Playing Catch Up

Hi buddies. It's been close to 8 months since my last update! Insanity. There hasn't been any major changes in my life outside of the fact that I am now eating a heavily plant based diet. I was going to therapy for food related issues until January and made some pretty significant changes and discovery's while I was there. I believe wholeheartedly that where I am today is a result of those small realizations. There were no major breakthroughs no dramatic plot twists in my life.

I can't say 100% what pushed me over the edge to just jump in and give up meat and dairy. It was just a ton of small things. It's been almost 2 months and I've lost close to 20 pounds already. I will say I lost 15 lbs in 2 weeks, so it's been frustrating to see immediate loss than barely making that scale budge. I've also started to go to the gym (3x this week! WHAT) brought on by not losing weight of course. I should be happy with that loss and just leave it, but then I wouldn't be me now would I?

I know there are still areas of my diet that could be improved. I probably still have too much white flour, salt, oil and a plethora of other things I've read will kill me, but ugh one day at a time, am I right?

I was weighing myself every morning for a good week before I remembered why I avoided weighing myself for the majority of my adult life. I could cry a bucket of tears over those stupid numbers. The stress induced anxiety from not losing 5 pounds a day cannot be healthy. Those number define who we are and whether we are worthy of so much. I just couldn't do it. I know numbers are great to use to show progress like "Hey JT, yeah man I lost 45 pounds!" "Woah! 45 pounds! That's a small child" Or maybe a big child? I have no idea what children weigh. There are other ways too. Like how you fit in your clothes! Except for the fact that none of my clothes have really fit in the last 3 years anyways, I've just stretched them out enough to a fake it until ya make it, kind of thing. I'm sure I'll hop on that stupid scale once again in the future but for a while I need a break.

You know what the scale doesn't show? Cleaner arteries and cleaner/lighter looking insides with a reduced chance of heart attack and/or diabetes! So take that scale! I should go the doctor and see if my blood test shows improvement. Seems like a waste of a doctor visit though.

Anyways! This is just a quick little catch-up for now. I hope to be back to blogging more on the regular in the future, but I make no promises. I still kind of suck at maintaining this.

Till then- peace & chia seeds homes.

Drumroll please...

I had my first weigh in yesterday and it wasn't officially a whole week since I first weighed myself but I am down 6 lbs! Now remember, when you carry as much excess as I do, it tends to fall off a lot faster at first. I was pretty excited for that! I also measured myself and those numbers remained the same.  I lost an inch on my neck apparently and half an inch on an arm. I can't remember where I put the tape around myself to get an accurate measurement of My Bertha, so I'll have to start again with that.

I hope Starbucks has a healthy(ish) option today, I need a fix.

Peace,
T

Time to Celebrate Valentines Day Y'all

Yes, Valentines day might have been 2 days ago but my hubalub works the night shift (lame) so we never go out during the week. That leaves Saturday and Sunday and because I work Monday thru Friday I like my Sundays free. I have to make sure we are back home before 9 to watch the latest Walking Dead! That shows just getting so good! We do not have fancy cable with a DVR. I miss it, but we save a lot of money by not having it.

Napoleon doing my Celebrate Valentines dance

We are thinking dinner and movie and that works for me! We never do anything together, so this will be a nice change of pace. Couldn't come at a perfect time since come Monday I'm finally going to attempt to diet/exercise at the same time. One last hurrah! I'll be good, maybe. I just want a nice chicken dish, shouldn't be too hard to find or keep healthy.

I have been preparing for this upcoming week by spending hours on pinterest gathering cheap & healthy meals. It was a day well spent. I was able to do this because I was sick and home from work on Friday. I have been dealing with acid reflux and it pretty much makes it impossible for me to sleep. Usually it wakes me at 5 in the morning and lasts about 2 hours. Thursday I felt sick on and off all day and I just couldn't sleep that night. I won't go into details but I eventually fell asleep probably around 4am. There was pretty much no way I was going to work Friday after that.

I know that my acid reflux is only made worse by my diet. I didn't even have these problems until three years ago. Such an uncomfortable feeling. It's one of the reasons I want to make these changes stick. I have no problem being fluffy if I'm healthy too but the truth is, I'm not.

I will have an actual goal and a plan in place next time you hear from me. I hope to outline the goal here and make weekly updates. I also bought this book to read: 

 I've heard really good things about it. If reading about diets alone made you lose weight, I'd be super fit! I've read so many of these books, no regrets though since I do like to be educated about food. I'm fascinated by the psychology of it all.

On another note isn't Napolean so cute up there doing his dance? I miss Jon Heder. I wish he did more things in Hollywood. He's doing the valentines day dance for this post.

While I was out looking for a good gif, I found this:

How amazing is that video? Love that batman onesie. Maybe this will be my goal weight pajamas? My husband would love that. Finally have a body to wear skanky sleepwear and all I want is an adult onesie. and I would rock that mother f*cker.

