Day 15: Weigh Day and Progress Check One

I think I was psyching myself out yesterday about the whole Weigh Day thing. I fell asleep practically dreading it and almost didn’t want to get out of bed because of it. I was very fearful that Simon would not be so kind today. (I do not advise this. Being afraid of the scale is how some people get to where I was and beyond. If they avoid the scale completely, they have no idea and assume that it’s not that bad, when it could be. I avoided the scale for so long and somehow convinced myself that I wasn’t that overweight. Well, I was. In fact, I looked at a chart the other day based on my Height and Weight and it said that I was in the “Severe Obesity” range. I checked it again the other day and it said I was just “Overweight.” Ordinarily, this would not be something to be excited about. But, I’ve been in the “SO” range for practically my entire life and I am very happy to be out of it. The last 45 pounds that I have to lose will put me right in the middle of the “Healthy” range.)

If you are seriously committed to becoming healthier, then let that number represent where you WERE and will never be again. Let that number excite you because it’s got nowhere to go except down. This is a starting point and starting points are very important. Besides, you can’t walk a mile without taking the first step. Stepping on that scale is the first step in what feels like a million mile journey. One step at a time though and you can make it! Be encouraged. It is possible!

So, the big reveal of what I saw on the scale. Might I add that I did have a bad week as far as a few days of eating is concerned. I did, however, try to make up for that by doing an extra workout in the pool and perhaps the leisurely swimming I did on the 4^th made some kind of impact as well. I now weigh 174.6. Last Weigh Day, I started the day at 178. Later during that day, it dropped (for some odd reason) to 176.6. So, I am officially marking last week as a 2-pound week! (Two pounds doesn’t sound like a lot especially if you’ve seen The Biggest Loser, but it’s actually a better number to see after a week of exercise than 8 or 10. It’s a healthier way to lose weight and as far as I know, the only way to lose weight and keep it off long term. Yes, there are some exceptions, but as for me and my body, I’m perfectly fine with a 2-pound week.) I’m also very excited about getting into the 160’s.

While my 2-pound week is a good thing considering what I ate last week, I do not advise eating poorly for days at a time. It doesn’t make you feel better and it doesn’t truly bring you closer to the ultimate goal: becoming healthier. A cheat day is necessary every once in a while. My idea of “cheat day,” just so we are clear, is eating something that is BAD for only one portion of the day. PJ and I had a cheat day once where we went to the movies, drank some soda, ate some candy and then dined at Flamingo Row (a Hawaiian restaurant) for our meal. I didn’t end up eating all of my meal so I gave it to my mom. (I don’t like eating leftovers from a restaurant unless it’s the same day as when we went. This helped me rid myself of the temptation to eat it because it was no longer mine.) If your idea of a “cheat day” is different than mine, don’t feel bad. We are different and have different thoughts and ideas about different things. Pick what is best for you.

Onto today’s workout: Fit Test #2 (When I got up this morning I forgot how much of a workout it really is. I remember it briefly from two weeks ago, but thought it was a lot less insane than it turned out to be.) This one is the 32 minute session where you basically see how far you have come in the last two weeks. For instance, last week I could only do 21 sets of Power Kicks, today I could do 36. Last week I could only do 4 Globe Jumps, today I did 8. Last week I only did 18 Power Jumps, today it was 25. So, I am improving. (Some of the moves I couldn’t even finish last week.) And, while I’m not seeing a major change in my weight, the Fit Test tells me that working out with Insanity is making a difference.

What’d y’all think about those wedding dress photos from yesterday’s blog posting? Insane, right!? I almost couldn’t believe it myself. I still have a ways to go, but keeping my mind right and focused will get me there. Do you have some before and after pictures that you’d like to share? I’d love to see them!!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

For that chart that I talked about earlier, you can access it at http://www.women-health-info.com/392-Height-Weight-charts.html Scroll down to the purple chart that says “Is Your Weight Healthy?” To convert your weight into kilograms, go to http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/pounds-to-kilograms.htm. 

