Tag Archives: Diet

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Decision Made!

A few weeks ago I was trying to make a decision about my gym membership with LA Fitness. The one thing holding me back were my personal training sessions that were pre-paid. I had this plan of scheduling those sessions in hopes that it will motivate me to attend the gym more. Well, that plan failed and those sessions that I scheduled at that time were cancelled.

After careful thought and prayer (yes…prayer) I decided to cancel my membership with LA Fitness. I know that I am going to get “flack” from my decision but I really feel that is best for me right now. I prefer to work out at home currently and maybe I will revisit a gym membership in the future. I am also proud of another decision that I made.

Last night I decided to indulge in eating out for dinner so my family and I went to Applebee’s. Ok, some people feel that Applebee’s is gross but I happen to like their spinach and shrimp salad and I tried their grilled chicken/shrimp dish last night which was yummy. I figured that starting April 1st I will be starting the P.I.N.K. Method so I could enjoy one meal out before then right?

Anywho….while my daughter was driving us home (she is a licensed driver now, YAY!!) I told my family that I was starting the P.I.N.K. Method. I told them that I will be preparing foods that I have to eat on this program and that they are on their own for dinner from now on if they are not down for eating what I want to eat. I also told them I would not eat out during this time so if they are too lazy to find food for themselves then they can eat out. I felt so proud of myself for telling them and I feel that I have taken the first step in getting them to understand that I am trying to be healthy and fit and either they are on board or on their own.

Wish me luck!

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Reflecting On My Journey

While I was driving to work this morning, I was listening to Oprah Radio and just doing some self – reflection about my health, wellness and fitness journey. My thoughts were triggered last night while reading the book about the P.I.N.K Method. The book also serves as a journal in which you write your starting measurements, goals etc. While writing my goals, I realized a number of things that I am doing to hinder my health and fitness journey. Some of the things I am going to mention in this post may be a repeat of a earlier post so I apologize in advance.

1. I am an emotional eater.

2. I  snack out of boredom

3. I sometimes skip breakfast

4. I eat certain things out of weakness (giving in to what my daughter and man want to eat for dinner)

5. I lay in bed most of the weekend in the dark either sleeping or watching TV

6. I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself

7. I am allowing my depression to run my life instead of continuously seeking treatment (this is my biggest obstacle).

8. I have not made any short or long-term weight loss goals

My biggest obstacle is depression and I have decided that its time to contact my insurance and seek treatment. I was under treatment before at the Veteran’s Affairs but I stopped going since the main focus was medicating me and not allowing me to face my issues and learn new ways to overcome those issues.

I have also realized that I do not need to have everyone in my house on the same page with me. I find that I want EVERYONE in my house to change their lifestyle because I am trying to change mine. I am unsuccessful with my change because I am not focused on just me. It is okay to be selfish so that I can reduce my risk of heard disease, diabetes, high cholesterol etc. I have to make a change for ME and not anyone else.

I initially planned to start the  P.I.N.K. Method on March 19th but since I have not finished reading through the book I have decided to start on April 1st. The first 90 days of 2012 did not go they way I intended on this journey (only a 3 lb weight loss so far), so let’s see how the 2nd 90 days of this year will go. I have some upcoming events to get jazzy for as well as being healthy overall such as my daughters graduation and my birthday. I will discuss my short-term and long-term weight loss goals in a future post. :-)

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Why I Don’t Like to Cook

I am sitting here at work on my lunch break eating leftovers and decided to blog about my thoughts on cooking. This morning while cooking my breakfast to bring to work I looked in the ‘fridge and noticed the leftovers. Leftover spaghetti from Monday evening, left over yellow rice from last week, and left over meatballs from…a few weeks ago (yes…a few weeks ago). The first thought that popped into my head was “This is why I do not like to cook!”.

Ok, for those of you who do not follow me on YouTube I have a little background information for you. My 18-year-old daughter moved back in with me in July of 2010. From May 2009 to July 2010 she lived with her father’s family in South Carolina and realized that the grass was not greener on that side.

While she was away I learned to cook for two people: myself and my boyfriend. He is not picky at all and will eat grilled chicken breast, grilled tilapia, sautéed shrimp, scallops, tortelloni, and some other foods with a side of fresh veggies or some canned veggies. We would always have just enough food for dinner and one serving that I could take to work for lunch. It worked out perfect and I did not have to deal with “pickyness”. We would maybe eat something out once every two weeks and that is it. So when my daughter returned things changed.

