Today is a day that I have been waiting, hoping, dreaming, wishing for for a VERY long time. This morning when I stepped on the scale ( which I only try to do once a week) I seen that number that I have always through was impossible for me to achieve. BUT I DID IT!!!!I could not be prouder of myself!!
Now, this number on the scale that I seen the morning did NOT come easy for me. This has been years in the making. It has been a long, twisting road, with some round abouts in it. I have never found it easy to lose weight and surely have not found it easy to keep it off. I have always have had to work my butt off to lose those extra pounds that kept on creeping back on. I have tried many different things to help me lose weight from walking, to trying the most popular weight loss programs. Yes, they did work for a little bit, however I would always find myself gaining the weight back.
I have learned so much from my travel on my road that this most recent attempt to lose weight I said to myself I have got to make some drastic changes to my lifestyle in order to keep this weight off. For those of you that know me know,my lifestyle is very simple. I am a very quite, shy, reserved person and even writing this blog about this topic is completely stepping out of my comfort zone. Me and my husband are not partiers, we love going to the cabin and enjoying a quite Friday night watching a movie. So in that way my lifestyle did not have to change but it did have to change nutritionally. I am a CARB LOVER!!! I have to admit. I love anything that is sugary, sweet and salty. I would rather have a plate full of dessert than eat a meal. This I the honest to god truth, and thus lies the problem and why I have been struggling so long. I knew this and I knew that eating all of those sugary treats were going to be the end for me. I had to make a change and be honest with myself about this. I had the exercise part down, that was not an issue, but wasn't seeing results with just the exercise. So the next step was making the nutritional change.
This was not easy!!I had my metabolism so messed up that I had to get it revved back up again and this is when I started counting macros (flexible dieting) and learning about how my body reacted to a certain number of these per day. It took a little bit of getting used to, weighing out your food and playing with the different numbers on Myfitness pal to meet my daily requirements. Soon it became second nature to me. Fortunately, I had a lot of success with this and continued doing it for almost a year. I lost weight and I maintained for a while by doing this, which I have never done before. But as the one year mark was coming up and I was maintaining, I was happy with my weight loss, but deep down I still knew that I could lose more. I also realized that my body need a change. When I was counting my macros, for those of you who are not familiar with it the popular say is "if it fits, eat it." That doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be healthy, clean food. So naturally, being the sweet fanatic that I am. I would fill most of my macros, especially my carbs with foods that weren't so "clean." We all deserve treats and I still have my treats, but not every single day!!! This was the rut that I was finding myself in and I knew that I needed a change my nutrition. I tried lowering my carbs to see if the scale would move, no sir, it still didn't budge.
I started following a girl (now presently my coach) that had lost a considerable amount of weight and she had a Facebook page dedicated to her weight loss journey. She too had been counting macros and was having the same concerns as I was after doing it for so long. I have heard abut clean eating before but didn't really pay too much attention to it. One day while I was one Facebook, I seen hat she had just signed up to be a health and fitness coach and I wanted to see if she was getting results. Sure enough she was after no time. So I began to watch a little more closely. I was amazed by the results she was getting and I began researching about clean eating and the program she was doing. The nutrition plan was all centred clean eating. That was the game changer for me. I sent her a message for her to hook me up with that she was doing and the rest is kinda history from there. While I was waiting for my program to arrive I starting making small changes to eat more clean. After about a week of doing this I noticed that I felt healthier overall and I could see a little difference in my tummy area, the area that I struggle with the most. This is the moment that I fell in love with clean eating and I know that I would love those little containers that were on their way. When I received my program, began drinking Shakeology and getting my 30 minute workouts in ( I was so happy not to have to spend more than a hour at workout) then it all started falling into place leading me to this present moment.
To say that is has been easy would be an understatement. For me my weight loss and staying on track is a minute by minute, second by second struggle every single day. However, I have learned that you can not deprive yourself either. If you want a few candy, have a few candy just not the whole bag. If you want a piece of cake, have a small piece of cake not the whole cake. If you deprive yourself of all of those yummy treats you are eventually going to go overboard with it and you won't be able to stop. It's all about balance. When it comes to clean eating a lot of people follow the 80/20 rule. You eat clean for 80 percent of the time and 20 percent is allowed for reasonable treats. I can't stress enough how it is a lifestyle change that you have to make. My husband doesn't eat the same as me 80 percent of the time. I sometimes find myself cooking two different supper meals. Is it a lot of work sometimes? Yes it is, but I know that's what I have to do to keep my weight under control.
WOW! That was a long blog, but the take away that I want to get from this is that you have to stick with it. Do not give up even if your road long and twisty. There will come a day when the road will become a little straighter but there will always be twists because that is life. But from those twists we have to learn from them, push ahead with our heads held high and believe in our selves.
Thank you for reading:)
