Clean Eating Link Up!

I've touched on my feelings about this topic a little bit in the past, but today I'll really get to the nuts and bolts of why I feel the way I do.  CLEAN EATING...it's really become a hot topic among the fitness world and you hear those words together a lot!  I started on the bandwagon myself many months ago, and while it helped a little, I still was feeling gross, bloated, lethargic...something wasn't working for me.  Then someone recommended the Whole30 plan and I spent hours pouring over the website and decided to just go for it!  That was way back in November 2012 and it was great!  After the initial "carb flu" period I was feeling great.  I lost about 12 pounds in 30 days and I'd never felt better, more focused, or energetic.

Enter Christmas...and several more months of falling off the wagon.  I'll be the first to admit that I am an emotional binge eater.  I fight it every single day.  I simply can't keep anything in my house that I want to avoid because I will eat it every time.  During these months, I gained back every pound I lost plus a few.

Once I'd had enough of feeling like trash again, I went back to the beginning.  I decided to read this book:

I'm not huge on science, but Dallas and Melissa Hartwig really explain the science of how certain food affects our body from the inside out in terms that I can understand.  All sorts of ailments and diseases begin with what we put on our plate and we don't even realize it.  Weight gain is just a symptom of all the other things that could be happening in our bodies.  Scary things like diabetes, leaky gut syndrome, and even seasonal allergies.  And since I am doing this for my overall health and not just to lose weight, it made sense for me to cut out the junk and follow the guidelines set by this book.

I'm not perfect and I slip up sometimes, but it's been easier to resist eating things when I remind myself how bad I feel afterwards and how these foods affect my overall health and not just my weight!

One hurdle I've really had to fight through is the idea that the normal "low-fat" American diet that most people try to lose weight with will NEVER work.  Healthy fat doesn't make you fat....refined sugar and processed foods do.  If you read labels you'll find out that sugar is hidden EVERYWHERE!  That "healthy" yogurt...more sugar than a Snickers bar!  I'm looking forward to seeing Fed Up, a documentary about this topic!

I've rambled enough...if you've made it this far, I HIGHLY recommend checking out this book and program.  It won't cost you a dime (other than buying food!) to follow the Whole30 - unlike other popular programs out there.  In the long run, you'll feel better!  I know I do!

Now if I can just get the exercise going...

What are your thoughts on clean eating?  Link up with Jasmine at Fleurty and Fit and share with us!

NSV Success! Finally...

It's almost Friday!!!  I don't know why I care...every day for a stay at home mom like me is pretty much the same.  It's like living in the movie Groundhog Day.  

Moving right along...today is Non-Scale Victory link up day!  I actually have one to celebrate this week...yay!  I don't know if I've talked about it before, but every Wednesday we go to my parent's house for family night supper.  This is usually a night where I end up saying "F-it" and eating whatever the hell is laying around.  Yesterday I was feeling really good after a 3 mile bike/walk and I didn't want to ruin what I had done.  So while everyone else was eating Grands biscuits with their dinner and having chocolate ice cream for dessert, I had one grilled pork chop, about 1/4 cup roasted red potatoes, and a shit load of broccoli.  Proof once again that I CAN resist eating crap food even when every fiber of my being wants the damn biscuit!

Now to keep that up!  Hope your day is great!

A New Low and A New Start

I'll put it all out there and say that I've been having a terrible time the past few days with diet and exercise.  I was super motivated to hit it hard when the 90 Days 'Til Summer Challenge started, and then PMS hit me harder.  It's basically been 'eat all the foods' and 'lounge on the couch' for the past week.  I feel terrible!

So, thankfully, last night I had a good talk about things with my sister-in-law who is also on her own journey to lose weight.  Our paths are very different, but just talking things out with her really helped me to put things back into perspective and focus on why I'm doing this.

