YEA!! YEA!! It's been just over five months and I'm down over 26 pounds. I have another 25-30 to go if I'm honest with myself, so maybe in a few more months, I can write the blog claiming to have met my goal weight and tell you all the timely and untimely stories, reveal to you all my not-so-well-kept-secrets, and make it all seem like it was just a walk in the FREAKING park! (You can't see me laughing but I'm about to wipe another wee tear from the corner of my eye! I lost another pound!!
Today is January 27, 2021, back in early August 2020, I woke up and decided to weigh myself. I said to myself "C'mon, you have to know where you are so you know what you need to do to lose it. You have to know where you are weight-wise so you can know what goals you want to set." I had NO IDEA what I was about to do was going to send me into such a spiral of emotions! Having not stepped on a scale for almost a year, maybe 8 months, I really didn't have any idea just how heavy I was. You know how it is, all your friends and co-workers say things like, "You look good" or "Well, you could tone a little, but you're OK". They say that because they don't want to hurt your feelings. OH MY GOSH, my feelings needed to be slaughtered! Those damn feelings were literally sitting on my body and needing to be exercised - - cut off, starved, banned, and forbidden to return!
I couldn't believe the number, and no I won't say it until I lose all of my weight and can come to you and show you the evidence - - I was too upset to take a photo of the number on the digital scale. I cried and I didn't go anywhere that day. I hadn't started my temporary assignment yet, but if I had started it I would not have been able to go into work from what I call onslaught depression! I say "depression" because I was instantly saddened by the number, but at the same time I was FURIOUS with myself for having allowed myself to get to the point that I literally weighed almost as much as my fully grown son who of course works out and is absolutely healthy for his size and frame, but I WEIGHED AS MUCH as he did almost, maybe 3 or 4 pounds under him, but that was not acceptable and I knew there had to be another way for me to live. I did what I always do in these types of cases - - I prayed about it.
Once I left the closet from praying and could see through my tears that were still pouring down my dampened face, I made myself a few promises: I wouldn't overdo it, I wouldn't force it, I wouldn't try to make it happen overnight, and I wouldn't weigh myself until I knew I had lost at least 10 pounds. There was just no reason to keep the feelings raw - - It was war, and war means making plans as well as carrying out those plans without making a big fuss about it and alerting the enemy. In my case, I was my own enemy, so I decided to just do what I knew was best -- stop the insanity by putting down the snacks, walking away from sugar, and changing what I could change to make small but significant differences.
Have you ever walked into your own kitchen, opened up your own cabinets, and taken inventory of what YOU bought at the store? You, if you're like me, maybe a creature of habit, thinking you have to have this snack or that one, you must keep at least two of these in the house, and by all means, you need that!! That, whatever that is, is just so important to your well-being, you couldn't thrive or survive without THAT....that had to go! That was the first thing to hit the trashcan! THAT was sugar! I found jellybeans, Ike & Mikes, Laffy Taffy, Twizzlers, gummie bears, and chocolate mix for my milk. I found breakfast bars that could only be described as sugary oatcakes with fake or nearly fake fruity filling. I found grape juice, and you think "that's not bad, is it?" Have you seen the amount of sugar poured into Welch's grape juice? Even the 100% juice has about 25 grams of sugar in it, and here I was thinking I was being all healthy -- NOPE.
After I cleaned my cabinets and cupboards of sugar-filled foods I found I had so much more room for vegetables, real fruit, nuts, seeds, and actually healthy protein bars that I could use to supplement my daily diet without making it feel like I was starving to death between meals. The hardest part would be lowering the portions of food that I ate because I could put down some pasta, let me tell you. If there's one food group I love its noodles and that's just not a good plan when you're at war with your own body. The amount of carbs in pasta is outrageous - - so outrageous that pasta is literally on my cheat list and I only eat it once a month now - - and I cut my portion in half. If I lament about any food that would be it. I can do without desserts. I can do without creamy gravy and sauces, but take away my noodles and I stare at you - - drilling holes into your soul.
