Just keep walking, walking, walking . . .

I've never been really enthused about exercise, but I'm still walking, 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week. So I met my exercise goal again last week, but I'm really struggling with drinking enough water. The only day I made it to 2 liters was Friday, and I'm not sure how I did that. I'll keep trying.

As of this morning, I was down another 0.6 lbs. Not what I was hoping for, but at least it's in the right direction. I think it's time to do something about food.

I've been paying more attention to what I eat and drink lately. I've already (mostly) cut out sodas. The next biggest thing is chocolate, my drug of choice. If I could figure out how to do a pie chart of where my calories come from, chocolate would be a big slice of the pie—chocolate cream pie. I don't know if I can cut chocolate out permanently, but I'm pretty sure I can do it for at least one week. Then I'll see what the results are and reassess.

My goals for the coming week are:

1. Keep walking, and up it to 25 minutes a day, 6 days a week.

2. Chug that water, 2 liters a day.

3. No chocolate for one week.

See you next Monday.

"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everybody on the couch."

I saw that on Pinterest, and it's my new philosophy. I'm making one change at a time. Starting last Tuesday (because Monday was my birthday and I was eating zucchini brownies) I began walking on the treadmill every day, for at least 20 minutes a day. I logged my minuets every day and ended up with a total for the week of 115 minutes walking. While I walked, I watched last week's episode of "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition," and I had to keep going on Saturday until I hit 33 minutes to see the final weigh in.

I've also been weighing myself daily and recording that in my log book. Some "experts" say not to weigh yourself so often, but I find it interesting to see the way how much I exercise and how much I eat affects my weight on a daily basis. It was a little bit of a roller coaster, but as of this morning, I am down 2 pounds, which is 4% of my goal.

My goals for the coming week are:

1. Keep walking every day.

2. Drink 2 liters of water every day.

I haven't set any hard and fast rules about food yet. But because I'm exercising and weighing daily, I'm more aware of what I'm eating and how it affects me. I find myself making better choices, like eating more fruits and vegetables. I've also made some bad choices, like buying a whole package of Double-Stuff Oreos. If those things are in the house, I WILL eat them. I'm not banishing the cookies just yet, but maybe next time I want something sweet I'll just run over to the convenience store and get one of those single serving packages instead.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

Renewal

We all seem to be needing a reset or renewal button so I am going to add mine to the board.  I lost about 35 pounds and I looked and felt great.  Then my husband hurt my daughter, left us and then filed for divorce.  That was made final about 5 weeks ago and he is getting married next week. (don't you dare tell me he wasn't seeing her when he lived with us).  Anyway, this winter was just hard and I finally had the doctor prescribe an anti-depressant.  While it helped me stop crying uncontrollably, which is a necessity when you are a school counselor, it also caused me to gain 30 lbs.  After about 20 lbs I went in and told him "I would rather be sad and skinny than fat and numb". He changed the prescription.  The next pill made me not be able to sleep and I already have insomnia and one of the rare side effects is "an uncontrollable craving for sweets and carbs".

  Guess who always gets the rare side effects?  Always.  Guess who was found in the faculty room hoarding all the sweet cinnamon twists every Monday and Thursday?  Sigh.

I finally told him that I just couldn't take the weight gain and that I REFUSED to purchase bigger clothes again.  I just got some cute smaller ones.  So we tapered off that pill.  And the weight started coming off.  A heck of a lot slower than it went on.

The good news is I am only 10-12 pounds from my lowest weight last year and I am starting to feel physically better.  I actually slept for 5 hours last night.   Of course most of that weight loss is because I am not eating.  Anything.  Well, maybe a handful of grapes or a bowl of beans, but truly I forget to eat because I am so sad I just sit and stare or wander the house waiting to hear keys in the door or his step on the floor.

No more!  I started doing Yoga again and it feels so good and my body slipped back into the routine quickly and the strength and flexibility didn't take as long as when I first started years ago.  I ate 2 actual meals yesterday and they were healthy and when the girls brought some donuts in the house a while ago I just looked at them and said Yummy and walked away because I didn't really want one.

Baby steps, baby steps.

It's been about three years since I last blogged here. I think I weigh about the same as I did when I started blogging here, meaning I've regained the weight that I lost. Actually, I've done that a couple of times in that three years. But I've noticed something lately. I've always had kind of an hourglass figure, sometimes a larger or smaller hourglass, depending on my weight, but I always had a defined waistline. (Except when I was pregnant, but that doesn't count.) But recently, I've changed. Now I'm more of a box shape--a busty box, but a box all the same. This is a picture of me at a writer's conference this spring. I hate it when I think I look pretty good, and then I see the reality in a picture.

