The Never Before Update

As of September 28, 2015, I have been working my spiritual, emotional, nutritional, and physical self. This holistic approach is what I believe is necessary for my goals to be fully realized.

God has been so good to make this process simple for me. I am a highly analytical person, so I have that personality type (A) that makes you want to overdo everything. I look for ways to make something that should be simple, hard. Yep. That’s me. I don’t need a 12 step program to overcome my bondage–I need God. He has been revealing to me through many different ways that simplicity is all that is necessary. While faith without works is dead, works doesn’t have to be insane and it should free you not bind you.

So, I joined my local YMCA, which I TOTALLY love!! I had plans to use the pool primarily and not the gym, and I’m using the gym primarily and not the pool (yet). It’s interesting how God works things out. I have an awesome trainer, Charissa Dixon, who has already helped me so much before even beginning to work with me. This was a God thing, too. A relative of hers from my church had suggested that I work with her. By divine appointment, she’s the one that was in when I came by unannounced to join. While I felt no obligation to work with her as a trainer, after talking with her, I immediately felt a connection. I am expecting great things!

I use ActivTrax (through the YMCA) to develop my workout that I follow on my iPhone, and I get in the gym daily and hit it hard. I don’t hold back. When I walk in, I walk in feeling like I belong there, instead of feeling like I need to hide, shameful of my size. God delivered me of that, too!! There is no shame in Jesus’ name and His unstoppable love! I now realize that my body represents years of energy that hasn’t been used. It had to be stored somewhere! Well now, I am wearing myself out every day. I am burning that energy! And even though it’s just been two weeks, I can see a difference in the photos below–especially around my neck and face–that’s encouraging.

I have gotten messages from people stating that I have encouraged their own personal journey. If you’ve followed my blog very long at all, you know how happy that makes me. Knowing that I encourage others motivates me to continue for them and myself. I know what it feels like to be alone in a pursuit. Even if you don’t workout side by side, sharing posts and encouragement joins your two journeys together. I love being able to share with others how God is working in and through me and introducing them to His Son, Jesus. Without Jesus, none of what I do would be worth it at all. The liberty that comes through my relationship with Jesus is what ultimately frees me from all worldly bondage and allows me to see the truth of the matter. The comfort that I receive from the Holy Spirit helps me to overcome any negativity that may try to rise up in me. Praise God, I’m FREE!! And I can feel that in my body as well as in my spirit.

I pray that those who follow this blog will find that same freedom. If you would talk more about your journey, please message me. I look forward to hearing from you, and pray that God blesses each one of you!

Choose To Lose – Revisited

I have written a number of posts about various programs and fitness mentors that I really like. Among those is Choose To Lose – The 7-Day Carb Cycle Solution by Chris Powell. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I took a stab at this, but it was right after my first Whole30, and I had a problem adding back carbs without eventually losing it (not weight) over sugar.

Now that I have been over 102 days, Whole30ish and without sugar, I feel like I can take another look at this program. The behavior element is in check now. I don’t feel like I need to push the envelope, or indulge in a full day “cheat” like the program offers you the opportunity to do. I realize this element was added into the program to make it a more sustainable program, but after Whole30, I don’t feel like I need “cheat” meals or cheat days. I do take “choice” meals from time to time, and we do take a “choice” day once a month. No cheating…just good, healthy choices that veer from our norm of Whole30 eating.

I thought I would have to forget the Choose to Lose program for good since I don’t eat grains, legumes or artificial or natural sweeteners, but after taking another pass at reading the nutrition section of the book, I see that you eat meat and fruit for breakfast (or meat and a starchy carb-sweet potato will work well here). Well, I can do the meat and fruit. No problem. On low carb days, it is meat and vegetables, and I do that every day. I feel like I can really do this! Incorporate both my Whole30Life way of eating and carb cycling–at the same time.

You may ask why I am wanting to try this again. Even eating Whole30 for over 100 days, I haven’t experienced weight loss to a degree that I feel I should be. Whole30 reduces your meals to just 3 meals a day. According to Choose to Lose, you need 5 meals a day (2 are snacks of course), to keep your metabolism stoked. I believe that people who are already near their ideal weight can do the 3 meals a day (Whole30) and still lose weight, but years of stubborn weight gain and a sluggish metabolism is just not responding to it. It’s time to try again.