Day 14: The Significance of Clothes While Losing Weight

Today was the second rest day. Tomorrow is Weigh Day. And, to be honest, I’m not too thrilled to see what number’s gonna pop up. Like I said, I had a few weak days this last past week and while one weak day may not have much of an effect, weak days might. (It seems very unfair that it can take up to two weeks and longer to lose a few pounds but only a few days to gain it all back.) I’m hoping for a number that I can work with. I finally have my head in the game again and am seriously working out my will power as well to avoid tempting foods. (For instance, when I got into work today, there was a nice arrangement of suckers, licorice, glazed donuts, fruit gummies, and biscuits and gravy. Plenty of everything left. Thinking that I could eat one of the lower calorie foods, I looked on the side of the fruit juice gummy box for calorie information: 80 calories per bag. “Hmm, not bad…” Then, I picked up a bag and it probably had about ten pieces in it. NOT WORTH IT!! I let out a small sigh and walked away. I know that it won’t help me a bit so I will not be eating it.)

I posted a status about the goody table and not even minutes later, my husband called me at work and asked if I could bring some biscuits and gravy home. L Will I never get away from the bad stuff!! Lol.

If you haven’t read any of my earlier blogs, you can probably tell that eating right and exercising is purely mental. When it comes to exercise, your body is being told what to do by your mind. (Unless, as stated yesterday, your body simply cannot do something.) You make up your mind to exercise, you mentally push yourself to do more than you think you can, you decide what types of exercise to do; it’s all mental. Much the same, you decide what you are going to eat, what you are going to stock your cabinets and fridge with, how you are going to prepare it, etc. Once people decide to take control of their mind, they can do just about anything. It’s tough work sometimes but if you want to be successful, it’s something that absolutely has to be done.

Onto something new. I tried my wedding dress on for the first time since the wedding (March 2011). Technically, this would be the second time I’ve actually worn it. It is a very pretty strapless dress with five rhinestone flowers that hold a small bunch of ruffles just underneath the bust. (I’m not very good at describing it and I’m pretty sure “ruffles” is not the word. I’ll attach a picture.) It was the first one I tried on and one that I fell in love with. The back is held together with a long, thin piece of white fabric that “shoelaces” into a corset. So, the top part of the dress can be tightened and loosened depending on the size of everything above the waist. Seeing pictures now of what it looked like on me then makes me want to hide in some dark hole. It almost looks like my back is spilling out of the dress. (It had to be tightened a little more than normal because the front part would have been a little too revealing if it wasn’t tight enough.) My face also looks like I had stuffed cotton balls underneath my skin: I was a very chubby bride.

Anyway, I got my wedding dress out today and had to put the long, thin piece of fabric back into the back part of the dress. I put it as tight as it would go. The zipper was still zipped, so I slid it over my head, tugged at it in a few places to get the waist part past a certain area and it fell the rest of the way. I tried to take some pictures but it didn’t work too well. (For one, the dress didn’t have as much up top to hold onto so it was slipping down and I kept tripping over it. For two, my camera was low on battery power so I had to use my phone. And, the only way you can take a picture is on the front part of the screen. So, it’s really hard to take decent pictures. For three, when I did take some pictures I had to take them overhead and that was way too revealing for Facebook or a public blog. I also tried to hold the dress tighter and take a picture but that was to no avail as well. I got a little frustrated, took it off and hung it up for another try on. PJ can be the photographer next time.) All areas had gotten smaller but the ones I noticed the most were my collar bones, (before, they were covered in a layer of chub; now, you can actually see them distinctly) my back (it was no longer pouring out of the dress and it actually looked a little toned; I don’t see my back often so it was a huge surprise) and my stomach (in pictures, it looks like our wedding could have been a shotgun wedding. My tummy was very evident and it looks like I could have been about 4 or 5 months along if there was actually something there. It was impossible though, I was just fat.)

If you are starting a weight loss regimen, I encourage you to keep a piece of clothing that you can try on in a few weeks or months. It will amaze you! If you are currently losing weight, find something that you know used to be too tight or just right and try it on. This helps motivate you even more. I have a cute story about this.