It's not just about how I look anymore, although I really would like to look good for my next class reunion. Gaining weight around the waist is a sign of high cortisol levels, that's the "stress hormone." It also increases my risk of a heart attack. Today is my 51st birthday. I would like to make it to my next class reunion alive AND looking cute. My goal is to lose 50 pounds. One way I'm going to do that is with my walking. I finally bought a treadmill. I've found that if I can read, or listen to an audio book, or stream a movie or TV show on my laptop, while I'm walking, I walk longer. It makes exercise a lot less boring. I also have incentive to use the treadmill more often if I can only watch my show while I'm walking. First I'll concentrate on the exercise. Then each week I plan to concentrate on another good habit, like drinking enough water, or eating enough veggies. I'll report my progress here. It's good to be back on the blogwagon.

Vacation Eating Mode

You know how you allow yourself to eat whatever you want while on vacation? Yes, that mode of popping into your mouth all of the junk food that's so innocently sitting there on the counter waiting to be consumed. What about all of the "food"/snacks you have in the car that you need to eat while driving to and from your destination? I realized something this past week while vacationing with my family. I've been in "Vacation Eating Mode" the past eight months. I have allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted. I've eaten so much sugar, carbs, gluten, etc., that my weight has blossomed upwards once again. 

The first thing I have had to do is to identify what caused this to happen. No, these are not excuses, but the reality of why I eat like this.

1. -I'm a busy, hardworking, single Mom. 
2. -I'm too tired at the end of the day to cook healthy meals.
3. -Work has been VERY stressful!
4. -My personal life has been VERY stressful!
5. -I'm still grieving over the loss of my dad two years ago. He was one of my biggest supporters and sounding boards.
6. -It's just easier to be fat and eat this way. (I believe that this would qualify as an excuse!)

 It is time to flip the switch in my brain and get out of the Vacation Eating Mode. I know that mentally I have to change the way I think. I've dieted enough to know what foods are good for my body and which ones aren't. I know that exercise is an essential part of developing a healthy lifestyle. I know that I need more sleep,and that I need to drink more water. **sigh** I know all of this. 

Here is the reality...
-I'm a single mom and my kids need me around to raise them.
-I hurt everywhere. The aches and pains will lessen as the weight comes off.
-I'm putting myself at risk for heart attack and stroke keeping this weight on my body.
-It's not fair to my kids having a mom that doesn't feel like doing anything, except sit on the couch at night eating more and more food.
-My children need someone who is a good example of living a healthy lifestyle. I don't want my kids in the same unhealthy boat 20-30 years from now.
-I'm not happy! 

I'm excited to join Tristi, and others here, in taking this weight off again. I vow to leave my Vacation Eating Mode behind. I'm ready to embrace a healthy eating lifestyle. I'm ready to start loving myself enough to truly make this change and stick with it. 

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Hey, folks!

This week, I've been doing a lot of thinking and realizing. I'd like to share those thoughts and realizations with you.

As I mentioned last week, I have realized that I have the bad habit of forgetting to eat until the afternoon and then having to hit a fast-food drive-through before I pass out. I've made myself two rules which I've kept all week long, and they are:

1. I can't get online until I've had something to eat.
2. I can't leave the house until I've had something to eat.

By following these two rules, my blood sugar has stayed a lot more stable this week. Granted, the things I've eaten haven't always been the best choice - I'm still not getting enough protein - but compared to where I was a week ago, I'm feeling pretty good about things.

I was also sugar-free from Monday to Friday. Then I realized I was weirding out because I was cleansing it out too fast, so I had some. I will continue to reduce, but not as cold turkey. I had to go cold turkey off caffeine when I went off it two years ago because weaning off slowly wasn't working for me. Sugar, on the other hand, for me, needs to be weaned.

Okay, so those were the three rules I set for myself this week, and I think I did pretty well.

A realization, though, is that I justify myself. A lot.

If I'm out running errands and the blood sugar drops, I'll grab a sandwich. And it's not necessarily the healthiest one on the menu, because I'm justifying that I need to eat something fast. I could grab a salad and leave off half the dressing, but I don't do that because I'm justifying. I've got to get out of that mindset.

