Beyond Willpower

So, I have kept up with my challenge! I've taken breakfast and lunch to work every day this past week. I've structured my life so I wouldn't get too hangry and eat out if I'm stuck out. I'm going to start bringing granola bars with me, in case of emergency.  I haven't eaten out in a week and I have been watching my portions and not snacking mindlessly (for the most part!) and I have lost three lbs this week! Joey mentioned reading about a study of people who only ate within a 12 hour window every day and they lost 5% of their body weight after so much time, without making any other changes to their diet other than that 12 hour window. So, I am putting a 12 hour window rule on myself, yet another small change that will hopefully, along with the rest, pay off in a big way. I plan to start exercising in the spring. Hopefully by then I'll be a bit smaller and it will be a bit easier, along with warmer, so I can go on walks. :) Starting slowly.

Today, I bought a Happy Planner . Hopefully it will inspire or motivate me to read more, to keep on track with my diet and eventual exercise, and I'm a big nerd and it has stickers and I'm totally a gold star kinda girl. It's also lovely. :) Goals for 2018 (not only weight/diet related):  first 100 days of the year is a challenge to NOT eat out at restaurants Lose 30 lbs before my trip to Denver in April. Start a regular exercise routine Start walking home from the bus stop (in the spring!) Travel more Read one book a month. (I miss reading!) Continue doing slam poetry, no matter how nerve wracking it is Write more Stay stable enough and on top of things enough for my doc to write me 3 month scrips I'm sure I'll think of more later, but that's where I'm at for now!

So I have spent roughly the last year and a half or more trying to lose weight by eating intuitively. I'm not really great at it. I have lost 30 lbs in a year and a half, it's moving at such a snails pace that I have finally decided that the only thing that works for me is tracking, and even though in my head I know I won't possibly do it forever, I have to go back to it. So, Joey and I are tracking again, so far so good. It's only been a few days, but it at least hasn't been a struggle. I figure we will stay where we are calorie wise and after about a month and hopefully some loss (not being too focused on the scale though, it's been my downfall in the past) we can reduce our calories a little bit at a time. I know this is the right thing to do, but I feel kind of down that I did so poorly with intuitive eating. Then again I probably wouldn't be fat if I were good at that sort of thing. :P Here's to being "On Plan." :D Also, my job has f...

So joey had a dr appt yesterday, he has gained a good bit of weight since his appt last year, and he had blood work done and his doc called today to let him know his cholesterol is high and he needs a 'strict diet'. (no talk of statins yet, but they are the devil so we're trying to avoid that for both of us, my cholesterol is high as well.) His dad has had a heart attack so I hate it, but I'm worrying. Heart healthy changes we plan to make: 1.) Lean meats only 2.) Oatmeal for breakfast 3.) Start taking pharmaceutical grade fish oil 4.) Start taking cinnamon supplements (lowers blood sugar AND cholesterol) 5.) Drinking a glass of wine a day (Good for raising good cholesterol) 6.) Switching our unsweetened black brewed iced tea to unsweetened green brewed iced tea. 7.) Increasing fiber (half of every meal should be fruits/veggies) 8.) Juicing carrot/apple/orange  juice once a day. (high fiber/lowering cholesterol recipe) 9.) Exercise to lower bad and raise goo...

Blood work. My cholesterol is high, my triglycerides are ridiculous, my sugar (A1C) is 6.1, all as of last October. I have an appointment for my yearly physical on January 26th. I've been doing all I can to improve these numbers. I'm eating between 7-13 servings of fruits and veggies daily. More on days I'm off and can stay home and munch, and less on days I work. I've decided to start prepacking baggiges of fruits, veggies, and nuts, to snack on while I'm at work so that I can get as many servings in a day as I can. I wasn't going to weigh myself for 3 months, but then realized I need to weigh myself NOW so that if what I'm doing isn't working I can adjust it somehow. I've lost 5 lbs so far on this particular Way Of Eating, and I've lost a total of 25 since my high weight. Woot! Nothin' to sneeze at! I feel like my body is so sick, and I am doing what I can to make it well again. That means eating ALL the fruits and veggies, whole grai...

DDP Yoga, "Not your momas yoga" Joey and I were laying in bed the other day talking about exercise and yoga and such. He had suggested I give DDP yoga a try. I was feeling pretty down on myself because of my physical limitations. "My stomach is too big for yoga." I said "When I lose 50 lbs I'll try again" I said. I know that yoga helps my fibromyalgia. I used to do it a lot and I had actually gotten pretty good at it. Now though, I'm way bigger than I was the last time I was trying this stuff and it all just seemed terribly hopeless.  So when Joey was at work the other day, right before he came home, I went out and fired up the DDP Yoga video that we have. If you aren't familiar with DDP , or you need to be inspired, here ya go, you're welcome: Anyhow, I decided to give it a try. There was more 'on the floor' stuff and pretzeley stuff than I could handle.  So it was a little less this:  ...

