My last post talked mostly about exercise. While exercise is a big part of my life food, and what I eat, is a major part of my life also. Food has always been a big part though. I grew up with everything centered around food. A lot of my memories are centered around food. And I've done the same thing with my kids (still doing it for the most part). While that's not always a bad thing (the food was always amazing) it kind of makes loosing weight hard.
I have lost weight before. A couple times actually. But each time I've gained it right back. I would almost starve myself to get to my goal and then go right back to eating like I had before. Of course the weight came right back. Why wouldn't it? This time though I knew I needed to keep it off. I had a little baby; I needed to be able to run around with her and after her. So when I finally decided to loose weight (that in itself took months and months to finally decide) I knew I'd need to not only change how I eat but how I cook. Which meant changing how I cooked for my family. I knew I couldn't maintain weight loss by making 2 different meals every night: a healthy one for me and a regular one for my family. The more I thought about it the more I realized it wouldn't hurt my family to eat healthier too. But I would need to find recipes that they liked or they wouldn't go for it.
Finding good tasting healthy recipes was a lot easier than I thought it would be. There are some great websites now a days with recipes that are full of flavor without all the fat and calories. Pretty much everything I've made my family has liked. Sometimes they say that would like it better with "regular" pasta instead of wheat pasta or with more cheese but for the most part I've been lucky.
I also try to keep "bad" food (ice cream, cookies, treats, candy, etc) out of the house. While I know I need to have this stuff every once in awhile so that I don't feel deprived I have a really hard time with self control. I don't really have much at all. Little to none most days. So I try to the treats out of the house. I really wish I could say I'm better at saying no to treats and high calorie food, that I've learned all these great things about eating healthy and just eat healthy now...but once again, bad self control issues.
I love food. I think about food. I think about what I'm going to eat for my next meal, tomorrow, what I ate yesterday, etc. I. Love. Food. So I have bad days. Bad weeks. Even bad months. But I have more good days, good weeks and good months now than I did 2 years ago. I know now what I need to do and I seem to get back on track easier than I did before. Also, unfortunately (and fortunately) sometimes food that I think about, crave and finally give into...doesn't usually taste as good as I thought it would. And sometimes that food that I thought would be so amazingly good makes me sick. My body is a little more use to eating healthy so when I go on binges of eating bad my body lets me know it's not happy. :-) I guess that's a good thing.
So part of this journal will have to do with writing about my bad days and what I did to get back on track. Or writing about my good days and what I did to make it a good day. Because really...this is a one day at a time process. If you look to far ahead it's too overwhelming. *sigh*
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Starting from scratch
I thought since I decided to start using my blog as a kind of journal I'd make it separate from my regular blog. So here's the new site. I feel kind of silly doing all of this for pretty much just me but it's kind of fun at the same time.
So what am I trying to accomplish with this blog? No really much of anything, really. It will be a place for me to share:
Food
What recipes worked and didn't work
What my family liked and didn't like
If it was budget friendly or not
Exercise
What has worked
How things are going
Weekly schedules
New things I've tried (and how that turned out)
Family
They're a part of everything I do!
It will be a place for me to share my experiences as I go through my life of trying to maintain my weight loss. If there's one thing I've figured out during all of this it's that keeping the weight off is as much of a battle as loosing it...if not more. It's an every day struggle, something I will have to work at the rest of my life. Writing things down kind of makes me more accountable. At least with Weight Watchers it did.
A little background. In 2011 I started on my weight lose journey with Weight Watchers and a work program called Waist Aweigh. Each month I had to check in and be accountable for my weight loss. And each month I had to loose 3 lbs. More than do-able if I was eating right and exercising like I learned I should. But because of my HUGE love for food I had many months were my weight stayed the same. It really was a struggle to get it into my head, some months, what I was trying to accomplish. But finally after 2 years (22 months to be exact) I hit my goal with both Weight Watchers and Waist Aweigh. I was actually featured in my work program's newsletter for hitting my goal.
Exercise is something I have to do to loose weight and when I started loosing weight this last time I found out that I love to exercise. It's not just something I HAVE to do it's something I WANT to do. One thing I discovered was CrossFit. Not the crazy stuff you see on ESPN but still hard, sweaty, want to die workouts. I love it and get up at 4:40 a.m. to get it in before my day starts. Some people say I'm crazy to get up that early and I probably am. But with as crazy as my life can be it's the only time in my day that going to the gym doesn't impact everyone else's schedule.