Peace out,
T

Booty Down to Drop the Pounds!

 Shake it uh huh shake it like a Polaroid picture! This is an honest to God recreation of my glorious dance moves, I'll let Beyonce show you because for reals, I don't think you're ready for this jelly.

At least it is an honest to God recreation of how I think I look when I'm dancing in my basement during Dance Central, the camera on that thing tells a different story. In reality I look like this:

 Tiny Fey is making me look GOOD! I honestly do think I can move and I'm a decent dancer but there is just WAY too much jiggle in my wiggle.

Dancing is one of my favorite things to do honestly and I cannot wait to lose weight and be able to have the confidence to get out there and bless you all with my moves.

You're welcome.

In other news- I did not wake up early again this morning. I blame this on the fact that for some reason this little bit of working out I'm doing in the morning carries on all day and I have so much energy I can't even sleep that night! And my husband woke me up at 4:30 AM to tell me he was having spaghetti.

Seriously long story. Well not really a long story, but an uninteresting one. This is where the dancing comes in. I came home from work, made some delish taco sorta meal and played Dance Central 3 with Chris on the kinect for about an hour. Amazeballs. Loved it! Heads up, you do not want to battle this chica on any 70's music. I can jive like nobodies business. The 80's on the other hand? Not my forte. I couldn't even do the dance to the Right Stuff. NKOTB! I'll be ready for you again if you ever whip out a Nsync tune though, so beware.

Seriously, lights out for this dancing queen.

Peace Homies,
T

Dirty Girl Run

Here goes nothing! On June 1st 2013, I am participating in my first 5k. Yup. 3.something miles (the 3 and miles are the important part) not just me of course. My momma and two sisters and one sister-in-law will also be joining in (No boys allowed). The Dirty Girl Run is a great jumping off point!

First- it's not timed so it's not competitive. That's amazeballs because I would come in last, dead last.

Second- There is more to it than running. There are a bunch of obstacles too! I love to get dirty.

Third- Supposedly there will be music AND booze. Yup yup, I'll take it!

Today I did my first bit of training since I purchased my new tennis shoes. I walked on the treadmill for 1 mile. It took about 25 minutes and I couldn't feel my legs. I am so out of shape it is just....ugh. I am in a shape, the shape of someone who swallowed a beach ball! But not the kind of shape I need to be in. Come hell or high water (what does that even mean?) I will be there on June 1st and it will NOT be pretty. 

Go to www.godirtygirl.com to sign up today and join in!

In 2012, it is the goal of Dirty Girl to provide the National Breast Cancer Foundation with over $250,000 in monetary and in-kind support. In 2013, our goal is to deliver over $1,500,000 in support to NBCF. In addition, Dirty Girl will continue providing cancer survivors free registration at each event. -From the website directly.

Back to December

News years resolutions have already started for me. I have had no fast food or pop in two weeks. I have had chipotle, Chinese, chocolate and pizza but those do not count at least not to me. I feel better on days when my food choices are cleaner but I'm working on it. It's a sprint not marathon! I would like to see myself in a year from now down at least 10 lbs and as a non-smoker. I would love to be down 100 pounds but we'll see. The 5k I'm doing with my sisters and mom is coming up! As in, next July. Nice to have a goal! Till then sugar plums :)

Today was a success!

As first days go, it was a success! I had a salad with iceberg lettuce (not my favorite) with some pre-cooked chicken cubes, a dash of mozzarella cheese, ceasar vinaigrette dressing and some carrots. I didn't have much in my fridge, but I made it work in the famous words from Tim Gunn himself. Me and my better half went to the grocery store to pick up some random items and I bought some boneless skinless chicken breasts that I cooked up on the George Foreman (with removable plates, the only way to have a George Foreman! IMHO) that I gently spiced with some garlic dill seasoning. Then I added some mushrooms on the grill and ate that all on a bed of spinach. I did have two breasts instead of one, and added some steamfresh green beans. I also had two cans of diet cherry 7up but in my defense it has antioxidants! I avoided all chocolate today and even ignored the pecan cake we had for a co-workers birthday! I snacked on some pretzel rods and Laughing Cow light swiss cheese which making dinner because I was so hungry! As an added bonus I ate this delish meal after cooking Chris some sloppy joe manwich's. Not that that was a hard dish to resist! All in all a fantastic day! I even drafted up an excel spreadsheet for my Sunday weigh-ins and to track my progress. So far, so good!

Here Goes Nothing!

When you have so much to lose, it can feel overwhelming at times. I hope I can remind myself that it is achievable in small baby steps! Just do it 10 pounds at a time. So my first goal is 10 pounds before Friday January 27th. That's plenty of time! And if I do accomplish this goal, I need to set rewards for myself. Maybe a new shirt? Or a trip to the salon? Whatever it is, I'll let you in on it!