I have also allowed myself to become oblivious to the situation.

See, my bathroom scale broke a while back (read: my seven-year-old decided it was the funnest thing ever) and so I haven't had a way to check my weight here at home. I was only weighing at my doctor's office, and he left it to me to weigh and report. So I would sort of forget to weigh, because I didn't want to know. Without that wake-up call every so often, the weight started to come back on. I started this journey at 300, got down to 212, lost my bloomin' mind, and now I'm at 245.  I didn't know I was at 245 until this last week when I bought a scale.

Which makes my next realization the fact that I need a scale in my home. I need to be able to see, fairly regularly, what my choices are doing to me. If I have a good week, I need to see that my weight responded favorably. If I have a bad week, I need to see that on the scale as well. We are so busy in our current society, running here and there, spending long hours at a desk, that we can easily let things like our weight fly under the radar.I need the radar on it turned on so I'm not oblivious anymore.

I'm rambling now - sorry. :)

All right - goals for this next week. They are refinements on last week's goals.

1. Eat something with protein before I get on the computer in the morning.
2. Eat a vegetable and a protein before I leave the house.
3. Continue to reduce sugar.

In addition, I'm setting some weight-loss goals. I was at 212 and am now at 245, meaning that I've regained 33 pounds. This is July 7th - I'm going to set the goal to lose 33 pounds by November 1st. I'm going to do it the same way I lost the original 88 - by eating protein and vegetables, nuts and seeds, no sugar, very little grain, and drinking a lot of water. I know this works for me - I just need to get the emotional side plugged back in.

So, there you have it. Goal: 212 on November 1st. Let's go get 'em!

Breaking It Down

So, I mentioned that I had family in town and as soon as they left, I was going to get real with this thing. They've been gone for about four hours - I think I'm running a little behind.  :)

Let me give just a super-fast recap of my journey, for those of you who might be new readers. I used to weigh 300 pounds. Then I finally found a doctor who was able to help me figure out what I needed to do for me - I needed to go off grains and increase my vegetable intake substantially. Oh, and going off sugar and caffeine didn't hurt either. I lost 88 pounds in less than a year. Then a whole bunch of stuff happened (read: drama) and I fell off my wagon. I'm working on not being too harsh with myself on that, but I do feel bad that I didn't handle my stress better. I've since gained back about thirty.

I want to break this down and look at the reasons why I gained back this weight. It's my hope that by doing this, I'll see it more clearly, and perhaps I can trigger something in you that will be helpful on your journey as well.

I think the #1 reason I fell off the wagon is that I simply became way too busy and I wasn't preparing meals. Then I'd dash out the door to run an errand, realize I hadn't eaten in hours and hours, and know that if I didn't do it right that minute, I was going to pass out. So I'd grab a sandwich at a drive-through.

Problem: Not preparing    Solution: Concentrating on preparing, making cooking a higher priority  Rule: I may not leave the house until I have eaten.

The #2 reason is pretty closely tied to the first. I run a freelance editing company and I have a very healthy number of clients. My business is entirely run online and on my laptop, and turning on my laptop is the second thing I do every day. (The first is to go potty.) I will often get on my laptop and stay there for a couple of hours as I answer my e-mails and lay the foundation for my workday. Then I get in the shower, etc. Food simply isn't on my radar at this point, and it usually takes feeling dizzy or sick for me to realize that I haven't eaten.

Problem: Forgetting to eat.  Solution: Establishing regular eating routines.  Rule: I may not turn on the computer until I've eaten some breakfast. 

Just as a quick note, when I was living my diet, I was eating really regularly, and losing sometimes six pounds a week. Eating regularly is a very good thing.

The #3 reason is that I'm an emotional eater. Whenever I start to get stressed, I automatically start thinking about food. The last three years of my life have been so full of stress, I can't even begin to explain it. We're talking, ugly. I was chugging along, doing all right, and lost the 88 pounds, but then it's like my coping mechanisms got broken and I didn't have a backup plan. So I turned to food again.

Problem: Using food as a crutch. Solution: Find things that really do help, like taking proactive measures and giving myself time off and delegating. Rule: As of right now, I'm back off sugar. 

There are other issues at play here, like working out loss of self-esteem and so forth, but these are the major reasons I've gained back some weight, and so I'll start by addressing these. I think this is a great starting point for me.

I'll update you on how I do, and I will also share what I'm eating, etc. I'm going total accountability here starting tomorrow morning, so be prepared because I'm probably going to do some whining and stuff.