In this case, my size 20 stretchy jeans that I had been wearing for quite a while were getting too big. I always had to borrow my husband’s belt (yes, he only has one) to get them to stay on and it was becoming a hassle because they had gotten to the point where they were all bunched in the front and it was simply unattractive. A friend of mine from church asked if I needed some jeans seeing the condition of my current ones and I said “yes.” The next week she gave me a size 14 pair of stretchy jeans and a size 14 pair of non-stretchy jeans. I was confident that the stretchy ones would probably fit. I was very hesitant though to try the non-stretchy ones on. In fact, I waited several days to try them on because I didn’t want to be disappointed if they did not fit. So, there they sat on my nightstand until I decided to put them on. (Backstory: I haven’t worn non-stretchy pants since middle school because I could never find the right size and if I ever did buy pants that didn’t have any stretch too them, they’d be several sizes too big so people would think I was thinner than I actually was. Lol.)

One morning, I opened my eyes, looked down at the nightstand and decided to hop out of bed to try these pants on. Nervous and trying to mentally prepare myself if they didn’t fit, I put one leg in, then the other and pulled them up. I looked down at the button and hoped for the best as I pulled the two sides toward each other to connect them. THEY FIT!!!! I didn’t have to suck it in or anything. THEY FIT!! I was so excited that I started hopping around the room doing my little victory dance as I hopped near the bathroom door where my husband was. With a big smile on my face, I told him that a size 14 non-stretch pair of jeans fit me! I don’t even know if I’d ever fit into a size 14 ever before.

Now, I like to browse through Facebook and find pictures of the fat me with clothes that I still own. I put the same clothes on and take a picture and then compare them. It’s a wonderful feeling and a true reflection of how far you’ve come when you decide to get your mind right. You should try it!!

Signing Out,
It's Possible!!

That's my wedding dress. The flowers are hiding the pretty rhinestones. My skinny sister is behind us. So pretty!! ...Pj has also  lost a LOT of weight too!! This picture makes me think that he's a White Klump (The Nutty Professor's Family!)

 Pouring Out of My Dress!!

 Shotgun Wedding??

It’s Possible!!Sideways...but you can see how big it is now...

Day 13: You're Gonna Have "Those" Days

Do forgive me for the last few days of my blog absence. I had a few days off in a row (which hasn’t happened in a looong time) and I decided to enjoy it a little too much and neglect my blogging responsibility. You didn’t miss much though. I did Cardio Recovery on Thursday and Cardio Power and Resistance on Friday. However, I have been bad the last few days and am trying to get over the nagging feeling of guilt.

Whenever you start any diet and exercise regime, you, or at least, I, feel guilty sometimes when I eat the wrong foods. I haven’t kept a close eye on the foods I’ve eaten in the last few days and am determined to get back on track with it. For the last few days, I’ve eaten more calories than I should have. I won’t go into details but some of the things that I’ve dined on include pizza, one cupcake, and some whoppers, among others things. To make up for the bad eating yesterday though, I did some exercising in my mom’s pool. I doggy paddle around the perimeter three times, ran back and forth in the shallow end (not easy when the water is going against you when you turn around), swam several laps, held the side of the pool and kicked my legs, and even some pull ups from the diving board. That made me feel a little better.

Anyways, as I was doing my workout this morning, Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs, I was thinking about the food that I had been eating. I wasn’t very happy with myself and I just decided that the best way to better my eating habits is to “just say no.” PJ (my husband), wanted pizza the other night and I didn’t because of the calories and the fact that I had just gone shopping for healthy stuff. I didn’t say no and we ended up eating pizza that night. It didn’t even taste that good, yet I still allowed myself to eat it. Next time, I’m just going to say “No.” I’m gonna tell myself that if I want to see a good number on Monday, I have to make my mind want to do the right thing. (When I have moments where I do make the right decisions, I feel so much better and a lot of the times, I forget what it was that I was being tempted about.) If PJ wants pizza, that’s fine by me, but I will just have something different. (Unless it’s a cheat day and then it’s ok.)

Also, even though you may eat something horribly unhealthy, it isn’t the end of the world. Chances are you won’t see any number change on the scale. If you repeatedly eat horribly unhealthy food, you can guarantee that it will reflect on the scale. I had three bad days. I’m not really excited about looking at the scale, but it’s not the end of the world. I know where I need to be more discipline and I plan to do it. A few bad days should also not be an excuse to give up completely. It may take a little more time, but if you keep at it and consistently keep your mind right, you will get to your goal weight. Don’t give up!!

