Weight Loss Plan

The journey to weight loss is just that, a journey.

Full of ups and downs, twists and turns and temptation. Oh, the temptation. And long. Journeys are most definitely long. But I suppose the most important thing to remember about journeys is that there must be a direction, or else you will be aimlessly traveling, and there must be determination, for when those donuts come a callin' you have to say no.

Remember this post? Well, I'm still determined as ever to lose weight. I have a determination that I didn't have before and I'm focusing. One thing that has helped me most of all is to tell everyone (well, maybe not everyone but close friends and family) that I am losing weight and how much I'm losing. The number, 100lbs, sounds huge (it is) and has more significance than just a few pounds or an unknown number. When people know you have to lose 100lbs they are more likely to keep you from eating the crap you know you aren't supposed to...Or they sign you up for 5ks, ha!

So I've been thinking about what direction I want to take and after some soul searching, research, and advice from a few bloggers I think I have it.


Diet 

I am eating an average of 2200 calories a day. I will count my calories using My Fitness Pal.


As a family we are determined to focus on local, seasonal foods. As well as organic. However, our main concern is that what we eat is produced right here in our county and neighboring counties, not several states away. We believe that eating locally means we are supporting our own community and that is something that is very important to us. We enjoy having an "apple guy" and we love paying people for their hard work, not a large corporation or someone who had Dole mail them boxes of unripe flavorless produce.

I make 99% of what we eat from scratch. This means a lot of kitchen time and requires a good amount of time management and to rearrange my priorities. Less TV, more preparing meals, less internet surfing, more focus on our family values.

We are also lowering our meat intake. Something that is so hard for me. I believe that eating less meat is good for our bodies but more importantly, when we do eat meat it will be from a local farm. We are no longer supporting large companies that treat animals inhumanely and really, it just tastes better. We are only eating meat once a week but that does not include fish and shellfish.


I will eat a lot of vegetables, making sure to have at least one (but more than one serving) for every meal. I will also continue to eat a lot of seasonal fruit, but staying away from high sugar fruits like bananas and watermelons.

The only oil we use is oil and coconut.

I am also cutting my milk intake (including yogurt) down to two 8oz glasses a day.

I avoid refined (aka white) flour, corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and high amounts of corn/soy products. I will not buy packaged/processed foods with more than 5 ingredients.

I wont bake unless it’s a gift for someone else. Baking causes me to not only snack while I'm in the process but I always end up with extras that I gorge myself on at home.

Breakfast will be eaten every morning.

I never, ever eat when I’m not hungry. When I think I’m hungry I’ll have a glass of water to first see if it’s just dehydration.

Exercise

I am doing the Couch to 5k program, running Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
I am taking Zumba classes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Accountability

Accountability is so important because for the longest time I have lied to myself and to other people about my weight, my consumption, and exercise. I am logging my calories in My Fitness Pal.I will update my fitness pal within two hours of eating or send an email to myself with what I ate.

I am also reporting what I did during the day to my husband, making sure to speak specifically about what I wasn't proud of and what I was.



So that's my weight loss plan that I am sticking to.


-M

My Fitness Pal

{Please forgive the bad quality.}

I’ve been losing weight ever since Gus’ birth, which I’m proud of. My mom said the other day, “Well, isn’t that just pregnancy weight” to which I said, “Who care?! The number is getting smaller.” Anyway, one way I am doing that is by following (for the most part) the South Beach diet (less grain, less sugar, more veggies, and I’m only eating meat twice a week) and by also tracking my caloric intake.

I do that by signing on to My Fitness Pal and inputing what I eat and drink. I try to do it the day before and alter it throughout the day but sometimes I don’t get that opportunity so I just do it as I go along. It’s been a huge help to see just how much sugar, fat, fiber, calories, or whatever is in something I eat. For instance, I now know I will no longer be partaking in Dannon’s yogurt. The sugar count on that stuff is incredibly high! Luckily I make my own yogurt (more on that later) and the sugar is better.

