Oops I forgot to post for a month...

I have been meaning to write a few blog posts on here but I have honestly been too lazy to get it done. I can assure you that I have been continuing my eating plan and have been updating a lot on my instagram page. 

Top from TJmaxx size medium and capris from Kmart size 11 (a little big)

So on March 27th, the last post I did, I weighed in at 153.4. April 6th I lost .8 which was the start of the .8 of a pound cycle.

I have been going through a bit of a "funk" the past few weeks. I wouldn't call it a plateau because honestly my heart just wasn't in it. It started with a week of me experimenting with not tracking and just using portion control/things I have learned in the 8 months I have been at this to make the right choices. I honestly get tired of tracking everything I eat, worrying if I am going to see a number in the red at the end of the day at the bottom of the screen. It is exhausting. It is mentally frustrating sometimes as well.
So I did that for a week, and I gained back that .8 of a pound, not surprisingly.

 I threw my husband a surprise 30th birthday party and that kind of snowballed into like a week of eating whatever I wanted.

Surprisingly I lost weight that week, but I really felt off track, off my game, not good physically and mentally. It really messes with your head when you know you should be eating one way, and a part of you tells yourself "It's ok, you have lost 22 pounds you can have one week of this or that" and then the other part tells you "You better watch out, or you will go right back into the old patterns and gain it all back." and in reality this is a real fear after weight loss. It is like a mental game most of the time, and you feel often that if you eat one thing that isn't healthy that you are undoing every bit of hard work you have ever done, and when in reality, you aren't. You may be bloated for a few days but usually one meal will not get you that much off track.

 Junior's size medium "Derek heart" from Kohls.

After that, I had to get my head in the game. I had to really remember that I am not finished yet. I can be proud of my 22 pound loss, but I can also keep working at doing better. I know how I feel when I eat like crap for days in a row, I know that I feel sick, lethargic, gross, and mentally like I have failed. I know that I want to continue at weight loss. I know that if I just decide to fall back into my old ways that I WILL gain at least some of it back. It's just science. So I have to mentally realize that things may never be the same. And I have to remember that that is not necessarily a bad thing. If I am feeling down like I want to give up, all I have to do is go back and look through the photos of myself at my higher weight and remember how unhappy I felt with myself then, and ask myself if it is worth it? Am I ok with going back to my old habits if it means feeling that way again? I think most of the time I would tell myself no it isn't.

I lost the .8 again this week.

 I am determined to break this .8 of a pound this week. I am eating as healthy as I can, and watching my portions. I weighed myself this morning and I was at 151.2, but I do not like to "count my chickens before they hatch" so to speak.

Dress, necklace and belt all Old navy (size medium)

There is always temptation around me. My wonderful husband, God love him, is losing a ton of weight for no reason. He is not trying at all, and his clothes are falling off of him. So he can eat all day long and burn a ton of calories at work and doesn't even give it a thought. While I am sitting over here eating carrots and secretly cursing him under my breath (I kid, I kid)

gap size medium cardigan and size 10 jeans

Derek was talking about going and getting something to eat yesterday after we finished garage sales and I really contemplated it and decided to go home and make something we could both enjoy instead. I am glad that I did. I know if I chose to do that I would either have gotten off track all day, or felt bad and guilty for the rest of the week probably.

I came home and mae baked "fried" mozzarella sticks and baked "fried" pickles, as well as a few chicken bites with Sweet baby rays buffalo sauce on it. All for 300 calories and I didn't have the guilt but had the craving of a "treat" food satisfied.

medium Target brand cardigain, gap size medium top and size 10 american eagle capris)

Here's to keeping on track, and not feeling deprived! Probably something that I will struggle with forever!

Weekly Weigh-in!

I am very excited about this weigh-in this week because I have reached a total weight loss of 20 pounds!! I have been so emotional about this, it is such a proud moment, a great milestone in my weight loss. 

When I started losing weight seven months ago, I NEVER expected for this to last. I have tried so many diets in the past. I tried and after a few short weeks I would always give up. My weight watchers membership was up to be renewed in January and I decided not to renew it and what happened...I gained back 4 pounds. I knew that I was not going to stand for that and I kept going. I had to re-train myself to not eat for no reason, not to splurge all the time, and  to track every meal. 

I am so glad that I decided to pick back up and not give up because it is so rewarding to see yourself go down a size or two, have to buy new bras because your breasts are getting smaller (Derek didn't love that!) 

It is amazing to look back at photos of yourself and realize how far you have come. It is amazing to hear people tell you how much better you look. It is amazing to look in the mirror and see the me I remember, not the fat version of me that I was so unhappy with. 

 

Left was 3/25/2013 and right was 3/25 2014 

Losing this amount of weight has been a motivator to keep myself going. I really didn't have huge expectations because I honestly would look at the amount of weight I wanted to lose and I would get stressed out and scared and never believe that I could lose that much. I always said I just wanted to lose some, and even if it was just a little bit anything was better than nothing. And that worked for me because I didn't set all this pressure on myself. I took breaks. I had cheats. I spent time screwing up and realizing what I really wanted. But now I am determined to set a goal and achieve it. If I can lose those 20 pounds, I can lose the 15-20 more that I would really like to get back to where I would ultimately like to be. But I also am very happy with where I am now. I have so much more confidence, I am more comfortable in clothes, and that was a huge part of why I was so depressed being overweight, was not finding clothes that fit or look good on me. I am short and I have big boobs and I have extra fat. Not a good combo while clothing shopping!