In the meantime, we're going to be joined by some new bloggers soon, and it will be fun to get to know them.

Well, Now ...

Have you ever looked at someone and been super-frustrated because you know they have all the tools they need for success and yet they won't pick them up and use them? Today I am frustrated with myself in a major way.

In my last post, I said that I've gained back eighteen pounds. We're going to have to increase that number to about thirty.

Something extremely emotional happened in my life the first week of April. To all outward appearances, I was handling it really well, but I did go off the deep end as far as my eating went. That's how I coped with the stress. I grabbed fast food on the go, snacked on chocolate to keep myself going, and decided that until the stress ended, I was giving myself a free pass. The stress ended, and somehow I forgot to rescind the free pass.

I saw a picture of myself taken this last week, and I look awful. I've got rolls where I didn't have rolls a year ago. When I finally lost 88 pounds, I told myself I was never going to weigh that much again, and yet, I'm creeping back up the scale. That makes me very disappointed in myself.

So, listen. I'm going to start getting super personal because I need to work some stuff out, and I think it might be helpful to you if I share what I'm thinking and feeling. I've got family in town and more coming tomorrow, but as soon as they've all left, I'm going to get real about this thing, really real this time, and we're going to reverse this before I put all 88 pounds back on. This just can't continue.

Getting Back to Real

I haven't posted here for a long time. A very long time. And so you'll most likely be shocked to see me here now.  :) But it's not fair of me to ask you to join me on my weight-loss journey and then not include every chapter. So, I have a story to tell you.

Last March, so yes, a year ago, I broke my foot and was in a cast for a month. It was super hard for me to get around, so people were having to wait on me hand and ... foot ... get it?  :)  Anyway, my kids just weren't feeding me very well, even though they tried. And my husband was dousing all my food in lemon pepper, which is good every so often, but not on every single meal and snack. I expressed my frustration, and my husband went out and got me some frozen burritos. I could use my walker to hop into the kitchen, warm them up, put them in a Ziplock bag which I would hold between my teeth, and then I would hop back into my bedroom to eat them. That's how I got through that portion of my life.

I was still doing well and still losing weight and so I decided that cheating must not be as bad as everyone says it is. Before long, I was cheating quite a lot.

Now, keep in mind, I'm an emotional eater. Food and I are very emotionally connected. That's a key component here.

Then I came face-to-face with some really super hard problems in my life. Things that I didn't expect, hadn't planned for, didn't know how to cope with, and because I didn't have tools to deal with them, I started eating sugar again too.

I'm still off caffeine - I didn't go totally off the deep end.  :)

In the course of all this, I gained back about eighteen pounds in the last year.

Now, I'm still showing a loss of 70, and I look amazing considering where I was two years ago. But I know that I'm eighteen pounds heavier than I was one year ago, and that makes me feel like a failure, like I know better and I was doing better and now I've let myself down.

What this has done is really emphasized to me how important it is to get the emotional side of ourselves in gear whenever we try to take care of our bodies. They are interlinked. You can do all the right things, like I did for so long, and you can enjoy the benefits, but when something happens that overwhelms you, you can go right back to your previous habits.

I'll clarify and state that I didn't totally revert to everything I was doing before, but I certainly was doing enough harmful things to myself that I wasn't honoring everything I'd accomplished.

But now it's time to face some music and get back on track.

I've had some really good talks with the Lord over this last week and asked for His help in getting through this. Trying to work through my trials without food as my comfort ... that scares me. I'll be completely honest about that. We're talking, terrified. We're not just talking little trials - we're talking, drive-me-into-the-dirt trials. But I'm going to try it. I'm going to give myself the chance to see how strong I can be, and give God the chance to do what He said He'd do in my life.

So! Today, March 2nd, I'm back off sugar. I'm going to give myself about two weeks to acclimate and then get back off grain. Deep breath ... deep breath ... I've done this before, and I know I can do it again.

And I will keep you updated better. :)

Sensa?

Has anyone heard of Sensa? It's a new weightloss supplement I picked up at Costco.

I've decided to try it, and I've been using it for a couple of days. I'll report back when I have a better idea of whether it is helping me or not.

I've also started working out again - Hooray! - and I'm trying to eat healthier in addition to using Sensa.