About Day 13. It was Pure Cardio, that butt kicker of a workout that involves the 14 minutes of nonstop exercise. Like I said before, it’s not that bad if you find a place on the wall to focus on. Today was also the debut of Cardio Abs. This was a 16 minute workout that focuses on your abdominal muscles. You do the high knees move commonly seen in the warm ups on all the videos with a little bit of a twist, literally. As you are doing high knees, you twist your upper half side to side. You can definitely feel it too!! They also have seated ab exercises where you sit on the floor with your knees bent and your back in a position that makes your body look like a C with the curvy part on the bottom. Then, you use your arms in various ways so that you feel the burn in your abs (and your thighs!!). I like this workout better than the Ab Ripper X that we did in P90X. There are more things that I can do and I feel the burn a LOT more.

That was the basic workout today. I do, however, have something that I would like to address in this blog. It’s about motivation and depression when it comes to exercising.

I have talked to people who really want to work out, have more energy, eat healthier, and of course, look better. They get all motivated and excited about it one day but the next, it’s a completely different story. They are back to eating the same, doing the same stuff and feeling the same: pathetic and that they need to do something. I know, because I have been there several times before. Some of the reasons for this all too common experience is that we sometimes feel that we just cannot do the exercises the way the people on our videos are doing them. We can’t lift our knees above our waist like we are being told to do, we can’t hold a plank position and tighten our abs, we can’t do jumping jacks for half a minute, we can’t coordinate our body to do some of the things that we see. (These are all things that I have had problems with, or STILL have problems with.) The thing is, we are NOT supposed to be able to do it exactly like the people in the videos. (That is the ultimate goal, but if your body can’t stretch as far as Tony Horton, then it just can’t.) These are athletic people with buns of steel and chiseled abs, people who work out for a living. We are not going to be able to do everything exactly like them, especially the first go round. When I first started out with P90X, I could barely do 14 seconds of jumping jacks; and, I thought I was going to keel over afterwards. At the end, I could do a minute. Your body learns how to do this stuff. As you work it out, it gets stretched and toned, and it weighs less so that you can do more than you could when you started. There is no need to get depressed because fitness experts can do it and you can’t. This mindset will keep you bound and unless you break it, it’s likely that you won’t ever reach your goals. (This goes for anything in life, really.)

Another thing I have noticed is that people tend to give up after a day of eating poorly. They feel like a failure if they eat something unhealthy. This is far from the truth. As stated above, one unhealthy food is not the end of the world; it will not ruin your diet and it will not cause you to gain five pounds. It may take a little while to work off, but it doesn’t have to affect the entire outcome of your diet and exercise. Just get back on the horse and tell yourself that you can give yourself something every once in a while as a treat.

If your style of working out is in the gym, it is common to stop because you may not look like the other people you are working out next to. I used to have this issue as well when I had my gym membership. I felt very self-conscious around the fit people and sometimes slacked on my workouts because I didn’t want people to see how out of shape I was. I also didn’t want to feel that they were inwardly laughing at me because I didn’t know how to do the right stretches or because I was going super slow on the treadmill. This is all little stuff that your mind tells you that you just have to make yourself get over.  (They probably aren’t even watching you at all.) After all, how do you get, look, and feel better if you don’t do something to get, look, and feel better? It’s a vicious cycle, but you have to make up your mind to get over the shame and embarrassment you may feel. Besides, you are doing something to better yourself and that should push you through all the discomfort you feel.

Well, I guess I’ve blogged enough for the day. I hope that something in this post has helped you even if it’s the slightest bit. It is possible and you can do it!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Day 10: Working Out When You are Dog Tired

So, I worked the Audit Shift at work for the last two nights and I’ve probably only had about 6 hours of sleep between the two nights. Needless to say, I am a little tired. Usually, when I am tired, it only affects my mood; today, it affected my workout. Oh, and I was wrong about not having to sweat a whole lot. When I wrote my post yesterday, I thought Cardio Recovery was today: nope! I got the workout for today mixed up with Thursday’s workout. I was a little bummed when I noticed that but I did it anyway.

