Another Skinny Picture

My mom came over this afternoon to take some pictures of me for Facebook and whatnot, and took this one. I honestly thought that for as big as I am, I'd have to lose at least fifty pounds in order to see a difference, but I'm really seeing it now, at 33.5. Hooray!

A Skinny Picture!

This is the skinniest picture taken of me in a long, long time ... I just had to share it. And I think it's very appropriate that I'm eating a salad. :)

I'm just so tired of hating every picture of me ever taken. When my mom took this one and showed it to me, I actually squealed.

I've decided to post a picture of me every month. That way, when I see you all again in person next time, you'll still recognize me. :)

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That ...

This blog post is going to be a little bit celebration, a little bit whining...

Let's start with the good stuff. I am now down 33.5 pounds. Yes, you heard me right! I can hardly believe I'm even getting to say that. This is the most weight I've ever lost. Before, my record was twenty-seven pounds, back when I was doing the Healthrider for half an hour every day and practically starving myself. But then I got pregnant, and that came to a stop. I'm really excited about this loss. I feel smaller. I can't even explain what it's like to feel smaller. I honestly thought I was going to be an obese woman the rest of my life.

The whining ... I've been hit by some health problems, and they've both kept me from being the person I've wanted to be this week. It's hard to feel productive when you're lying down with ice on your foot because once again, you've thrown out a bone (I do that every so often) and because you're overstressed. I had a bad day today with my oldest son - we ended up in a fight, which always stresses me out even further. And when your doctor tells you to avoid stress ... it's stressful to avoid stress, you know that? :)

But at any rate, the weight is still coming off. I now look forward to going in to the doctor's office if for no other reason. I'm still spending a lot more time there than I want to - with all of us being treated, it takes a long time - but I have something concrete to look forward to each time.

And when I hit 40 pounds lost, I'm treating myself to a pedicure! I've never had one!

This Week's Update

I'm quite delighted to announce that my weight loss now totals 27 pounds. That is so epic ... can I just say?

Challenges this week ... staying full enough. Because my diet doesn't allow any grains at all, I'm trying to stay full enough on meats, seeds, and vegetables. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I've pulled out some of my husbands cookbooks that he collected back when he was doing an alkalerian diet, and I think those will help me broaden my horizons a bit. In addition, Sabine lent me her book about the primal diet, and while I've been too busy to read more than the first chapter up until now, I'm delving into it with a vengeance this week to learn all I can.

So it's a process. A very slow process. :) I'm now off caffeine, which is awesome, although I still miss it. I'm still candy and dessert-free since June 13th, which is something I didn't think I could ever do. And now that I'm off caffeine, I'm sugar-free.

Believe me, I've had my moments of feeling picked on. My husband and I went to the Golden Corral for dinner the other night, and right there in front of me was the most delicious-looking chocolate layer cake. It was hard to fill up my plate with salad and meat and ignore the cakes and the rolls, but you know what? I did it. And I'm really proud of myself.

Right now we're making plans to go to a movie as family for Halloween instead of trick-or-treating. The kids are excited about it - we don't go see movies very often - and I hope it makes it up to them that they aren't getting a whole bag of candy. That would be the worst thing ever for them right now.

Until next time ...

Well, Whaddya Know?

I got on my little old scale yesterday and got a shock ... I've now lost twenty-two pounds. Yep, that was a shock in a good way. :) I knew I felt a little thinner, but until I saw it on the scale, I thought it had to be wishful thinking or something. I mean, people like me don't lose weight. That's why we are the shape we are. Right?

Well, up until now, that has been my truth. Every time I've tried to lose weight in the past, I either haven't been able to get any off, or I had to get off whatever program I was doing, usually because of time constraints. But because of our health problems, I've been forced into this, and you know, it's not fun to be forced, but I'm seeing some serious benefits. I'm going to need to take in the elastic in the waistbands of my pants ... and I imagine it won't be too much longer before I won't be wearing pants with elastic waistbands. :)

My biggest triumph is that it's been over eight weeks since I've had any chocolate, or any dessert at all. I didn't think I could go this long without a num-num.

