August whole foods month

Ok needed to really get back to it I have been steadily in the 150s bouncing between 159 and 153 for around 3 months now and I'm ready to get going again. The new job is going well and the new boyfriend is going great I think ill keep him. The eating with the boyfriend has gotten better too I am comfortable enough around him to have voiced my needs and feel its ok if we eat completely different meals and I veto restaurant and cooking choices because they do not fit in with what I need.

 I feel a little more settled now and can focus again on weight loss. Weight today was 158 first day of period that's ok I guess. So that will be my starting weight. For the month if August, 2 of my friends and I are going to eat as close to whole foods as we can manage. I will prob be the most extreme of the three of us as when it comes to eating I can pretty much give up anything for a good amount if time and not have huge turmoil. 

So the plan is to eat food that looks like what it is. No packaged food that has more than one ingredient unless its like frozen mixed veggies or something where u can clearly see the ingredients individually.

The boyfriend is actually taking this as a challenge I told him I can't eat bread he said lets make our own bread and got recipes and a bread maker from his mom. When I told him the recipes were full of white flour and things I didn't want to eat he found new recipes. He is a huge meat and carbs and processed foods eater but he really tries to make stuff that is good for me too!

I still need to work on the exercise front I have done terrible lately I walk everyday with my dog but it does not get me breathing heavy and def is not going to shape my arms! 

With that I am still super proud if what I have done! 2 years ago this week I decided to grow up and make my life what I was dreaming about. No one was going to rescue me except me so I did! Since then I have changed inside and out I have grown as a person as I reduced my weight by 90 lbs! 

This is who I am now I have kept at this longer than most! 2 years is slow for most people but of the blogs I read there are kinda 3 camps: the lost in one year ish  and kept it off, the slowly but surely who are consistent and slow and take breaks from loss where they maintain but get there, and the never make progress people that have good intentions but just can't get it together. 

I am and want to be the middle one I will finish in my own time and my own way. I am 18 lbs away from my original goal and I will get there and not take a crazy long time by bouncing up to a higher weight to have to do it all again. 

Ok so I plan to post my food each day here for the clean eating so here we go.

Only breakfast so far this should be the same for a while I made a big batch of kinda fried rice=brown rice peas carrots green beans egg and shrimp salt and pepper to taste. Made 6 servings of rice so this should be breakfast for about a week then ill try something different.

Ill catch u up later on what I eat for lunch and dinner. I prefer very plain food for tracking so prob not going to create any amazing recipes for u but just yummy healthy whole food!

Have a good day! 

Long time no post but still in the game

Thought I would update anyone out there.
I am currently loving my life and still going slow but strong. I am at 156 lbs! Starting at 245 and a goal of 140 i have 16 lbs to go for my original goal but I am almost 100% certain that I will not be happy at 140. But I will have to recognize the effort that took me there once I am there.
I am still somewhere between a 10 and a 12 in clothes and have a goal of being an 8 I don't know if 16 lbs will get me there but I'll see.
I had some serious back problems a year ago and am still very worried about it and have had to stop Zumba classes because of it. I love Zumba but the possible pain and set back and cost it could do for me is not worth it. Mostly what I do is walk and walk and walk let me tell you my doggie loves it and so do I. I do jog and do different workout classes but not consistently so my weight loss lately is pretty much just diet based. It can be done.
I need to get into some strength training classes but they are intimidating as I know I am quite weak and I don't want to have to join an expensive gym and still not know what to do. I need to strengthn my back and my arms. I have lose skin on my upper arms that I am very ashamed of and would love to decrease. This is my next goal.
In other news my life has changed a ton this year! I have a new job doing something completely different and really liking it. I was drowning in my old job and was super unhappy so I am happy to be somewhere sane finally!
Its a fresh start no one at this job knows me at a bigger size so they think I'm just a normal person not someone who has lost a bunch of weight. I like this as this is who I am now and I am never going back to that girl!
I also have a boyfriend now! It is amazing! I never felt cute enough to date anyone I was attracted to so I dated people that I thought I was good enough for and so never really got close to them. Now I am finally at a place that I can attract a cute wonderful boy and am so happy about it. I'm sure there are tons of mental issues that I will need to deal with including self esteem that made me think this way forever but I'm working through it on my own and living my life and it can only get better.
I love reading all of your healthy living and weight loss blogs it gets me through sometimes knowing that I am not alone in all this. Thanks for blogging much better than me and sharing all your stories!