To begin with, I came home tired and then I got mad at a situation that started almost as soon as I walked through the door. I tried to put that aside so that I wouldn’t be thinking about it during my workout. I got my workout clothes on, grabbed my water bottle and selected the “Plyometric Cardio Circuit.” I did well throughout the warm up but started to slip a little when it came to the actual exercise.

For one, my left calf muscle started hurting and for two, I was tired. I don’t think I put a 100% in today; it was more like 85. But, I’ll take this as a learning experience.

This post is going to end right now only because I keep dozing off while typing. I’ll be more alert tomorrow, I promise.

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!! 

Day 9: Quickest 40 Minutes of My Week

Today was Pure Cardio again, ya know, the one that has the 14 minutes of non-stop cardio exercises. It was still just as awesome as it was last week and even easier to do today. (I did have to take some breaks though only to chug some water, but I finished strong on all of them.) By the way, the 14 minutes consisted of 14 different moves lasting, you guessed it, one minute each. And, when you’re actually doing them, they feel like the longest minutes of your day!! However, when you look at it altogether, the entire video seems to FLY by.  I’ve learned to not watch the clock though because that makes time seem even slower!! I always just pick a random point in the room (today, it was where the ceiling meets the wall; this helps me focus my attention somewhere else and also distracts me from the pain I may be experiencing. It helps a lot.)

On a better note, as soon as I got home from work this morning, I weighed myself again because yesterday was kind of inaccurate. I weighed 176.4 this morning! (Usually, when I get off from work, I weigh more. I think it has something to do with being on my feet but I am not 100% sure.) I’m happy with that number and I am excited to see it go down, down, down.

Oh yeah, I also measured the inches around my stomach starting and ending at the belly button and then again around my hips. The first measurement was 39” and the second was 40.” So, this is another way to track my progress.

Tomorrow is Cardio Recovery, not my favorite, but easy enough since it is the 4^th of July. It’ll give me a break from the pools of sweat that form on my forehead and above my lip (yeah, how attractive!)

Well, that’s it for today. Stay motivated and be blessed!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!! 

Day 8: Dealing with the Doubt that Comes with an Unchanging Number

Today is Day 8 of my Insanity fitness experience. And, Mondays are WEIGH DAYS!! I was so excited when I got out of bed because I was sure that I’d probably lost at least four pounds. I was super excited and ready to see a lower number!!

I stepped on Simon at about 8:50 A.M. and was waiting in anticipation during the few seconds that it took to pop the number up on the display screen. 178.0. My heart sank! Seriously, I only lost .8 pounds since last Tuesday!! (Remember, I weighed again on Tuesday.) It didn't even seem like it even changed much!! Inwardly distraught and feeling like I had failed in some way, I pressed through the workout even though I didn’t want to.

This post is for those of you who have stepped on that scale after working out and find that it only shows a little less than it did the last time. I hope to keep you encouraged because this happens a lot. But, things change. Just keep at it.

After seeing a loss like that, the mind starts RACING!! You ask yourself all kinds of questions and blame yourself for eating even one fattening food. “What happened!? What could I have done better? Did I not sweat enough? Did I not eat the right foods? Did I not do it right? Why am I even doing this? Is this worth it? Why should I keep going if I can lose less than a pound eating the unhealthy foods? Does this program even work? Will I ever lose weight? Did I drink too much water and not lose because of water weight?” I know these are the types of questions that replay in our mind because that is exactly what I was doing this morning. I kept doubting the process even though I’ve seen it work before.

Those kinds of questions are what I call a mental attack. And, I connect it all on a spiritual level. My mind is being attacked with thoughts that make me want to give up. (These thoughts come straight from Satan.) These are the kinds of thoughts that are essential in warding off so that you continue your journey. This is exactly what I had to do this morning; I had to fight a mental battle. I was fighting throughout my workout and, I could have given up real easily (physically, I my muscles were hurting and I also felt like I wanted to puke. Still, I made myself finish.)