Today, I stopped in at Curves and had her measure me again. For the most part, I am unchanged since January. Even given my awesome eating and recent added movement. It’s time to try something else that will not throw everything that I’ve accomplished to the wind but instead will build upon it.

I plan to incorporate the workout in Choose to Lose as well as the Wii Fit Plus running and yoga. I also accomplished a 1 mile walk for charity under 20 minutes. I am already planning to participate in my second one and I am marking them down on my calendar to become that “benefit walker/runner (eventually)” that you love to hate! 🙂 I actually want to start training, so I can reduce my time. Couch-to-5K has been suggested to help with that, so I will look at adding the app to my phone, so I can have some help in building the number of minutes that I jog instead of walk.

So my health fusion is growing. I’ll get my green back on with my green thickies soon. I do miss them. I need to prepare my sweet potatoes in advance for quick/easy morning use. If you’d like to know more about my health fusion, take a look at the categories section. I have more about it there.

I will also be looking to raise money for my Health Coach certification. It’s $600, which pays for the books, helps and tests. I do have a GoFundMe tab above if you would like to help me make that happen. I would greatly appreciate your help of any amount.

Practicing What I Preach

I have a 2 1/2 year old who has a significant speech delay. He loves to play educational games on my iPad, but doesn’t know yet how to verbalize his frustration when he can’t get the game to do what he wants it to do (like put a triangle where the circle should go). This morning I actually listened to something I told him. He was fussing about a game he was playing, and I said, “It’s ok. Keep trying. If you don’t like what it is doing, do something different (i.e. match the triangle to the triangle instead of the circle).” For some reason, I personally heard that message this morning and none too soon.

I am working on my second round of Whole30 in 2015. I am 12 days in this round, which makes 42 days in all so far. I feel a very safe distance from sugar and those foods that once bound me. My cravings are completely gone. Yesterday, I felt so good that I was searching for an explanation of why–apparently, it’s been a while. I have totally hated the way I feel physically, emotionally, professionally, and spiritually. In considering the lesson I was trying to teach my son, I realize that I am actually practicing what I preach to him–FINALLY. Whole30 helped break the food addiction and helped me work on unhealthy behaviors that lead to poor nutrition choices, and now, I have taken it a step further.

Monday, I started eating differently. I know you think, “What? How can you eat more differently than Whole30,” but maybe I should say that I have reordered my meals. The amount that I typically eat at supper, I’m eating at breakfast (eating supper for breakfast), which has increased my intake of vegetables over the course of the day. My lunch is about the same because during Whole30, it’s always been spot on (maybe now it’s a little smaller and more vegetable intentional), and supper is a green shake (spinach thickie) with fruit for snacks (there’s still some evening eating behavior issues I need to deal with like the need to snack while watching television).  I am truly doing something different, and the results I am getting are different everywhere except on the scale, but it’s only been 3 days. It will catch up.

Just in three (3) days, I am going to sleep easier around 9-9:30 p.m., sleeping with my CPaP better (still having crazy dreams from time to time though which disrupts my sleep), and waking easily at 5 a.m. (something I thought would never happen in my lifetime). On top of that, yesterday I had more energy than I have had in a very long time–so long that I don’t even remember it. I am enjoying those results, even though this morning, the scale was up a little. The number on the scale is not nearly as important to me as these other non-scale victories are. I will give it time and enjoy the other benefits. As for those other areas of my life, I’m working on that. One step at a time.

So here’s to learning from lessons for a toddler. What lessons do you teach others and need to adhere to yourself?

GA STATE ROUTE 330, HERE I COME!!!

I want to bike or walk THIS highway because at my highest, I weighed 330 lbs. This is GA state route 330. State Route 330 is a 6.1-mile-long state highway in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. It travels through rural areas of Barrow and Jackson counties. 

I want to give something else with the numbers 330 my attention–that would positively impact my life. It’s in north GA, so there would be inclines too. I am WAY out of shape. I may have to walk it first, and it may take me all day to do it, but it’s a goal. I need to just consider my time frame.

