Don't Deny Your Pleasures

Anyone who knows me can’t deny that I find pleasure in life. I am by nature a happy person. If I am in a good mood, it is likely that I am laughing about something. I find myself defending myself constantly for either laughing at someone or laughing too much. My only defense is this: I’m not laughing for any reason other than to express my contentment. I have no intention to make fun of anybody; I laugh because I am happy. I also tend to think things are funny longer than I should, but that’s a quirk that people are just gonna have to deal with. As Stephen King says, “You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.” I have often wondered if maybe the real issue is an annoying laugh. Is my laugh annoying? Well, I just wish that I could hear other people laugh more often. I love the sound of laughter, it is beautiful.

As you may have guessed, my post today is another for the Self Discovery Word-by-Word Series. The host this month is Joy at Being Joy, and the word she selected is Pleasure.

I have spent a great deal of my life avoiding pleasure. It’s like I feel guilty if I enjoy myself too much. Why is that? I’ve worked hard my whole life. I deserve to have fun. It seems that it has only been recently that I have invited pleasure into my life. I tend to deny myself the things I love. This is usually for a greater purpose, but it never works out how it should.

I take pleasure in unconventional things – for a girl anyway. I like action movies and video games. When I was in college, I went up with a Playstation, and I downloaded a bunch of old NES games on my computer. What this meant was that I never did homework. In order to get back on track, I began to deny myself the pleasure of playing these games and I took all the games off of my computer, as I felt they were wasting my life away. Was I more productive with my schoolwork? Of course not. I wasted my life away with other crap that I took less pleasure in.

I have always found real pleasure in certain food groups. I LOVE ice cream. I will never get sick of ice cream. I denied myself the pleasure of ice cream my entire second year of college. I was really good about it. I might have cheated once or twice, but I basically never had ice cream that year. It was rough, but I did it. Did I lose any weight that year from denying myself of my favorite treat? Of course not! Because I ate other crap instead! The other food I deny myself to this day is good breakfast cereal. Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Reese’s Puffs. That stuff is freaking GOOD. You can’t have one bowl without eating half the box. Okay, maybe I could now that I have more self control… or maybe not. That’s why I don’t eat it anymore! I deny myself that pleasure.

What I have learned is that denying yourself of your pleasures doesn’t work. You replace those pleasures with other things that don’t satisfy you as much, and the end result is the same. I still didn’t do my homework, and I still ate garbage and didn’t lose weight.

I have other pleasures that I have never denied myself. I love art and music. I also take pleasure in helping and influencing those around me. It feels good to know I can make an impact. That’s why I do my blog. Today I am grateful for opportunities I have had to influence people’s lives for the better.

I'm Back!

I haven't been writing because I haven't had much to say on the weight loss front. It turns out that I am really good at maintaining weight loss. So when I do eventually make it to my goal, I know I'll be able to stay there. But I'm not happy yet. So I have actually been working with a personal trainer. She is helping me with my nutrition and with my exercise, so it has been pretty awesome. The same old exercises I had been doing just weren't working for me anymore, so I sought outside help. I'll have more to say about how she has been helping me later, but I just wanted to check in and let ya'll know I'm still here and still working. I didn't want to write until I had actually had some forward movement again! Finally, I have lost another 1.2 lbs for a grand total of 62 lbs lost.

Today I'm grateful for my freaking awesome friends. They are amazing.

Creativity and Body Image?

The Self-Discovery Word by Word Series prompt for this month is Creativity. The host for this month is Margarita at Weightless.

This is funny to me because everyone always assumes that I am creative, when I know that I am not. People think that I am creative because I draw and do other crafty things. However, I am an imitator, not a creator. I cannot create without an image being put in front of me. When I am inspired to make something crafty, it is never from my own head. When I found out I could draw, people would encourage/harass me to try to develop my creative side and see what I could come up with on my own. It seemed that no matter how I tried to explain it, I could not convince people that I did not have the talent to create, only to imitate. I am okay with this. It's funny to me that other people aren't.

