I’m on my way to a new me!  But boy oh boy it is a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I started this journey to a healthier me in December 2012.  I joined the YMCA in Asheville NC and started a Walk and Talk Wednesday program to inspire other moms.  I made good progress for 6 months until we moved across the states to Indiana at the end of May 2013.  By December 2013 I was right back where I started.

Fat and Frustrated!!!

Have you been there?  Do you know what I mean?

After feeling sorry for myself for a while, and not completely sure I could get it turned around, I decided to try a method of eating I had heard about from a friend on the TOS crew.  She had done a combination of Trim Healthy Mama and Lowcarb eating and she was able to reach her fitness goal last year, while meanwhile I went backwards and found myself back at the starting line.

I’m a firm believer in true healthy foods, and if any diet starts spouting off dietary nonsense then I am going to run the other way.  I spent countless hours reading and re-reading the Trim Healthy Mama book which is a combination of a recipe book, a science text, and a faith based self help book.  It all made sense!  Over and over on their Facebook page REAL women had posted their successes too.  I really connected when I read the testimony of a mom with a lot of kids who had followed the program and successfully lost a 100 lbs and reached her goals.  Wow!

I started Trim Healthy Mama February 1, 2014.  I started at 249 lbs (ouch that hurts to admit publically), and weighed in at 230 lbs today, July 18, 2014.  Yeah me!!!   This winter I was at my true breaking point with my weight and so discouraged as this is the most I have ever weighed in my life.  I weighed less when pregnant 8 times (we have 6 children and 2 in heaven).   My weight just seemed to climb and climb this past winter even though I was eating healthy.  I could not seem to get it to stop climbing.

Also though I am loosing weight slowly, I have stalled in my weight loss several times over the past few months while following the Trim Healthy Mama program.  I will loose here and there and then stall for a week or two and nothing changes.  Sometimes I gain weight too and it is easy to get discouraged and want to quit.   The yo-yoing up and down can be very discouraging.  I had a vindictive 5 lbs I kept gaining and loosing for weeks on end in April and May.  I definitely see that stress has a big impact on weight gain.  I was stressed because of family finances, and my husband was out of work for more months than he had work over the past year.  He finally got a new job in mid April, but money was so tight and the stress of finances once again was unreal.   At the beginning of July, I was sad to see those 5lbs come back and my weight hovered once again at 235.  It is crazy how I can gain or loose 5lbs almost overnight.  I’ve done enough research to know it is water weight and it is affected by hormone changes and also stress plays a big role.

I felt I needed something more, since I keep having these stalls.  Over the past 17 years I have followed a Weston A Price method of traditional foods which helped me over come infertility.  And for the past  two years, I had added in a Paleo approach.  I had read about a Keto / Lowcarb  approach, but did not implement it at the time.  Finally I am understanding how these methods can compliment each other and benefit me.   Again, the science all makes sense.    I have read a lot about how a lowcarb menu plan can help the body to burn fat for fuel, so that is what I am aiming for.

So after finally getting my brain to understand how this all works, I finally started the 90 Day Healthy Choices Lowcarb Challenge on July 16th at 235lbs and I am at 230lbs today.  I wish I was starting at 229 instead of 235, and I am very frustrated that those pounds I worked so hard to loose found a way to come back this past week.  But I am more determined than ever to be successful on this lowcarb challenge and see if I can bust through some of these difficult hurdles.  So far on Trim Healthy Mama I have an average loss of about  0.8lbs per week or 3.16 lbs per month.   But I want to try to improve this to 2.5lbs a week or 10lbs a month by going on this 90 Day Challenge.

Day three of the challenge is DONE!  Yeah!!!

I am making healthy choices, eating low carb meals with a strategy.   It is definitely a challenge to mix and match the right combos to keep my carb intake low.  I am making healthy choices, and getting great nutrition, and my overall sugar intake is low.  However, I am still above the amount of carbs I want to be at to meet the goal of this lowcarb challenge.  My goal for carbs is to stay below 20 net carbs a day or 5% of my calories, protein 25%, and fats 70% but still incorporate the Trim Healthy Mama approach.  It will take me a little time to get into a good routine so that I can learn to alternate between the lower carb meals, and no carb meals to reach these goals.   I am a work in progress.

So how did I do the first 3 days?

Day 1 Net Carbs = 57

Day 2 Net Carbs = 52

Day 3 Net Carbs = 21

Note:  These net carb totals above include sugar alcohols from Erythritol sweetener and Xylitol sweetener and need to be subtracted off yet and should not have been included in the total.  For some reason the software totals them into the net carbs but it should subtract them as they do not count because the body can’t digest them and they pass on through and have no impact on blood sugar.

It has become very obvious why pre-planning food combinations for meals and snacks individually but also for the whole day to be sure I get in all the nutrients is so critical to achieve my health goals.  I’m back at the starting line, and I have a lot more work to do.  But I am on my way!

 

 

Are you working on any fitness goals?  Please leave a comment and tell us about it.  Thank you.