How would you go about preparing for such a goal? I’m thinking I need to plan it to be during a cooler time, so that gives me some time to prepare my body. I guess one good thing to do would be to go up there and drive it to see what I need to be expecting.

Yeah, ROAD TRIP!!!

Getting Started Is the Hardest Part

Yes, getting started is the hardest part of any battle. Fortunately, I did not have to start this battle alone. My journey of one has now turned into a journey of four. We are the Fantastic Four! I am leading the group, leading helps me dig in and be totally focused because I know they are counting on me (find what works for you), and we have been using this week to get used to documenting our intake of food, drinking more water, getting our mind sharp and ready for battle, and identifying our food triggers.

We have set our schedule, and our weigh in day will be Monday mornings. We will be measuring two ways, 1-by scale (using the same scale, the same time of the day each time we weigh), and a snug fitting outfit. We will be documenting how that outfit FEELS on our body as we go. This is for those times when the scale may not show a decrease, but it’s obvious that there was a decrease. Some may use a measuring tape, but I just wanted to keep it simple. Not too much to have to keep up with.

The results so far this week have been good. I’ve seen several photos of meals taken at lunch or supper that were really great decisions. The goal of our plan is to try to make better decisions one at a time. We don’t want to over think anything. Just what is best for us and our body. We scheduled a cheat treat on Saturday this week and planned to eat light, no carbonated drinks and light salt on Sunday in preparation for weigh in.

We are hoping to have some good results. Because we all have at least 100 lbs to lose (each), I explained that no weight loss will not be seen as a negative. We will celebrate the loss of visceral fat from the inside and know that the scale will catch up eventually.

We are also tackling some nasty negative self-talk and emotional hangups. This will definitely be an ongoing battle. Fortunately, my BS is in Behavior Analysis, so I am prepared to help with plans to work through these obstacles.

We really appreciate your support, and hope you will be there for us tomorrow when we post our results. It’s a very vulnerable time, and we really need to know that we have the support of those who may be inspired by our journey. Please leave us comments to let us know you are reading and wishing the best for us.

Meal Planning? What’s that?

A member of Our Weight Loss Journey group has brought up a very important topic in our support group. Meal Planning. I have to say that this is not a topic I have covered much. I will have to do some research to see if there is a meal plan system out there that will work for me. I am the type of person who is a bit A.D.D., so my attention is easily taken off of what I should be doing and is on to something else.  I may start really strong on planning, and a couple of months later I have stopped doing it somewhere along the way and have completely forgotten that I was even supposed to be planning my meals.

So I am going to our readers. Maybe some of you do meal planning for your family. Do any of you have a plan that really works for you that you can share with us? If so, I would love for you to be a guest writer for me on that topic. The way you’ll do that is to write an article complete with links to the appropriate places, and then contact me that you have the article ready. You can email it to me, and I will post it here for you. If you have a blog of your own, you can actually write on your blog, and I can reblog you here, whichever works for you will be fine.

I don’t mind accepting when I need help. The question now is, who of you will help us?

BATTLE–IF YOU DARE!

Yes, a Wii Fit Plus battle it is! This started out as a quick idea, but it is quickly coming together in my mind. It is an awesome opportunity for anyone with Wii Fit Plus to spend untold minutes or hours attempting to beat the top performer’s score. There is a lot of potential for exercise, but because it is a competition, it will be fun. It’s not like you’re just doing to do it. It will be to prove you are the most determined on that day.

The way I am going to start this competition is to start out with the games. We will start out with Balance Games and Aerobics games. I will then add the Strength Training, Yoga, and Training Plus options.

The WINNER IS DETERMINED by their score. They will also post their calories burned as determined by the Wii Fit Plus piggy bank. This is just to show how effective our battle is. We will share how many combined calories we have burned. Here are the graphics you will find on my FB page. Of course you can join me there by following me on FB over on the left side of this page.

Wait a Minute, What About Life Exercise?

You will want to read my last blog post to fully understand this blog post. The blog post is entitled, “Just 5 lb Gain a Year.”