My non-creativity translates to other aspects of my life, which is how this relates to my blog. The prompt was Body Image & Creativity. How in the world are they related? How in the world is creativity related to my weight loss journey? Well, for starters, I have the most success in losing weight each week when I eat the same thing every day, day after day. I find a meal that suits me that has a proper allotment of calories and I eat it every day. When I get tired of eating the same thing, I eat more normal and don't lose as much weight. When I try to be more creative with my eating habits, I am less successful.

As for body image, I have written before about how I always thought my body image issues would go away once I lost weight, but they haven't. In this way I have been somewhat successful at being creative, because I have had to come up with creative ways to battle this. I have found that dressing in new and creative ways helps me feel better about my image. Same with making sure my hair is done and my make-up looks right. I started wearing lip gloss for the first time ever. It doesn't fix the problem, but these little things definitely have helped me to see myself in the mirror as what I am and not what I was. I still run into those days where I say to myself "who has time for all of this?" But on the days I spend time on myself, I definitely feel more confident.

Today I am thankful for sincere compliments. It's nice when people notice on the days I try.

More Maintenance

I am so close to my goal, so it is getting harder and harder to lose each week. They call it a plateau. I'm gonna have to be more creative when it comes to dieting, which is something I'm not good at. See my next post for more on that. So this week was another week where I didn't lose any weight, and I just maintained my weight loss so far. I can't complain, but I do need to make some changes that I haven't wanted to make. Like with my diet soda. Maybe now is the time to drink less of that. Hopefully certain people don't read this so I won't be held accountable... I just want so badly to eat normal, but I can't yet! I am SOOOO close, but not quite yet, so I'll keep chugging along.

Trapped!

Have you ever heard people talk about how they felt like they were a skinny girl trapped in a fat girl's body? I never felt that way. I knew I was fat, and I knew why. For example, my first year of college was a terrible year for eating. My roommates made a pan of brownies almost every night which we ate while we watched the movie "Mean Girls" a thousand times that year. We were not civilized about it. We didn't wait for them to cool down, we didn't use plates, sometimes we didn't even use forks! We ate them straight out of the pan. Good times... Anyway, we found chocolate on one of our door knobs once. We thought that was pretty darn funny! We came up with a Jeff Foxworthy type comedic bit because of it. It was called "Sign of a Fat Kid." Do you ever find chocolate on your door knob? Sign of a fat kid. Is there ever food on your shirt under your bosoms that you can't see and therefore don't know about? Sign of a fat kid. I don't remember all of them, but there were a bunch. It was pretty funny! Other examples of terrible eating habits that year were our frequent visits to Panda Express and Cold Stone. It's no wonder I regained the twenty pounds I lost prior to moving out to college! I was the only fat one though. The point is, I have never had that thought of "I'm a skinny girl trapped in a fat girl's body."

Now that I've lost 60 lbs however, I've been having a very opposite thought. I was eating a hot dog the other day and I had the thought "I am a fat girl trapped in a skinnier girl's body." Ha ha! I have all the habits of a much larger girl. I eat way too fast, so my stomach doesn't have time to tell me to stop because it is full. I need to be careful of this. I take way too big of bites. Ketchup and mustard was dripping down my hand and almost fell on my shirt (sign of a fat kid). I drink my Diet Dr. Pepper. I eat in the car when I get take out instead of waiting until I get home. Maybe everyone does that though... Anyway, this was just a funny thought that went through my head as I was eating my hot dog. I wonder if anyone else has ever felt that way?

Even though I have bad habits, I am still very careful by maintaining portion control. I eat fast, but there is not a lot of food on my plate. I will probably feel like a fat girl trapped in a skinnier girl's body for a long time. It will take a while for me to adjust.

Today I'm thankful for the new sound system on my tv. It's awesome.

An Irrational Fear

I am afraid of Cafe Rio. I used to love that place! I'm not a big fan of Mexican food, but this place sure knows how to make it. It is soooooooooooo good. Their sweet pork is to DIE for. At an old job I used to have we would have Cafe Rio Wednesdays, and we'd get Cafe Rio every week. Someone would take orders and pick it up for everyone. I would look forward to Wednesdays so I could have my Cafe Rio. Seriously, this stuff is good. But, it does come in rather large portions and I was never very careful and I would get sick to my stomach from eating too much of it.