After the change in the diet came the change in my exercise routine. I had to get a routine because I had sold mine for sugar a few years back and needed to remind myself that I too was worthy of being both healthy and attractive. I knew that exercising was going to hurt and it was going to be something I couldn't play at - - if I was serious about it I needed to bring in the big guns. I needed to hire a professional. I needed what every woman needs when she's literally 50-60 pounds overweight and realizes that she could be dying without really understanding her own contribution to her own demise. I called my son and asked him to do what he does - - for me this time, not for the soldiers, he's been training for years. I brought in both the best physical training expert, but one who had a vested interest in seeing to it that his new charge was going to survive his program.
We started out easy as that's the way to do it. I went to work about a week after I started the program, and realized that most of the time I was sitting but I could be standing if I wanted to. I put the chair in the corner and chose to stand. I walked about 5,000 steps every day, measuring it with my new FitBit that I bought just for the occasion. I gradually worked my way up to 10,000 steps a day, and when that happened the boy put me into a workout program at the YMCA which is literally located across the street from where I live. It's been there the entire five years I've lived here, just to show you how far gone I was. I could have been so much healthier for so much longer, but I CHOSE to be an unhealthy woman...that was ME. I made that decision and it was (and is) time to change that forever.
My daily workout now is so much different than it was five months ago. First of all, I'm working out every day either at the gym or at home. In the beginning, I was only working out every other day and my dang body hurt so much from the last time I worked out, I wasn't able to really push it that hard until after the third month, I'm not kidding. I was still seeing the scale go down but my clothes weren't really feeling much looser than they were; maybe just a little bit. Finally, after a terrible 60+ days of being the EXACT same weight, I found a way to break through the plateau and make things go in the right direction. I am NOT kidding. I went 60+ days at the same stupid weight number - by this time I was weighing myself every day because my son insisted on it, telling me that even an ounce difference would be an indicator of what I needed to continue to do or stop doing. He was right.
I bought an online canister of BHB powder and began drinking 8-10 ounces of water with one scoop around 11:00 a.m. every day, just after breakfast and before lunch. I do the intermittent fasting from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. every day, so breakfast at 10, BHB at 11, work out around noon, lunch around 1, and the only snacking I do is a homemade trail mix that I came up with that has sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, walnut pieces, and a few chocolate chips. I eat a good dinner at or before 6 and I don't eat after that - - I do drink an enormous amount of green tea! I will tell you, from noon to nine when I go to bed (yes, I go to bed at nine) I drink about 10 cups of green tea either hot or cold. It starts out hot, ends up being cold, and I fill it back up with hot, allowing it to get cold again. It's a thing. I don't mind cold green tea - - no sugar. I'm weird, I know.
So, today I got out of bed and the funniest thing happened; my shorts fell off of my body before I made it to the bathroom. They do have a drawstring, and I had tightened it I'm sure, but when I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom - - boom! The shorts hit the floor. There I was, mooning my dog! After going to the bathroom and washing my hands, I did what I do routinely now, I stood on the scale. I sort of halfway expected it to say what it said, but when I looked down and saw it with my own two eyes I felt so ... awesome. Not only had another pound come off my body, but I could honestly say I will never be officially "obese" again. With that one pound, I went from a BMI level of obese to overweight. I can handle that so much easier - - I'm definitely winning this war.
What is it then? Is it dieting? The exercise? Is it the routine that is making all this a reality for me? No. It's the prayer. You have to understand that until you give it all up to God you can't have anything whatsoever. When we think we know what we're doing and leave God out of it, we are doomed from the start. I remember leaving that closet that August morning and saying "God this is you, this is all you. Tell me how to do it, what to do, when to do it, and I'll do it." It just feels so much better to know that I am NOT in this alone. I have an awesome God who gives me the nod every day saying I'm doing what I knew to be good and He is pleased. LISTEN to your heart and follow the Word. That's my advice anyway - - and it seems to be working for me; give it a try. God bless. (The photo is my son with his face looking up, and his friend J.J. They are at the Battle Frog obstacle race in Indiana. They do this every year.) I weighed as much as either one of these guys - - NOT NOW! Woot!!
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