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!

P90X/Brazilian Butt Lift: COMING SOON!

 

Hey guys! I've finally ordered P90X and Brazilian Butt Lift and they came in the mail yesterday. Never have I been so excited over a dvd in my life! :-) I ordered a new scale and a set of resistance bands from Amazon.com and they are expected to arrive today so I'll be all set and ready to go. I've decided to wait to start until Monday for a few reasons.

 

1. I know I should have the, "why wait, I'm going to start today" mentality but with how crazy my schedule is right now with a newborn, school and work it's easier to just ride out the rest of this week as I usually do and focus on figuring out a new weekly schedule from here on out.

 

2. Sunday is my birthday (woot woot!) and I think it would be fun to restart my healthiness journey the day after my birthday. A nice fresh start if you will.

 

3. I'm nearly out of groceries for the week and the only time I'm really ever able to fit in grocery shopping in Sunday night.

 

I'm going to be doing a P90X/BBL hybrid that I still have to draw out. I'm not sure if I will be doing the scheduled workouts every day from both programs or if I'll switch off. We'll see what I come up with. I'll also take before and after measurements and photos to post on here. Quick question for everyone. I've never done measurements before so how do I make sure I'm taking the before and after measurements from the same spot? Do you just do a rough estimate?

 

Thanks in advance :-)

 

Powerful

 

Do you ever feel powerful?

 

Like you can just conquer the world?

 

I've been pretty stressed lately. Going back to work has really made it hard to keep up with school and I've fallen slightly behind. It's nothing a little hard work can't fix but it's stressful. I wanted to call in sick today because, well I am sick and just super tired. I knew that if I called in sick I would probably lose my job so I had to just tough it out and come to work today.

 

For some reason as I was walking to my car I felt powerful. My heels were clicking against the ground, I had my brand new purse over my shoulder and I had my healthy breakfast smoothie in my hand. I felt good, I felt great, I felt powerful. I have no idea why but I plan to capture that feeling as I start again on this journey.

 

I need to have the power to overcome.

 

To persevere.

 

To know I can do it.

 

To know I am worth it.

 

To know my daughter is worth it.

 

I invite you to all join me in finding your inner power. Because you all are worth it too!

 

Day 1

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

 

I'm happy to say that today starts day 1 of my healthiness journey part 2. If you've been following me for a while you know that I officially started my healthiness journey on August 13th of last year. Between that day and the end of December I lost exactly 40 pounds, going from 270lbs to 230lbs. Between the end of December and the end of July, I gained back 55lbs. But not without help ;-) I found out the day after Christmas that I was 7wks pregnant with my first child. She was born on July 31st, 2010. Now that she is here, my world has changed. She is now my world and I wouldn’t have it any other way but now I have to get back into the swing of things so I can be around a long time to see her and her children and maybe a few of her children's children grow up :-)

 

Today is a new day. Food will be on point from here on out. For breakfast I had a bowl of apples and cinnamon instant oatmeal. I plan to have an avocado-raspberry protein smoothie for breakfast so I can bring it to work but the avocadoes I bought yesterday weren't quite ready for eating this morning. Bummer. Lunch was a turkey burger with cheese and a little ketchup, a few deep fried eggplant slices (not great I know! But oh so delicious!), a bowl of corn, green beans, broccoli and spinach and a can of low sodium V8. Morning snack was some almonds and afternoon snack will be a cottage double (cottage cheese and fruit mixed up, yum!) Not sure what dinner will be yet, still have to figure that one out. Oh yea, the best part about my lunch? I only live 2miles away from work so I get to go home and enjoy my lunch with my daughter :-) How wonderful is that?

 

Exercise. Dun Dun Dun! I've officially decided that I will be getting AND completing P90X! I will also be adding in some walking and strength training with these cool kinetic bands I got. I'll have to show them to you guys later, they're pretty cool! Overall, I'm excited about this fresh start! I would love to be down 30lbs by Christmas. That's my official goal. Once I take my starting weight I'll let you guys know what that is. And before P90X I will take measurements to see the progress I make.

 

Anyways, I should skidattle!

 

Have a lovely Monday my dears!

 

 

P90X?

So Monday ends my 8 week maternity leave and I've decided to restart my healthiness journey on that day as well. I don't really have the time to go to the gym because although my mom would love to watch Kaliya while I go to the gym I would feel guilty leaving for a couple hours when I only have a few hours with her after work before she goes to bed. So I've decided I want to find something I can do at home. Enter P90x...

I've seen this infomercial more times than I can count but have never even considered buying it. The reason I'm starting to consider it is because it looks like a very intense workout that yields impressive results.

My question to you guys...what do ya think? Have you used it or know someone that has? Opinions? Anything would be greatly appreciated :-)

Let Our Stomachs Decide

I've always been a person that will eat until I'm uncomfortably full just because I think I can eat everything on my plate instead of simply listening to my stomach.

Recently for one of my science classes I read an article about an experiment that was done in Berlin. The study had two groups of people eat the same two course meal: one group in complete darkness and one in the light. After both groups ate their meals they were taken to a lighted portion of the restaurant to have dessert. The study showed that those who could see their food ate dessert that coincided with the portion size they ate. Thus, those with large portions ate less dessert than those that were served a small portion. The study also showed that those that ate in complete darkness and could not see and did not know what size portion they got, ate the same amount of dessert whether they had a large portion of food or a small one. The study proved the scientists' theory that our judgement of how hungry we are is based largely on what we know and see that we ate vs what hunger cues our stomach is sending us. If we cannot see how much we ate it's hard for us to gauge how hungry we are.

I know I'm guilty of this. Many times I've said something to the affect of "I only ate half my burger, I definitely have room for dessert" or "I ate my burger and my fries, theres no way I could fit dessert too". Well, what if half of a burger was enough to keep me full and content or what if after a burger and fries I was still hungry. Just because I saw that I ate a certain amount of food doesn't mean a thing in terms of my hunger. My stomach is the only thing that can truly tell me 100% whether or not I'm hungry but honestly I often don't have the 'patience' to wait the 20 or so minutes they say it takes for your stomach to let your brain know it's full.

I honestly believe that this is part of the reason I am overweight. I'm sure there are many others that can say the same thing. I'm restarting my healthiness journey now and I've decided to make a promise to myself to actually listen to my stomach. It's such a wonderful and powerful tool that we have so why not let it do what it was made to do.

Is anyone with me?