Before I say anything else let me just say... I used to use blogger because I hated wordpress. Now bloggers interface is a bit more like wordpress. HATE! ehem... Anyhow...I'm doing good. I'm still on plan, exercising, I've started taking lyrica and working more hours. Things are going well. The pain is bad sometimes, tear inducing honestly, but...I hope the lyrica kicks in full force in the next few weeks as I increase the dose and I can start feeling better. I am doing my pt. I'm eating well. I've been taking a banana and nuts with me to work for lunch and staying AWAY from the pizza place. I think I Should start juicing in the morning and taking it to work with me to drink throughout the day. Oh btw, I had made a post a few weeks back about wanting to go to cedar point. I am an idiot. I can't go to cedar point because amusement park rides DESTROY MY BODY. When I went to kennywood last year I could only stay a couple of hours and it was so painful...

I've been struggling with coming here and writing this blog. I have been steadily gaining weight since last August. I had originally lost 80 lbs and I gained 50 of that back. I was miserable. I've finally gotten on track for realz and have lost my first 10 lbs. I will be adjusting my ticker to reflect what's really going on. I'm not entirely sure what happened. I mean...I ate too much. Yup. But why? What derailed me and what kept me off track? What got me back on track? How do I figure out how to make these backsliding episodes shorter and further in between? I am now at 40 lbs lost. Augh. I just keep telling myself I did it before I can do it again, and then some. I think what originally derailed me was work. I had started working almost full time hours last august-october, it eventually proved too much for me fibromyalgia wise, but during that time I was under a lot of stress and spent a lot of time at work, I didn't bring my own food and the only things...

So another on plan day, hurrah. :) Tonight I'm making avocado pesto pasta from a recipe I got from the website: www.chefchloe.com Doesn't it look amazing!: Be sure to check out her website if you haven't already! So I know that my sudden interest in baking is probably not the best thing for my diet. BUT, last night I made peanut butter blondies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar . They are one of my absolute favorite recipes from that book. Anyhow, I somehow managed to eat some and stay within' my calorie range yesterday and I left some for Joey and took the rest to give away at work. There is ONE left. It's for tomorrow. Half of it, the other half is for joey. :) Anyhow, so I'm feeling so into baking ever since I found a flour to gluten free flour conversion chart ! I used it last night for the blondies and it WORKED> Came out far better than the previous method I was using: Guessing! :( So, last night I ordered Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The Wo...

Okay, so, I'm tracking and exercising. Feeling good. I have another study appt in a month, they weigh me. I'm going to try not to weight myself more than once (at the two week mark) and then once at the month mark. I feel like obsessing on the scale is not a good idea for my mental state at the moment. Not that the scale obsession is EVER good. I just want to do the right things regardless. I've come up with a few new recipes since I've been gone. There's a spicy mac n cheese and a pot pie and I will hopefully get my chili recipe up at some point. I wanted to do it in the fall but that didn't work out. I've had a difficult winter. I got mad at my physical therapist, she was not respecting my boundaries on a certain issue, so I quit seeing her and stopped doing my PT altogether.I'm going to start that back up today. I've been struggling with my moods. It's seemed like I've been tweaking my meds every other month. I hate the effect the seas...

The first three days... So, my observations of the last three days. They have felt damn near effortless. I don't understand why sometimes it is SO easyt and other times it's nearly impossible to keep the unhealthy food out of my mouth!  I am doing a new fitness challenge as well. 500 miles in one year, and 10k fitness mins in one year. Let's do this... Don't we all start out a new project, diet, new year, with this vigor? This...I can do it, I can take on the world mentality? Over the course of the first few months though, those fireworks start to fizzle, and eventually go out. We all stumble and fall, sometimes we blow a tire, sometimes, against all better judgement, we get so fed up with ourselves that we get out and slash the other three. That's what happened to me at the end of last year. I haven't done myself in though. It's time to get up, and start walking to my destination, car and slashed tires be damned.  I know it's not always going to b...

The holidays hit me hard, and I feel like such a failure, so here I am, tail between my legs, promising a new start. again.  but if there is one thing that is true about me, it's that I have a hard time giving up. Since thanksgiving I have gained... 12 lbs.  Last year I made it through the holidays and even lost some weight. I know that today, is just another day, and that the only extra meaning it may have is meaning that we ascribe to it. But, today is new years day and I got a new healthy lifestyle calendar for Christmas and it feels  like if ever there was a time for renewed energy to focus on weight loss now is the time. Unless I want to start spending money on new clothes, I'd best get on it. I threw out all my old 'fatter clothes' and I'm pretty broke so a new wardrobe is not in order. It's time to get my butt in gear. Joey has gained weight too, we have a tendency to gain/lose together, as I'm sure is no surprise. No more eating out for awhil...

I've made a weight loss support group on facebook, it's secret, so only people invited can see what we're saying. If any of you are interested, just leave me a comment with your facebook name or addy below. Everyone is having such a hard time I thought this might help!