I found that I should be able to lose approximately 94 lbs in a year if I cut back 602 calories a day and workout using a circuit training type workout for 30 minutes a day, every day. Then as the next day progressed, I realized I hadn’t worked out, but I had been physically busy all day long. This reminded me of the fact that there are a lot of things that we do every day that count as exercise. I do realize that this could be a dangerous way of thinking, so I want to add in a way to measure whether I did enough for the week.

As you know, I weigh weekly. This is my way of knowing that I am on track and the my weight is going down. I want to lose AT LEAST 1 lb per week, which would be a 52 lb weight loss in a year. I am definitely on track for that prize, but I would like to lose 90 pounds or close to it which will increase my weekly weight loss goal to 1.73 pounds a week. I will update the widget on my blog (over on the left margin at the bottom) that is keeping up with my weekly weight loss to include my weekly goal target. I am sure some weeks I will lose more and some weeks I will lose less, so this column will let me know that on average I am on target.

So…the measurement I referred to…that will be the weigh-in. When I weigh in, I need to be losing 1.73 lbs a week. If I do not lose that much, then I will need to make appropriate adjustments to my eating and exercise to increase the loss for the following week. Weighing in weekly will give me the opportunity to make those crucial adjustments to my plan. I feel good about it. I feel ready!! I have been eating some wonderful food, and what is great is that the majority of it is healthy food. The other great part is that some of it isn’t healthy food. I am enjoying it in moderation and still losing weight because of the work I am doing in other areas of my life. No need to go all food Nazi.

So what is your part in all of this? Keep reading. Keep “Liking” the posts, so I know you are reading or comment. I LOVE YOUR COMMENTS. It really does help me to know that people are checking out my progress. It makes me more aware. Thank you for the role you play in my weight loss plan.

Note: After updating my Widget, I see I am ahead of my goal!! But I don’t want to let that derail me by making me feel to confident, so I will continue as if I still need to work on reaching my goal. 🙂 I’m very excited!

Just 5 lb Gain a Year…

THIS IS A VERY COMPREHENSIVE POST. IT IS VERY INFORMATIVE AND COULD HELP YOU CREATE YOUR WEIGHT LOSS PLAN. YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NEED TO READ IT MORE THAN ONCE. DON’T JUST SKIM OVER IT AND MISS THE POINT. LEAVE YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS IF YOU NEED HELP DETERMINING YOUR PLAN.

I was talking to my mother-in-law about my son’s weight. He’s 9 months old and considered by his doctor to be “overweight for his height.” We had a discussion about just how ridiculous it is to start such a measurement so young! She agreed that he is in no way a “fat” baby. Yeah, he has a fat roll on each of his thighs, but other than that and a little bit of a fuller face, he is a lean little machine. I’m not worried, and I will NOT permit the negative programming that screwed up my head to be preached to him.

While we were talking, I mentioned to her that since marrying my husband, I had gained about 10 lbs a year. When I go back to my earliest recollection of my weight, which would be 198 lbs in 1991 a year out of high school, and compare it to my weight today on average I have gained just over 5 lbs. a year.

313.1 (today’s weight) – 198 (1991 weight) = 115.1 pounds gained over 22 years

115.1/22 = 5.23 lbs gained per year (on average)

Given there are 3500 calories in one pound, in order to gain 5.23 lbs in a year, I would have to have eaten…

5.23 lbs X 3500 calories = 18,305 calories overeaten over the course of one year. How hard is this to do? Let’s see what it equates to on a daily and weekly basis.

18,305/365 = 50 calories over each day or 1 sugar free snack cup of Apple sauce

18,305/52 =  352 calories over a week or 1 Tuna Melt Sandwich

WOW!! Somehow, I don’t feel like I am such a PIG now! I definitely see how this happened!!! Keep following me! You’ll see it, too, and you’ll see how I will keep from adding another pound to my numbers (even as I continue to lose weight).

Let’s flip this to exercise. I NEVER exercise. Why? Because you work your butt off for nearly nothing! Not to mention, IT’S BORING! I’m referring to the gym type of exercising of course.