Birthday look around

Yay Its my birthday tomorrow!!!! Not a big year or anything just 26. Going to celebrate with some good girlfriends and share some good foods and some good laughs over dinner.

On Saturday my mommy will be taking me shoe shopping since all of my shoes no longer fit-to big:)

So I will get to spend a great day with her and then prob end up at my parents' house with my doggie for dinner on Saturday.

After that my holidays will be finally done, so I'll spend Sunday cleaning and putting away all the Christmas decorations. My living room always feels much bigger when that stuff is all put away!

I also am going to work on my grocery list this weekend I need some new ideas I am getting board with my current food choices. I got a slow cooker for Christmas so hopefully I can find some yummy healthy things to make that don't involve buying lots of different ingredients.

As always alot of bloggers out there are needing to reset after their holiday gains. I am happily not one of them yesterday for the first time I wore a size 10 pair of pants to work. They were only a bit tight but nothing compared to what I was squeezing into when I was deluding myself that I was still an 18. I think I have just gotten so used to pants fitting great or a bit to loose that a little tightness seemed like alot until I really thought about what I used to do.

Well I really do think that this year I will hit my goal weight of 140 (I'm at 165 currently) and be able to see what I want to do from there. I really do think the changes that I have made I can sustain forever and defiantly don't want to go back to where I was. In this year of life I plan to actually sign up and do a 5K race. I did get up to running a 5K this summer but was to chicken to sign up for any because I wanted to be able to finish in less than 30 min and was clocking in at 34 min being my fastest time.

My goals while being 26 then are hit goal weight, and run a race 5K, get a new job, date more and add one more state to my states I have visited as an adult.

Should not be too difficult:)

Not inspiring

So I use Livestrong.com to track my food intake and there are some forums or blogs on there. There is one that is for people with 100 or more pounds to lose. One guy on the site has lost 144 lbs in less than a year and is at his goal. He supposedly has never had a slip up since he started. The worst part is that he posts on every comment about his success and how perfect he is. I posted today about how the day after christmas is just a day like any other and if you are waiting to get back or started on weightless until the new year you should consider starting today and get a jump start on those new years resolutions. Of course he is the first to respond how he of course would not crowd out healthy food with bad food and that 144lbs feels so much better than anything would taste.

What a load! Seriously, sure you can be perfect maybe but for how long? And really mom's chocolates and grandmas christmas dinner are worth a few lighter calorie days this week. Maybe at 50 something its different but at 25 dude I'm going to eat some mashed potatoes and my mom's chocolates. And you know what its fine. I own it. I make that choice just like today I made the choice to go right back to eating like I know I should.

What I'm saying is that you can't be perfect all the time and pretending that you are-dude on Livestrong- is not helping anyone. Seriously if I had to go into this thinking that I had to be perfect or it will not work I don't know if I would have gotten started.

So Livestrong guy let me know where you are 3 years from now. Still perfect?

Heading into the holidays

Hi guys still here. Well its been so long since I wrote but I am still going strong.
I had a wonderful time on vacation and tho I ate too much I was at the same weight when I came back as I was when I left so it must have evened out somewhere. I am currently down to 165 I had dropped as low as 163 so I'm up a bit but I will be back there soon.

I am somehow stuck still at size 12 my goal is to be an 8 I will get there but I wish I wasn't wasting so much money on clothes at the wrong size-with the holidays and just life I have had to get a bunch of new stuff that I actually really like. Did you know that when you lose weight your feet will get smaller? Well I sure did not! All the high heals I had been waiting until I was smaller to wear as my feet would have less pressure are actually falling off when I step. I know what a terrible problem but I can't stand spending more money on clothes. So I will make due with what I have. Maybe santa will get me some gift cards.

