lose 100 pounds

It’s been a year now I think and I think I’ve lost 40 something pounds, but we don’t worry about things like that. I finally have the courage to do it. I am going to work towards a raw/vegan lifestyle. I’m going to be successful this time because I’m not going to put my body into total shock and make myself feel deprived.
I went to the store yesterday and I didn’t stock up. I bought about $20 dollars or so worth of stuff. This is about how much I spend on pizza twice per week. The goal is to TRANSITION into 100% raw/vegan. I’m not giving myself a timeline because it’s simply unneccessary. Last year I added salad twice per day to what I already ate. This is salad with ranch dressing, full fat. I lost weight just because I was adding raw fruits and vegetables to my diet. It’s working this way because eating food that isn’t raw isn’t a failure. Its about getting lots of good raw fruits and veggies into my body. It’s about acquiring new tastes ( I hate tomatoes, but I’m on a mission to eat them daily) and no longer needed the old ones.

I just moved in and in going through my stuff, I found that all I read is stupid diet books. And then I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and I decided to drop by my absolute favorite aisle, and it’s ridiculous. Like no I knew it was crazy but looking at it visually is crazy. It’s even more crazy that every single one of those diets works. If you devote yourself to any plan, it will work for you. That’s insane.

So I have to watch my calorie, carbohydrate, and sodium intake. I have to keep refined sugar and processed foods at a minimum. I gotta drink water. I have to move my body. Oh and I’m taking 14 credit hours and I’m supposed to devote 3x that many hours per week to my studies. Oh and I have a job thats another 20 hours per week. Oh yeah and I actually have life. And God’s will should be my number 1 priority. When did it all get so complicated? Sometimes I wish I could just take all my money and flee to Martinique and live in a hut and sleep on a cot and play in the water and fish and pray and thats it. No loan consolidating and calorie counting and worrying about whether or not watching television kills a billion brain cells per minute.

The biggest mistake I’ve ever made on this journey was obsesssing over my weight. I obsessed over what number was on what scale and spent hours on end calculating how much weight I could potentially lose in which frame of time. I compared myself to everyone else and my results to other people’s results.

I don’t want to do that again. I like me a lot right now. I made sure that losing weight was nowhere in my New Year’s resolution pile. I’m not eating disgusting Healthy Choice meals and I’m not going to starve myself ever again in life for non-religious purposes.

2 changes per week. I’m bombing this week, though. My changes are supposed to be exercise daily (nothing too organized, just moving my body) and to stop drinking my calories. I didn’t do anything but lay around yesterday and I love chocolate milk a lot so I have to keep these two goals until I can master them for 7 days straight.

Low carb really works wonders. I went to Taco Bell for the first time since probably March or before then sometime, got what I’d normally get, and I ate like nothing. My appetite is like non-existent. Saying no to things I probably shouldn’t have isn’t a big deal because I always feel satisfied. It’s awesome and I love it.

Seriously, my life has just gotten so out of control that all I really want to do is like quit my job, grab a tub of ice cream, sit in my room and eat it. I’m a mess, like real bad.

So I have this big master plan that I, of course think is brilliant. I was originally adding goals every week, I’m doing that, but slower and different. I was going 1,500 calories and I honestly truly miss that because I miss sugar like a lot. I stayed within 1,500 calories and 30g of fat. Thing is, I fell off completely because my doctor told me to reduce my sodium so that I can get my bp down. And I did, but it completely ruined my diet because I had to get rid of the Lean Cuisine meals and chicken noodle soup.

My plan starts with low-carbing it. I was doing okay until last night when my boyfriend and I had Chinese. Today was better. They don’t lie, eating this way truly does do things for your slashing the appetite. This phase of my plan consists of me just keeping the carbs at a minimum. Induction on Atkins is 20g net carbs per day, I’m probably somewhere in there. I’m not trying to keep the fat down and I’m not worrying about having too many snacks, right now the focus is on keeping it low carb for two weeks. A typical day for me is two eggs scrambled and two sausage patties for breakfast, a salad with shredded cheddar and ham and ranch dressing for lunch, and chicken wings and green beans for dinner. Snacks? String cheese, sugar free jello cups with Reddi Whip, Russel Stover’s Net Carb candies, pickles, stuff like that. Soy Slender cappucino milk is pretty wonderful too with reddi whip.