According to Fit2Flex blog, you can burn 50 calories in 5 minutes doing 5 simple exercises for 1 minute each. See the link for those exercises. I think I can definitely give that amount, DAILY, to help offset what I tend to gain over the course of a year. Do you see that? If I hadn’t looked at exercise the way I had, I could have offset the amount of weight I was gaining.

The fitness industry wants to sell us all kinds of things, but in reality, what has been said by so many is true! If we exercise just 20 minutes a day 5 days a week, we should prevent weight gain for the year.

Losing weight is a different story! I think this is where we lose our way. I am almost positive this is where I lost my way. I have 22 years of 5.23 lbs to lose, so I can’t just do 20 minutes a day 5 days a week. I need to do that minimum to ensure I don’t continue to gain, yes, but to begin reversing the scale, I have to add more.

How about some math. My brain will hurt after all of this analysis…

Just using the numbers I have so far (which is based on my weight gain according to my metabolism…you’ll need to consider your numbers)…I am only taking into consideration exercise at this point. This will not take into consideration an improved way of eating. This is basically the same, mindless eating pattern that I had over the course of these 22 years.

According to my analysis, it would take me three (3) years to lose the 180 lbs I have gained over the course of 22 years plus the amount to reach normal BMI. In order to lose this weight, I will have to workout 1 hour every day for the next 3 years. Again, this is keeping with the same mindless eating pattern I was in before, which I will not do. I am improving my eating, so this number can actually be reduced. This is just the worst case scenario. This workout isn’t just a basic stroll either. This is the Fit2Flex workout…an hour long, so that is a relatively intense workout considering the duration.

Reducing my caloric intake will have an even greater impact on this goal. If reducing my caloric intake could do half of the work, then I could lose the weight in 1.5 years. It is a lot easier to cut 50 calories than it is to burn 50 calories. Cutting my mindless eating, caloric intake 602 calories a day and exercising 30 minutes a day, every day for 1.5 years…I should be able to reach my goal.

I will review my current eating to determine if I have decreased my caloric intake by eliminating all meat and eating fish/seafood only. I am hoping the changes in meat and dairy that I have made will be enough.

I know this blog post was a little more complicated because it wasn’t one that you could read without analysis. Look, if you want to lose weight, YOU HAVE TO THINK. You can’t just say, ok, I’ll workout and cut back. It’s just not enough to do that. You need to know how much you need to workout and how much you need to cut back. It will take a lot of thought and basic math to come up with your numbers. Take time out to determine your plan.

Ding, ding, Weigh-in Day

Today is weigh-in day.

I lost 1.5 lbs this week.

New BMI 57.3.

My new weight is 313.1.

My goal was to lose 2 lbs per week, so I have 2.4 lbs to lose for next week to be on goal. I am not going to obsess over that. I will continue doing what I am doing because apparently, I am doing something right.

Ding, Ding…Weigh-in Day

There will be two posts today. This weight reveal and the earlier post. Please be sure to read it. It is a very informative post that could change your life. I believe it is going to change mine.

The exact weight that I started with was

316.8               BMI 58

After my Wii weigh-in this morning, my weight is

314.6               BMI 57.5

A LOSS OF 2.2 LBS! (I hear Kermit the Frog shouting “YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY”).

Since the creation of this blog, I have been gathering information. I have started making small changes. No big changes have been made yet. Just with the very small changes, I have lost 2.2 lbs. The changes made so far have been writing daily blog posts, following a group of those like me on FB who have 100+ pounds to lose, reading or watching lots of research on better eating, and that’s about it.

I would say that I have made changes in my eating, but really, I haven’t made any significant changes yet except to be more mindful of what I am eating. I will start this week making changes in that area.

What Does Two for One Mean?

So you may have run across this site because you are looking for a good deal. Generally, that is what 2 for 1 indicates, but not here. Here it refers to my weight, divided by 2. I literally weigh more than two people of healthy BMI. As a matter of fact, I am on the border of being 2 “obese” people in one body. I am actually 2 “overweight” people, and I want to change that.

THIS IS MY JOURNEY. It is going to be a very honest and transparent journey. Maybe you’re on a similar journey, hey, let’s travel this lonely road together then. I encourage your comments. If you have a similar blog, include your address, and I will share it with my readers as well.