The Joy of Maintaining

This is me. Right before loading for my second round. I am happy because I have realized that I can maintain my loss, even when eating on the P4 or "life" protocol. I have also not realized how HARD loading will be since I have detoxed my body from all things processed and sugar laden.

And then Round 2 started, and the previously coveted "loading" days hit me. I started loading yesterday, a Saturday, July 19th. I during the first few days of my first P2, I started a list of all of my next load day "must haves" based on what I thought I was craving back then. Let me give you the short list of what I ended up eating during this round's loading phase:

Bob Evans Chocolate Pancakes, large chocolate milk, and hash browns covered in cheese
Three pieces of Little Caesars Sausage Pizza, Salad doused in Olive Garden dressing, 2 1/2 pieces of birthday cake, ice cream and a ridiculous amount of sugar laden pineapple sparkling juice at a birthday party.

PF Chang's Crispy Honey Chicken, Lo Mein, Chicken Lettuce Wraps followed by a chocolate-covered strawberry martini, salted caramel ice cream and a chocolate covered s'more at the VB Chocolate Bar. I gained 5.6 pounds today loading. Much improved from last round, since it's only the first day this time and last round I only gained 2.6 total during my load.

Then on Sunday (today), I had my husband's special Egg Sandwich for breakfast, followed by a Starbuck's Frappuccino and Snickers bar in the grocery store check out line, Cheeze Its, Taco Bell for lunch, Stefanina's Bacon and Black Olive Pizza and House salad. For dessert, I finished off an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's Salted Caramel Core ice cream. Tomorrow's weigh in will determine the starting point for this round's "dropping". The more you gain during loading, the quicker you drop while you're "dropping". I'm looking forward to melting away.

I am NOT looking forward to another round of loading. Who knew I'd ever say that.

I've Chosen My Hard

This little ditty on Pinterest really caught my attention the other day...it really brought to mind how hard it is to be so severely overweight (about 120 pounds OVER a healthy weight for my frame when I started this journey). It's amazing how quickly I became so heavy, and also mind boggling how long I let myself feel so awful before really doing something about it.  This statement is short and sweet, but really helped me clarify why I was taking the time and mental effort to change my ways...please don't hesitate to reach out when you get to the point of choosing option number one. I will be ready to help you!

Eating Healthy is NOT Deprivation

I am still very much in the beginning of my travels in changing my life for the better by making and owning more healthy choices.  I am by all means no pro at the healthy life - but I am changing that.  The old me probably got this far into despair by believing that eating healthy was depriving myself of some sort of enjoyment some how. Sure, I guess, not eating the chocolate cake resulted in me not getting to taste it's sugary goodness. But how long does that flavor last, anyway? 10, maybe 15, seconds? And the effects of the choice of eating the cake (or in my case, years of eating the cake over and over again)....can last a life time. Not the positive experience of tasting the cake, of course. But the negative effects that eating poorly does to a person. You know, weight gain, addiction to processed/sugary foods, lethargy, depression, low self esteem, more expensive plus-sized clothes, embarrassment...I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
The definition of deprivation is: to remove or withdraw something from enjoyment or pleasure. I recently came to the realization that by eating better and living healthfully, I have not deprived myself of anything. Alternatively, I have given myself more. To parallel my thoughts above, it would seem that in eating healthy, I have deprived myself of weight gain, addiction to processed/sugary foods, lethargy, depression, low self esteem, more expensive plus-sized clothes, embarrassment...I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

So the way I see it now, I have 2 choices:

1 - eat healthy and deprive myself of ten seconds worth of flavor.
2 - eat poorly and deprive myself of 60+ years of feeling good and living life.

Doesn't seem like much of debate anymore...

Serial Clothes Tryer-On'er

  I've changed in a lot of ways since I began this journey - emotionally, physically and behaviorally.  But because my body shape is changing so quickly, I've been trying to be excited by the "new" wardrobe of old clothes that didn't fit before in my closet instead of buying a bunch of new clothes - especially because I'd like to loose about 90 more pounds...in the mean time (especially on days that I am "toning" and don't see a change at the scale in the morning), sometimes I like to reaffirm my progress to myself by trying on clothes at the store with no plan to buy them.  Today I had a few minutes to check out some of the newest dresses at Dress Barn and was pleasantly surprised. I took in a dress that was 3 sizes smaller than my original size before starting the Omni Drops Program.  And, I had to ask the lady to bring me a smaller size! Good bye 24, hello 16! Yes, I know that a 16 (especially on a size 5'1" frame) still means I have a long way to go, but I haven't bought a size 16 since I got married in 2006 - and from what I can remember I don't think that I would have looked this good in it at that point in time, either.

Here's to recognizing the changes we make, even when they aren't documented at the scale!

16!

 

This is a picture of me on Wednesday, June 11. This dress is a size 16! When I started, I wore a 24 and it was TIGHT! This journey has been amazing in so many ways. I feel great, my energy is through the roof, I sleep well at night, I eat completely clean which I feel great about, and I get the benefit of changing how I look on the outside just about as quickly as I have been changing on the inside!

A Typical Day

For those of you who are curious about how a typical day goes for me in relationship to food (by the way, that relationship is changing quickly), I thought it might help to have an idea of what I eat. Please know that with any change, it takes time to retrain your mind and subconcious expectations. I am a true believer that the expectations that I previously had were extremely skewed, and were part of what got me to where I'm at now...I also believe that we can change these expectations - or I wouldn't be doing this blog right now.

So....

• Weigh myself and document my progress on my handy chart
• Get ready for the day

Take vitamins, drink a very large glass of ICE COLD water.

Make coffee (typical travel size mug with 2 tablespoons of whole milk and 9 drops of flavored stevia)

Head to work with my cup of coffee

When the coffee is gone, I switch to water ALL DAY LONG!

Mid morning - if I am hungry and it doesn't go away with after finishing my water mug, then I'll eat half of my lunch time apple.

Lunch - my awesomely packed lunch, usually buffalo chicken with celery, Wasa and an apple (or the other half of it if I've already eaten it).

After I get home from work I usually eat half of my dinner apple.

Dinner - my omni meal of the day...I usually eat a different protein than I had for lunch and try to eat a different fruit (usually strawberries).

If I have beef for my protein for dinner, I'm usually too full to eat my dinner time fruit. If this is the case, I would then eat the fruit for snack when my kids are snacking.

I take evening vitamins as I go to bed, and try to go to bed no later than 10pm when I can.

Hope this helps!

-Jen

What I Use

Some have asked about which Omnitrition products I am currently using to support my life long change.  So, I decided to give you a run down of what I use personally:

Omni Drops (and Program)
Omni IV
Nite Lite

Just recently I added Garcinia Cambogia, of which I take one every morning with my Omni IV vitamins.

Email me if you would like more information!