That being said, I have recognized in myself a problem with eating.  Basically if it's there, I can't help myself.  I seriously can not stop thinking about whatever terrible food is in the kitchen calling my name.  I eventually give in, eat way too much, and feel like shit - physically and emotionally.  So today, I will be cleaning out my kitchen of all the crap foods that I don't want in my body.  This will be good for my whole family!  None of us need to eat gummy worms.  Ever.  

Here's to rebooting.  May it be the last time I ever have to do it.  I'm expecting success and starting today I'm going to take control of my journey again....starting weight 170.2.  Yikes.  That's the heaviest I've ever been in my life and it's way too much for my 5'2" frame.  

Happy Friday!  I hope your weekend rocks!

Late, Late, Late Weekend Update

I know it's Wednesday already, but I had a great weekend and it kind of spilled over into the beginning of the week!  Never a bad thing.

We had family in town so there was a lot of family time and fun hanging out.  Friday we went shopping and my cousin spoiled H with some new clothes for spring/summer and of course we can't leave without at least one toy!  Then we went with the whole family to a local mexican restaurant so that meal was a big thumbs down for my 90 Days 'Til Summer Challenge.  And you know what - it wasn't even that good.  Wasted calories!

Saturday we had plans to celebrate our 14th anniversary, so H stayed the night with Grandmommy and Poppy.  Can I just insert right here that I have the best parents on the planet?  They do so much for us and H just loves them to pieces!  J and I went to see Divergent and then to try a new local seafood restaurant, The Half Shell.  It was so good!  I had crab cakes, bacon wrapped green beans, and a few sweet potato fries.  I liked it because it wasn't your typical huge plate with loads of food - they were appropriate portions of fresh seafood and I didn't feel stuffed afterwards.  Which was good because - you know - we were celebrating our anniversary (bow chicka wow wow).

At the restaurant above and our first married kiss below :)

We didn't take the fam to the airport until late Monday evening, so Tuesday I spent all day doing all of the typical cleaning and catching up that I missed over the weekend.

And now it's Wednesday and here I am.  It's freaking 40 degrees today which stinks because it was near 80 over the weekend.  Maybe this bipolar weather will relax soon and we'll be complaining about how stinking hot it is come August!

So, back to the grind today.  I gotta get back on the workout train for sure!  Check y'all later!

It Starts With Food

We've all heard this:

I believe it.  I also believe that it's hard to find the right nutrition when there's so much information out there about what's healthy, what's not and why.  A lot of that information is contradictory.  What's a girl to do?!

I've been toying with a Paleo/Primal diet the past few months but I didn't really know why except that people were doing it and losing weight.  Then I got a hold of this book:

I'm only on chapter 6, but it has explained so much and it's really opened my eyes!  I'm not huge on science, but Dallas & Melissa really explain the science of how certain food affect our body from the inside out in terms that I can understand.  All sorts of ailments and diseases begin with what we put on our plate and we don't even realize it.  Weight gain is just a symptom of all the other things that could be happening in our bodies.  Scary things like diabetes, leaky gut syndrome, and even seasonal allergies.  

I can't recommend this book strongly enough.  If you suffer from any sort of chronic ailment or just want to lose weight, this will really open your eyes to the science of how food affects our body on the inside.

Now I've got some work to do in my cabinets cleaning out some trash "foods".  

Encouragment For The Journey

I'll be honest.  I've had a terribly hard time getting into and sticking with healthy eating and exercise.  It's like there's been a block in my brain and my "I don't give a f*@*" switch has been stuck firmly in the on position.  So it really helped me flip that switch when I got this text yesterday from my cousin:

You see, she's diabetic and has been struggling with health and weight for a while.  Just to know that she wanted to let me know that she's making a serious effort to get her health back is enough to flip that switch in my head back to OFF!

It's funny how just a little note from someone is enough to really change your train of thought.  I'm so very glad she sent me that text!  It's great to get some encouragement and a little motivation to start off a new week.

