Evolution

Wow, what a busy past couple weeks it has been! I’ve really amped up my workouts and have been to the gym 14 out of the past 18 days so I’m feeling great in that department!  Hubby is home for awhile so it’s been nice having him helping around the house and with the kiddos and I’ve been back to work as well! This, while is super exciting because I LOVE my job, has been a huge adjustment for all of us.  Since right now I only go to classes at the gym (that way I get the most out of my hour!) it’s making gym planning a lot more interesting, but I’ve still managed to pull it off! It’s been hard to go to work and then go to the gym and spend more time away from my babies, because all I really want to do is rush home and squeeze them! I force myself to do it because I owe myself and them more time together in the future.  I have a whole new respect for people who work outside the home and are struggling with me on this road to health, you guys are my new heroes!

Last week I was up 2 pounds which  was disappointing but I was still really sore when I did my weigh in , so I’m going to chalk it up for water retention in my muscles. However, I stayed the same this week, which I guess is better then a gain but I really would like to see the scale heading in the right direction next Tuesday!  Although I did do my measurements last week and was quite excited with the numbers I was seeing! I’ve lost 34 inches! That’s almost 3 feet of fat off my body (say what!?)  So even though I’d like to be able to update negative numbers into my side widget —> I am forcing myself  to not just focus on the number but rather on the fact that I’m feeling stronger, healthier and have much more energy and am noticing such a difference in myself then when I first started classes.  Last Sunday I went to Zumba then directly after I stayed for a Body Combat class and I not only did I not die, but the instructor asked me how many classes I had been to previously, because I rocked it out,  This fat girls got game! 🙂

So this week I shall focus on getting used to planning my work outs and meals with my wonderful job and evolving on this journey a little more each day.

 

Recovery Day

I’ve been to the gym 5 days in a row, including yesterday which was my designated day off lol I am , however, taking today off because I am one sore mama with a house that looks like a category 5 hurricane hit it! My 3 year old woke up and asked which gym were going to today (I go to 3/4 of the Goodlife ones here) and when I told her not today because I was too sore, she grabbed her doctors kit, gave me a full checkup and declared me all better ( we might end up at the gym after all lol)

On Wednesday I went to yoga for the first time in years and I forgot how hard it was! My knees, which are not great anyway, were hurting when I got home and my wrist was (and is) hurting but I plan to go back tomorrow 🙂 I forgot my wrist brace and to use my knuckles, not my palms when in “downward dog” but, lesson learned, Aleve taken and yoga mat dug out of the closet!  I have to admit though, that I did get frustrated many times throughout the class. I was frustrated with myself and that fact I let my weight get so out of control.  I always say “I’m the most flexible fat girl you know!” because my joints and muscles are flexible and wanted to further into the stretch but my fat got in the way (that, and my boobs tried to suffocate me many times!) Then I took a breath and realized that this is just another way to track my progress on this journey.

My food intake this week has been okay, but not great, I’ve consumed an insane amount of carbs these past two days! I think I’m a pastaholic so today will be my recovery day filled with lots of water, veggies and lean protein for supper. Pasta, oh pasta, you are my most recent nemesis,  It’s like since I know I can’t have take out, or any of the other things I would splurge on, I would make a healthy supper but them eat WAAAY too much of it! Kind of defeats the purpose ya dummy! Anyway I still have 4 days to recover from the pasta binge until my weekly weigh in so I shall move on and realize it could have been worse! Now onto laundry, dishes, playdoh, mopping, puzzle making, diaper changing (and washing!), nose wiping (these colds is lasting forever!) and my favourite part, snuggling 🙂

Meal Planning!

Oh meal planning…I apologise for all the times in the past that I scoffed at you, and said I could function perfectly fine without you, I was wrong.  I used to be of the frame of mind that cooking meals wasn’t rocket science and I was perfectly capable then I decided to try a meal plan. Wow! I was shocked and amazed how much pressure it took off of me and also cut down on the grocery bill/food that spoiled because I knew exactly what I needed for the week. At the start of the week I know what my week of food will bring and therefore it also makes a huge difference with the amount of time I spend focusing on food! I am a food addict (there I said it!) and food, even the healthy stuff, consumes a large portion of my day, not the physical eating of the food, obviously, but just thinking about what I will eat next meal. With meal planning I spend an hour of planning and prep work and tada! I don’t need to focus on what we’re going to have for supper and then panic and get pizza when I say ” oh crap! I didn’t take anything out for supper and now we’re all starving.”