My Fitness Pal is also great because it has a ‘wall’ just like Facebook. So when you input your food for the day and hit complete, it updates on your wall so all of your friends can see. Whenever you input exercise it will update your wall and you can even update your wall with whatever you like. The friends I have on My Fitness Pal are extremely active so when I updated my weight and it posted that I had lost 5lbs, I had multiple congratulations from my friends. It’s a really great motivator to see how often people are doing exercises, what they are posting about, and looking at their food diaries. 

If you’re looking to lose weight but don’t want to count calories per say, this is still a great website. You could track your food for a week and then go back and look at everything. I think people would be surprised to find out just how much they are eating and what is in the food (I bet sugar numbers would be out of this world). I don’t count and penny pinch all my calories, but I definitely think about whether or not something is worth it (like when I was shopping the other day and I wanted a pretzel but decided not to because I had a Kashi cookie at home I wanted, which is better for me anyway).

So if you’re interested in joining the website look me up! I’d love to be your friend.

-M 

Staying Active

I knew from the time I found out I was pregnant that I wanted to do things differently postpartum. After Bean's birth I kind of fell back into my old ways, not really gaining any weight but not losing it either. But I'm much too heavy. Too heavy to live the kind of life I want (with great looking clothes, feeling comfortable in the bathing suit, being able to run around with my kids, and being the kind of wife my husband can't keep his hands off of). I also want to lose weight before we have another baby.

I decided that I wanted to become active as soon as I felt good enough to do so. That was about a week and a half after I had Gus. I decided that walking would be the best thing for me but in order to do that I needed a decent stroller. The strollers we had were cheap and too short. Want a tip? Spend the money on a stroller that is of good quality, no matter the cost. You will save money, time, and consume less (we bought three cheap strollers from the time Bean was born until Gus' birth).

To start out in becoming more active, I walk with Gus every morning around our neighborhood and with both kids on the weekend (I put Bean in the stroller and I wear Gus). I don't have a particular route I take, I just go in whatever direction and however long I feel like that particular morning. Some mornings I don't feel like walking and sometimes on those mornings I do it anyway and other times I wait till mid afternoon to walk. I treat those mid afternoon walks as punishment for my morning laziness because the August heat isn't something I like being in.

I'm also starting up pilates (by way of Netflix) and a Zumba class at our local dance studio.

-M

fit pregnancy

I don't want to lie and say that I have the best eating habits or that I exercise a lot. In fact I will be the first to grab double cheese burger and watch endless hours of TV rather than a salad and taking a walk. I would rather stuff my face full of chewy fruity candy than grapes and I would rather comment on how fat people are on the Biggest Loser than get my own lardy behind up and move it.

It's just the way it is and I'm working on it...but heck, I am only human. I am faulty and I am hypocritical and I know what I should be doing, ignore it, and do what I want.

I will say that with my last pregnancy I walked everywhere. For the first 8 months TP and I didn't have a car so we'd walk and take public transportation. Walking to and from the light rail to get to work, walking to the grocery store, or a friends house wasn't uncommon for us and in fact, I have never walked so much in my entire life. The result of all that walking unfortunately did not give me a big round and toned booty, but as a consolation prize I gained minimal pregnancy weight. To me, walking was the best thing I could have done for myself during that pregnancy.

Now things are different. We have a car and we live in a city that isn't walking or public transit friendly so most of the time we are confined to our car. I do work at a school so I walk a lot while there but I can tell that it isn't enough. Unfortunately for me, I am not uber excited about trying different pregnancy work outs like prenatal yoga and if there was a way that I could stay fit by eating pounds of sugar cookie dough, I would.

But there isn't anything like that yet and so I have to come up with more particle ways to stay fit and to keep pregnancy gain at a minimum. To do that we signed up for the YMCA in our area. Our YMCAs have amazing programs for individuals, men, women, children, and families. 

What the YMCA allows me to do is to take an array of aquatic classes and the best part is: I also love how weightless the water makes me feel and I love that I will be taking my water aerobics class with older adults. They don't have prenatal swim classes so I decided to do a low intensity class to help seniors with arthritis. This should be really fun. Now all I need to is to purchase a prenatal swimsuit. 

Ugh, as if shopping for swimsuits isn't traumatic enough before pregnancy, now I have to purchase a suit in anticipation of getting bigger and more round.

-M