8 to 10 minutes until all the cheese was melted and yummy.   I had it with a sparkling water and lemon.  It was all very delicious.  I think if I do this again, I may add a salad with lemon dressing  for some extra fiber.  Today on my to do list is to go to the store, I need pepperoni, eggs, jimmy dean sausage patties, pita pockets, and some whole wheat pasta.   It will be interesting to see how Shane (my husband) does with the diet.  He is thin and is one of those people who has trouble gaining weight (I can’t relate), but he really wants me to feel good about myself and knows me well enough to know that losing some weight will do the trick.  I think it’s bigger than that though.  I think all my belly fat is a symptom of so much more.  I think the way that I have been eating has messed up my hormone levels, and that controls so much including our pleasure sensor.  I’m not enjoying life.  The extra weight makes it difficult to exercise; even going to the grocery store is hard because by the time I’m done, my feet and back hurt.  It’s overall just a very uncomfortable way to live my life.  I can’t wait to see some results and to embrace and enjoy this life that God has given me.  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and a baby boy who is so beautiful and sweet, and I need to show them how much I love them by getting healthy and giving them the wife and mother they deserve to have. 

I’m going to be reading some books about how to get my thinking in check.  I have heard of a few books that talk about how powerful our minds are in our success.  How we think can affect how we react, and when it comes to a diet I would say that one of my biggest challenges is my thinking.  I have cheated in my mind long before I ever actually put that cookie in my mouth.  This experience needs to address my body, my mind, and my spirit, in order for me to stick to it.  It won’t be a quick fix; it needs to be something that six months from now I’m still doing. 

I booked a vacation to Hawaii in September, that is obviously a ways away but I wanted to make it as far out as possible to give myself some time to reach some of my goals first.  I don’t have a weight loss goal for Hawaii, but I would like some simple things to have happened, such as being able to walk around in shorts and not feel so self conscious I don’t want to leave the hotel room.  Also with the heat in Hawaii it can be somewhat uncomfortable for a big girl and all her rolls.  The reality is a little bit of chaffing can ruin a trip to the beach!!!  So for the Hawaii trip I want to be to the point that I can dress in appropriate clothing and can move around comfortably with my family and keep up with my husband and son!!

 

Starting Weight 01*01*13 221 pounds per the wii

BMI is 40.77 per the wii 

Per the internet for my height, a normal weight range would be from 101 to 136 pounds.

This is a goal of 221-136=85 lbs to be at a normal weight for my height.