One Pound at a Time

Happy weigh in day! 

As of today I’m 20.2 pounds down since October 8th. Yeah it’s not flying off...but it’s coming off and that’s what matters. Especially during a time of year when most people gained (holidays, or have already given up on 2018 (failed resolutions).  

I haven’t felt well this week, like I’m fighting something off, so I didn’t workout like I normally do. I listened to my body and it said rest. So, I rested. 

This didn’t give me reason to just give up and eat whatever while also not exercising. If you’ve been with me any length of time you know that’s unfortunately normal for me. Instead I ate well and I fasted quite a bit as well, mainly because I had no appetite and because, being fat adapted, I can. 

This journey to better health is not easy but it IS possible and doable. It all comes down to staying with whatever way of eating that works for you long term and celebrating small victories along the way. 

While the “big picture” is important, I think sometimes we focus too much on it, and that can be a derailer. We lose sight of the finite details that, when mashed together, make up our successes and failures. Without the details, what’s  left? No progress. 

For example, my big picture, long range  goal is to lose 100 pounds again. That is SO DAUNTING when you say it out loud. Exhausting even. 

 But when I drill down to the detail of what I have accomplished so far, 20.2 pounds lost, this means that I am 20% DONE with that huge goal. 

TWENTY PERCENT! That’s nothing to shake a turkey leg at. That is 1/5th of the way toward my goal. That is a significant number to me, today. 

We also tend to look at HOW LONG everything may take and decide it’s just too long and too hard. Well, I am glad that over 3 months ago I decided enough is enough with my health. Had I not gotten serious when I did, I wonder how much I would have gained this holiday season? I shudder at the thought. 

Let’s step outside of the health realm for a moment and into a financial angle. We have goals this summer of buying a house, so we are saving up as much as we can for a down payment while also trying to clear up a few debts that are left. We follow Dave Ramsey and are hitting the baby steps hard right now. It’s so difficult to save the amount of money we need to have saved by this summer. But we are working on it one step at a time, and one dollar at a time. 

If I decided right now that it would be too hard, what would be the point of trying?

Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford

Mr. Ford had the right idea here. When it comes to important goals, stretch goals, we have to focus on the big picture, AND the details. We have to plan, and we have to believe we will meet our goals. 

Because a year from today, I plan to be blogging from our new home, another 80+ pounds lighter. Where do you plan to be? 

You  can do more than you ever thought possible. How do I know? I’m doing it again!

Hugs,

Clara 

Keep Moving Forward

Hey world!  It's been a solid few months since I have written here, though I have thought about it often.  I'm thankful for having a day off from work to do a few things here and there, catching you up on my fitspiration included!

I'm now in my 14th week of Keto! Very happy to report that I have lost 17.6 pounds in that 14 weeks.  It's not as astounding as one might expect when you have around 100 pounds to lose...but I'm pretty darn happy about it, considering there were THREE holidays during that time that revolve around Candy, Pie and Christmas cookies.  A time of year when some gain 10-20 pounds, I lost 17.6! Not too shabby.

It has been a little bit of a slower go than I anticipated, but it also takes awhile for your body to adjust to a new way of eating, in addition to your mindset.  I jumped into keto loving ALL the cheeses and have realized that, just like in the past, cheese is NOT my friend when I'm trying to lose weight.  SUUUUUCH a bummer but honestly, I am not surprised at all.  I mean, I could have read through my own old blog posts to remember that cheese caused bloating, weight gain, etc for me.  Sigh.  It was fun while it lasted, even if it was a tough change to make. 

That said, I gave up cheese for the first two weeks of the year. Decided to test some with cauliflour pizza this weekend (I get my crusts HERE, I am certain I could make it but who has time?  lol).  Anyway topped with some of my own homemade sauce and fresh full fat mozzarella and pepperoni.  It was GOOD.  And I paid for it for about 24 hours following.  Oh well.  Maybe small amounts or certain cheeses will be ok, occasionally.  For now, though, I'm perfectly content with taking a step back from the dairy, once again.

I've also discovered a few interesting things about Intermittent Fasting. I stalled out weight loss wise which may be around the time I admitted cheese hates me...but also I had been fasting daily until lunchtime.  I also began working out in December.  So I had to tweak a little bit because of that, as well.

I stalled out a tiny bit in the last 4 weeks because of the workouts and figuring out a new normal.  I SEE the physical changes in the mirror but the scale was like NOPE.  lol! I also went through something super fun where my scale one day said I had lost like 8lbs! I was sooo excited until I got back on it and it had gone back up again...it needed new batteries.  Probably the cruelest low battery malfunction! I was not a happy camper.

So I hired a Nutritional Therapist for a review of what I was doing, who specializes in keto/primal/paleo and had a great consult over the phone.  He reviewed where I am right now, my entire health history, and made some recommendations.  I implemented his recommendations this week and dropped 2lbs.  One change was to eat lower carb and only do intermittent fasting on those days I'm not exercising, so like 30g carbs on those days.  And on my lifting days, do 50g carb, higher calories and specifically time carbs for just after my workout - which is perfect for me because it's in the evening.

I literally ate this after my workout Friday night and was 2 pounds down Saturday morning, 4 eggs, 4 slices of bacon, a link of apple chicken sausage, half an avocado and homemade hash browns:

Yeah, I can do this.  :)

The gym - I'm so super stoked about my new workout place. It's about 3 miles from my house and is called Boot Camp Training & Fitness.  I started off doing Kettlebell classes 3 times a week and Boot Camp a few times as well.  Well, my back has told me to back off a little bit, so I'm reducing to Kettlebell M/W/F and then one day of something else, either at the gym or on my own.  I eventually can do 5 days a week, I'm sure, but I have to remember I'm in a soon to be 39 year old 269 pound body so....yeah it will take me some time! And I have time.

Yesterday the extra workout was sprints at our favorite park, which is only first the first half, then we hike the rest of the trail.  It's this gorgeous park in our neighborhood, with a beautiful walking/biking/running trail by a lake. L and I were doing our second sprint when we realized we were going to pass a group of military guys in camo doing a workout of their own. I decided we would make this a longer sprint so we didn't stop to walk right in front of them...and as I was being pleasant and saying good morning, I managed to find a tree root and do a complete face plant!  Yep, some things never change.

Positives - only injury is surface, like the skin on my entire knee...also I jumped back up quickly AND the military group did NOT see me fall, no damage to my cell phone that went flying as well, and I finished the workout (more sprints then a hike, another 2.25 miles).

Negative - ripped my running pants in the knee, scraped the entire skin off of said knee, which is really super annoying, and it's cold out so really hard to cover up a gooey knee constantly. Sheesh.

I have so much more to tell you, but I'm about to leave for my kettlebell class, so I'll leave you with this.  I'm making progress.  One step at a time.  It's happening, albeit slowly, but it's happening.  I feel SO MUCH BETTER now than I did a few months ago.  The weight isn't falling off, but it's coming off, which is the same result, just requires me to be a little more patient that I would like to be. My mobility and strength IS coming back, slowly but surely.  This is all amazing progress.

And to close in the words of the person who is responsible for so much progress in our culture's history:
“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”  -Martin Luther King Jr. 

I'm going to keep moving forward.  How about you?

Clara