So I really wanted a fudge bar today. It doesn’t help to have my mother lying in bed talking about how she’s 41 and overweight and has no friends and 6 kids so she’s going to get the lap band system thingy. Nice, how nice. Good lesson: “When you’re too weak and lazy to stand up for yourself and make the necessary sacrifices and do what you know you can do yourself, it is best to get up on a table and have a medical PRACTICIONER insert a foreign object into your body.” That’s definitely one for the books.

My plan is all written out and it’ll eventually lead me to a diet of organic meats, vegetables, dairy, and fruits, in appropriate servings. It may seem silly to go about it this way, but it makes sense to me. I spend as much time as I want working on one thing. I chose low carb first because I need to get rid of the sugar and processed foods. So out with the sugar cereal and breads and in with good meats, eggs, and vegetables. Plus, the weight falls off and I know this because I’ve done it before.

Okay so I swore up and down that I would never ever ever do another fad diet. But does Kimkins really count as a fad diet? I mean it’s low carb, cals, and fat and portion control basically. Isn’t that what I’d aim for anyway? I don’t know, any thoughts?

Okay so I suck. I cannot believe it’s been over a month since I’ve posted. I’m a horrible person, I know it.

I need to be honest and I need to say that I got to a point where all I really wanted was to lose the weight. Nothing else was more important than getting rid of the weight. I was obsessed. When my scale didn’t move for too long, I fell apart. I started this journey at a time of frustration and desperation.

I needed to get away from the whole ordeal. I stopped allowing the scale to determine how I would feel for the rest of the day. I really love my job. I’m really excited about my fall classes. I’m really feeling honestly and completely happy with my life. I’m probably 10 lbs. less than I was a month ago so that’s down something like 37 lbs. I think.

After my bp going up life started to suck because I learned that the Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice meals I depended on were no longer a healthy option for me. I lost more weight because I have fun. I go swimming every single day, at work we do a lot more walking than I did sitting at home. My diet is pretty much whatever I’m feeling at the time. I need to be better about it, I know that. I’m looking into a cleansing diet that I can do a few times a year. I need to clean out the toxic dump I’ve turned my body into.

I hope everyone is feeling great, I know I do.

BTW: My brother was born this morning.

I swear this has been the week from hell. I haven’t been focusing on my weight so much, I’ve been really really focusing on getting my bp back down so that woman doesn’t even talk to me about meds. The good news is that I went to give blood today and of course the lady got my bp and she said it was great, so I’m not worried about my checkup tomorrow.

My two weeks of starting one job and trying to end another with this yearbook and this huge awards program are over. Over the weekend I went to Milan with my best friend. Good vacation, I needed it.

I haven’t seen the gym in a month now. I am suffering from frequent pain and poor circulation so I haven’t been up to it. I have, however managed to find two great pilates DVDs that I only paid $1 a piece for. They’re great, I love them. It hasn’t been long so I’ll say something when I know. Now that I have some actual time to think and room to breathe I can get back to my organized meal plan and my organize fitness routine. I really miss it. It centered me and I’ve just been so busy that I lost it.

BTW, I got a mp3 player for my birthday! My mommy got it for me and it’s my favorite thing in the world. I’m glad to be back I missed knowing what goes on in everyone’s lives.

Honestly, my life is insane right now. I don’t weigh myself. I have no idea what I’ve been eating. I did have to see a doctor today for my physical for my new job (yay me, I really like it so far) and we talked about my blood pressure and my weight issue. She was impressed by how I’ve made lifestyle changes and she told me to just keep at it.

Back to my confessions…I’ve been doing a pretty horrible job in all honesty. I’m mad at myself for being so good at making everyone else happy and so bad at taking care of my own body. I hate it because I feel selfish when I put everything that everyone else needs to the side to focus on myself because I’m not capable of doing both.

You guys are doing great, though and that’s awesome

I love when I spend 20 minutes writing a post and I accidentally delete it. I’m brilliant today.

I’ve stopped weighing myself. It’s a distraction. I found that I love music so much more than food. I get lost in music. I’m asking for an mp3 player for my birthday because it’s so much more fun to workout when it’s with music. I love reading magazines and watching basketball when I’m on the elliptical and the treadmill at the gym, but what I really love is working out to music and taking dance classes. I promised myself that I would start going to the pilates class at my gym once I lost 50 lbs. I’m not even close but I think I might scratch that and just go, why not right? I might ask for a gift card so that I can get some workout DVDs. I really need to take my butt back to the gym though.

I’m thinking that my days need to be longer. So, tomorrow I’m going to see how I like going to the gym at 6am. I think it would carry over into my eating habits because who wants to eat something bad after working their butt off, right?