Trust

It's funny how once you start trusting yourself all things are possible. Things just 'magically' start falling into place exactly how they should.

It's all in my head.

I've learned this over the past month or so. Since January I've done Weight Watchers and counted calories. While these both worked somewhat (I've lost 12 pounds) I knew what I had to do to really see the pounds come off.

I need to trust myself.

Before I got pregnant, I worked out 4-5 times a week, ate healthier/less and weighed myself once a week. Doing this I lost between 1.5-5 pounds a week, about 40 pounds in 4 months. I decided that it's time to trust myself again.

I'm done writing down every calorie I consume.
I'm done not working out.
I'm done weighing myself everyday.

I wrote up an exercise plan working out 7 days a week doing a hybrid of P90X and TurboFire. I'm eating healthier/less and I've quit my obsession with the scale.

Last week I was down 1.4 (even after a family filled, food filled weekend) and I'm looking forward to another loss this week.
:-)

Why am I fat?

I saw an article online about digging deep to find the root of your weight problem. It posed four questions to be thoughtfully answered. I found it to be quite powerful for me.

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Why do I have a weight problem?

I have a weight problem because I don’t have the will power to say no. Food is a comfort. It always has been. Food tastes good and therefore makes me feel good. Growing up I never felt good enough for anyone. My parents always treated like I could never do anything right. Or maybe that’s just how I perceived it; either way, it’s how I felt. It’s how I still feel from time to time and I believe it’s a sub conscious excuse that I use for a lot of problems that I have and/or decisions that I make. Food tends to bring people together, at least in my family. Food is always used as a celebration tool. I feel closer to my family and feel more accepted and bonded with friends and family when we are eating together. I think that’s why I enjoy going out to eat so much. The food isn’t really that much better than something I could make at home and it’s much more expensive. When food is always used as a celebration tool you start to associate it with happiness; therefore, when you’re feeling sad or lonely or bored and want happiness where do you turn to? Food.

Why am I holding on to this extra weight?

Because I can hold on to the extra weight and it gives me an excuse. It gives me an excuse to not do everything I want to do. As weird as that sounds it almost acts like a comfort. I doubt myself and sometimes instead of facing my fears and self doubt, I have an excuse to not even attempt to try and possibly fail at things. It prevents me from failing when in all actuality I’m failing myself by staying this way. I can do more and become such a wonderful person but the thought that I might not get there as easily as I would like scares me. I try to please people. I try to make others happy. I try to impress others. Again, it goes back to not feeling good enough. I want people to look at me and think that I am smart and I can do anything. Staying the same is easy. Change is scary and can sometimes come with failure. I tend to like sticking to what I know and not taking risks. I usually go to the same gas station because I know exactly how the pumps work. I go to the same stores because I know how they are set up and where everything is. I don’t want to look stupid. What if I try to lose weight and I can’t? I’m afraid to look stupid.

How does the weight serve me?

It’s my own personal coat of armor. My shield. My protection. My excuse. It allows me to put up walls ‘because I’m fat’. It allows me to not take risks in fear of failing. It allows me an excuse to sit on the couch and watch tv. I can’t fail if I don’t try.

When can I move on and fully commit to action?

Now. I can’t wait any longer. Every wasted day is just that, wasted. I’m not truly living. I’m not truly loving. My laughs aren’t always sincere and my smiles often hide more than they show. This life isn’t fun and nothing tastes as good as the feeling after you see a loss on the scale.

But it's so easy!

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to transform your life and become healthy? If you break it down to what it really is, it's quite simple.

Eat less, eat healthier, move your body everyday.

It's so easy!

Stop drinking soda and juices.
Load up on water.
Eat more fruits and veggies.
Limit your sweets and extra sugar.
Move your body at least 30 minutes a day.

Easy peasy!

But it's not.
It's not easy.
Or am I just making it harder than it needs to be?

Have you ever known someone that makes it look so easy? They are 30 pounds overweight, wake up one day, decide to start exercising and eating healthy and boom 3 months later the extra 30 pounds is gone forever. Or someone that loses 100 pounds in a year.

Of course these people had struggles and slip ups along the way but they picked themselves up and kept on the EASY, healthy path.

I told myself when I got to 244 pounds that I would never see the 250's again. This morning I stepped on the scale at 250.6

I've become so obsessed with food and soda that I forgot how much better the feeling of losing weight is than the taste of the food and soda.

Time for me to hop back on the easy path.

Makeover

The time has come. My blog needs a makeover. BAD!