I know alot of bloggers have talked about a similar issue before but I just have to put out there how uncompfortable I still am when people notice my weightloss. If it is in private its not so bad. I ran into my old boss last week and I had lost 80lbs since seeing him and so he of course noticed and asked me in the most polite way he could what I had been doing. It was weird but just fine. What really bothers me is when people say it around people that I have met recently or only half way through my process. UGH I just wish that they would not have to find out that I used to be so big. I guess it is just something I will have to deal with. I will not take down all the pics of me from before on facebook otherwise there would be no pics of me so there is a record for anyony with the internet I guess. I hope it will get less emberassing the smaller I get.

Holidays are so soon and I am ready.
 Game plan that works for me

1. Enjoy the meal not the season.
2. Never bring leftovers home
3. Bring a dish that is on the healthy side so you can fill up on that
4. Snack on the way so you are not starving
5. Resume real life eating as soon as possible



Lulu Ready for the holidays



I still have my dad to buy for, one gift card to mail out, and waiting for a package from QVC for my mom-they gaurentee delivery before Christmas and man that In the Kitchen with David guy is the best salesman in the world.



Lulu in all my old clothes for donation



Hope your hoildays are shaping up nicely what I'm looking forward to the most is having my brother in town and some nice time off to hang out with the fam and snuggle my doggie.

Going Strong

Well I am much more of a blog reader than a writer it seems but her is a little update on where I am.

I am actually doing great!

I am losing weight slowly but I am feeling good and back to being very active. SW-245 CW-171 GW-140

I am counting calories like its my job and am switching up what I am eating. I never used to like milk even tho it is so popular it repulsed me. Then something changed-as a kid my mom bought 2% as an adult I would only buy skim-both gross. I recently tried 1% and wow what a difference it made. Its great, has flavor but not so thick who knew. I am now drinking at least 1 glass a day and making my oatmeal with it for breakfast. I know it has calories and I am tracking those as well so I can only see good coming from it. Also it is filling! I actually have it as a morning snack and it can tide me over for quite a while.

I am jogging now!!!! I can't get over it. I starter the c25k program on a podcast that tells you when to start and stop and I finished it!!!! I can jog for atl east 30 min without having to stop yay! I tried yesterday to actually do a 5k at the park marking distance not time but I made the mistake of bringing my doggie-a chihuahua. She did the training with me so physically I know she can do it but she was not feeling it yesterday and just refused to even walk after 2 miles. I tried to carry her while jogging but her poor head just bobbled too much that I ended up walking. Good thing is I ended up walking 9k instead of jogging 5 so it was still a good outing next 5k tho I am going to do it solo:)

PT seems to have worked. I am 90% pain free now. I am continuing to do the streaches everyday after I take my doggie for her morning walk so that my muscles are a little warmed up to be able to streach-Tip from PT never streach with cold muscles walk or do something to warm them for 5 min first to prevent tearing.

I am going to Florida next week for vacation and I am soooo ready to have a break from real life. First half I am going to St Pete beach just to sit by the ocean and suck up the wonderful smell of the salt water and feel the breeze and ocean waves on my feet. Second half I am going to Disney World! I am so happy to be going there and will act like a child the whole time. A good friend of mine moved down there at the beginning of the year and I am going to say with her and we will go to the parks together. It will be great to catch up with her. I am looking forward to traveling with a smaller body hopefully the plane will be more compfortable at a size 12 than it was at a size 18 as I was the last time I wa in a plane.

Only downside of going while I am losing weight is I have no clothes. I seriously have work clothes and workout clothes in my wardrobe so I had to buy some stuff. I added 2 pairs of jeans and a few tops. I also got some new swimsuits and because it is September I got them for super cheap like 4$ each for 2 tops and 2 bottoms awsome!!!

Maybe next time I write I'll have some fun photos to share!

1 year in: A reflection

I decided to change my life on August 5th 2011. So I have made this my life for the last year. It has gone by so fast now I can't believe it. I feel like a different person while at the same time I know that if I let it all that hard work could go away. I wanted to go over the last year with myself so here is my recap if you would like to look back with me.

What spurred this on? I am not completely sure but I can remember a combination of things:

• First, my little brother gave me his Wii. I bought Wii fit and started doing the free step for 10 min on the first day.

• Second, I stared watching Biggest Loser and realized that I was above some of the starting weights. Okay I was watching season 1 and they got much larger from there but still it freaked me out. 

