New results

I have now officially lost 11 pounds, and a total of 11 inches!!!  I am so excited about this turn of events.  There are two weeks left in my program and I need to work extra hard to lose those last 9 pounds to reach my goal and then I will be half way to my long term goal. 

I was a skeptic, I will readily admit that, I didn't think the diet component would be that big of a deal, but apparently it is.  So after struggling with it for a bit, I have adopted it into my new routine and things are going well.  I still would like to indulge every once in awhile and have some tasty treats, but I am refraining for now because I want to win the competition but also because I am determined to see this through.  My treat after the six weeks will be a night out to have a decadent dessert.

But I will keep up with the food plan and the diet plan.  I think that will definitely help, but I will have to adopt some extra workouts to do at home if I do not win this competition to work out with a personal trainer.  I can always continue to sign up with the group classes, but I think in April for sure I want to be working out hard core for April, May and June so that I can be in my best shape and learn to maintain my weight, because that's going to be my next big challenge. 

I have lost weight in the past, but it's keeping that weight off and down with which I struggle.  I mean I can't even blame everything on the pregnancy, I gained a bunch of weight before I got pregnant and then my eating when I was pregnant didn't help matters.  So the next habit I must teach myself is moderation and not doing things in excess.

Any ideas how to do that??

UPDATE!!!

As many of you have read (I think it's only two or three people but hey it's a start I guess) I had begun a six week workout session with a personal trainer at One to 1 fitness.  This six week program is designed to help you loss weight by changing eating habits and doing some amazing workouts.  I know if my trainer reads this it may go to his head, but I vowed to be honest in my blogs and the workouts are hard, but I am able to push myself through them and I am seeing results.

When I had my initial consultation I was asked to give a short intreview in a camera to tell everyone why I signed up and what my goals were for the six week program.  I told everyone that I had signed up because I wanted to lead a healthier life and I wanted to have a healthier body and lifestyle.  My goal for the six week program was to lose 20 pounds.  It seems like a lot of weight, and I will admit that it is but it was half of all the weight I essentially want to lose by June.  By June I hope to be down to my ideal weight and then I will spend June to August and further on maintaining that weight.  They also asked me to identify my biggest obstacle in my weightloss journey.  That was easy, it's my eating habits, the snacking and junk food that I would eat. 

I have had quite the wake up call to the food I am ingesting.  I enjoyed those Fibre One bars, and cereal bars and those things, but they are not that healthy for you.  I have survived kicking sugar out of my diet, and I haven't had many cravings for sugar,  there have been a few, but I have been able to distract myself from eating anything that is high in sugar.  I thought it would be hard, especially with two children at home and a husband, or soon to be husband that was not necessarily interested in changing his diet plans. He still likes junk food, chocolate milk and his beer.   I have not been drinking anything since this started, and I may have a night or two where I drink and stuff, but I am going to be very conscious of my decisions.  Everything in moderation and really some things should be limited.

I really thought I would struggle more with eating, and there are a few times when I do struggle, but the biggest change that has happened, well the two big changes that have happened have made things easier than I expected.  The first change was cutting the processed sugar from my diet, that's all those corn syrups, fructose, glucose sugars that are manufactured and not really healthy for you.  I have supplemented in Splenda for those times when I have to have a sweetener on a product to be able to ingest it.  I tried to eat oatmeal a few times without sugar and I thought I was going to choke on it, I could barely swallow it, it just did not taste good.  But they have brown sugar splenda now so that makes things much better.  The other change has been the cutting back of prepackaged food.  I don't eat very many frozen meals or frozen meat products anymore.  We eat more fresh prepared food that is homemade.  It's been a big change because we were completely a family of convenience.  The funny thing is, when we make a meal from scratch it really only takes an average of 20 minutes longer to prepare and then we have so many leftovers afterwards for lunches and stuff that it is very much worth those extra 20 minutes. 

So now here is the update on my results at the half way mark of my six week journey.  I am down 9 pounds from when I first weighed in at One to 1.  I have lost 6+ inches since starting with them.  Those inches have come from my chest (2), waist (3) and glutes (1).  So there have been some definite gains from this program. 

