Weight Loss-Part 1

Weight Loss -The Diet

Fat, Chubby, Big Boned, Tubby, Obese, Thick

These words seem to drive a dagger into a lot of people. These are harsh words to hear.  When my son’s teacher sent home a picture of me reading to his class, I thought she put the wrong picture in the folder. I did not even recognize myself! I threw it away and told myself it was just a “bad picture.” However, that picture is all I could think about from October until January. Three months is a long time to think about a picture!  So, one day while assuming my normal position on our comfy chair while playing on my phone, I had an epiphany, I had become a sedentary person. This realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I was 20 pounds overweight.

At 29 I became pregnant with my first child and only gained 30 lbs. I am a very tall person so this was not a lot of pregnancy weight for me. Everyone always commented on how small I was and how I was going to be back to wearing my old pants in no time. All of my friends lost their baby weight super quickly so I figured I would too.  Oh how naive was I?!?!

My son weighed 7lbs 2oz when he was born. I lost 7lbs 2oz…and that was all for 10 months. No lie. Everyone told me I would lose weight if I breast feed-Nope, If I quit breast feeding-Nope, I had heard every tale in the book about post partum weight loss. I cracked down and lost about 10 pounds until I got pregnant again five months later with my daughter. I again gained only 30lbs, had an 8lb baby and guess what…lost 8 pounds!  Nothing was budging off my body.

How I Changed

Here is what I told myself and these are pretty much my new LIFE RULES

1. NO LIES- QUIT LYING TO YOURSELF. This is probably the BIGGEST issue. I told myself I was eating healthy, I wasn’t. granola bars, a few bites of fast food, Starbucks, your kids’ snacks, alcohol…not healthy. I told myself I tried working out. Lies, all lies. I had to tell myself I was eating crappy foods, I was lazy and I just needed to QUIT LYING TO MYSELF. I told myself everything I was doing and it needed to stop. If my friends said, “oh you look great, you can have a cookie.” I said to them,  “No, I have to quit lying to myself, so I cannot have a cookie.  I need to change myself.  I told myself, “you didn’t even break a sweat working out. You’re lazy work harder.” Like Nike Says- Just Do It! QUIT LYING TO YOURSELF!
2. EAT REAL FOOD– No fad diet schemes with labels like Adkins, Paleo, South Beach, etc. I can’t walk around with a book that lists what I can eat! Just eat real honest to goodness food! Cut out processed junk.  Eggs, veggies, meat, fruit, nuts, berries, greek yogurt, butter, water, honey. Yes, butter. Quit eating hydrogenated oil pumped into a tub! However, I didn’t say eat half a stick of butter either!  Was I eating 100% non processed food? No! But I stayed within my calorie count like my life depended on it. When you start adding a lot of processed foods you will find out quickly that you don’t get much bang for your buck when it comes to calories. You may get 2 tablespoons that costs you 200 calories. If you ate fruit you could have a whole cup for maybe 65 calories.
3. GET ACTIVE– Break a sweat. Give yourself 30 minutes of your day where you test your heart. It is the hardest working muscle in your body. Work It Out! Frankly, I am still lazy and I knew that running was the fastest way for me to burn some serious calories. Yes, I know all of you who are into your HIIT workouts and Crossfit etc. that say you burn 8 trillion calories. Well, I didn’t have a gym and I didn’t have child care until my husband got home. Besides running is FREE!

• I used MapMyWalk to monitor my running distance and calorie burn.
• I used MyFitnessPal to monitor my calorie intake. You can add your exercise in at the bottom of your daily nutrition and it adds calories aka food! I entered EVERY LAST BITE shoved into my mouth on this app. Please be mindful of serving sizes! This is a BIGGIE. Measure your peanut butter. When I saw two tablespoons it blew my mind because I was eating six. That 190cal x 3 servings = 570 calories. My caloric intake was about 1500 calories a day. That left me with only 930 calories for the rest of the day.

Below is a sample of what I would eat in a day. I basically had the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday and would change out my snacks and dinners. I am not a weight loss expert and this is just one day of what I ate. For me it was about eating the most real food possible, feed my family as well and stay as close as my calorie allotment as possible.

Have you become a sedentary person? A person who snacks on your kids leftovers? A person who lies to themselves that you are eating healthy when you know you aren’t deep down? If so, make one change for 3 weeks and really focus on the change. Mentally tell yourself what to do. Be a brain boss. Your mind is a powerful thing and you can talk yourself into anything!

Happy Friday

XOXO

Sara

*I am not a nutrition or exercise specialist. These are not sponsored posts. I am just a real woman in her 30’s who woke up one day and realized I was getting fat. Be sure to consult your doctor before making life changes about weight loss.