My Salad

This is what I eat for lunch every day. 

Every time I am with a friend at lunch time I make enough for them, and they say it's amazing!

Here is the breakdown when I started having it:

Eating this for lunch does not leave you feeling deprived!

Now that I'm used to eating healthy and eating less, my salad looks more like this:

I decided I prefer eating nuts on their own as a snack, and I stopped needing so much rice and chicken to feel satisfied. Today I plan to eat Salmon for dinner, which has a lot of fat, so I decided to have a little less dressing. When I plan chicken for dinner I have the full serving of dressing on my salad. 

How do you like to make your salad?

Calorie counting

Last summer I tried using the MyFitnessPal app for calorie counting, and I gained 10 pounds.  Writing down everything I was eating while I was eating it made me stressed out and fixated on food and I ate more and more.  Then I did the Advocare 24 day challenge last fall, where the focus was more on what to eat and what not to eat rather than calories.  During that I kept portion control in mind, but didn't control it carefully.  I think that was a good way to learn it with less stress.  Now that I'm doing the challenge for the second time, I feel like I can handle calorie counting to get better results.

I have learned that the trick is NOT to put your foods in as you're eating them! I feel way less stressed about it by putting everything I plan to eat at the beginning of the day, and then just follow the plan.  When I'm not making the decision when I'm faced with the food, its so much easier to be good! This way I can check that I will have a good balance of fats proteins and carbohydrates for the day, and know if I will be needing more of something.

So the calorie totals for meals in future posts are all screen shots from MyFitnessPal.  If you get the app and start using it, add me as your friend!

Rewards

For losing weight I needed some extra incentive. Being healthy, feeling better, looking better, and having more energy are all obvious and natural rewards for getting into shape and losing weight. But there are days when I want to eat a doughnut and can easily decide I don't care about those things. An additional reward is needed to get through those days. I've heard of, and tried many times to give myself some kind of incentive like this including a clothing shopping spree, new highlights for my hair, and a vacation. All of these incentives were "when I lose 30 lbs" or when I get to a certain weight. Sometimes I gave myself a deadline, sometimes not. The problem every time has been that I get discouraged because it's so far away, or the deadline is too close and I can't get there in time, and I give up. Even worse, it has made me hold off on doing things I really want to do because I'm saving it for me at my goal weight. This time is different. This time I will get a reward every 2 months no matter how successful I am. I feel like a genius because I have figured out how to give myself rewards that scale, thus eliminating discouragement. 

Every 2 months I will take the number of pounds I have lost and add a zero to it. This is the number of dollars I can spend on a spa day!  So even 4 pounds would be $40 which would get me a

manicure and pedicure or a mini-facial, both great rewards. If I lose more like 20 pounds, that is $200 which would get me a super awesome and relaxing day with a fancy facial and a massage. It's such a great plan because working harder gets me more, but roadblocks and struggles don't put an end to it. 

I've thought a little about how this reward system could work for other people, maybe on a tighter budget. You could reward yourself with time spent on a home facial or manicure and pedicure, 10 or 20 minutes for every pound you lose. Just imagine rewarding yourself by spending 2 whole hours taking care of yourself! Hopefully your significant other will be in on your plan and be supportive by taking care of everything you would normally be doing during that time. Maybe they will even want to contribute by giving you a massage for part of your reward time!  

I had to think long and hard about what thing I always want to do, but I have a hard time treating myself to. Maybe your thing has nothing to do with a spa day or relaxing. Maybe it's buying supplies for your favorite hobby, or going on a fancier or longer date than usual. My advice is just not to make it something you need or want to do regardless of your weight, you don't want to wait to live your life. And my big advice is to have a reward that scales up or down according to your success, life isn't a win or lose game!

2016 FTW

This is what I call my plans for this year (FTW means "for the win"). You may call them "resolutions", or "goals", but it's my plan for losing weight and I'm sticking to it. 