Last night I didn't want to go, I wasn't feeling well, but I dragged my butt down there and I did my work out, it was worth it! I am glad I did it and I felt better when I got home, so now for the next 3 weeks I am making a goal to be more diligent to my meal plans and to actually work out more then the 3 times a week with the group class.  I will let you know more results as I find them!!!

oh my poor finger

So I am coaching Junior boys Basketball this year, and it's part of my activity level.  I really enjoy basketball and I am having fun with my team at our practices and the games.  It's a good thing we are having fun because they aren't winning but they are definitely improving.  We started out with 18 boys and I now have 11.  But basketball and I are a dangerous mix.


When I was in school I played basketball in junior high, in high school I lost interest and was working so I could not give up my time for sports.  I sometimes regret that decision but it is what it is.  However, I don't think i was a bad player, I do think I was an easily injured player.  I don't remember a season of basketball passing without me taping up at least four different fingers in buddy splints and an ankle.  I remember having a middle finger and a ring finger that more closely resembled sausages then actual fingers.  I remember hobbling around on crutches and taping my joints all the time.  So I was a little accident prone when I played basketball.  I had hoped that I had outgrown this unfortunate hazard, but apparently I have not.


Today at practice I jammed a knuckle on my pointer finger of my right hand.  I don't think it's broken because I can bend it and stuff, but it hurts to extend my finger and bend it into a fist.  But i have movement, it feels more like it needs to be cracked or popped back into place.  Hopefully it will heal quickly, because it is very awkward trying to type with a buddy splint.

I am surviving on No Sugar

So after a horrible day on Thursday and  a not great evening on Friday I think my body is finally adjusting to the lower sugar intake.  Which is frankly amazing.  I am still getting headaches in the evening and I am not sure why that is happening, but I am going to ask my trainer tomorrow about that.

As for the rest of the training it's going really well. We had  workout last night and I push my group to finish two circuits of the training.  I was exhausted by the end and my muscles are starting to stiffen up today but I really felt good about completing the workout.  I really do enjoy working out in group settings so I think to keep myself active I have just maintain signing up for workout classes throughout the year.  That way my caloric intake can be a bit higher and I can have some of those snacks that I can't eat right now while I am trying to get my metabolism up. 

The results are in though, I have already got back to my pre- Christmas weight.  So there are pay offs for working out, and that makes me extremely happy.  This show is on the road and I am going to excel at it!!!!

Diets do they work?

With my new fitness plan I am on a new meal plan.  This meal plan has me cutting out sugar, you can read how well that's going for me in my previous blog 6 weeks to a new me.  But this is a kind of diet, I mean it's that sugar free diet.  I know it works and I know it's healthy I have seen the results, and I know the goal for my fitness leaders is to help us make a change in diet that will stick with us for the rest of our lives.  But I don't know that I am real big into diets.

There are so many diets out there, the protein diet which cuts out all Carbs, the grapefruit diet, the Jenny Craig system, Weight watchers, Biggest Losers diet plans, I mean how do you tell the truth from the fiction. 

Many of those short term diets are just that, short term.  You will see results but you won't see life long results unless you eat a grapefruit everyday for the rest of your life.  I mean they even did an experiment to prove that you could lose weight by living on junk food.  It's the Twinkie Diet Experiment.  A guy lost 27 pounds by eating 5 twinkies a day a supplementing those twinkies with a protein shake, some multivitamins and some celery or a can of green beans.  And now this same person is showing how by eating a lot of fruits and veggies and healthy food you can gain weight as well. 

And I understand that processed sugar isn't healthy for you, but here is the problem, people are born with a desire for sweets or salts, and I could give up all the salty food in the world but you better back off my sweets.  So how do I still get my sweets, without eating refined sugar??  I understand that soda and chocolate bars and chips are not good for me, they offer no nutrition, but they taste so yummy.  So now I have to get my mind into a place where I realize that it's about healthy choices over fast choices.  I just don't buy that sugar is the devil. 