My biggest obstacle right now is lack of preparation. I have cheated, and it's always been when I'm away from home, I didn't bring food with me, and my blood sugar drops. I need to get in the habit of taking a snack with me. My mom got me a cute little purse-sized insulated lunch bag, so it's not that taking something is difficult - it's that I don't remember and I don't prepare. If I can get that ironed out, I think I'd be progressing even faster.

My goal right now is to lose a total of forty pounds, and then I'm going to treat myself to a pedicure. I've never had one, and I think cute toes are fun. :) Then I'll set my next goal and decide my next milestone celebration.

In the meantime, the kids are feeling some better, although they miss "good" food. (Their quote) I hope they understand the reasons behind all this and don't fall off the wagon as soon as they get the chance.

"This is Heavy"

I've said it before and I'll say it again, vacations aren't good for diets. I've been in Texas for a month. Land of BBQ, fried okra, Blue Bell ice cream, and my mom's cooking. I've gained about 7.5 lbs. I go home tomorrow and need to step it up! I can do it!

Hi! Remember me? Probably not!!

Lately, I've been rejoining the blogging world. So here I am again.

And how am I doing with my weight?

Need I go on?

That being said, I've begun taking the right steps. Again. I did do HCG three times. For a while I was down to 185 and I kept that weight pretty well for probably eight or nine months. Then I fell off the bandwagon and started gaining. And gaining.

Hit 200 again. Hit 210 again.

Panicked. Hated myself. Called the doctor.

I've been meaning to get into the doctor for a while to ask about some things. One of them was my thyroid and just general health stuff. I came back fine. Everything was fine. Which is good in a lot of ways. I don't have to worry about high cholesterol, high blood pressure, a bad thyroid or any of that stuff.

Which means, that I can't blame my weight gain on anything BUT my own choices! Sigh. I guess the great thing is that I can start making different choices.

One choice? I've just started on some anti-anxiety medication (go see these two posts for more information). I tend to eat a whole lot more when my anxiety is high. So managing my anxiety through the medication and other things is important.

In speaking with my doctor we decided to also put me on an appetite suppressant.  I'll only be on it for a total of three months, but it should give me a bit of a jump start and encourage me to keep on losing.

In the meantime I'm trying to develop healthier habits overall. The eating hasn't been as good as it should be, but my appetite is definitely smaller, so I have lost weight. I've also been walking more. I read about people doing all kinds of great exercise, running five miles a day, or spinning, or lifting weights and how they feel so good and blah blah blah. I hate it. Because I kind of have the belief that I won't get to the weight I want to (my doctor recommended 160), without doing that kind of crazy exercise.

But you know what? That's okay. I'm just going to start with walking. And so I have. I haven't walked every day, but I have walked a lot more this summer than I have in a long time. And I listen to an audiobook while I do it, making it pretty enjoyable. I don't even walk that far--probably 2 1/2 miles when I do. But hey. That's ok for now.

And I'm just going to continue developing healthier habits. Maybe after walking for a couple of years I'll go to the next level, and maybe start running. Doubt it, but hey miracles have happened before.

I just need to remember this process isn't just about being thin (although I love the idea!), but it's also about me being HEALTHY. Maybe I always figured if I was thin I'd be healthy. But that isn't necessarily true.

So I'm back. And hopefully I'll stay. I've gone from 210 to 196.2 as of this morning. Keeping on, keeping on. And this time, it takes as long as it takes, and I will make sure I'm either maintaining or losing. NOT GAINING. And being HEALTHY.