Since losing so much weight, I have tried to eat things I used to love and gotten sick. I guess my stomach just can't handle what it used to be able to. I haven't tried Cafe Rio yet. I haven't eaten there in at least six months, maybe more.

I had an interesting experience a little while ago. I was driving to the grocery store when all of a sudden someone was honking at me. I look to the car next to me and see my two brothers and my sister-in-law. I roll down my window and they tell me they are on their way to Cafe Rio to meet my parents and that I should come. I thought about it for a minute and said I'd go, but that I wasn't going to eat there. We drove our separate ways.

I arrived at the complex where Cafe Rio is located where I used to have such feelings of excitement! It's right next to a Sonic Drive-In (they have really good Diet Dr. Pepper) and some shopping areas. It's a cool area. But as I drove in that day, I noticed a very different feeling. It was a feeling of dread and horror. I had lost so much weight and here I was driving right into a place I used to eat all the time.

I sat and watched my family eat their food. I didn't want to eat any, and I wasn't even jealous of their food because I was too afraid of how it would make me feel. Eating it had made me sick before (but only from eating too much), how would it possibly make me feel now?

I don't really have anything to be afraid of. Cafe Rio uses fresh and healthy ingredients. It's the same as anywhere else, really. I would just have to be careful with portions. But I have this emotional attachment to this place that makes me fear it. I don't know when or if I will ever eat there again.

Today I am grateful for my coworkers again. They help even the most annoying situations seem hilarious!

Time to Get Serious Again

I thought this week would be so easy since Christmas was over. It wasn't, so now I'm back to getting serious about dieting.

New Year's Eve was awesome. Best New Year's I've had in a long time. Huge pallet fire out in the desert! Since I started off the new year right, I can continue by getting back on track. My boss is so sweet, she gave me some almond milk that will go really good with my cereal, so I can start eating that again. No more treats for a little while, which should be easy now that the holidays are over. Also, I have signed up for a 12-week contest on the website that sends me my breakfast shakes. I've done something like this before with the Body for Life workouts, but this is something that I have actually registered for. I have submitted a before essay, and will soon be submitting a before picture as of this week holding a newspaper with that day's date. After 12 weeks I'll submit an after picture and can potentially win $25,000 depending on how epic my transformation is. Don't worry, I won't be getting my hopes up, but it sure is a big incentive! So I will be working on one of my goals for this year of being more active sooner than I thought.

Today's results: I gained .06 lbs. Not a lot, I know, but I'm still annoyed. Total weight loss is now 58.2 instead of 58.8.

Today I'm thankful for spanx, enough said!

Christmas Candy

I would say that I am pretty strict with my diet overall. When I "indulge" and go out to eat or something, I am still very careful with portions, so I hardly feel like I am cheating. My friend asked me once if I would consider what I was eating a cheat or not, and I said no. Then again, another thing to consider is what else I had eaten that day.

Every once in a while I will go out for ice cream or slush, but I can't eat near as much of it as I used to be able to. My treat is my Diet Dr. Pepper. Mmmmmm.....

One thing I absolutely have NOT allowed myself in months is candy. I hate walking by the candy bar aisle in grocery stores. Reese's, Snickers, and Butterfingers call out to me, but I haven't partaken in months. I think I had a couple of bite sized Butterfingers at work on Halloween and a bit of homemade chocolate that a customer brought in the other day, but other than that, I haven't had any chocolate or candy. I talk all the time about maintaining balance in your diet and creating a lifestyle change rather than deleting entire food groups and restricting yourself. I feel like I've done a really good job with this, except that I do not allow myself to have candy. And I LOVE candy! Which is why I'm afraid to eat it.

I did fantastic at Thanksgiving. I didn't overeat at all. I plan to do fantastic at Christmas as well by not overeating. My new lifestyle is much more comfortable. I don't go to bed in pain and I don't get heartburn anymore. None of this is a question for me. My question is: should I allow myself to have the candy in my stocking this year? Should I ask Santa to not fill my stocking? Should I ask Santa to fill my stocking with less candy than everyone else's stockings? I for sure don't want as much candy as everyone else will get. I feel like I want some, but can I handle it this year?

