Four Days and Counting!

I decided to do the 8-week challenge, which officially started yesterday. I'm eating 2 fruit servings a day and 3 vegetable servings, exercising 30-45 minutes a day, and cutting out sugar. There are a handful of other things involved, but the challenge that really gets me is the no sugar. I can't remember a time when I went a whole day without eating sugar. Seriously, I can't. I have a terrible, terrible addiction and even Josh gets surprised at me sometimes because of how much sugar I consume in a day.

So in order to survive this challenge, which allows for only one day in every seven to enjoy sweet treats, I thought I'd take the no-sugar thing out for a test-drive over the weekend. I started Friday morning and didn't eat sugar once, even though I almost caved by 8 pm and ate an ice cream drumstick. Josh helped talk me down.

By Saturday morning I was in full detox, with a massive migraine and a nauseous stomach. I couldn't eat anything after breakfast until I had taken a nap and a very strong prescription pain medication. Then I was famished and ate an entire Cafe Rio salad. So good.

Sunday was a bit tempting because I get snackish after church but we don't really have a lot of sugar in the house except for the last pieces of ice cream that we bought in a variety pack from Costco. Because I ate so many of those the week before, I promised Josh he could eat the rest. I didn't want to steal from him so I didn't eat any sugar.

Yesterday wasn't that tempting until I went grocery shopping with Josh just before dinner. Every item in the store that had the tiniest bit of sugar in it looked AMAZING! I seriously wanted to eat everything. I caught myself fantasizing at the bakery and had to run away. With Josh's help I survived and didn't bring any sugary snacks into the house to tempt me. When it's not around, it's a lot easier to resist.

I have not lost any weight so far. I've allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted outside of sugar, and it's been an interesting experiment. At first I would eat just buckets of food to try to satisfy my craving for sugar. If I'm full to bursting, I don't want the treat, right? Not quite, but I had a few tummyaches while I was figuring that out. Yesterday I tried to eat more consciously and even talked Josh into eating at Zupa's instead of Arby's. I ate a French bread pizza for lunch, which is not nutritious, but I wouldn't allow myself to eat more food even though I was still hungry after eating it. I'm trying now to get my portions under control since I've come out the other side of sugar detoxification. I figure if I exercise a little and cut down my portions a little and abstain from sugar a little, I should be able to lose weight. I don't have to go all gung-ho and starve myself--I'm not even monitoring what I eat all that much. Just making sure to include some good things in between the regular things.

My coworker did the challenge for six weeks and she lost 1-2 pounds a week. That's the healthy slow weight loss that stays off and makes you feel strong and look good. I hope to see the same results soon!

The Weight Loss Healthy Challenge

So I hate my body again. I ate so much yesterday and was feeling so fat that I did something I almost never do: I checked out my honest profile in the mirror before hopping in the shower. You have to do this naked and you can't suck in, which is my perpetual instinct. Instead, you turn to the side, let it all hang out, and really look at yourself. I looked like the Grinch.

Seriously, I have great, shapely legs and okay arms, but this massive gut in between them just far surpasses proportionality. I needed to recommit.

So this morning I pulled up a blog posting that my coworker had told me about. Her whole family participated in an 8-week challenge to lose weight and get healthier. Another coworker just finished. She and five family members pitched in $25 and the winner pocketed $150. That's enough to buy a couple of sweet new outfits to help you keep losing weight. I wanted to do the challenge too, and it seems easy enough. You have to try to exercise and eat certain good foods but nothing too difficult or impossible. I already do a couple of these things anyway. And you get points for doing them. The person with the most points at the end of the challenge wins. The hard part will be consistency, since you don't get any point for the week unless you do that thing every day that week. Mess up once and you lose all your week's points for that one item. But you can get lots of points by maintaining your weight each week, or by losing a pound. It's all pretty awesome and I can't wait to get started. I'm going to start today, although it doesn't officially start until a Monday, so if anyone wants to join in...

Here's the link to the blog: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/01/8-week-printable-weight-loss-get-healthy-challenge.html. There's a googledoc within the blog posting that has the spreadsheet for keeping track. I transferred the googledoc to a word doc so I can keep track of what I do without having to print it out. Good luck to everyone who is trying to look and feel better this summer!