How is everyone else doing? Does anyone read this blog anymore??? :)

Malnutrition in America

It has been said that Americans are overfed and undernourished. I'm the poster child for the truth of this statement. Like all sweeping generalities, there are exceptions, but right now, every single state in the nation has an obesity rate of more than 30% of its adult population, so the things I'm about to say will probably ring true with at least some of my readers today.

We are blessed with food in abundance that few other nations of the world can rival. Our grocery stores are filled to the brim all the time, and if they're out of something, a new shipment will come in at midnight. However, much of that food is boxed, canned, and processed, all of which reduces its nutrient value. We get plenty to eat - and some of us get more than enough to eat - and yet our bodies are not receiving the kinds of nutrition they should. Pesticides on our produce break down the nutrition. Antibiotics in our meats break down our nutrition. When we take a look at what we're eating and we break it down to a cellular level, many people are not getting the nourishment their cells need to function properly.

I said I was the poster child for this - let me explain what I mean.

I was raised eating whole grain bread, cracked wheat hot cereal, apples, carrots - all good, healthy stuff, right? But we didn't eat meat very often, or other sources of protein. When I got older and was out on my own for meals more often, I did start to eat meat, but only once in a while - I still enjoyed bread products, and I have always enjoyed sugar, so that consumption went up as well. I married and got pregnant for the first time, and was told by my midwife that I was so severely anemic that she couldn't agree to deliver my baby unless I got my iron levels up because I'd bleed to death. She got me eating protein and iron every single day, and I was able to get my levels where they should be in time, but I'd had no idea how depleted I was until she told me.

Fast forward about eight years. The bones in my feet started popping out of alignment, and my chiropractor was kept very busy putting them back in. I spent a month completely off my feet one summer because the swelling in the foot simply would not go down, and it was impossible to put any weight on it without excruciating pain. Come forward in time to last fall. I experienced the same symptoms, and this time went to a new doctor, who found a hairline fracture in the foot. I have no doubt the foot was fractured the previous time, too - it felt exactly the same. I spent about six weeks totally off my feet, trundling around in a wheelchair - which was kind of fun in some ways, and kind of not in others - and eventually healed up.

Fast forward again to March 8th of this year. I stood up from my desk chair and went to change the laundry. I had taken maybe three steps before I felt something snap in my foot. Yes, the same foot I broke last fall. Yes, the same foot I most likely broke a few years ago. I called my doctor, who told me that I not only broke the foot, but I had damaged the tissues as well. He put a cast on the foot and told me I could be in it for up to eight weeks.

Two nights later, I was lying flat on my back in bed with my foot in the air, and I lifted the leg a little to adjust it on its pillows, and felt something snap in my ankle. I had just broken a tendon, lying in bed, barely moving.

How? How does a person break a bone walking out of their bedroom? How does a person break a tendon lying in bed? The kind of tissue damage I have right now usually accompanies a running injury or a severely twisted ankle - at the very least, an injury that comes from saving a child from a speeding train and thereby becoming a hero and making the pain worth it. How had I injured myself so severely when basically all I did was stand up?

Malnutrition.

With my lifetime diet of grains and no protein, fruits and vegetables but no calcium, I had depleted all my bones, ligaments, tendons, and tissues. Eating large amounts of grain spikes your insulin, which attacks your bones. By not balancing my diet with enough protein, I hadn't given my body the ingredients it needed to create muscles and tendons. If you were to look at me a year ago, weighing three hundred pounds, you would not have said that I was malnourished. You'd laugh and probably snort a little. "Oh, sure, she's malnourished, all right." Kind of like Ursula in The Little Mermaid, I was wasting away to practically nothing, but I was obese. I was eating the foods that made me fat, and I was not eating the foods that could build me up. And the saddest part? I didn't know it.

Me at 300 lbs.

I've had several good long talks with my doctor, and he has explained all this to me and helped figure out the status of my body and my nutrition. He has put me on some really good supplements to build up my bones and ligaments, and I've changed my diet drastically. I'm not perfect, but I'm a great deal closer to it than I was a year ago.

So, what happens from here on out? I'm out of the cast and I'm now in an ankle brace. I can put some weight on the foot, but I'm not walking by any means. And I just might break the foot again if I'm not careful. I can rebuild my body and I'm in the process of doing it right now. But it will take time. It will be about a year before my bones are strong, like they should have been my whole life. We're also working on getting my muscle core strengthened through diet and exercise. I'm basically starting from scratch, and someday I will be strong. For right now, I still have to be careful. I've broken the foot twice (and I believe three times, although I don't have documentation for the first time) and with it taking a year to rebuild my bones, I could break it again in a month or two months or nine weeks. This is one of the consequences I'm experiencing as a result of an entire lifetime of malnutrition.