• Third, I had gone from wearing an 18 to having to buy size 20 jeans. I had been an 18 FOREVER like as long as I can remember. Surpassing that, for myself, was unacceptable.

• Fourth, I attended a wedding in June and a baby shower in July and saw the pics of me on Facebook and they were terrible.

Once I started I feel like my journey naturally broke itself into stages. Each stage had different eating and exercise.
Stage one. August through November-Finding what works for me

• At the very beginning I was too embarrassed to exersize in public so I did the Wii fit in my living room. I built up from my 10 min free step to 1 hour 45 min. At some point I bought the risers so it was more of a step up. 
• The only diet that I had ever had success with was low(practically no) carb. When I did this in the past I felt so unhealthy and craved fruit. I decided that I would try to be as pure and healthy as possible at first and chose to eat only fruits and veggies. I know kind crazy and I would not recommend it but it helped me make a clean break from everything bad. I made huge fruit salads for breakfast, nice salads for lunch(I did allow dressing), dinner I had to get creative. I would do a plate of cut up veggies like coins of cucumber, baby carrots, a whole tomato, Spagetti squash, beets, canned green beans, roasted asparagus, I even tried an artichoke for dinner once that was a big fail:)
• For weigh ins I used the Wii fit, it prompts you to weigh in each time you do it and it charts both your weight and BMI. I loved seeing the chart show a downward slope I hated how long it took to calculate and how it said out loud "Thats Obese" each time. Eventually I bought a scale and began to use that as it was easier, even though it showed one pound higher than the Wii Fit did.
• Durring this time no one really knew I was working on losing weight. When you start at 245 it takes a lot of weight to be noticeable. A few of my coworkers knew what I was doing as they saw what I was eating and noticed that I always turned down food brought into the office. A few encouraged me one even gave me some workout DVDs for Zumba along with the maracas that come with the sculpt and tone workout. Integrating that with Wii Fit helped keep it interesting. I also bought a Biggest Loser walking DVD and added that to my routine.
• In October I slowly started to incorporate new foods. I thoughtfully added in Oatmeal and skim milk to my breakfasts and then sweet potatoes to my dinners. Also, in October as I was adding in new foods I knew I needed to track what I was eating. I believe that writing down what you eat is what makes Weight Watchers so successful but I did not want to give anyone money, I wanted to do this myself. I found Livestrong.com a free site to track your food. It also has a community to ask questions and post achievements. From here forward I slowly added in food while tracking my calories and weight loss.
• Throughout this time I was doing one "cheat" meal a week. Hey I was 24 and you still have to live so most times this was going out with friends and eating.

Stage Two. December to April-Going strong/Keep moving Forward

• The weekend after Thanksgiving I flipped my mattress and injured my back. It was so bad that I had to call in sick from work and went to the doctor. I got some pain pills and took 2 weeks off of workouts. Durring those 2 weeks I continued to diet and actually found that I lost weight. So even tho exersize helped I knew that I did not have to do as much as I was doing(1hr 45 min each day) I cut it down to 45 min on the Wii fit or a 50 min video everyday once I was feeling better. 
• At the end of the year I had gotten from 245 to 202. My birthday is January 4th I really wanted to be under 200 by then but man was I close. This really made me feel bad at the time. Since then I decided to not put any deadlines for myself for pounds lost. In my opinion you can do everything right and the scale can still not fall where you want it when you want it. Instead I put goals on things I can control. I will work out everyday, I will have only one cheat meal a week, I will not drink my calories, I will track everything I eat and stay under my cal goals. These things I can control and it will pay off eventually just be patient.
• At the end of January, almost 6 months in, I joined the community rec center. It gave me the elliptical and treadmill I had been wanting to try as well as access to classes without being intimidating like I felt a private gym would be. This was a great resource to have in the cold days of winter.
• Durring this time work was super slow and I had been loving the use of Livestrong but was getting tired to the same opinions so I went in search of more information online and discovered the blogging world. I really came to love reading about others in different stages of their journeys. It took a long time of reading blogs before I felt the need to comment. I wanted to comment but not anonymously so thats what prompted me to start this blog. I may not be a great writing but its a resource to connect and share my experience even if it is only for a few and my future self. 