Goals for the Month

Happy Monday blogland!  I had a great weekend with my little family and it's back to business today.  I spent some time over the weekend thinking about some goals for the next month or so and what I really need to do about my health and fitness.  Of course I can't think about weight loss without thinking about clothes!  So, after seeing the #sameshirtdifferentgirl idea from Jess at Operation Skinny Jeans, I dug out my favorite pair of jeans that are too small and I put them on.  Yikes.  Goal discovered!  I want to fit back into these jeans in the next month.  I'll try them on again on April 1st and check out how I've done!  Here's the painfully true evidence of the work I need to do.

Obviously my trouble zone is my belly, so I'll be working hard to lose that!  It'd be nice to put those on in April and not look like a sausage squeezed into it's casing!  

Being a SAHM with no income, we are on a super tight budget around here so I can't really fit it in the budget to join some program or a gym so here's the "I'm on a budget" plan:  

Clean, real,  foods.  No grains/very limited dairy.  CUT OUT THE SUGAR (my biggest weakness). I'll basically be following a Paleo approach.  I try to eat this way normally because grains upset my tummy big time anyway.  I'm not perfect and I've failed many times, but I just have to take it one meal at a time and remember how crap food makes me feel.

On the exercise front, I've downloaded this ebook from Way of Gray.  They're HIIT workouts that go hard for about 30 minutes.  I'll try to do these at least 5 days a week.  I may do some other light walking with my mom, and of course I'll be playing with my H every day!

I'm looking forward to getting this weight off and keeping it off once and for all!

Infertility Made Me Fat

I'm pretty sure it's taken me a good 10-11 years to actually admit that.  Even though I was never the "skinny girl", I wasn't always overweight either.

That's me dead center in front.  This was my senior year in high school.  Yes, I thought I was fat back then.  I wish I was that "fat" now!  Have you ever heard that saying "youth is wasted on the young."?  In my case, it's totally true.  I spent my youth "battling" my weight and I wasn't even considered overweight back then.

Fast forward three years.  I married my husband in 2000 at the tender age of 20.  I immediately threw out the birth control because my whole life, all I ever wanted was to have a huge family.  This is us on our honeymoon in March, 2000.  My how things have changed!

The next years in our reproductive history were a blur.  I found out I was pregnant in the summer of 2001 - I guess it should've been a clue to me that it took so long for me to get pregnant.  The very next day I miscarried our first child.  I don't even remember for sure the dates of the following two miscarriages, but I'll never forget the fourth.  September 2005, the doctor put me on Clomid.  I got pregnant immediately that first month.  About a week after finding out, I started having intense pain and after a few trips to the doctor on the same day, there in his office my fallopian tube burst from an ectopic pregnancy and I almost bled out right there.  Thank God I was at his office and not at home.  I was rushed to the hospital and there they removed not only the burst tube, but the other as well.  Seems one of my previous miscarriages had happened in the other tube and it was worthless.  For the next five years we pretty much did nothing but save money because IVF was our plan and that is expensive.  We never did that, but I'll share that story later.

This is us in 2006.  I NEVER wanted my full body to be photographed. As you can see my weight was out of control.  I'd gained about 30-35 pounds over the course of the year since my surgery.  I was eating my grief over the loss of my fertility.  While, I never gained much more than that, I have battled that weight for the last 7 or 8 years.  I am a yo-yo diet queen, losing and gaining it back like it's my job.  Only recently did I realize the deep rooted causes of my weight gain.  I hope that realizing the 'why' will help me to lose weight and keep it off this time.  I hope that I can address the bad eating behavior and stop it for good.  I struggle some days not to eat everything in sight.  I fight the strongest cravings sometimes, but now I know WHY I'm struggling.  I can start to step back and say "NO, you don't have to eat to find comfort!"

Here we are May 2013.  We have our boy (I'll talk about his story later, too!) and life is more great than not.  I'm working on bettering myself everyday.  Maybe writing it all out here will give me another way to combat the struggle I have with food.  I'm glad to have an outlet to vent and share what I'm feeling.  I promise every blog won't be so heavy!  

Hope your day is great!