I'm sharing this story for two reasons - first, because people keep asking me how I broke my foot. Well, I broke it standing up. The second reason is that I'm hoping to inspire you to take a look at your own nutrition and make sure that you are getting the proper amounts of everything you need. I didn't realize how bad off I was, and I wish someone had told me. My mom thought she had raised me to be as healthy as possible, and she's now having guilt because she didn't know. The fact is, a great many of us are in the same boat. We think we're doing everything we can, and yet, we may be missing something important, and we may end up finding it out in a very painful way.

So please, take good care of your nutrition. Make it a priority. If you take supplements, do some research and make sure they're good for your body and aren't just pretty pink pills. Eat enough protein. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Listen to the signals your body gives you. I've had my wake-up call - please let this be one for you so you can start to prevent things from happening to you instead of having to go through them for yourself.I'm not saying that you'll start breaking bones and tendons - your body and mine are very different, and you'd likely not experience the same things - but there are so many illnesses and conditions that come about because of lack of nutrition, and I don't want to see any of my friends suffer in that way. Eat right, take care of yourselves, and let's stay healthy together.

What Does Tristi Eat?

I've been asked lots of questions in my life, everything from how to homeschool to how to write a book to how to keep balance in everything. But no question has been asked me so regularly as, "What do you eat?"

It's true that my new diet is perplexing. We've all been raised to eat according to the food pyramid, and the thought of doing anything contrary to it is kind of out there. It's also true that my new diet is working. I haven't been able to weigh for almost a month because I broke my foot, and getting on a scale with a cast on would probably make me fall off the scale and need a cast on the other foot, but the last weight I have to report is a loss of 84 pounds, and that's really significant. Not only am I losing weight, but my overall health is a lot better as well. (I mean, except for the whole car accident thing, and then the whole breaking the foot thing. But those are totally unrelated.)

So, what do I eat?

Simply put, I eat meat, eggs, vegetables (except potatoes and corn), nuts and seeds (except peanuts), and some raw dairy. Now that my pancreas is doing so much better, I do have an occasional piece of fruit, although when I first started, my pancreas was so inflamed that I didn't eat any fruit at all.

It really is very simple.

Every meal or snack has some protein in it, whether it's an egg, a piece of chicken, a handful of almonds. I also have a good dose of vegetables on the side. I drink lots of water. I don't count calories. I don't measure portions. If I'm hungry, I eat. I don't worry about fat grams because I'm eating the healthy fats. And the weight's just falling off me. Almost in chunks on the floor. I've done this without exercise, because I haven't been able to exercise for a long time (see above mention of car accident, and above mention of broken foot). This has all been through diet and nutrition, and I'm not losing muscle mass because I'm keeping my protein up.

So now let me break it down a little more to give a broader idea.

Breakfast - when it comes to breakfast, we've all got it in our heads that we're supposed to eat different foods in the morning than we do at any other time of the day. I don't know why we think that, but we all talk about "breakfast foods." I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast as I would at any other time of the day.

Any Other Time of the Day - here are some of my most common meals/snacks:

A baked yam with a little sea salt and butter (no butter substitutes)

A chicken breast baked with herbs and seasonings

Nice big green salads with any variety of vegetables in there, with sugar-free dressing (no sugar substitutes, either) and without croutons - I like having some egg and some chicken in my salads

Turkey, beef roast, lean hamburger, steak

A taco wrap with all the taco makings rolled up inside a lettuce leaf

A hamburger wrap with all the hamburger makings rolled up in a lettuce leaf

Vegetable soup from scratch - take a wide variety of carrots, celery, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, etc, and dice, then simmer just until tender/crisp - don't cook until the color's gone! Throw some canned tomatoes in there, and season with lemon pepper, oregano, sea salt, and throw in whatever meat you've got - can make more of an Italian soup or Mexican soup or what-have-you with what you add in there.

Meatloaf without the crumbs. Delicious!

A handful of olives and a few slices of pickle.

Sunflower seeds.

Walnuts.

Almost any kind of fish, baked and seasoned in any way you can think of, or pan seared.

Chicken sausage (from Sunflower Market or Whole Foods) sliced and cooked up with green peppers and onions.