Something's Gotta Give

I was so discouraged at the 4 lbs I ultimately gained when I cut out sugar for 3 weeks that I decided it wasn't worth the struggle.  So for almost a month, I haven't weighed myself, I haven't cared what I ate, and I haven't done any exercise. (aside from my normal running around during the day and taking care of 3 active kids.)
Tried to walk to mom's house last Sunday, got winded.  Weighed myself today, up 3 more lbs.  Took inventory of what I ate yesterday, almost all junk food.  Something's gotta give.
Last Spring/Summer, Bobby and I followed the Sonoma Diet for a couple months.  I lost more than 20 lbs, and Bobby lost more than 10!  It was an easy principle to follow, and the food was great!  They had a couple of stages, but the main idea was to limit/cut out sugars (including most fruits) and to have lots of green veggies, lean meat and whole grains.  You didn't count calories, or weigh your portions, you just filled your plate.  25% whole grains, 25% protein, 25% veggies, and 25% fruit (if you wanted fruit.  You could substitute the fruit for more veggies.)  It was easy, healthy eating that made both Bobby and I feel great!  And it was super filling!  They also said to have 2-3 snacks each day, and each snack was filling!
I'm doing that.
I've come to the same conclusion as you guys.  It all comes down to whether I want the chocolate, or the health.  I want the health.  And the hot body!  Every choice needs to be made using that guideline.
When it comes to exercising, the only time I have is between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning.  It sucks, but that's when the kids are sleeping, before Bobby goes to work, before I am exhausted.  I need to do this.  No more fat pictures.  No more growing out of my clothes.  No more headaches for weeks on end.  No more increased bad feelings about myself.  It's time to change.  Something's gotta give.
Goal #1-Lose the first 20 lbs and fit into my fat clothes comfortably.
That sounds ridiculous, but I can't buy clothes another size bigger.  I think I will break down in the store.  My fat clothes are tight.  Something's gotta give, and it's gonna be me.
I appreciate the comments and thoughts that you guys put on here.  It definitely helps.
Here's to a much more successful Summer!
Bob

Going Up

Yesterday I weighed 198.5. Today I weigh 200. I know, I said I wasn't weighing myself but obviously I need to because it wasn't working to prevent me from eating. Perhaps some cold hard facts will do it. I am a 200-pound woman. That is not okay. I am 27 pounds heavier than I was last August 15th. That means that I need to lose said 27 pounds before this August 15th. That gives me exactly three months. Three months, nine pounds per month. I can do it. I desperately need to diet and exercise to hit that goal, so the first thing I'm going to do is do a hard fast today. Not a no-food fast, but a fast that removes all foods that are bad. This means I will only eat whole foods: fresh fruits, vegetables, whole wheat bread, eggs, milk, etc. No sugar, no salt, no additives of any kind. And I'll try to jog on my walk today. We'll see how that goes.

Also, I've been wanting to buy a pedometer for a while now. I want to see how many steps I can fit into an average day. This will be hard considering how much schoolwork I intend to get accomplished this term, but I just have to make it a priority. I can't be fat this summer and I can't allow my weight and size to become permanent. Scarlet turns three months in two days. I had better lose the weight before her six-month birthday or I won't believe that I'm ever able to lose it.

Image Crisis

This morning Josh and I took Scarlet on a hike up at Ensign's Peak. It's a short little hike but it's good for the lungs to work out on the steep inclines and I felt pretty healthy doing it. After reading this article Bob once posted on Facebook, I vowed I would not let my larger size intimidate me into avoiding family pictures. When we got to the top of the hill (the Peak, if you will), this lady offered to take a photo of the three of us and I said yes. Josh also took a photo of me at the top. I reviewed the photos later and let me just tell you: I'm feeling pretty intimidated.

I cannot believe how much my stomach has grown! I've been walking at least a mile almost every day and trying to eat a little healthier. When my wrist doesn't hurt too much, I even do yoga! But I am still much larger than before I got pregnant, and my stomach falls over my waistline in a way it never did before Scarlet. Don't get me wrong--I do not regret having my daughter and I'm looking forward to having the next one. But there's something terribly depressing about looking at yourself in a photograph and cringing at how large you look. It didn't help that I wore a tight-ish pink shirt that made me look like an inflated balloon. Awesome.

So despite the article making me feel like I should not feel shame, I am too ashamed to show you the pictures. I can't bear that they exist, let alone allow anyone to see them. I'll just have to work harder at cutting out extra food (I still binge eat something fierce despite the exercise) and hope enough progress is made that I'll be able to show my face at the dirty dash next month.

Gillian Michaels is My Trainer

After doing that awesome yoga with Heather in Colorado, I wanted to keep up that level of workout every day. So I purchased the Gillian Michaels yoga dvd from Amazon and yesterday I tried it at home for the first time.

Ow.

My shoulders and thighs are so sore this morning! But that's a wonderful thing, so I'm grateful. I'm going to try to do the dvd every weekday for two weeks. If I can keep it up, then I get to buy a yoga mat, since they're stupid expensive. I was going to buy a cheap one for $12 at walmart, but the reviews said it tears up easily and the next-cheapest one also had bad reviews. I don't want to spend money just to see the mat fall apart or to have my feet slip on it. So Josh and I have an agreement that if I can do yoga for two weeks straight, then it's obvious that I'm committed enough to deserve a more expensive mat.

I also took Scarlet out in the stroller yesterday. We walked to the mailbox down the street to deliver some letters and then circled around the block to go to the library. It was a lot less boring to walk with Scarlet there, contrarily. We got some good books and made our way back home in time to make this really yummy chicken salad for dinner.

Today I want to do yoga in the morning and then walk to the grocery store after work. That should be a pretty long walk as well. It'll be so great to know that I can walk long distances again, since there's only a month until the dirty dash.

I'm also not weighing myself anymore. I'll do that in the future, I'm sure, but for now, I don't want to. It just makes me feel bad about myself and I'm not as anxious to lose pounds as I am to lose girth. So for now I'll focus on eating healthy and exercising and my gauge for success will be how I fit into my clothes. As I see visible progress, then I'll maybe step on a scale again to see how I'm doing.