Today I'm grateful for my friends who take time out of their schedule to partake in art time with me. I have so many drawing projects that I need to finish, but they'll never get done without company!

Great Expectations Gone Sour

Sometimes things don't work out the way you plan. Sometimes trips get cancelled at the last minute. Sometimes you spend your weekend in a hospital because your roommate needs to have her gall bladder taken out. I was more than happy to take her, let's just say that it wasn't my idea of the fun filled weekend at California I had been planning. Sigh...

So I didn't end up having to hold myself accountable to eating well while in California, so I didn't do a weigh in before and after. I'm sticking to Sunday weigh ins.

This week went really well. I had a ginormous burger at Red Robin but I still had a loss of 2.8 lbs for a grand total of 58.8 lbs. I am really glad that I have been able to find a balance for eating more normal and still be able to lose weight. I'm happy to see a big number for this week again.

Today I'm thankful that my brother is home from Texas for Christmas. I had a really crappy couple of days, so it was REALLY good to see him.

A Challenge

This week started out terrible in terms of eating as I was stressed out of my mind because of finals week at school. But that is over now, and the second half of the week went much better, and I was able to scrape by with a loss. I lost 1 pound for a grand total of 56 pounds lost. I'm still going, it's just been a slow two weeks!

Upcoming: I am going to California this weekend, so I will not be here to weigh myself or post my results next Sunday. I know, I know, this will be a break from consistency, but I gotta go! I need a break. I'm super excited to go with some awesome friends of mine, it's gonna be a blast. I haven't decided yet if I will weigh in on Thursday before I leave or on Wednesday when I get back. Maybe both, and we'll see how I do on the trip. That will give me some accountability. So I guess I'm challenging myself to eat well while in California.

Today I'm grateful that school is out.

Eating Out

It’s okay to go out to eat with your friends when you’re on a diet. If you’re careful. If you don’t let yourself have a little fun every once in a while, your diet will never be successful. In my experience anyway. With too much restriction, you risk the chance of binging later on. Instead, change your eating habits. Make a lifestyle change. Control your portions rather than worrying about deleting entire food groups from your menu. This will save you from yo-yo dieting and help you maintain your weight loss. I feel like I have found a good balance on how to eat out with my friends. Here are some examples:

One of my favorite places to eat out is the Olive Garden. I love Italian food. Olive Garden is notorious for their unlimited salad and bread sticks. News flash: you don’t have to eat all the bread sticks. I decided to become a one bread stick girl. That is easy when you are with girls. I’m happy with one bread stick. As for salad, as long as I get my tomato and my olive, I don’t need a bottomless bowl. I’ll finish my one plate of salad and wait for my entrée. Hopefully you can talk someone into sharing with you, and with Olive Garden, I can usually get someone to split an entrée with me. So the only problem is selecting your meal. Luckily, Olive Garden is delicious, and it’s hard to go wrong.

It’s a bit harder to eat with guys. For some reason, they want you to eat more. They aren’t okay with you eating only one bread stick. It bugs them when you don’t want to eat chips and salsa. Like when I went to Chili’s with a couple of my guy friends a while back. They were outright offended that I did not want to partake in the appetizer. It annoyed them further when I ordered a turkey sandwich and did not eat the fries that came with it and took half of the sandwich home for later. Well, they got to eat my side, didn’t they?

Most often when I go out to eat with friends, we go out for sushi. Sushi is AWESOME when you are dieting. Sushi is surprisingly low in calories. Even the tempura fried sushi! Obviously, some types of sushi have more calories than others. Look it up before you go and see what fits into your calorie budget for that day. The bad thing about sushi is that it isn’t very filling. But it’s not as hard to fill me up these days, and it is delicious, so who cares? We typically go during happy hour when you can get sushi rolls for half off, so you can get two rolls for the price of one. I should only get one roll, but I usually get two just because I can never pick only one kind! Then you get to swap with your friends and try a bunch of different kinds… ooooohhhh…. Sushi…..

It’s okay to eat out. Just maintain balance and be careful with your portions. Skip appetizers and try to share your entrée with someone. It’s probably best to have water instead of soda, although I love me my Diet Dr. Pepper! The nice thing about dieting is that it’s like a diet on your wallet too. You don’t have to pay two bucks for a soda and you only pay for half of an entrée if you share with someone.

