Miracles

Well  I am still plugging along and one week into a new challenge. I lost .2 lbs this week and even with such a small loss, I am celebrating. Why? Because it's a loss but more than that, it is helping me to keep a weekly count of my weight loss without being consumed by the numbers. There was actually a point in my life that such a small loss would have sent me into a depression. Yeah....the glass is half empty scenario and it would have been the green light for me to give up and give in. Not anymore. I have learned that a loss is a loss and quite honestly, I don't even need a loss to be motivated to keep going.

Someone ask me the other day if after I lose all the weight I need to, if I thought I would be able to keep it off. Ouch! Yet a very valid question as many who lose large amounts of weight are not able to maintain the loss and end up putting some, all or even more back on within a two year period of time. My answer was an unequivocal YES! Why am I so sure? Because THM is not only changing how I look but it is also changing how I view myself, food and the world.

I know I speak often of NSV's (non-scale victories) but quite frankly, I view each NSV as a small wonderful little miracle in my life. The fact that numbers don't rule my world or how I view myself anymore, that I can eat healthy and still be full and satisfied and the fact that I have been doing this for 10 weeks now and I haven't gone off plan once.....those are all miracles.

Ten weeks ago, I was truly convinced that I would never be able to lose weight. I was sure that I would have to spend the rest of my life being unhealthy, uncomfortable in my own skin and tired and miserable. I was cheating myself and my family because I "couldn't" lose weight and I viewed myself as not only a failure at weight loss, but also a failure at life. There was very little I liked about myself and I was down right miserable. Now.....I barely remember that person. I used to hate getting out of bed of a morning, but now I am up early and I stay busy all day long. My days are full of accomplishments and I am taking pride in who I am as a person. I have energy and an excitement for each new day that I didn't have before. It truly is amazing.

Another huge change is how I view my body. Oh, I still have a long way to go but I am learning to be much more forgiving of the imperfections that are my body. Before, I never looked in the mirror and if I did, it was from the neck up. I refused to stand in front of a full length mirror and if I had to, it always left me in tears. Now, I make myself look and when I do, I am so much happier with what I see. Also, since there is starting to be less of me, I noticed an old familiar panic take over about a week ago.

When I was young, I had an eating disorder and I teetered on the edge of anorexia while swallowing laxatives and diet pills. When I was very thin, that "looked" right to me, but it was so depressing because the way I achieved it was through almost starving myself to death. I would feel my bones protruding and feel depressed because I knew the only way I could keep them that way was to never eat. I was hungry and miserable and the weight loss was unsustainable. The other day as I saw collar bones starting to peak through, for a brief moment, my brain went back to a very unhealthy thought process. I started wondering how I could take the weight off faster. Maybe I could just eat smoothies for a week. Or maybe......I could skip a meal and a snack everyday. I felt my heart sink and my stomach knot. Then I realized that this was old, unhealthy thinking that would undo everything I had achieved these last 10 weeks. The truth is, I have had more success and happiness eating these last weeks than I have ever had with food in my entire life. Why in the world would I allow old, unsuccessful bad habits to creep in and derail what I have worked so hard for? Of course I wouldn't, but it was something I had to really think about, process and get through. Another amazing miracle.

So the weight is coming off. It will stay off, because my life has changed so radically in such a short time. While I enjoy food and still like to eat very much, food is no longer my crutch. I no longer use it to self medicate and when I eat, I can truly enjoy it because I know that not only am I filling my stomach but I am doing it in a healthy way that leaves no room for remorse or guilt.

Miracles happen all around us everyday and they are not just confined to the big, over the top things. Miracles can also be as small as finding happiness in being able to bend over and paint your own toe nails or being able to walk five miles without needing oxygen and an EMS team. The biggest THM miracle for me though has been that I have found a whole new strength in myself and I am learning to really like the person I am becoming. Now that folks....is a miracle!

Week Five is Done

I am learning so much. It's true! I am learning about how to eat, why it's so important to eat right, the adverse affects of sugar and most of all......I am learning about myself and my body. It is a lot to learn in just a little over a month, but hopefully I will keep all that I am learning in mind as I continue to move forward.

