Weekly Weigh In: Down 1.6 Pounds

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weigh in jan 4

In January 2012 I weighed 325 lbs. As of today I’ve lost over 140 lbs. To continue my quest to optimize my health, I’m giving up alcohol.

I start the new year weighing 184.6 pounds. That puts my total weight loss at 140.4 lbs. since I started this little journey in 2012. I attribute the loss mostly to my January challenge — no alcohol for 30 days.

Alcohol Causing My Weight Loss Stall
As I tracked my food I got suspicious that the cause of my weight fluctuation was my wine. Oh how I do love the Nectar of the Gods, but my intake was much higher than normal over the holidays.

Also I started experiencing heartburn right before bed, something that hasn’t happened since I switched to a LCHF diet. Hmmmm….something was amiss.

While wine is low in carbs it slows or stops your weight loss. And if you’re not careful it packs on the pounds too.

I wasn’t careful. Read More

Weekly Weigh-In: Down 1.3 Lbs.

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Dec 12 weigh in

I’m down 1.3 lbs. this week and lost 7 lbs. since Thanksgiving. I’m optimistic I’ll finally break that 185 pound barrier by year’s end. Maybe by my birthday I’ll finally reach the 170s.

Well my march to the 170s continues. I’m down nearly 1.5 pounds this week and I’ve lost 7 lbs. since Thanksgiving. Woohoo!

I do have a holiday party later today. As I want to keep my momentum up, I came up with a pretty simple plan for tonight:

  1. Eating a late lunch. I’m currently on an 18-hour fast which ends at 2:00 pm. So I’m making myself a mushroom-onion omelette. That way I won’t be starving when I arrive at the party.
  2. Eat only when hungry. I’ll snack on the lowest carb food available. My goal is to eat only when hungry, keeping snacking to a minimum.
  3. Keeping alcohol to a minimum. I’m limiting myself to just a few glasses of wine.
  4. No desserts! When I eat sugary sweets now, I feel physically ill. I just need to remember that when I see anything yummy.
  5. Have fun!! Food and drink are not my focus tonight. Celebrating the holidays with old friends and making new ones is what’s special about tonight…not the food or booze!

The husband is doing the same so we can support each.

What’s your game plan for avoiding temptations during holiday parties?

Cutting Dairy, Fasting Lead to 5+ Lbs. Drop

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after thanksgiving

After my post-Thanksgiving weight gain, I got back to the basics that helped me lose 140 lbs. Plus cutting back on dairy and some needed fasting improved not just the number on the scale, but my energy level and mental clarity.

By the time my 2 Thanksgivings (with lots of wine)  ended, I gained 4 pounds. Ugh! When I stepped on the scale November 28, I temporarily left the 180s, weighing in at 193.2 lbs.

Oh hell no!

Since then I’ve redoubled efforts on my healthy eating habits – menu planning, eating only when hungry, chopping and prepping the meals in advance, minimizing eating out, and tracking everything I eat. Oh and drinking water…lots of water.

Yep, I got back to basics. Read More

My Top 10 Kitchen Staples For Weight Loss

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low carb plateI always get asked about what I eat to lose and keep the weight off. So I decided to put together a list of foods you will always find in my kitchen. These are my staples for weight loss. Since June of 2012, these foods have always been in my home – day in, day out. These are the only foods I am willing to make a special trip to the grocery store for. Yep, they are that important to me.

Here’s my list: Read More

Resetting My Goals: Shooting For Optimal Health

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new life

Since I’ve lost 140 lbs. and my doctor told me I was healthy, I needed a new health goal to set my sights on in my march to lose another 30 lbs. My upcoming IVF treatments were key in coming up with this new goal. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and mrpuen.

Despite my procrastinating, I came up with my new health goal fairly quickly the other day. I’m totally committed to optimizing my health to improve my chances of a successful IVF treatment and pregnancy.

Seems sensible. Although I’m not sure what “optimal health” really means.