Today I’m grateful for Tepenyaki. I got to eat there last night for my work Christmas party and it was delicious, and an entertaining experience. They cook the food in front of you!

Eyes Bigger than the Stomach

Do you wanna know how I lost the first forty pounds? By eating practically nothing every day. I would have a breakfast shake in the morning and I would eat high fiber cereal at night. Oh, and of course lots of lots of water and Diet Dr. Pepper. I knew I wasn't being healthy, but I justified it by saying I was getting all my vitamins and minerals from my breakfast shake (those things are jam packed!) and by saying whatever I wasn't getting my body could take from my extra reserves. Of course I was hungry, but I was FOCUSED like I never have been before in my life. Something in me had clicked and I just wanted the weight gone and FAST. So I was ravenous, but had no cravings. Nothing sounded good. I literally did not want to eat. I have never experienced that before, and probably never will again. Those feelings are gone now. I crave food again. But that period lasted just long enough that my habits have changed, and I have self-control and will power now.

I have wonderful people in my life who all were concerned about what I was eating. It was pretty annoying actually. I was so focused on losing weight, and everyone was telling me to eat more. But I knew they were right, and I realized that if I wanted the weight loss to stick, I would have to lose it slower and in a healthier way. So I eat a lot more normal now. I've had slow weight loss weeks and I've had incredible weight loss weeks since starting to eat more normal. I am very happy with the balance I have created.

One thing I have found since my return to eating more normal is that my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Have you heard this term before? I'll have a plate of food and I won't be able to finish it. I still give myself servings that I would have been able to eat 55 lbs ago. My stomach has shrunk significantly, and my eyes haven't adjusted yet! Something I need to be careful with. But I have learned to recognize that I am full and to PUT DOWN THE FORK! Whereas in the past I would have cleaned the plate. Unless I realize I am full when there are two bites left, then I finish. Get off my back!

Today I am grateful for my bed. It is ginormous and comfortable and warm, and much too big for my bedroom. It's been really cold lately, and I just want to stay in my bed all day long!

Post Thanksgiving Weigh In

Thanksgiving is a bad week for dieters. Everyone overeats, and why shouldn't they? That's the point of Thanksgiving. I decided not to. I'm just not a fan of Thanksgiving food, so what's the point in ruining my diet just for the sake of stuffing myself silly along with everyone else? I very easily could have. I had to make the decision not to.

It paid off! I lost another 2 lbs for a grand total of 55 lbs! No holidays are getting in my way this year!

Today I am grateful that my sister-in-law is visiting for a week from Texas. I won't get to see her much, but I'm still really excited!

Thanksgiving Recap

I had a pretty eventful Thanksgiving. Let me tell you about it. The night before Thanksgiving I went four-wheeling with a bunch of friends and had a lot of fun. My friends picked me up at my parent's house instead of at my house, and when I got dropped off at my parent's house at three o'clock in the morning, my car was blocked in! It was freezing cold, and I was really tired and didn't feel like moving cars around, so I decided to sleep on my parent's couch.

BAD IDEA.

My brother woke up about twenty minutes after I got home and decided that the house was burning down. I guess he could smell smoke, and so he woke up my dad and they started turning on lights and wandering around the house trying to find the source of the smell. That was really annoying, as I was trying to sleep! They never found anything, and the house didn't burn down.

The next morning, the day of Thanksgiving. I guess three boxes of stuffing isn't enough for my family, so me and my little brother were sent to the store to get more. Oh, and I needed some Diet Dr. Pepper to get me through the day. :) It turns out that taking my mom's car to the store is FREAKING AWESOME because she has a handicapped parking pass from her injury a couple of months ago that is valid for another couple of months! My little brother has been taking full advantage of this for months now, but yesterday was the first day I got to benefit from it. We parked right next to the entrance and bought four more boxes of stuffing for a total of SEVEN boxes of stuffing.