After my workout was over, I was starting to feel better. (Scientifically, working out produces endorphins and for those of you who have watched Legally Blonde, “endorphins make you happy” – Elle Woods) Plus, I was telling myself that the body goes through stages while working out for a long period of time. People working out to lose weight may not lose weigh every week because of the various plateaus that happen. One week, you may lose five pounds and the next, zero. (I’ve also watched all seasons of The Biggest Loser and this is a common occurrence, even if the contestants were sweating pools in the gym prior to the weigh in!!) This can be disheartening, but it’s a natural process. The only way to get out of it is to keep trekking along.

On a happy note, usually after a plateau week, you have a really good weight loss week. (On The Biggest Loser, one week someone lost one pound and the next week they lost ten! I wouldn’t strongly advise losing ten pounds in one week because it isn’t healthy, but you see my point.) One bad week doesn’t have to destroy the entire journey. And, besides, working out is a whole lot easier than getting your mind right. You can make your body do anything but if your mind isn’t in the right place, it’s a whole lot harder!!

Today, I spent a little time with my family at my mother’s house. They dropped me off at my house at about 5-ish so that I could get some sleep for my Audit Shift. I stepped on the scale (Simon) and he said that I weighed 177.6. What!? Just this morning, it said I weighed 178.0. I then went to sleep and woke up at about 9:30; the scale said 176.6 this time! What!! (I’m not exactly sure what I my weight is for today, but if I would have given up, I would have never seen that 176.6!) I’m also not sure what happened in the time from 8:50 to 9:30, but I lost another 1.4 pounds! See!! The body is kinda weird when it comes to working out and losing weight, but it’s worth it! Don’t give up, because it does pay off. I promise!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!

Day 7: A Look Back

I get to celebrate the end of week one with a nice rest day. It feels pretty awesome and I’ve very thankful that my muscles get to rest for a little bit. The only places I’ve noticed some soreness are in my left calf, both upper arms, and whenever I sit down or get up from standing or sitting for prolonged periods of time. Other than that, I’m A-OK! Ready to start Week 2 tomorrow!!

So, since I don’t have to talk about the various forms of torture Shaun T likes to put me through (that I daily agree to), I suppose I could tell you a little bit about my eating habits since January (the beginning of this journey).

It might be more accurate to tell you about eating habits from 2011 and then tell you about them currently.

When I started off the year, I didn’t even bother to make a “New Year’s Resolution.” It’s statistically proven that most people don’t even continue it even after two weeks of the new year, so why try? I wasn’t married at the beginning of last year and I was separated from my fiancé because he still had some school to finish up. So, I pretty much ate whatever I could find. I ate what my parents cooked (which isn’t the healthiest food either) and I ate many snacks during the day because I kept telling myself that I was hungry. (I wasn’t hungry.) I even ate real late at night, foods high in sugar and fat and that is simply not good for your body at all!!

I went to the health department about a month prior to getting married and they said I weighed about 226. My iron was good, I was “healthy” and I’d never been exposed to things that would affect me or my soon-to-be-husband. So, I thought I was fine. Hefty, but healthy. When we got married, we ate what was cheap: frozen pizzas (a lot of frozen pizza because that’s my favorite food!), cookies, candy, spaghetti that covered the entire place, lots of bread items and meat prepared without draining the fat. (Of course, this isn’t all of it, but a good portion of the crap we ate.) Looking back on it all, I don’t know what the heck I was thinking. I was slowly killing myself if you want me to get brutally honest.

Occasionally, we would eat out, go to the movies, buy huge sodas, snarf chips and heavily buttered popcorn, eat our fatty leftovers right before going to bed. Yeah, pitiful and disgusting! We were so gross!

I also remember having an obsession with nacho cheese. When my husband and I got our first house in June 2011, we bought a huge can of the stuff from our local Sams Club. Hey, it was cheap, easy to prepare and DELICIOUS!! We’d find more and more uses for it every day and I would snack on chips and cheese quite often. Our tubby selves couldn’t get enough of it. I even told him one day that if he poked me, I’d bleed nacho cheese. (Yeah, get a load of that chunk buster!! HA!) From the time I got married to a few weeks before September 2^nd (the day things took a turn down hill), I had gained ten more pounds: a whopping 236. And, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than that. After checking the scale and seeing those three numbers side by side, I didn’t ever want to look at a scale again. So, I didn’t; 236 is the last weight  I remember being and that’s what I tell people I started out as because I don’t know how bad I had gotten.

