JUST A BIT MORE TO GO

So here i am. Today, well actually this is me on Saturday. I have officially lost 73 lbs. I am still not done though. I have no magic number i would like to reach and i am in no rush to have it come off. I live because "life happens" and i am still at WW. When i find myself in a rut... a stand still, lacking motivation and see the scale starting to creep up again i go back to WW. It sets the sails in motion again.

I am no superhuman. No die hard. I eat hamburgers, MacDonalds and birthday cake, but my trick now is to balance it with exercise. If i want to eat a gross amount of pizza than i have to pick and choose time to do a gross amount of exercise to counter act the pizza. Right before i choose to have the second or third piece i pick a time that i can work out.. Right there on the spot.

Basically it comes down to one rule... Your output has to be more than your input.... lamens terms.. you have to burn more calories than you eat... that is the trick.. The golden rule. The only secret.

For all of you struggling, i know where you are and what you are going through. The new plan every night before you go to bed. You tell yourself that "tomorrow is a new day" the first day to the new me... then tomorrow comes and goes and you lay in bed and do it all over again.

I am still working. Everyday just like the first, with choosing the best choices and doing what i can when i can to get where i want to be. It is a lifestyle change in every way. EVERYTHING about the way i lived two years ago has changed except maybe my love for my family...

Working out sucks... it does. But when you are done you feel like you have done something just for you. Somedays i have to get up at 5am and go for a run just to fit some me time in. I am back on my list... still not at the top, and i don't plan to ever make it there but i am on there... maybe second from the bottom some days but as long as i stay on the list I will make time for me.

xo

Starting to Notice

It is funny when people ask you "What is your secret?" I always tell them there is no secret. Eat right and exercise. The way i figure it is Oprah is one of the richest people in the world. If there was a secret diet pill or any way around just eating right and exercising she would have the resources to find it. Yet, she like us, is still struggling.



Here i am with about 50 lbs gone. What a long hard road. It IS possible but you have to want it bad enough.

Weightloss has to be in your mind constantly. The right choices, planning ahead, tricks of the trade and constant monitoring is all key. You have to be so very carefull to not loose sight of your goals.




Life happens. By "life" i mean girls night out, vacations, birthdays, bbq's, work functions. Anything that can throw you off track. You need to be prepared and be ready for anything.
I have a little motto... I do what i am supposed to do 90% of the time and what i want to do 10% of the time. There are days when you want that second piece of German chocolate cake, maybe you take it, maybe you don't. It doesn't mean you have failed. If you say no 90% than you are doing ok.

Last night i had icecream. Lots of icecream... that doesn't mean that i am going to wake up at 230 lbs tomorrow. It means that i am going to keep in the back of my mind when "life happens" that i had a treat.

You can't eat a chicken burger without a bun for the rest of your life. Eventually you will want to have a taco instead of a lettuce wrap. The thing to remember is when you eat your taco don't get mexi fries as well with sour cream and bacon and then stop at DQ for a hot fudge sunday and have popcorn for a night time snack...

PLANNING IS IMPORTANT

Even to this day i plan my meals at least one day in advance if i can. I work full time and so does my husband. By the time I get off work, pick up my son from childcare, get home and look at dinner options it is too late to thaw anything or start prep work we wouldn't eat till 7pm.
I will give you an example; at home already cooked for dinner is ham. We cooked it last night watching CSI. So ham is already done. I boil some noudles and throw in some already chopped veggies and some seasoning and my diner is done. Ham, pasta salad and snap peas... Healthy and ready in 20 minutes. Tonight when i find myself with some down time i will take steps to have tomorrow's diner started.
It is important that you put yourself back on "the list". We as mom's and wives have been so used to doing for everybody else that we sometimes forget to put ourselves on the list.
Kids breakfast, lunches, comb hair, brush teeth, work, dinner, clean, laundry, homework.........etc. This is an example of "the list" everyone has one... but for some reason our names never appear on it... This will be a hard one if you are like the rest of us....

LITTLE TRICKS

One of my little tricks was always to bring something to any function i was going to. This is why. If i was faced with a BBQ, burgers, steak, garlic bread, potato salad... you know.. those ones. I would always have a healthy option. I would bring a summer salad, or bruchetta, or salsa and pita bread... something that i knew would be a good choice.
I was usually prepared.
Another little trick is if you are planning on going out for dinner with friends make sure you choose your resturant before you go. There is a little website that has the nutritional information for almost every entree from every resturant imaginable.
www.dietfacts.com
This is a free website, no signup, no registration or passwords. You just go in and search. That way i could figure out what i was ordering first before i went. I would plan my breakfast and lunch accordingly.
Everybody is different. Everybody has their little tricks but for me it was PLANNING AHEAD!!!!

SHRINKING

So 37 lbs down here.

Getting there.

At WW they ask you to pick a goal. I was about at that point now. Picking a weight goal was something i was not willing to do. For me, to sit and tell someone i want to loose 50lbs is discouraging. 50lbs is hard. 50lbs is soo far away. But i will tell you something, i will loose 2lbs by next week...

That is how i did it. Little goals. I want to loose 5lbs by my birthday. I want to loose 2 lbs by this time next week. 10lbs by camping season. If you set your goals small to start with than you will not get discouraged. People say set your goals high. "Aim for the stars" which may work for them, but when it comes to weightloss saying "I want to loose 75lbs" feels almost impossible!!

As i reached and surpassed my little goals every week it felt impowering. I shared with whomever would listen. EVERYBODY knew i was watching my weight and doing WW so when i was invited to a BBQ or a birthday party or for dinner there was always healthy choices.

LEARNING

Learning what is good for you and what isn't sounds easy. Carrots are good and MacDonalds is bad right? Well how long do you think you can eat carrots before you find yourself at the drive thru? NOT LONG.
Anyone can eat like a bird and loose weight but the problem is when you are tired of chirping and want to EAT again. So i did some research, talked to friends and joined Weight Watchers. The thing with WW is you learn to eat what is already in your fridge at home. There is no premade meals or food to buy. So I found a meeting and started.

At first the weight came off very very fast. 20lbs in the first month!!! This is going to be easy i thought to myself. 20lbs the first month, 10 the second and 6 the third... you can see how this was going. Finally a stand still... nothing.
When i started i PROMISED myself that I wasn't willing to commit to something that i am not willing to do for the rest of my life. I am 29, the rest of my life is hopefully a very long time.

So at that point i started exercise. Just light exercise. Nothing major. Walking. Almost anyone can walk. The thing i found with exercise is you need to figure out what you are willing to give up. To exercise, you have to give up something. Weather it be couch potato time, missing your fav tv show, leaving the dishes till tomorrow, or maybe missing family time. There is something that you will be giving up. If you can incorporate one into the other you are one step ahead already.

LETS START

So here i am. Blogging.


Many ppl have asked me "How i did it?" How i managed to loose 70lbs. So i figured i would start a blog and maybe inspire someone.


My name is Mendy I am 29 years old and two years ago i was 230lbs. I was unhappy, unhealthy and obviously had no idea what i was doing food wise. Carrot sticks with your chicken nuggets and fries was my idea of a healthy meal. So what has changed over the past two years? EVERYTHING.





This was me. Was is a word i am very proud of. This was my heaviest. It was this picture that made me take a second look. Who is that girl? OMG that is me?
That is the day that it changed. That is the day that i decided i needed help.