I also found my love for running. I actually can say I love to go on runs. I did a few 5k's and loved the feeling of finishing a race. Loved the feeling of the crowd and all the runners. And I love the feeling when you crossed the finish line! Man, it's a great feeling. You know you've accomplished something, whether you're happy with your time or not. It doesn't matter. You finished. My time on my first 5k (Aug 2012) was 43:40. I loved it. I did a fun 6k with a friend in October and then took the winter off just focusing on CrossFit.
My second 5k (May 2013) time was 33:30. I'd knocked 10 minutes off my time in 8 months. I was hooked. I did another one in June with my youngest sister and knew I wanted to do more. I signed up for a September half marathon. It would happen the same week I was set to meet my Waist Aweigh and WW goal. I thought it was a good way to wrap up the whole weight loss thing. My time was 2 hrs 18 mins. A great time for my 1st half marathon and 10 minutes less that what I was shooting for! That run was amazing in two ways: it was harder than I ever thought but it was better than I ever thought. When I finished someone asked me if I'd ever do one again. I told them NO WAY. But as time went on I knew I would. I knew I had to. There were things I'd done wrong; things I could have done better. I kept thinking if I changed those things or did those things would that help my time? Would it make my experience even better?
I'm set to run my 2nd half at the end of June and I think I've talked my youngest sister into doing it with me. I'm interested to see how training goes, how the half itself goes, how it all goes. Interested and excited.
I know. I'm sick in the head. I've been told that many times and I tend to agree. :-)
So what am I trying to accomplish with this blog? No really much of anything, really. It will be a place for me to share:
Food
What recipes worked and didn't work
What my family liked and didn't like
If it was budget friendly or not
Exercise
What has worked
How things are going
Weekly schedules
New things I've tried (and how that turned out)
Family
They're a part of everything I do!
It will be a place for me to share my experiences as I go through my life of trying to maintain my weight loss. If there's one thing I've figured out during all of this it's that keeping the weight off is as much of a battle as loosing it...if not more. It's an every day struggle, something I will have to work at the rest of my life. Writing things down kind of makes me more accountable. At least with Weight Watchers it did.
A little background. In 2011 I started on my weight lose journey with Weight Watchers and a work program called Waist Aweigh. Each month I had to check in and be accountable for my weight loss. And each month I had to loose 3 lbs. More than do-able if I was eating right and exercising like I learned I should. But because of my HUGE love for food I had many months were my weight stayed the same. It really was a struggle to get it into my head, some months, what I was trying to accomplish. But finally after 2 years (22 months to be exact) I hit my goal with both Weight Watchers and Waist Aweigh. I was actually featured in my work program's newsletter for hitting my goal.
Exercise is something I have to do to loose weight and when I started loosing weight this last time I found out that I love to exercise. It's not just something I HAVE to do it's something I WANT to do. One thing I discovered was CrossFit. Not the crazy stuff you see on ESPN but still hard, sweaty, want to die workouts. I love it and get up at 4:40 a.m. to get it in before my day starts. Some people say I'm crazy to get up that early and I probably am. But with as crazy as my life can be it's the only time in my day that going to the gym doesn't impact everyone else's schedule.
I also found my love for running. I actually can say I love to go on runs. I did a few 5k's and loved the feeling of finishing a race. Loved the feeling of the crowd and all the runners. And I love the feeling when you crossed the finish line! Man, it's a great feeling. You know you've accomplished something, whether you're happy with your time or not. It doesn't matter. You finished. My time on my first 5k (Aug 2012) was 43:40. I loved it. I did a fun 6k with a friend in October and then took the winter off just focusing on CrossFit.
My second 5k (May 2013) time was 33:30. I'd knocked 10 minutes off my time in 8 months. I was hooked. I did another one in June with my youngest sister and knew I wanted to do more. I signed up for a September half marathon. It would happen the same week I was set to meet my Waist Aweigh and WW goal. I thought it was a good way to wrap up the whole weight loss thing. My time was 2 hrs 18 mins. A great time for my 1st half marathon and 10 minutes less that what I was shooting for! That run was amazing in two ways: it was harder than I ever thought but it was better than I ever thought. When I finished someone asked me if I'd ever do one again. I told them NO WAY. But as time went on I knew I would. I knew I had to. There were things I'd done wrong; things I could have done better. I kept thinking if I changed those things or did those things would that help my time? Would it make my experience even better?
I'm set to run my 2nd half at the end of June and I think I've talked my youngest sister into doing it with me. I'm interested to see how training goes, how the half itself goes, how it all goes. Interested and excited.
I know. I'm sick in the head. I've been told that many times and I tend to agree. :-)
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