My plan has 3 components:

1. Healthy eating 

2. Cardio

3. Strength training 

For eating healthy, I still can't wrap my head around the "lifestyle" concept. If you tell me I can never eat chocolate again, then I will eat all of the chocolate immediately. But, I am so competitive at heart, that the idea of a "challenge" works for me, I will win all of the challenges. The Advocare 24 day challenge was very doable for me, so I'm thinking that I will do a challenge every month this year, and then take a week break between each to eat the foods I've been missing. This will work well for a few reasons. First, this follows the 80/20 rule I mentioned here, just on a monthly basis instead of a weekly one. Second, when I want and crave a food, writing it down on my "break week" list and knowing I can have it then really helps me move past it. Third, I have found that Spark works really well for me at first, but my body builds up a tolerance so I need to take a break from it to reset its effect.  (Note that you cannot do the herbal cleanse tablets part of the 24 day challenge every month! I don't do that part anyway because it isn't allowed with breastfeeding)

For Cardio, I tried to fit it in last fall, but I didn't make it a priority. This year I plan to do Zumba on every Monday, Friday, and Saturday because those are when they have classes I can get to. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I plan to go to the gym and walk/jog on the treadmills, just 25 minutes for now, followed by some time stretching. It turns out that the kids LOVE playing at the kids club at the gym, so all the time I'm spending there is good for them too!

For strength training, I will continue going to Bootcamp 3 days a week.  On the other days I do it with my friend, we aim for 2 days a week.

That's my plan! What do you think? I have a great reward system figured out, but it's a little long so it got its own post. 

After the challenge

When the 24 day challenge was over, I was actually afraid of going back to my old way of eating. I wanted to keep eating the way I had learned to, and I think that's the point. I scoured the Advocare website for advice, and they recommended the 80/20 rule. Then I had to Google what that meant. The idea is that you eat healthy 80% of the time, and give yourself a break or indulgence 20% of the time. This way you don't feel deprived and desperate for sweets all the time, but most of the time you are eating right. So if you eat 3 meals a day, that's 21 meals per week, so 4 of those meals can be whatever you want and the rest are healthy.

With that in mind, my first 4 meals of the week were indulgences, and the next day I decided that a new week was starting...haha, that's not really what happened, but it was kind of like that. I'm just not organized enough to keep track of it that way. Plus, I'm like a shark smelling blood when I eat sweets! I can refrain just fine if I haven't indulged in a while, but one taste wakes the beast inside and I must eat all of the sugar on the planet. For me, that's what food addiction is all about. There is this feeling of zero self control that eats away at me. If it's an option, I will eat it all!

So, I did my best to stick to the challenge rules, and it went ok for 2 or 3 weeks. Halloween happened, and let's just say there was a shark attack. I tried to recover and keep eating healthy, but I started feeling so burned out, and by December I had given up completely. 

I realized that Spark had been giving me energy and will power, but my body was used to it so it no longer had the full effect. I tried to only drink it on days I felt like I needed an extra kick of energy. It was working so poorly by Christmas time, that I didn't even bother. By December 31 I had gained back half of what I lost on the challenge, putting me back to 265lbs. I spent that night brainstorming a new plan. 

The 24 day challenge

I started my Advocare 24 day challenge on September 25. Here is the summary of the challenge:

http://advoarmy.com/schedule/06083516pm_Cleanse.pdf

I know that's a lot to take in, but the main point is eat more fruit, lots and lots of fruit. 

http://advoarmy.com/schedule/06223740pm_MAX_Phase.pdf

The main point of this one is add more protein!

It's important to note, that the whole plan can be done product free, just follow the food recommendations and it will be a great thing! Because I'm breastfeeding I'm not supposed to take the herbal cleanse tablets or the MNS packets, but it worked great without those! If you want to use just one product, I recommend Spark. http://www.advocare.com/products/active/A7093.aspx

You mix spark into your water in the morning, and the B vitamins and caffeine and other stuff gives you tons of energy! For me, that energy made it easier to say no to cravings. If you're willing to buy a second product, I recommend Fiber. http://www.advocare.com/products/well/W4162.aspx

Also a drink mix-in, after drinking this first thing every morning, I was shocked at how few cravings or hungers I had throughout the day. The probiotic and Omegaplex are also products that I liked, but there are lots of similar products on the market. 