It takes a little getting used to at first, I'll admit it - but now, it's not hard at all. People keep asking me if I'll be on this diet forever, and the answer is, yes, but with modifications. As time goes by, I'll add a few more things to the list of foods I can have, and down the road, I will be able to cheat a little from time to time. The thing to keep in mind is that I'm not doing this to lose weight, although it's the most noticeable benefit, and believe me, I'm tickled to death about it. I'm doing this to heal my body, and so I want to keep things in balance and not throw my body out of whack. When someone is losing weight and they eat a piece of cake or drink a Coke, they can get back on track right away and that indulgence might not ever show up on the scale. But I'm pulling sugars out of my body so my pancreas can heal, and I'm pulling caffeine out of my body so my adrenals can heal, so my ability to cheat is different from someone who is losing weight, if that makes sense. Cheating is not the end of the world for someone on a diet, but I'm still balancing on the edge of health and illness, so the ramifications for me are different.

So! That is the story of what I'm eating. Yes, it's different. Yes, it has been hard. But you're talkin' to a girl who liked to eat Zingers for breakfast, who weighed 300 pounds a year ago, and who was a whole lot more sick than she thought she was. If I can get my health under control, believe me, it can be done. Your path might be totally different from mine, as everyone has different challenges, but this is what's working for me.

And if you'd like to meet the man who has been helping me and my family change our lives, you can learn all about him here: http://www.injuryandwellnesscenter.com

Health Update from Tristi

Back when I first started this diet and announced that I was going to be eating meats, eggs, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, and that I was giving up sugar, fruit, and grains, a lot of my friends were concerned about my overall health. They worried that eating eggs and meats would throw my cholesterol out of whack. There were issues about the lack of grains - we've been taught for years that grains are healthy, and in my religion, we follow the counsel of the Word of Wisdom, which tells us to eat grains. I thought I would take a few minutes to give you all an update on how I'm doing. You can rest easy - I'm doing so, so well.

Let me give you a little bit of back story. About two years ago or so, my husband's work had us do some fitness evaluations for our health insurance. At that time, my triglycerides (fats in the blood) were 400. My cholesterol was so high, they couldn't even accurately measure it. My blood sugar was fine. They counseled me to go on medication for the cholesterol, which I did not want to do. I believe in changing health by changing lifestyle, so I paid better attention to what I was eating, and seriously cut down the fast food. I got my triglycerides down to 177, less than half of what they had been, and my blood sugar was still fine. My cholesterol was still too high to measure, though.

This last June, I started seeing Dr. Blamires at the Injury and Wellness Center. You'll remember my telling you in this blog post how enlarged my pancreas was - my blood sugar was testing just fine, but the organ itself was screaming for help. I began my journey, all 300 pounds of me, eating the diet I described above. Today, seven and a half months later, I'd like to share with you just how I'm doing.

1. I have lost 78.5 pounds without sacrificing muscle.

2. I have gone from a size 26/28 to a size 16/18.

3. I had some blood work yesterday, and guess what - my cholesterol that was so high they could not even measure it? My total cholesterol is 183, which is well within normal range, and my LDLs, which are the bad cholesterol, are mere points away from normal. That's how far it's come down. That is amazing.

4. My triglycerides have continued to drop and are now at 130, which is 20 points below the average range.

How am I doing? Fantastic. How is my overall health? Fantastic. Is consuming meat and eggs hurting me? Absolutely not. I'm pulling the numbers I'm supposed to be pulling. I could not have done this without radically changing my diet.

To address the concern about grains and the Word of Wisdom - the Word of Wisdom counsels us to eat healthy, natural foods, and tells us that it can be adapted to the weakest among us. I don't assimilate grains. Grains were packing the pounds on me, and causing other health problems that are too varied for me to even list here. Those health problems are now either gone or are almost gone. If I were to go back on grains, I would see a decline in my health. God doesn't want us to eat things that are unhealthy for us, and for me, grains are unhealthy. So no, I do not feel like I am breaking the Word of Wisdom by giving up grains. I feel that God led me to this diet, and I feel that I'm keeping the Word of Wisdom in that I have adapted it to fit my own body's needs. We wouldn't expect someone with celiac disease to eat wheat, would we? Of course not. Well, I may not have celiac disease, but I, too, need to stay away from the grains, and I feel very spiritually comfortable with that decision.