When she returned she was not happy with our menu so we tried to add more variety.  I had to learn to cook for 3 people and now it has gotten to a point where we order out more (such as: Jimmy Johns Subs, Dominos Pizza, Chinese, Chili’s, Applebees) because no one besides me will cook or no one will eat the left overs! The spaghetti in my fridge…I have been bringing a serving to work daily and I am tired of it.

I am not sure of what to do about this. Should I just cook for myself and let my boyfriend and daughter fend for themselves? Surely this is one of the reason’s that my “health” and fitness journey is pretty hindered now. Who knows….anyway I just really wanted to vent about the situation. I am sure this is not an interesting post but I love that I have a blog and I can just write about what I want. No offense :-)

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I feel like I am fighting a losing battle….

I know that it took me several years to gain the 40 pounds that I want to lose but it seems like I am fighting a losing battle. I go up and down with my weight loss journey and give up when I feel this way. A few years ago, I would have lost the weight much faster. All I had to do was power walk, or run and in a matter of weeks my weight was falling off. What is the issue now? Well, I cannot do those things now. I have osteoarthritis in BOTH knees and it angers me. Why? Well because it’s partly my fault. I over did things, I gained weight, I got really lazy and this is the result. Now I am in pain and I feel like I am an old woman.

I have the option to get knee injections and physical therapy but I am still on the fence with that. My reason, well….the pain will only go away for about 6 months. What is the use in that? Will that buy me time to lose the weight? Who knows but I am not going to give up. I started my health and fitness journey on January 16th and as of January 29 I am down two pounds. I measured myself today and I have lost up to 1.5 inches in certain areas of my body. I keep telling myself that if I continue to work at it without hurting myself the weight will be off of me by the end of the year. Have I had moments where I wanted to try a “lose weight fast” gimmick? Yes…I was talking to a friend of mine today about the NV weight-loss system. Then I decided that I do not need to take an appetite suppressant especially since my eating was not a big issue, it was the lack of exercise.

I did not want to set myself up by saying I wanted to lose 40 pounds by a certain date. I do realize that slow and steady wins the race and that I have to go through a bit of pain to gain the end results of being 40 pounds lighter.

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My journey to getting healthy and fit

On January 16th, I started my health and fitness journey. My goal is to lose weight and eat better than I used to. I don’t feel that I was eating badly at all, I do really well at work by bringing my food with me to work which includes breakfast. My main issue has been with exercise, I used to be really physically fit. However, over the past few years my physical activity decreased and my weight slowly increased. One day I woke up and I weighed 197 pounds!! I have tried and failed many times on my path to lose weight but now I feel like I finally have myself together.

What helps more is that my family wants to get involved. It is quite difficult to get healthy when the others in your home are still eating the junk food that you are trying to avoid. We also bought a juicer so we have started to buy more fruits and veggies to eat as well as juice. My daughter is starting to want healthy snacks such as fruits and while she refuses to give up bagel bites or taquitos, I do not mind buying those for her because those are foods/snacks that I do not crave. My boyfriend has also made the move to take lunch to work with him daily and he stopped drinking Coca-Cola (we almost had to stage an intervention…lol).

Another thing that is helping me is work. My team is a part of a 10-week program called Active for Life, as a team we decided that we will take a 15 min break together and walk around our building twice. It’s actually gotten to a point where I look forward to it because we get fresh air, Sun and it helps me to refocus. I also take long walks about four days a week. Last week I started out with a 30 minute walk on my treadmill 4 times last week. This week I walked at 60 mins on my treadmill on Tuesday,Wednesday and on Thursday my daughter and I walked for an hour with our dogs. I have burned tons of calories and it has proven to me that I do not have to power walk or run to burn calories to lose weight. You see, I was upset that I could not do vigorous exercise such as Zumba, Tae Bo, or anything like that because of my knee osteoarthritis. I can get the same results with low impact exercise.

My next goal is to start incorporating weight training to start toning my upper body. I usually feel self-conscious at the gym and although I have a membership, I barely go to the gym. My plan is to just take things one step at a time and start going to the gym twice a week to work my upper body, then gradually move to three times a week and include attending a water aerobics class. Every two weeks I will Vlog about my progress on YouTube and if time permits I was thinking of doing a daily blog about what I ate and how I felt throughout each day. So far things have been fun and I really want to continue my “journey to jazzness”.