So with that said, "Which are the long term winners in the dieting world?"  I am sure they are the calorie counting diets, that teach you how to lose weight in a healthy manner. I also know from past experience that portion control is very important to losing weight.  I remember a few years back that I read Dr. Phil's book on weight loss and dieting and it was a real eye opener and it really did help.  I was able to lose like 10 pounds just by altering my portions that I consumed. 

So I am going to power through this struggle diet now incorporating controlled portions and no sugar. So if i turn into a vicious monster in the next few weeks well that's why. 

I just need to figure out if I believe this no sugar nonsense or if it's just that nonsense.

6 weeks to a new me

I signed up for a six week make over with One to 1 Fitness in Red Deer.  I am in  a class with ten other people and I am on a new meal plan.  We are competing against each other for a chance to win a 3 month membership to the gym with a personal trainer.  It's a pretty cool prize but I don't know that I am in it for the prize per se. 

My motivation is coming from a desire to look my best and to feel my best.  Neither of which I am feeling today.  I am definitely going to struggle with this challenge, and the biggest struggle is going to be the eating component of this challenge. 

Seriously, I love food, and I especially love sugar.  So what do you think my meal plans consist of?  Yup, no sugar, good carbohydrates and proteins and some fats, but ZERO sugar. It is a struggle already. 

Yesterday, I had zero sugar in my diet, except for the naturally occurring sugar from the fruits that I ate and in the fruit juice I drank.  But other than that there was no sugar, and no artificial sweetener either.  Yesterday, I thought I was going to die. 

I made it until 4:30 and then I thought I was going to die.  I was nauseous, I had the worst headache in years, and I didn't have my full mental capacities with me.  I was detoxing or getting the flu.  But as I drove home from Basketball practice, everything got worse, I inhaled an orange on my way home and that seemed to appease the sugar beast within me for 30 minutes, enough time so that I could concentrate on the road, but I really shouldn't have been driving in my condition.  I was lethargic as well and just wanted to lay down to die. 

I got home and ate supper, if you can call a 1/4 cup of potatoes, and 1/4 cup of corn, that my youngest son helped me eat a supper.  Oh and one chicken wing.  Then I bathed my child and set him up to eat his bed time snack.  I then laid on my couch and watched Grey's Anatomy.  After Grey's at 8:00 I went to bed, I literally crawled into my bed attempted to read a book, but failed miserably, so I just laid down and I was out for the count. 

I woke up this morning with a minor head ache, not as debilitating as yesterday's headache but it's still there twitching behind my eyes.  I am subbing today and I have a Basketball tournament all weekend so it's going to be interesting how this new meal plan plays out.  Hopefully, the sugar monster will be beaten and I can get on with not feeling like a detoxing drug addict soon!!!

Monday is my next workout so look out world, here I come!!!

I am SO FRUSTRATED

I don't even know how to express the level and intensity of my frustration right now.  I admitted defeat last month for my 30 day challenge but that in no way meant that I was giving up on my goals to develop a healthier lifestyle.  I snacked a bit during the holidays but not in excess.  I ate a little more while I was on holiday but I also walked and moved around so much more.  So why is my scale mocking me??  It says that I haven't maintained my weight, I haven't lost anything, in fact I am heavier now then I have been since I was pregnant.  I have never been this weight. 

So two things could possibly explain this situation.  1. my scale is wrong, and so are the other scales I sat on during my holiday.  2. I have built muscle and I am at the point where I have gained muscle mass and very shortly I am going to have a huge weight loss as the fat starts falling off.

Ok so maybe two is a wishful thinking type thought, but it could be possible..... because I know that  I have not ate over 28000 extra calories over the last two weeks to have constituted this weight gain.  And that's 28000 extra calories over what I need to eat to burn off through the day.  So if I am not going to loss any weight and just gain the weight no matter what I do, why do I bother??  Well I bother because I have a goal, and I know I can reach it, I just have to get back onto a schedule so we will see what happens in a months time.