Stage 3. April through July-Pain seeking relief

• Pain-Since hurting my back in November it had began to increase in pain to the point were I looked into resources to help. I did not like how my doctor just gave me pills for my back and did not follow up with me so I wanted something that would fix the problem instead of covering it up. 
• Chiropractor-What came to me was chiropractic care. I made an appointment and went. It seemed okay he took x-rays examined me and when I went back for results he showed me what was likely causing my pain and had a 3 week game plan for fixing it.
• Ok lets do this! He let me know that like braces moving your bones will cause some pain to begin with but then it will get better. Well I was in pain no joke. but I kept going I kept believing. Until it got so bad I could not walk my dog. I had broken down at least once with each of my parents and they sat me down and convinced me to go to a different doctor and get a different opinion.
• I thought I would give the chiropractor one more try and went in with a pad of paper and a pen and asked to just talk at my next apt. We sat down and I asked if he could give me the diagnosis and what the timeline and plan of action would be to get me out of pain. What he said was not good. He said it takes time and how he thought I was doing better. Thats when I broke down and couldn't believe what he was saying. I informed him as I had evry time I had gone in that I had never been in more pain in my life. That was my last chiropractic appointment forever. Maybe they are good for something but I believe he would have had me coming back week after week doing the something for as long as he could get money out of me. 
• Physical Therepy-Thats when I went to a reg doctor, I found a new one and I guess she is good. She of course gave me pain pills-did not touch the pain, and a prescription for an x-ray and physical therapy. Oh yeah and a follow up appointment in 4 weeks to see f the PT was working-what an idea;).
• Well I went to PT twice a week for 3 weeks the 3rd time I was still in so much pain and broke down in the office because I had asked that they put my diagnosis and plan of action in writing so I can remember and convey it to my concerned parents and they would not. This scared me that I was again wasting my time.
• Anyway, after that time they decided the stretches and the physical pulling they were doing was not enough so the did this sonogram heat thing and deep tissue massage. OMG that was a miracle!!!! It changed my life! I could walk my dog. I took it so easy those few weeks I did not want to mess it up. Each week I felt better and better it has been 3 weeks at this point and I have done C25K, Zumba, hiked, Rode my bike, gone to a yoga class, and danced with joy!!!
• They are weaning me off of it now. I am so afraid to have it taken away I am tearing up writing this. It gave me my life back and I would buy the machine and pay for a masseuse at this point if it would keep me feeling the way I do. I still have some tightness but I foresee it only getting better!
• This whole time I only went from185 to 174. Wow what a waste of time. I which so much that I had gone straight to PT instead of wasting months at the chiropractor. How much further could I be now? Nothing I can do about that now, I can only go from where I am.
• I did learn alot during this time-
• I can be patient,
• I can find help when I need it,
• I can work through pain(I found that I could bike ride without much pain and did that as much as I could),
• I can control my diet most of the time while dealing with disappointment.

August-Forward-A plan for the future

• Food wise I want to pretty much stay the same. I have found that cheat meals set me back so they are not worth it every week maybe everyother or maybe I can find a way to make them not cheat meals. Other than that I am okay with eating 1200-1300 cal a day and do not want to change that. I have always played around with the makeup of those calories and will continue to experiment that keeps it interesting.
• Excersize wise now that I am feeling better and I want to do stuff. You can't keep me from it. I plan to do something every day. I can take a rest day each week if I am hurting or feel I need to for time but just one. I hope that by the time the excitement over getting to move wanes it will already be a habit built into my day and will be automatic. I have started C25K thats 3 days a week, I'm took a yoga class Monday night. Maybe that can become a regular thing. I have prepaid for water aerobics classes before my back really got to its worst (yeah so bad could not do water aerobics) and I could ride that bike or go to the gym one day a week.
• When I got to 180lbs I had planned to start rollerblading I did it a few times and found it hurt my back so much I had to stop before I got anywhere near good. I had planned to go rollerblading on a vacation to Santa Monica but my back stopped both the rollerblading and the vacation from happening. Maybe sometime soon I can factor that in again.

If you have read to this point you are amazing! I still have a long way to go in my journey. My excitement is renewed. I have not stopped trying for a whole year. It has bone by both quickly and soooo slowly. Would I change things oh yeah! Am I changing me? You better believe it!