Eggplant Pizza

I love summertime when the garden is just bursting with vegetables and we have something fresh every night. This year to help us stay on our primal plans we planted (or I guess I should say my husband planted) a lot more than usual and he tried a bunch of new things to give variety to our diet. So when he came to me with 3 beautiful eggplants, I was pleased, but had no idea what to do with them. I'd heard of Eggplant Parmigiana, but since we don't do grains I was looking for something I didn't have to bread (although the few things I've breaded in Almond meal have been divine). So last night we tried Eggplant Pizza. I cut the eggplants length wise about 1/2 and inch thick. Then I broiled them on one side until they were lightly brown. I flipped them and added pizza sauce and mozerella cheese and broiled till the cheese was bubbly and lightly browned. The result was perfect. The kids were not as convinced, but once I told them they had to eat it or else, it actually went down well. I think the name just through them off. I even heard a comment that we could have it again. We will because I loved it and maybe next time I will add other pizza toppings to make it seem more like a real pizza.

I'm back!

Hey guys! I'm back! Long time no see. I switched google accounts and haven't posted for a very long time. Mainly because my current blog is in one google account and this blog was in the other. A marriage has been performed and we are joined once again!

Just to bring you up to date, the battle with weight and fitness goes on. Up and down and . . . wait, no just up. It's more than frustrating. I have a feeling my problem is my hormones. I'm all over the place. I've taken some tests and will start with bioidenticle hormone treatment. I'm very excited and everyone I've talked to who uses them, swears by them. I'll keep you posted.

You see, if I just had more energy, I'd be able to work out more. I wake up in the mornings feeling like I've just run a marathon. I'm exhausted all the time, and I mean really exhausted. My poor kids feel so put out, because mom never wants to do anything fun.

My appointment with the doc is on the 17th so I'll let you know how it goes. So far, I work out as often as I can and then lay on my bed the rest of the day. (pretty much) --not conducive to great writing. It's been a real push to write at all. Mainly because I'm so tired all the time. I'm at the end of my current ms and only have about ten thousand words to go, so let me tell ya, I need to feel better so I can finish this dang thing, and become rich and famous!

So that's my life in a nutshell. I'll keep posting and let you know of my progress.

My Update

I'm going to start off this post with some fun news - I've lost fifteen pounds. Woohoo! Now, with that important piece of information out of the way, I can proceed with the rest of my update.

As you know, on June 13th I had a doctor appointment and was put on a very limited diet. I have been living it almost faithfully. I say "almost" because about once a week, I do falter, and end up grabbing a sandwich or something like that. I'm also not weaned off caffeine yet, although that is my next big goal. Until I'm off that, I'm not really being compliant with the diet. But it has been over six weeks since I've had chocolate (or dessert at all, for that matter) pasta, rice, or other grains, and I am seeing changes in my body. Even though the weight loss so far is fairly small, the shape of my body is changing. I can feel it in the way my stomach hangs on my body. (Yes, it hangs - we're keeping it real, right?)

Weighing in at my doctor's office was a bit mortifying. My first day of this new lifestyle, my bathroom scale said I weighed 290. Whoa - okay, that wasn't delightful. But then when I got to the doctor's, and got on his very accurate, scary, frightening scale, it added ten pounds. That's right - I started this out at 300. I didn't think I'd gotten that heavy. Wake up for Tristi!! But according to his scale, I'm now 284.5, so yeah, fifteen pounds, and we're backing away from that frightening number that starts with a 3.

Now, I've been down this path before. Huh. A lot. I've lost weight, gained weight, lost weight ... this blog was started during one of those well-meaning fits of losing weight, but then I lost the momentum. This time is different. This time, I can't lose the momentum.

In addition to the food allergies, I've got some health problems. I'm not going to go into them all here, because that's depressing and all that stuff, but also because it would take a long time, but the upshot is that I have to take care of myself or my life expectancy isn't that great. My doctor put it bluntly when he said, "You won't get to see your grandkids." Up until now, I've been skating along, feeling like the golden child, not really affected by anything. These last few months, though ... my knee gave out at the LDStorymakers Writers Conference. I was having to walk a distance between my hotel room and the conference rooms, and I was flat-out exhausted. There are other health factors we've recently discovered that added to that, but the weight was killing my knee, and it plain gave out. I'm tired of all this. I'm tired of weight-related problems, things I can't do - I don't enjoy driving our small car anymore because it's too hard for me to get in and out of. I drive the minivan exclusively now, and it makes me mad that I'm limited in which vehicle I take because of the size of my body. I find that completely wrong.