If you've followed me for a while, you know that I have a tendency to write a few blog posts and then kind of disappear for a while. Not intentionally of course, but I usually just let life get in the way. 

I truly will not let that happen anymore. 

I need to get back into blogging because quite frankly I've missed it and I've missed the support that I got from this wonderful community. 


So, please allow me to reintroduce myself.

My name is Jennifer and I am 22 (soon to be 23) years old. I live in Madison, WI and I embarked on my healthiness journey on August 13th, 2009. Between then and the end of December 2009 I lost 40 pounds. I did this through exercise and eating less. 

The day after Christmas that year I found out that I was 2 months pregnant with my first child. Not only was I blessed with a beautiful baby girl on July 31st, 2010 but I also added 55 pounds on to my body throughout my pregnancy. 

Here is a picture of her a few months ago. She is my entire world and the reason why I'm still fighting the battle of the bulge. At her birth I weighed 285 pounds. I am now down to 249 and fighting for every single ounce.

Right now I am counting my calories and doing a combination of Turbo Fire (a kickboxing workout) and P90X. These workouts are AMAZING and definitely make it a little easier to work out each day. My goal is to be down between 130-140 pounds. That's a little over 100 pounds to lose.


I will soon be updating my pictures on my pictures page because they are out of date. 

I'm very excited to be back and excited to pick up where I left off on encouraging each and every one of you. 

:-)

17 Days

di·et  /ˈdaɪɪt/ Show Spelled [dahy-it]  noun, verb, -et·ed, -et·ing, adjective

such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight: No pie for me, I'm on a diet. 

 

 

Tomorrow I embark on a new chapter in my weight loss journey. I'm going to be starting the 17 day diet with my mom.

Honestly, I don't like that it's called a diet. Technically, by definition it is a diet but when I think of the word 'diet', I think of something negative. I think of the Atkins Diet that eliminates carbs, I think of the yogurt diet where you can only have yogurt or how about the egg diet? You get my point. The 17 day diet is different. Yes there is some restrictions on food but they aren't long term restrictions. 

That is what I love about this 'diet'.

The first 17 days you are only allowed to eat lean protein (egg, chicken, turkey and fish), cleansing vegetables (almost every vegetable is on this list) and low sugar fruits (apples, berries, grapefuit, oranges, peaches, pears, plums, prunes and red grapes). You are also supposed to have two servings of probiotics a day; this includes yogurt, kefir, acidophilus milk, yakult, Breakstone Live Active cottage cheese, reduced salt miso, tempeh, sauerkraut and kimchi.

As far as drinks go you are supposed to have 3 cups of green tea a day and at least 8 cups of water. I will be adding in a cup of low fat milk because I'm a milkaholic. 

There are 3 cycles after the first one, each 17 days long (duh!) and each cycle introduces more and more foods back into your life so that by the time you are to Cycle 4 you can eat pretty much whatever you want.  

I like that you are taught what to eat, when to eat it and still have the opportunity to make decisions that fit your body. I think of it more of a roadmap instead of a diet.

I plan to write everyday to update on my weight loss and how it's going.

Hope you are all doing well and Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in cyberspace :-) 

I've Been Here Before

Hello is anyone out there!?

Did you all miss me? Do you even remember who I am? :-) Of course you do! Because I'm just that wonderful...right? right?!

Haha anyways I'm back and boy does it feel good! I don't know why I ever left; life happened I guess. And yes, life is still happenening but I think I've finally managed to actually figure out how to handle it all. Right now I currently have an 8 month old (WOW time flies!!), I'm working (kinda sorta), going to school and starting up two businesses (hopefully). I've been very very busy. Amongst all that I have going on right now did you notice what wasn't included?

Living Healthy
Exercising
Eating Right

I'm not going to lie. I'm struggling. Big time.

I'm currently sitting at about 257 pounds. At the beginning of January I started WW and I absolutely love it! Between January 11th and the beginning of March, I went from 264 pounds down to 250. Great right? Well, yes if I would have stuck with it. As you can see, since stopping I've gained 7 pounds back. I haven't yet mastered the art of fitting in a workout and I can eat healthy all day everyday but eventually I do get bored.

But I know I'm worth it.

I know my daughter's worth it.

I know my family is worth it.

Monday I am starting a P90X/TurboFire hybrid. I am now a Beachbody coach as well (thought it might give me some motivation haha) so if anyone is ever interested in buying any Beachbody products or become a coach with me just let me know! I can hook you up :-)

Alright, well my baby needs me, I think she's feeling neglected haha.

Until next time!