I spent some quality time researching the definition of optimal health. But there really isn’t one. Because we are all so different, the optimal weight, nutrient levels, BMI, muscle mass, athletic performance, etc. isn’t the same for any one person.

Defining Health
I stumbled across an interesting article over at Paleo Leap on defining optimal health. Basically the article confirmed what I thought. You can’t define it. There are so many variables — weight, BMI, muscle mass, athletic performance, sleep, etc.

As a starting point, the article included a working definition of health I liked:

Health is the mental and physical energy, vitality, and resilience to live joyfully in your own body and face the challenges of your life.

Okay…so how does one live like that all the time? Read More

Fighting The Urge To Do Nothing?

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My weight is fluctuating between the same 4 pound window. I know I need a new goal to focus on, but I'm in the grip of laziness and it's clutches are mighty.

My weight is fluctuating between the same 4 pound window. I know I need a new goal to focus on, but I’m in the grip of laziness and it’s clutches are mighty.

Since March, my weight’s bounced between 185 and 189 pounds (I weighed in at 188 this morning). Clearly I’m not in a plateau. My damage is self-inflicted and my frustration with myself is growing. I know what I’m doing wrong – carb creep, drinking wine, and occasionally tracking my food.

Yet course correction is proving difficult now. But why?

Overcoming Laziness
Bad habits never die. They just rear their ugly heads at your weakest point. One of my bad habits I’m fighting now is laziness. There are just times where I don’t want to do a dang thing. No walking. No food prep. No weight training. No nothing. Just an overwhelming urge to veg out.

Right now I’d rather play Plants vs. Zombies 2 on my iPad than write about my laziness.

A recent post touched upon my lack of motivation. I put the blame on stress. Sure, I’m juggling a lot – starting the IVF process, having mom 8 miles away vs. 2,000 miles away, sick pets and figuring out a career change – but it’s not all stress. Mentally, I checked out.

Doing nothing seems like the right choice. I know it’s not right but it feels so good.

Time For A Reset…And This Time I Mean It!
When I reached my goal of being healthy, I told myself I wanted to lose about 25-30 more pounds. Just saying I want to lose more weight never worked for me in the past and it ain’t working now.

My goal was accomplished and I never re-evaluated what to shoot for next.

Yet, when I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, I still didn’t bother with formulating a new goal. My growing frustration got the best of me. It was just easier to do nothing (literally) for weeks than to actually think about my future.

Today I’m setting aside time to come up with a new goal. A goal that is all mine and fits the direction I want to take with my life. That’s the only way I’ll feel motivated to do the hard work.

So I’m dressed in my fall sweats and got on my walking shoes on. Ready to take my first walk in weeks, I always think better when I’m moving.

Besides, what better way to kick laziness’ ass than walking a few miles?

How Dot’s Getting Her Weight Loss Groove Back

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Well after not really trying to lose weight, I'm at 185 lbs. this morning - the same weight I was at my physical earlier in the year. Time to take a look at my goals and refocus my efforts after a 3 month mental break.

Well after not really trying to lose weight, I’m at 185 lbs. this morning – the same weight I was at my physical earlier in the year. Time to take a look at my goals and refocus my efforts after a 3 month mental break.

Well since August I’ve struggled with my push to drop my last 30 pounds. My tracking is spotty at best. Weighing and measuring food? Almost non-existent. How about counting carbs? I keep a mental record, but if I’m not measuring my serving sizes or tracking what I eat, how good can my carb counting be, right?

Yet, I feel fine…and a little guilty.

Time To Re-Think My Goals
As of this morning I weigh 185 lbs. So I’ve lost 4 lbs. since my doctor told me I was healthy and didn’t have to drop anymore pounds.

Now, I don’t believe for a second that my body is at its set point. I think I mentally started coasting once my doctor told me I was healthy and didn’t need to lose any more. After all, I started this adventure in 2012 to get healthy. The weight loss was a great side effect.