Being here by myself I also need to plan my gym schedule and the majority of the classes I take are at supper time, so that gives my meal planning an extra level of …fun?  I need to first do my gym schedule and then decided what meal to put on which day according to the complicatedness and prep I need to make each meal!  To be completly honest though, it sounds complicated but I love it! It’s relaxing and give me comfort for the coming week.

SO here is what my week looks like:

Monday: RPM (spin class) & core work / Leftover beef stirfry from Sunday

Tuesday: Zumba / Shredded slow cooker pork chops w/ rice and carrots

Wednesday: Yoga / Rainbow chicken pasta ( chopped chicken, yellow/red/green bell peppers, celery, red onion, grape tomatoes all cooked and tossed in with rainbow pasta and calorie wise greek feta oregano dressing) also tastes amazing as a cold pasta salad.

Thursday: Off / Roasted red pepper and basil pesto penne (http://menumusings.blogspot.ca/2011/12/roasted-red-pepper-and-basil-pesto.html) I have never made this before and I will be making some alterations to it to better suit myself, will be roasting the pepper myself not using a can, and using greek yogurt instead of heavy cream.

Friday: RPM / Another leftover day 🙂

Saturday: Yoga / Lasagne rolls ( http://chefmommy-brandao.blogspot.ca/2010/04/spinach-lasagna-rolls.html ) w/salad

Sunday: Off / Spinach/feta turkey meatballs (http://itsybitsyfoodies.com/chicken-meatballs/) w/ roasted potatoes and broccoli

Let me know if anyone tries any of the recipies listed!! The meatballs are ah-maz-ing! and the rainbow chicken pasta is a staple in this house!

Zumba’d it Up!

 

 

Just saw this picture on facebook and it’s just how I was feeling after Zumba today; today was the day I stepped up my Zumba game!

When I first started going to Zumba, there were things I just “couldn’t” do because of how horrible my knees were. So I would go and just modify the twisting and jumping steps as I needed to so I didn’t wreck myself. There were days when I still came home and had to ice my knees and take Aleve like candy but then I dropped more weight and my knees were ok with the impact they were receiving (poor things!) Recently I realized that I haven’t stepped up my game in awhile, and was just letting myself still be okay with these modified steps, but not today!  I had a rough start to this week and haven’t been to the gym in forever due do my own illness as well as both munchkins, so I thought today was the day to give it all I had. I twisted, I shaked it, I jumped, I bounced like never before and guess what? My knees are ok 🙂  I was soaked with sweat (the heat being stuck on high didn’t help) and loved every second of it!

I learned today to not be complacent  and to keep trudging on, my body is changing and I need to join it.  Never stop pushing your limits!

Putting Myself Out There

Arrrrggh!! A house full of sickness, no housework done, everything is dirty and I showered today for the first time since, well let’s just not say, and holy hell the past few says have been so trying and well, I fell off the wagon a little today! I could go on about all the excuses I have prepared, and all the excuses I told myself today but in the end, they are only excuses to myself and the only one  I set back today was myself.  I kind of felt like Bambi trying to stand on the ice this week, I just kept trying and trying and trying until I just gave up for a brief second. But that second is over, and I’ve taken a deep breath and gotten back up.   I also debated if I should bother blogging about this, because really, who wants to write their failures out in black and white. Then I started thinking about why is it that I am documenting anything at all! I’ve had a few people ask why all of a sudden, I decided to publicly document this weight loss journey and well here it goes.

This is not my first weigh loss blog, I’ve had one for years on and off, but never would I have thought about sharing it with people who actually knew me. I was mortified at the thought of anyone knowing what it was like to be the real me, the me who fights with food, who has almost constant inner dialogue about my choices, and worst of all, if anyone knew how much weight I really had to lose (like my fat was a secret or something?) But then something happened and it clicked inside me that I COULD lose this weight and I wasn’t a slave to the fat and I started losing real weight.  People starting noticing a difference, not only that, but people would ask how I found time to get to the gym, or where I got a recipe or found the time to eat healthy when chaos is such a prominent part of my everyday life lol.  Then people starting sending me facebook messages telling me that when I update my Facebook saying “bundling the kids and heading to the gym” or something like that, that it made them feel capable of the same.  It made me realize how much we all doubt ourselves and how we talk ourselves down and out or we just don’t bother trying because there are a hundred other things that we’ve deemed more important.  Well guess what? There is nothing more important then your health, not dishes, laundry, facebook, or that quiz in cosmo (do they still have those?).  It’s when we don’t believe in  ourselves that we find all these other things that are more important then facing the fear of going to the gym, that Zumba or spin class or just getting up and going for a walk.  It doesn’t matter if you have 10 or 100+ pounds to lose, you need to start somewhere and it’s not going to be washing dishes or trying out that thing you pinned on Pinterest last night.    I wake up every morning and remind myself that at some point today, there will be an hour where I am #1 in my own life and that hour a day if going to extend my life so that I am here longer to get all that other stuff done 🙂  So if verbalizing my struggles helps even one of you put yourself first, or if it can help one of you understand that to some of us, it’s not as easy as “just stop eating that”  then putting myself out there is worth it.