What it has all come down to, though, is my kids. They are all candidates for diabetes and heart attacks - they got all the bad genes from me and from my husband, and they have problems assimilating sugar. So we're all doing this really limited diet together - no carbs. None. No grain, no fruit, no nothing. We're eating vegetables (but not corn or peas - too high on the glycemic index) lean meats, nuts and seeds, and a limited amount of certain dairy products. We're seeing huge changes in our health, for the whole family. But it has been a challenge.

My biggest challenge right now is that I need to concentrate on making food in advance. This week, I pretty much starved myself to death because there wasn't anything readily available that I wanted to eat, I went too long without eating, and I got sick. I've got to break that habit. My kids will cook up eggs or whatever when they're hungry, and they're fine, but you know, there are just times when I don't want an egg, and I need to be more creative, and I haven't been. This is a way in which I need to be a better guardian of my own health.

I'm going to start checking in more and letting you know how I'm doing. I need further accountability. (Like the doctor's scary scale isn't enough ... ) But right now, here's my report:

1. I'm eating mostly clean. I have had some Wendy's over the last two days - starving, as I mentioned, and didn't prepare, so I need to reset the brain to cook in advance - but for the most part, I'm eating very, very well.

2. No desserts and no chocolate since the start of this diet. Yes, that means I've had no gummy peach rings, no chocolate-covered cinnamon bears, none of my old favorites.

3. I'm now drinking about 16 oz. of Coke - at least, that's what I had today. That's down from about 1 1/2 liters a day. Progress. Progress.

4. I'm not currently exercising. My workload has gotten super, super heavy lately, and what with signing books at Costco, etc, my schedule is more packed than it logically can be. I have plans to reintroduce exercise to my life next week.

5. My water consumption is about 3/4 what it should be, but again, progress.

So ... that's what's up in my world. I'm seeing good changes, I'm making good changes, and I'm very proud of myself. And that's what's important - proud of myself without making excuses. It's a good feeling.

Hey Mama Welcome to the 60's!

So the whole only weighing yourself once a month has been pretty easy this last three weeks since the battery in my scale died. I had a kind of bad 4th of July week in which I had a Pepsi at the Real Soccer Game, a handful of Red Vines on the boat, and an Oreo cookie here and there. Needless to say I wasn't looking forward to getting a new battery after that! But I was still a lot less than I had been and I needed a new swimsuit. My cute step mother-in-law, who is not much older than me, and has divine taste in clothes told me to come over and look through her old ones as she had about 10 extra ones. So I went and found a cute tankini that I looked good in (for the first time in years I was excited to see myself in a swimsuit.
Since the swimsuit experience had gone well I decided to use their scale to check my weight, because I knew from experience it was right on par with my scale. And I had to step on three times just to make sure....I'm in the 60's for the first time in years. I weighed in tonight, fully clothed and in the late afternoon mind you, at 165 so I have lost a total of 34 pounds since February!!! I am so excited. I couldn't help but think of the Hairspray song "Hey Mama Welcome to the 60's". Sixteen more pounds to go to hit that 50 pound mark I was hoping for. Here is hoping the next month goes as well as the last!

So ... Whassup?

Hey, everyone!

I've had fun scrolling down and checking out the progress updates - it's inspiring to me, and helpful to know I'm not alone in this battle. On days when things aren't going so hot over here, it's awesome to have people to look toward for motivation to keep going.

A couple of updates: when last I posted, I was doing my son's allergy diet with him. That went all right for a couple of days, but then he was restricted even further, and I lost my willpower.

This last Monday saw a huge change in my life. I had my own appointment with Joseph's doctor ... and let's just say, the kid comes by his health problems naturally. I not only am allergic to just about everything, but my organs (especially my adrenals) aren't functioning. So the doctor officially put me on a restricted diet, and he has given me a pile of pills to take to help kick-start the nutrition going. The pills are all condensed vegetable matter, and they look sort of like tiny little cow droppings - you know, dried up grass - but they aren't too hard to swallow.