But that got me thinking: Do I need to reconsider my goal?

When I shifted my thinking from weight loss to getting healthy, the weight came off. Yes, I track my weight loss on this blog, but the overall goal was health.

Well, I’ve done that. Now what? After my physical, I never asked myself what’s next. I just thought “happiness” is my new goal. Crap!  What does that even mean? I just thought I can drop 30 more pounds and be happier. Why 30? I have no clue. Read More

Weekly Weigh-In: Nothing!

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Despite the travel over the last couple of months and lots of stress eating, I've stopped gaining weight. Time to get back to basics and become a fat burning machine.

Despite the travel over the last couple of months and lots of stress eating, I’ve stopped gaining weight. Time to get back to basics and become a fat burning machine.

The good news is I’m holding steady despite a pretty stressful week. The bad news, I saw a bad habit – stress eating – come back with abandon. Ugh!

So this week I’m going back to basics. I’m working on a simple menu – just tried and true meals without a lot of moving parts. So plenty of eggs, steak, healthy fats (in the form of sauces, avocado and butter), and some leafy greens.

I’m also starting to cut back — way back — on my coffee intake. I was up 8 cups a day and my water intake dropped significantly. Of course, with each cup of Joe I added 1 teaspoon of heavy cream. I ran into problems with cream before. When I cut back, I started losing weight again. This time I’m limiting myself to no more than 2 cups of coffee (all decaf by the way!). While this limits my cream too, I’m still going to try to enjoy drinking my coffee black.

Time To Get Moving Again
Since the end of August I haven’t been able to exercise as consistently as I like. I know that exercise doesn’t cause weight loss, but I tend to eat smarter when I’m working out. When I don’t workout, I start feeling restless and that can get me into trouble in the kitchen.

I’m headed back to my parkour gym this week. After my first 2-hour class, I haven’t been back due to my travel schedule and just too much going on at my house. My plan is to take the 90-minute intro to Urban Fit (weight training) and the parkour class for folks over 35.

Oh, and despite the cold weather I’m walking everyday.

Lots of muscle soreness is headed my way this week.  Yay!

Weekly Weigh In: Up A Couple

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My traveling is taking a bit of a toll. I'm up a couple of pounds. Thankfully my last trip is this week. After that it should be business as usual.

My traveling is taking a bit of a toll. I’m up a couple of pounds. Thankfully my last trip is this week. After that it should be business as usual.

The good news? My weight is no longer stalled. The bad? The scale is moving in the wrong direction. Ugh! I’m up 2 pounds. No doubt my traveling is taking its toll. For the most part I’ve eaten low carb when possible. But when traveling by car for hundreds of miles, we found it difficult to find restaurants that were low carb friendly.

At that point, all I could do was make the best choice and move on.

I have one more trip left. I’m driving to Vermont to pick up my mom. Of course it means 2 back-to-back days of 10 hours driving. Not great, but I’m packing my food for this trip. I’ve got green olives, macadamia nuts, cheese and pork rinds in snack bags.

That should keep me satisfied and keep the carb cravings, which kicked into over-drive after our drive back from Florida, away.

Reversing MS By Eating Low Carb?

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Her TEDx Talk went viral for good reason. Dr. Terry Wahls describes how changing her diet reversed her MS symptoms and got her out of a wheelchair.

Her TEDx Talk went viral for good reason. Dr. Terry Wahls describes how changing her diet reversed her MS symptoms and got her out of a wheelchair.

Below is an amazing video on the power of eating healthy. Dr. Terry Wahls, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2000. By 2003 she was in a wheelchair. Through her own research, and using herself as a guinea pig, she redesigned her diet using Paleo principles (yes, Paleo is low carb!) to get the essential nutrients for her brain.

The result? Within a year of starting her new diet, she got out of her wheelchair, stopped walking with a cane, and could eventually go on an 18-mile bike tour.

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