One thing I have learned is that two people can follow the exact same plan and same menu and at the end of a week, can lose or not lose weight differently. I have seen lots of Mama's upset on the THM Facebook pages because they followed someone elses menus (who maybe dropped 3-5 lbs that week) but they either lost only a few 10ths of a pound, didn't move on the scale at all or even gained a bit. I know it is frustrating and it makes you crazy, but there are reasons for this.

Each of us is an individual and each of us loses individually....or differently. If you have 100-200 lbs to lose, those first weeks if you stick to plan, you are going to lose much faster than someone with say 20-50 lbs to lose. However, the more weight you lose and the farther along in weight loss you are, often times those pounds become more difficult to take off. You may have lost steadily for 3-4 months and then suddenly, your body plateaus and getting that scale to move is nearly impossible. That is why our Non-scale Victories (NSV's) are so important. They help us to focus on more than the numbers.

Sometimes when we add exercise into the mix, especially muscle building exercise such as weights, the scales will stall out or even go up a bit, even if we have not deviated from plan at all. While this is frustrating to see, the reality is that it is a good thing. It means that your body fat is being replaced by muscle and the more muscle you have the faster your metabolism is. This is why exercise is crucial to a healthy lifestyle.

So if you know you are doing it right, but your scales don't seem to be agreeing, don't fall apart, freak out or give up. Maybe it is time to change it up a bit. Add more aerobic (fat burning) exercise, or maybe you need to add a few extra E meals or throw in some extra FP's just to shake things up a bit. Your body really is improving. I promise.

As for my body.....I just finished up week 5 of the Spring Fling Challenge. I have one week and four day's left. This last week has been a bit rough for me. There have been a few stressors, it has been really hot and....well....in the past that would have been enough to "cut myself some slack" and let myself binge. I did not. I did have a few emotional hunger issues which I either relieved by eating a bit more at a meal or a couple of times I didn't wait the whole 3 hours before eating my next meal/snack for fear I would really eat something bad. Other than that though, I never went off plan. Still, I felt really bad about myself all week. This stressed me. I kept looking in the mirror looking for a difference and I couldn't see anything. In fact, I worried that this would be the week that the scales would turn on me completely and I would have failed myself.

Finally, after giving myself about a day to worry, feel sorry for myself and contemplate throwing it all in for a cheesecake and some fries, I kicked my own tail and gave myself some straight talk. So what if the scales said I gained. What was the worst thing that would happen? I couldn't have gained much because I have stayed on plan. So what is a pound or two? I am still way ahead of where I started and I needed to remind myself that I was in this for the long haul. It was then and there that I realized I was obsessing and that the scale was my guide and nothing more. I refused to allow it to become my obsession. From there I decided that the scales be damned, I wasn't going to quit and I wasn't going to go off plan, but I was going to start eating my way through the THM Cookbook. 

Each day I began trying something new from the cookbook and my obsession about the scales quickly turned to excitement over what I was going to fix next. I tried pancakes, syrup and ketchup. I have done the meatloaf and tacos and my all time favorite.....the cinnamon roll in a mug. When you eat like that you fill that void or need for comfort food which helps a little with my anxiety and stress (at least for me it does). The great thing is, afterwards.....I don't have to feel an ounce of guilt or remorse. It is win/win!

Another issue I had this last week was exercise. Not once did I take a walk, but I did get a nice NSV in by proving to myself that I could still last for a while on the elliptical. It was only 15 minutes, but then again....it WAS 15 minutes. After that though, other than house work and my daily activity, there was no exercise. This worried me too as I was eating VERY well with almost zero exercise. Yeah, last night rolled around and I was kind of dreading today. Still, before I went to bed, I made peace with whatever was going to show up on the scales this morning.

When the moment of truth hit, I was ready. Regardless of what that number read, I was still moving forward, sticking to plan and happy knowing that I refused to quit, give up or walk away. So as the mental drum roll began, I closed my eyes, held my breath and then just peeked one eye open. It was a loss! It wasn't a huge loss, but it was a loss and I was beyond happy. Yay me!