I wanted to share something else that's fun. Take a look at this picture. It was taken January 24th, 2011:

This is me at my heaviest weight ever, 300 pounds, as the Cubmaster congratulating my son for his performance in the Pinewood Derby. I met Dr. Blamires and began the diet about five months later.

Now take a look at this picture. It was taken last week, January 25th, 2012, at the Pinewood Derby.

Again, I'm the Cubmaster congratulating my son ... but look at the difference in me. Compare my face in the first picture to my face in the second picture. It's amazing. I honestly can't believe it. I have held these pictures side by side and stared at them over and over, just blown away. You know what, I look really good.

Best of all, I'm happy. I'm finally seeing results, I'm finally starting to feel like the person on the outside matches the person on the inside, and I'm not fettered by my weight any more.

I do appreciate the concern for my welfare, because I know that what I'm doing doesn't align with traditional methods of weight loss. I watch The Biggest Loser and I see them eating their whole-grain breads and wraps, and that's not what I'm doing. But I'm doing better than ever before. I am healthier at this moment than I've ever been in my entire life. Unusual choice though it may be, it's what's working for me. I mean, come on ... look at those pictures. :)

75 Pounds of Potatoes

I haven't updated my progress on this blog for a while - I'm sorry about that. Life has just been too crazy for words lately. But here I am now. :)

First off, let me show you my most recent picture. This is me at 74 pounds lost.



I have to tell ya - it feels really good.

I'm still living the diet I mentioned before, with the meats, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and raw dairy. I've moved on to phase two of the diet, however, which includes a few of the lower-glycemic fruits. What's interesting is that fruit now tastes really sweet to me.

And now I have a funny story.

I was at the grocery store the other day, walking through the produce section, and was seized upon by a wild impulse. My mom was with me, and she always has her camera in her purse. We stopped by the potatoes and made a potato tower.



This is: 3 20 lb. bags, 1 10 lb. bag, and 1 5 lb. bag to add up to 75 pounds of potatoes. The last time I weighed in, I'd lost 74 pounds, so technically, I should have made a 74 lb. pile, but potatoes come in multiples of five.

And then of course I had my picture taken with that tower. (Ignore the fact that I'm not wearing makeup in this picture.)

Looking at all those potatoes on the floor, I just could not believe that I used to carry that much weight around on my body. I couldn't even lift those potatoes - I had to have my son do it for me. How did I function with all that weight? Of course I struggled, and I remember that plainly, but how was I not struggling more? How did I even get out of bed? I am so happy and grateful that I've finally been able to make this change. Seeing that stack of potatoes was a real eye-opener for me.

So, we take the picture, see, and just then, a man comes around the corner and needs to get down the aisle. I said, "Oh, don't mind us. I like having my picture taken with potatoes every so often - it's just something I do."

He didn't even bat an eye. "Not a problem." And he moved on down the aisle.

Sheesh ... I was expecting a chuckle, or even a cautious "Why?"

A Very Exciting Announcement!

Ever since I started my weight loss journey back in June, people have been asking me how I'm doing it. I've blogged about it and I've even posted my meals on Facebook, but in the back of my head was the thought - wouldn't it be great if people could just pick up a book and read about it, and then have the information on hand whenever they wanted it?

I broached the idea of co-authoring a book to my doctor, and turns out, he's been wanting to publish one for a long time, but just needed a little direction. So I'm bringing the direction, he's bringing the knowledge, and voila! Come March, we are releasing To Your Health: Recipes from the Injury & Wellness Center.

This book will explain why the typical American diet is so unhealthy - leading us to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and much more - and why we need to make changes in our eating habits. Then it will explain the optimum way to eat for the best possible health. I will share the story of my lifetime of bad health, culminating in my having metabolic syndrome (precursor of heart disease and diabetes) and weighing 300 pounds, and how I changed my life and am getting my health back. Then you will find pages and pages of healthy, delicious recipes that you can make and you will want to eat.  This book is volume one of two*, and each volume will be bursting with fantastic information, my before and after pictures, and tips for how you can do it too - not just losing weight, but getting healthy and changing your life.

We are releasing the book toward the end of March (exact date to be determined) and we are offering a special - if you place your order before March 1st and pay for it at the time the order is placed, you will get 15% off and free shipping, which brings your cost to $16.96 (full price of book is $19.95) If you would like to take advantage of this offer, just pop me an e-mail and put "book order" in the subject line.

*The publication date for volume two has not yet been determined, but be thinking, summer of 2012.