The difficulty I'm having is just how very limited my allergies make me. I'm going to be having all kinds of treatments for them, so they shouldn't always be this bad, but it's going to take me a little while to figure out a routine that is best for me.

However, there is this - I started this all on Tuesday morning. I should have started Monday night, but we didn't get home until late. Anyway, I started on Tuesday, and when I got on the scale this morning (two days later) it showed a loss of 4 pounds, and I feel like it's a healthy loss, not an "I'm starving to death because I can't eat anything" loss. As my organs get the food they need and start perking up, I should have all kinds of energy and be able to stay better on top of things.

Perhaps what's helping me out the most right now is that the doctor has put me on adrenal support supplements, which is what I need to get me off the Coke. I haven't been able to get off it by myself because I couldn't function without it. Now I have something to help me function, and the doctor didn't take away the Coke entirely. We're weaning me off it slowly, which I think is awesome. As my adrenals wake up, we'll reduce the Coke even further until I'm off it entirely.

So - the upshot is this. I'm doing a very limited diet, taking lots of supplements, drinking three quarts of water a day, and I'm on doctor's orders to rest more and get more sleep. I'll keep you updated as we go along - right now I'm still in, "let's figure out what to eat" phase, but I can tell progress is already being made, and that's very heartening.

Biggest Loser, So Far

Well, I haven't been kicked off yet. I didn't have any weight change last week, which was lucky for me since I'd baked a batch of cookies and had soda. But so far I've lost 5.5 lbs. Normally I wouldn't be too excited about it, but because I crossed a difficult marker in the weight loss (getting myself under 140) I'm pretty stoked. Unfortunately the weight loss hasn't equaled a drop in pants size yet, but whatever. Hopefully I'll be able to keep going and eventually drop a shirt size as well as pants size. I had to buy shorts today (it's been in the 90s all week until today--in the 60s. I hate Cleveland.) and so I was bummed to still be in the same size, but it will all work out in the end.

Almost there!

The title of this post may be a little deceiving. I am still 25 pounds away from my goal, but I am only 1 pound away from my half way mark. My second month of primal went well, but there were a few more hang ups than the first month. Mainly a series of birthday parties with designer cakes that just kept begging to be tested until the last party when I finally gave in and went for it. I'll admit, it was tasty. But after the taste factor went away, eating a whole piece of chocolate cake after 2 months no sugar took its toll on my stomach. I think remembering that gut wrenching feeling will be helpful in the future to refraining from at least so much indulgence. So the big weigh in for the month put me at another five pounds gone away! 24 pounds in 4 months. If I can keep this rate up I will hit my goal by October.
I've found a lot of fun recipes for being primal. The family favorite is Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi, which thanks to Costco we can get the wild caught stuff. If you want to try it, just soak your Mahi Mahi in a dish of milk (if you are non dairy use coconut milk) then dip it in fine ground macadamia nuts (I ground mine in my 10$ Black and Decker coffee grinder that I bought at Target to grind my flax seed. Hint...Hazelnuts are too hard to do in this, but macadamia nuts are just fine.) Salt and Pepper and bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes. So easy and so good.
I am still in summer school and just got a part time job, so my grand plans for a workout routine that involves more than walking up and down the stairs at school is still in the idea process, but hopefully by next month that will be a reality. Until then, I'm still feeling great. For the most part being primal has been the easiest and most fulfilling "diet" ever. I can see this being a lifestyle change for good.

Cauliflower Again?

Okay so it is not just for mashing! I have now tried what is called cauliflower rice and it is yummy! I made it by shredding a head of cauliflower on a cheese grater. Then I used it in replace of rice in my stuffed peppers. It is amazing how this one vegetable can be a substitute for so many of the grains I used to use. It is more amazing that my family thinks it is much more flavorful and says they would rather have it this way always. The peppers were divine and I can't wait to try it just as a rice side substitute. I love CAULIFLOWER!