So I am embarking on my last full week of the challenge. I plan on continuing to work my way through the cookbook and hopefully this week, I will add a bit more exercise. I have a lot more weight to go and I can tell you that the end of this challenge will definitely not be the end of my time on THM. We are way past the habit stage of things and it is now how I choose to live my life from here on out.

Oh....and Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there! :)

You Are Worth It!

So it's Sunday and today was weigh-in day. After last weeks weigh-in, I had pretty much prepared and coached myself to be happy with whatever the scale said. After all...I knew I had been sticking to the plan (minus one forgotten breakfast and one late night crossover which technically was still on plan). Still, I knew my body was changing and that there was every possibility that the scales had either not budged or quite possibly had only moved a few tenths of a pound like last week. This week though, there was a nice number on the minus side and I was very happy.

I may or may not have pointed out that I have been playing with THM for well over a year. I was on it full fledged for about a week right in the beginning, but then life hit and I let it be the excuse for me falling off the wagon. There have been a few starts and stops since that point and there have been times that I have been on plan about 50-60% of the time, but it wasn't until I saw the Spring Fling Challenge that something clicked inside of me.

Up until then, I had convinced myself that with my thyroid disease and being the care giver to my special needs son, that I would just never lose this weight. Actually, I convinced myself that I couldn't lose it. So when I put my son on THM with lots of crossovers and he started gaining weight and getting healthy, I knew that it was time his mama started losing weight and getting healthy too.

I can't really tell you why it is working for me this time or why I am so dedicated. Maybe it is that I finally understand the plan. I feel better about how it all works and I like the results I am seeing. Maybe it is because I am never hungry and sometimes have to force myself to eat because there is simply no deprivation in this plan at all. Maybe though, the reason everything is working this time is because it is my time. I finally quit making excuses and I am pushing myself to do things that I either didn't think I could do or simply didn't want to do previously.

As I read the THM Facebook pages, I see a lot of people saying...."I can't," or "I don't like" and making excuses as to why they aren't losing or why THM isn't working for them. The fact is, anyone can, you don't know if you like something until you try it and excuses help no one. They are simply making you bitter and frustrated while enabling you in whatever negative behaviors you are dealing with.

Quite honestly, in the beginning.....THM was the most frustrating and confusing plan I had ever been on. I didn't know my E's from my S's and fuggetaboutit when it came to FP's. I was totally lost. At that point in my life, I didn't see myself as worthy enough to take the time and figure out what I didn't understand, so I just gave up. I kept coming back though, because the food was delicious and fairly simple to make and I was absolutely in love with the drinks.

So this time, when the Spring Fling Challenge came up, I decided I could do anything for 6 weeks and it would be a true tell as to whether I could actually lose weight and if THM would really work for me. The proof is in the fact that I am still here and still plugging along half way through the challenge.

This week I have also been blessed with some NSV's (non scale victories). I have continued to increase my walking and since last Sunday, I have walked almost 15 miles. I took a picture of my face and posted it on Facebook. I had several call me out on this and say that they couldn't see my body. The fact is, my body is not near as hard for me to post a picture of as my face is. Anyone who knows me knows this. However, I did take a full body picture the day I started this challenge and I plan on taking another one on June 30th. THEN I will post the pictures and we shall see. I also was able to comfortably fit into a size 14 jean this week. That hasn't happened in a long while. Finally.....today....I am in the last digits of a number that I haven't seen in years. Next week if I have continued to move the scale south, I will be at a weight that I haven't been at in 15 years.

While I can't make anyone give THM a fair chance, I can encourage you to give it a try. Yes, if you purchase the first book, it will leave you scratching your head and wondering what the heck you have gotten yourself into. However, if you also purchase the cookbook and join some of the THM Facebook pages, it all becomes much easier and much clearer. Through Facebook, there are always people willing to answer your questions and help you piece together what you don't understand.

I am happy today, but then again.....I have been happy since I started this challenge. I am happy with me, my goals and my determination and believe me.....that is not a feeling I have had about myself in a very long time.

Until next time.....have a wonderful day and remember.....YOU ARE WORTH IT!