The Jury is Out

I have spent a huge chunk of this evening trying to decide whether or not today is a victory over myself, a failure or a mix of the two.  Here’s the short (ok, medium) story of how my day went…

Hubby leaves the house at 3:50am for his long journey back to work and 5:00am is when my day started.  R, my 3 year old, started crying hard in her bed, I go in and the poor little thing has a fever so high that it’s hard to touch her. I, of course, was heartbroken that I couldn’t fix her and she and her sweet little soul, was sad that I was sad 😦  Medicine, water, wardrobe change, snuggles, and kisses takes us to almost 6am and she’s decided she would snuggle her Bubbo (her stuffed Dumbo she’s had since birth, they are inseparable) and try to sleep again.  I just get back into bed and G, my 11 month old, wakes and wants to nurse to which I answer by taking him back into bed with me and happily oblige…until 5 minutes later R is in tears again so I have to rip breakfast away from the baby and we all venture out into the living room.   This fever my poor girl had would NOT let up, and actually just kept getting higher despite 3 doses of Tylenol   She was hurting in every way and I couldn’t help but cry for her and with her. Eventually, after R telling me there was a monster in her ear that sounded like a bird, and that she couldn’t make her head stop hurting, I sweet talked my doctor into seeing us for 2:30pm. Also in the meantime G also gets a low grade fever.

On the way to the doctor my head starts aching and I realize, oh crap, I had a smoothie and a coffee 7 hours ago and nothing else had crossed my mind since.  I have much inner dialogue about what I should do, get the full blown headache while dealing with two sick kids, or grab something to eat on the way? But wait! I stashed an organic almond bar in the van for just this reason, yay!

*appointment, kids are fine just getting the cold from hell that I had/have, perfect (not)*

3:30pm and we’re headed home when the van goes silent and both exhausted, sick children who have not slept all day are asleep.  I know if we go home they will both wake up so I end up driving around the city  having this full blown argument with myself about what my next move will be. I’m passing Wendy’s, Subway, KFC, McDonald’s, you name it, it was on my route and yet I’m still driving by them all.  Then it’s getting later and later and I’m so insanely hungry and in the chaos of my day thus far I know I didn’t take anything out to cook for supper so I made a decision. I went to Tim Horton’s and got a tuscan chicken panini on whole grain bread, turned down the donut, and got water instead of the iced tea I so badly wanted.  Man those sandwiches are HUGE, so I removed each side with the cheese and ate a cheese-less open faced panini with water and drove around until 5:00.

Did I eat out? yes, I did.  and in my eyes, that was a failure. However, I did think long and hard about what I was going to do when I got to that drive thru window, and I waited hours making that decision.  I drove by tones of fast food joints a few times, and even passed Tim’s twice before I decided my plan of attack.  I’m hard on myself so I’m still out of how I feel about this, but on a day like today, the old me would have gone to the first greasy fast food spot and ordered too much food plus some to take home for later. The new me ordered a sandwich, took the cheese and 1/2 the bread off and drank a water. Later I had some Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of granola and now I’m typing it out, drinking my water and getting over it.

Monthly Mission Plan

I’ve been fighting with the head cold/cough from hell since Friday so sadly my work out plan for this week went a little off the rails since then considering I felt like I should start making funeral arrangements, yes, I had a “man-cold”.  Luckily, for the first time in a long time, I could just be sick! My hubby is still home so I could just be a sick mom, instead of a sick mom who still had to do everything, get no sleep and still manage to get better. So thanks Babe, for just letting me be sick ❤  However, I did still manage to get to Zumba twice (once with a boarder line migraine, which then turned into a migraine, fever, then this hell cold.)  What super sucks about my regular workout plan is that it’s that wonderful  time at Goodlife again, schedule changes. Ugh! I haven’t looked at all the clubs yet, but I am fairly certain that there is only one Zumba class that I can go to where there is Childminding, guess I will need to expand my horizons again! But my gym routine choice is another topic all on it’s own.