Jeans are American Eagle Size 10 and Top is a medium in Merona brand which in my opinion runs small so its a bit tight! 

After last week being spring break and eating out 4 times I tried this week to make sure that I ate as clean as possible and I didn't even have a cheat meal. The closest I got was indulging in a fudge round that I bought for the kids at Sam's Club and it was not satisfying at all. 

I made lean ground beef chili with store bought cinnamon rolls and I had 5 @ 60 calories each. 

I made crock pot pork chops which were delicious, with broccoli and a rice side (1/2 cup) all for  300 calories since I only could eat half the meat 

Spaghetti and Turkey meatballs for 300 calories. 

I am that annoying person who is finding it hard to get to my calorie goal for the day. To eat nutritious food it is hard to eat that much! Especially since I have been doing Yoga Inferno so I am trying to eat back half of my calories I burned off there. 

Photo via Amazon

Yoga Inferno is tough but I really like it. I was so sore after the first day, it is definitely a step up in difficulty to Yoga Meltdown. I recommend it though! 

My Fitness Pal VS. Weight Watchers

I have dieted a lot in my life. All the other times in my past I logged my calories both with a site called my-calorie-counter.com and myfitnesspal.com . I on a whim decided to try Weight watchers I honestly can't even remember why I decided to try it maybe a pin I saw about it or something. But anyway, I am used to tracking my food and I find that it is the only way to keep myself on track while watching what I eat and trying to lose weight. 

I signed up for another month of weight watchers in February, and I think that only lasted 2 weeks. I was a little burned out on it I guess, and quite frankly I didn't want to pay $18.95 for logging my food. So I found an app on google play that was $1.99 that is supposed to be like the weight watchers app and log your food just like weight watchers. Well, let me tell you this is not the case. If you follow these apps or sites that say they are the same as weight watchers they are not. There are so many things on there that were really wrong on the points value. Being one weight watchers for 4 months really allowed me to learn the points on a lot of items, and these were not correct. This makes it hard to properly understand your eating habits and if you are eating the correct amount.  

So I stopped using this app and I decided to try myfitnesspal. I have used it before like I said and it is very easy. It is free to use and they have an app that you can log on your smartphone. Win! 

It has been over a month now and I would have to say that I am very pleased with myfitnesspal. You can add friends and use them as encouragement, or go to the community and ask questions. I don't really use these features though, I just get on and track. 

I would say that logging food is very easy and user friendly. I often found that while using weight watchers I had to add a lot of my own foods that took a lot of time, where as Myfitnesspal has a ton of foods in their database in the brands that I use such as Kroger, and Aldi brands. This really saves me time and makes it more likely to track. 

 One of the biggest things that I like on Myfitnesspal vs. weight watchers is that you can see all the specs of your food. Weight watchers just shows you your points and you don't know the sugar, protein, carb, sodium, and fat content that you really need to know to be able to find out what foods work for you as far as weight loss and which ones don't. It is quite an eye opener to see you went over on sodium this day by 1000 mg or something like that, where as with weight watchers you can eat as much sugar or sodium as you want as long as you don't go over your points. With that, as far as weight watchers goes, you can pretty much eat anything as long as you are within your points, which I suppose you can as well with myfitnesspal but they also give you goals day as far as protein, fat, sodium, sugar etc, and that way you are more balanced in your diet. I see a lot of people on instagram who are on weight watchers and they are eating chicken nuggets from McDonald's for 8pp, and in reality, that is so bad for you that even though it is only 8 pp, you really should not be eating it.  

That being said, the flexibility weight watchers was what ultimately got me to participate. I liked the fact that I didn't feel like I had to be deprived and I didn't have to stop eating foods I liked. But I also know quite a bit about food and nutrition and eating healthy and I know what is good for me and what is bad (whether I do it for not is a different story!)

The exercise logging is about the same as weight watchers. I do workout videos and I don't have a heart rate monitor to track how many calories I burn, so I just guess and I don't really know how many calories I burn. I just honestly don't exercise enough to justify buying one right now, but I am not opposed to it in the future if I ever become a gym rat (don't hold your breath!) 

All in all if I had to do it differently, I would have done Weight Watchers to start off with for sure. It was a great transition into weight loss and I had great success on it. It is literally the only weight loss plan I have ever stuck to for more than a few weeks. And I know that a lot of it was the flexibility that it allowed me. But for me now in this phase of my weight loss I want to try to eat leaner, eat cleaner, and get more focused on being healthy more than just eating a certain amount of points even if it's ice cream or pasta. 

I recommend myfitnesspal to people who really want to understand their eating better. I have been logging with myfitnesspal for 37 days straight and since starting, I have lost a total of 8 pounds (my official weigh in is tomorrow ) So I believe that is a big weight loss!

If you have any questions please let me know!