Now I'm going to tell you all my fears about doing this whole thing, and my resolution of these fears. In the past, caffeine and B vitamins have made me jittery and not able to sleep at night. Also, sometimes babies can be sensitive to their breastfeeding mom drinking caffeine. So I started out with a half serving just to be careful. Everything was fine, so I went to the full amount and felt great! In fact, I started getting tired at the right time of night to go to bed, when before I always had the problem of accidentally staying up too late.  I was also afraid that "dieting" would mess up my milk supply. Then I realized that I would be eating way more nutritious food that would make me and my baby healthier. My third fear was that I would miss all of the food I denied myself and gain even more weight than I lost when the 24 days are over. It turns out that I love feeling good and being used to making good food choices! I learned that eating all this healthy food made me not so hungry for other things. What fears do you have about trying a "diet"?

Here are my tips for a good 24 day challenge:

1. Don't calorie count the first time you try this! It's stressful and too much to think about. Just eat all you want of the foods that are allowed and not the ones that aren't. (Unless you are already used to calorie counting) 

2. Put reminders to eat (and what you will eat) on your calendar in your phone. Unhealthy eating often means skipping breakfast or lunch and then binging at dinner or after dinner. Remembering to eat needs to be a top priority!

3. This isn't specified in the challenge, but I ate a banana for my morning fruit the first 10 days, even though it doesn't have a low glycemic index. (My trainer told me to)

4. Also not specifically mentioned is the dressing on the salad for lunch. Ranch and other creamy dressings are full of saturated fat and not allowed. Many vinaigrettes are loaded with sugar. Balsamic vinaigrette usually doesn't have much added sugar or any other bad stuff, so it is your best choice! The olive oil in it is so good for you, so don't even think about skipping it even if you feel like you don't need it. 

5. Keep it simple. If you want to try some new recipes, go ahead, have fun. But you don't have to make something elaborate every day, that will wear you out quick. I made a batch of brown rice and then portioned it out and kept it in my fridge to reheat quickly at each meal. Grilled or baked chicken or Salmon with your favorite seasoning sprinkled on top tastes great! Add 2 or 3 steamed vegetables and you have a meal everyone would envy. A quick and simple dinner for yourself means that if your kids or husband need foods that you're choosing not to eat, making that for them  isn't too hard. 

6. This tip changed my life: it's ok to eat the same thing every day! Your body appreciates the consistent fuel. If you're eating good food that you like, you won't mind. It's so much easier to eat healthy if you don't have to come up with and decide on something different every day. 

Other tips that I've heard include: COMMIT! And plan ahead. Those are good too :P

Now for the results, drum roll please

...........................................

On October 18 I weighed 257lbs, that is 13 pounds less than when I started!

And I was down 39.5 inches since starting Bootcamp in June!

Starting over

When a person has one kid, they are overwhelmed with the amount of work to take care of the child and cook and clean and go to appointments and everything. When that person has a second child, they are used to the amount of work required for one, and adding the second is even more hard work. Hopefully by the time they have a third child, they are used to taking care of the first 2, so the third is just as hard, but not 3 times as hard. Does that make sense? Your capacity to take care of things increases gradually as you are required to do more.

When you have 3 kids, and get taken care of 100% for a month, you forgot everything that needs to be done. After I had recovered from surgery and was on my own again, I was floored by how quickly my house became dirty. And it just kept getting worse. And the kids always wanted to be fed. I had to go grocery shopping, and I didn't know what to buy. 

My point is, it was a rough month. I was getting depressed, and I eat bad food when I'm depressed. And that made me more depressed. Everything felt so out of control. I was consistently going to Bootcamp and pushing myself to exercise hard, but I felt like the exercise made me even more hungry.  I gained 10 more pounds, putting me at 270 lbs. 

I asked my trainer for help, and she recommended the Advocare 24 day challenge. I didn't think I could do it because I'm still breastfeeding, but there is a modified version that is approved for breastfeeding mothers. So I'm starting September 26 (right after I get home from our family vacation to Disneyland).