What are we really saying? So I was reading a thread on a message board/support group for weight loss that I belong to online. Someone was bemoaning a little weight gain and damning their diet of choice, and overall I knew how she felt. I feel that way sometimes too. Sometimes I feel like I can't stick to anything, or, I was on plan and exercised but I'm secretly beating myself up for not drinking enough water. It's always something, and 'good' is never good enough. One of the women told her that as long as we're trying, we're moving forward, that no one/no plan, etc, is perfect and that we waste an awful lot of time and energy trying to be perfect only to end up feeling awful in the end. Or something like that. Taking your own advice Anyhow, it got me thinking...we all say "It's progress, not perfection." On that board. I've read it more times than I can count. I think we aren't paying attention to what that means. Progress is l...

Today is one of those days where I'm thankful to have an all or nothing mentality. It's one of those "all" days. On days where I'm more ' nothing', like I have been for the last few months, I'm not quite so thankful for such a mentality. How many of you have this mentality? You throw yourself into getting healthy 110% and then once you start to slip you don't watch at all? What causes this? Augh. I wish I could break this pattern. Although I must say my 'all' did last 10 months, and my 'nothing' only lasted 3 months or so. I'm spending more time in the 'all' than ever before and less time in the 'nothing' than I ever have. I've gone YEARS in the 'nothing' with only a few weeks in the 'all' zone. It's such an odd head space. But, here I am, just trying to make it work to my advantage. The other day Joey and I went grocery shopping. We are all stocked up on healthy food, and I have t...

There are some things in my life that were once priorities that have been put on the back burner. I feel like due to this medication it's pointless to try and lose since I can't seem to. But that is ridiculous because I need to be healthy whether I'm losing or not. So I need to get on track with the gf/vegan eats and exercise in a big way. (I've eaten dairy some lately and it's ADDICTIVE. No joke.)  So starting today, gf/vegan all the way. I need groceries, but I'll just eat tons of rice if I must just because I can really FEEL a difference in my body when I eat gluten. It aggravates the living hell out of my fibro, I've been feeling so inflamed lately that even just sitting here has been burning my legs and back. I need to exercise. I KNOW that it helps my fibro. Like my pain doc says, if you don't use it, you lose it with fibro. It's a vicious cycle. You lay down because you're in pain but in the long run laying around just causes more p...

Well yesterday I had a feast. We did thanksgiving early here because joey works and my friends were available for dinner so we just had it yesterday. I made a nut loaf (Unfortunately I haven't been gluten free for a few weeks because of financial issues making it hard to afford the gf stuff), homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, corn and pumpkin pie. Unfortunately my sister and her bf couldn't come, but I am thankful for my friends being there. I had fun. :) It. Was. Fab. Everyone loved it and we were all stuffed, sleepy and happy when it was over. Today is a new day though, my weight still hasn't budged, and I had to cancel my study appt, so I can't lower my dose until I see the doc again, but I've decided to try my hardest until I see them again. Even if I only lost 2 lbs at this point, I'd be thrilled. I am still struggling but it seems like every day is a little easier. My pain levels have been bad lately, I'm not doing my pt ver...

A lot of people comment here, or they tell me privately, that I am brave for writing this blog, or they tell me that they love how honest I am, that I go in to the good and the bad. I'm not here to sugar coat things. For awhile, I wasn't blogging very often. I wasn't doing well and I felt like every time I blogged I was saying the same thing, wow, I'm off track, trying again tomorrow. I felt like such a let down to all of you, but I know I'm not the only one going through this. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that we're not alone, there are some people who make things look so easy, and really, to me, it's just not something I can relate to. I have a friend who said he lost weight and there's no excuse for anyone because it's easy. This has been one of the more difficult things I have ever done.  I forget sometimes that this is forever, this is never going to be easy. EasiER at times, but never easy. Not for me and probably not for most ...

So I feel like my struggles are finally coming to an end (for now!) Today a friend took me grocery shopping, we went to whole foods and I got lots of 'essentials' and not much 'extra' or processed stuff (like sauces, etc) I have recently slipped up due to not really having much of the food I need to eat. I've eaten dairy and gluten and my body is telling me to stop. So, I'm listening. I did buy some daiya and some tofutti 'sour cream', for tacos, and to help me get off the dairy, I bought plenty of gluten free pasta and a giant bag of rice, along with lots of salad veggies and some spinach and potatoes. So, my friend who took me grocery shopping expressed some interest in watching Forks Over Knives, the plant based way of eating documentary. It really got me excited to be eating healthy again. My goal is to lose 5 lbs by November 11th. (I'm going to a party and want to look a smidge better in my dress ;) My doc has also agreed to lower my dose ...

Well, I haven't tracked the last few days but tried really hard to eat intuitively, but I already know from experience that won't work. So, here I am, back on  www.sparkpeople.com  logging everything. It's for the best really. I made a new friend recently, and she told me last night that she read my blog. She told me how motivational it was, and how I'm going through stuff and still trying so she has to at least give it a shot. I hear those sorts of comments often and they never get old. Not in an ego type of way, but in a, "I have to keep pushing, there are people out there counting on me." Type of way. I don't want to be another blogger that can't keep the weight off and let's their blog sit around and collect dust leaving their readers wondering -what ever happened to that girl? Anyhow, enough of that. I started wellbutrin a little over a week ago, I had to take some time off work then cut my hours because of the negative impact it was...