I decided this year (as many years previously) that I was not making a new years resolution. There is a stigma that is attached to them that you will fail, and I’m sorry but I don’t need any more doubt cast on this journey! However this year I came up with a new plan of action; I am going to give myself monthly, non-weight related, goals.  I need something to work on that is not a number, something that will not only help me achieve my ultimate weight goal, but change my lifestyle and that way I relate to food, health and exercise  Kind of a “if you build it, they will come” mentality, but more like a “if you change it, the weight will come (off)”

With my hubby being away for work 14 days at a time, being over 2 hours away from family/help, and trying to juggle exercise, two small kids, 4 animals, a house, life and all that it involves, sometimes as counter-productive as it is, I get fast food.  We’re running late, or have just finished shopping and I know that I have food at home for the kids but I’m “starving” it’s just all too easy to justify going through a drive thru,” just this one time, tomorrow is a new day.” But I’m like this crazy crack addict who keeps saying that they’ll stop, tomorrow but tomorrow never comes.  Again, I realize this sounds insane to most of you who have never been here. Why would someone sabotage themselves when they’ve already lost 50lbs!? well guess what? I don’t know either.  So for the month an January I eat nothing that I don’t make myself, nothing! That’s no fast food (even the not horrible things like Pita Pit), no stopping at the store to get a box of KD or a samosa. I need to remind myself that I have control over myself and this addiction to food, it does not control me, ever.  I will still treat myself once a week, but it will be planned and will still not be of the fast food variety. We are almost one week into January and I have been tempted too many times to count, but a deep breath and the affirmation that I’ve got this takes over and I grab a drink of water and move on 🙂

 

*You can keep tabs on my Monthly Missions and my weekly weigh-ins (every tuesday) under the tabs to the right 🙂

 

I’ve got this

I have so much that has been running through my mind for many months so it will be a challenge to not post it all at once! I guess I will start with short story of what is behind me thus far! I’ve always struggled with food and am such an emotional eater that it used to take me days of emotional eating before I would even realize I was stressed over something.  For those who have never had weight issues, that probably seems impossible and illogical, and it’s one of those things that only those who have been there can fully understand, but believe me when I tell you it was a common thing in my life *note the past tense. As a teen I dealt with unimaginable heartache by playing sports and being in various clubs but when I got home there was only one thing left to do, eat my sorrow.   Eleven years later I have had more weight loss attempts than I dare to count and obviously none have been overly successful.  Those that were semi-successful didn’t last long before I panicked and would subconsciously self sabotage myself into failure. I figured I would never actually succeed in reaching my goal so I may as well quit before I get too far into it, it would be less disappointing that way.

In 2009 I so badly wanted a baby but my body knew it was in no shape to undertake something as major as growing another human.  I lost 45 lbs and was blessed with my sweet Rowyn and she changed my life in SO many ways.  I realized that I never wanted her to have to deal with the weight issues I had and was currently trying to solve.  I realized that while I was never bullied as a kid, that kids are different now and seem to be much harsher, I never wanted her to deal with that. When I looked at her, even as a newborn, I knew I needed to change my life for her.  I had more random weight loss here and there but I was a new mom who was trying to take on everything and my own health was the one thing I felt I could set aside for now, so I did.  Then Grayson, my handsome snuggly boy, was born in 2012, and something clicked. Yes I needed to lose weight for them, they are my whole universe,  but if I wanted to be a true roll model for them I needed to love myself as much as I love them.

As I was recovering from C-Section #2, and adjusting to life as a mother of 2, the weight loss planning took over and I found Visalus .  I struggled a lot with the thought of using a “meal replacement shake” instead of the old fashioned way! I didn’t want people to assume that since I was fat that I was lazy, taking the easy way out and looking for some magic drink to fix all I had so wrongly done to myself. I tried to get back to the weight watchers life I had lead before and found that I was never eating! ever! There was no time! I had a toddler who was used to having me for herself and a new baby who was…a challenge to say the least. So after a few months, I bit the bullet and ordered a bag of Body by Vi.  I decided that no, I wasn’t looking for a quick fix, I knew this was a long road I was facing. I knew I loved going to the gym and intended to do so, a lot! I knew that I could cook delicious and healthy meals for supper and make this work. So for the people who want to judge me for having a shake for breakfast, go ahead. I know that  right now in my life it’s what I needed to get me on the right path for this 144lbs weight loss journey ahead of me. I eat healthy, real, unprocessed food for snacks, supper and the occasional lunch, I go to the gym 3-4 days a week and since I have to take both kids with me I am sweating before I ever arrive!  I know drinking a shake for breakfast is not sustainable forever, I’m not in denial, I’m being realistic with what my own life allows at this point in time.

I’ve got 55 of those 144lbs released as of right now, and this blog is going to help me track this journey and when I arrive on the doorstep of my 30th I will be a whole new me.  A new me that loves herself inside and out, and can lead by example instead of just words. I will get there, it’s no longer a question of failure, it’s not longer an option. I’ve got this.