As posted before, September through mid-November, I dropped about 20 pounds. I still ate the same kinds of food (just not as much or as frequent) and I still felt apathetic about how I looked and what I was eating. When things changed for me in November, I have become more aware of what I was eating, but still, I didn’t care too much.  

Near the completion of the year, I remember being at a Christmas party with my sister’s in-laws (the ones who are close family to my husband and I, even though, by marriage, they aren’t that close at all) and my sister wanted to take a picture with me. (I cringed inside because I knew I had a problem and I knew I needed to change. She’s always been thinner than me and I always hated taking pictures beside her because it’s like standing a twig next to a log…I looked like a fat monster that is about to eat her. Not very photogenic if you ask me.) I took the picture anyway and was tempted to delete it when I saw how it turned out. But, since it was her brand new camera, I decided to leave it and hope to never see it ever again…and hope that she didn’t put it on Facebook either. Lol. (I don’t think she did. :D)

Shortly after that, I had just gotten home from my Dairy Queen cake decorating job and I was rummaging the cupboards for something to eat. Man! I was “hungry!” Oreos! Wa-la!! Awesome breakfast…needless to say, I demolished a sleeve of those cookies (with the exception of four; that was the last sleeve and I wanted to save some for later.) I ended up falling asleep trying to make myself get up and I just couldn’t do it. I was energy-less and fat and that’s when I decided to do something about my problem.

***

Now, thanks to the app on my phone called “myfitnesspal,” I’ve been able to manage my calories and record my decreasing weight from week to week. It’s been very helpful and I personally like it better than having to keep a diary with that information in it. You sign in, record your current weight, desired weight, how many days a week you exercise and it calculates how much you should be eating on a daily basis, changing the numbers and you lose weight. It’s great!

I am now very calorie conscious. I look at calorie information all the time when I shop, before we dine out, and even in my app for foods that I eat that don’t have that information (say, for instance, at the church potlucks we have). I eat breakfast at least 6 out of 7 days a week mainly consisting of fresh fruits or low calorie cereal with skim milk (oh yeah, I didn’t mention that I hardly ever ate breakfast in 2011 unless it was eggs, potatoes, sausage and pancakes.) I eat small, healthy snacks like fruit, 100 calorie granola bars, 100 calorie cheese and cracker packs, or 100 calorie light butter popcorn. And, for dinner, it’s usually a sandwich (when I work 3-11 at the hotel) made with 35 calorie bread and a low calorie meat with  one ounce of baked chips, fresh fruit or another granola bar or cheese and cracker pack. On nights that we cook, it’s usually jasmine rice (low cal), wheat pasta or flax wraps. We’ve also changed our ground beef to ground turkey and we eat chicken and Boca burgers as well. Fresh fruits and usually canned or frozen vegetables are a common grocery in our house as well. We go through about 3 bunches of bananas a week, a few cans of green beans and a good portion of broccoli too. My dinner meals usually range from about 300-500 calories and with the way we eat now, that’s PLENTY of food.

Another tool that I use to help me keep my portions in control is our handy dandy kitchen scale. We bought this prior to moving into our second home. Before that, we used a smaller, spring-devised scale which ended up cracking and ultimately breaking. We paid $20 for the one we have now and it sets on our counter. It has a flat glass surface and it even measures in tenths of an ounce.

We also bought a scale prior to moving in. Before, we used the scale my mom had at her house and we liked it so much, we bought the same kind. That was $18 and it measures pounds in decimals. I have been using it about 2-3 times a day, but I think I’m going to cut back to once a week like I was doing with my mom’s scale. (By the way, my scale’s name is Simon.)

As you can see, sometimes a dramatic change is necessary in order to make even more dramatic changes. We eat healthier, feel healthier and look better. I’m so glad that I made my mind get over the doubt and fear and just decide to get up off the couch, put the Oreos down and do something.

Week 2, I’m ready!!

Signing Out,

It’s Possible!!