As for what I ate? Not a big fan of Thanksgiving food, so it was pretty easy for me to stay on track. I had some stuffing (of course, we had seven boxes of it), some yams, and an orange roll. I did not eat myself silly, and when they brought out the pie later, I did not have any. Not because I am Super Woman or something like that, I just really don't like pie. Pie, pie, pie, all they could talk about was pie! Let me tell you: pie is overrated. Give me some ice cream, then we'll talk.

I'm really glad I don't eat my feelings anymore.

Since this is my Thanksgiving post, I should probably mention how grateful I am for my family. They really suck sometimes, but at least I know they love me and care about me.

Insert Clever Headline Here

So my friend Hannah at Hannah's Reductions tagged me in her latest blog post. I love reading her blog. She lives in New Zealand and is doing great on her weight loss journey. Her tag couldn't have come at a better time. The post I had set up to publish today is actually going to be a guest post on another blog on another day, which I'm really excited about. So I needed something else to do for today.

I really love the questions that she asked me, and I am SO excited to address them.

1) What is your biggest temptation to slip? Food or Emotion?

BOTH. Let me add a third though, and that would be peer pressure from friends (to any of them reading, don't worry, I'm not mad). I love food. It is delicious. Especially when you've had a bad day. Throw in a friend calling and saying "hey, let's go get dinner," and see if you can battle that. So yeah, I slip a lot. But it's okay, because I'm careful with portions, and like I've said a million times, I'm going for a lifestyle change, and it's working out for me.

2) Do you like what you see in the mirror currently?

Funny you should ask! That's actually what my guest post is about. It really depends on the day. I'll skip this one until you guys get to read the guest post. I'll put a link to the website it will be on once it is published.

3) What is the best tip/thing you think helps you with your current goal to lose weight?

Moral support from your family and friends. For example, if you have a friend who wants to go out for ice cream when you have just barely started your diet, and you tell them no, but they persist? It's okay to say no if you don't want ice cream. If that friend of yours decides that ice cream is more important than your friendship, so be it. I'm not saying that happened to me though... :)

Another thing is getting back on the horse. If you have a bad day, start again RIGHT AWAY. Not tomorrow, not next Monday, not next month! When I have a terrible lunch, I have to remind myself to go right back on my diet after lunch. Having a bad lunch doesn't make it a free binge day!

4) What do you think is the hardest thing about the weight loss journey?

Honestly the hardest thing about my weight loss journey has surprisingly been the emotional roller coaster. I had no idea how emotional it would be. I had no idea that losing weight would make me a different person. There may be other factors involved as well, but losing fifty pounds is a pretty big deal! I'm becoming a new person and the emotions are pretty crazy, and I'm definitely not used to it.

Today I am grateful for friends who call and say "hey, let's go get dinner." If I'm gonna slip, someone else better too!

Here's Hoping

Every summer since I was eighteen I've been pretty successful at losing up to twenty pounds. And then the school starts and I gain it all back. Whether it was because I moved out for college, or because of the holidays, or because it gets cold and depressing, or whatever reason. It is a different reason every year probably. I am determined not to let that happen again. Here we are and it is already well into fall, and I haven't started gaining the weight back yet, so, as the title suggests, here's hoping.

I've never lost this much weight before. This time it will stick. This time I will make it to my end goal. I've always wondered if maybe it was because the holidays come around, and I pig out with the holiday season. But I hate Thanksgiving food. I mentioned that when I was younger I was "dianosed" with Celiac Disease and wasn't supposed to eat gluten for seven years before I was told that I didn't really have that. Well, gluten is in pretty much everything except potatoes and rice. Therefore, I have an extreme aversion to potatoes. So here comes Thanksgiving with turkey and gravy and potatoes. Not a huge fan of turkey or gravy, and I HATE potatoes. Stuffing? Nah. Salads are all right, nothing to get too excited about. And when it comes to dessert, pie is NOT my thing. I've never had a good pie crust. Crust tastes like cardboard to me. If I'm gonna have dessert, I want ice cream. So let's just say Thanksgiving isn't my holiday. So why is it that it messes me up every year?

It won't this year. I don't have the relationship with food this year that I've had in years past. I don't eat just to eat anymore.

Fall is a dreary time of year. It starts getting cold. The sky is dark, and the sun goes down sooner. Summer is over, and it's not coming back for months! Did I start overeating to comfort me? Sort of like how people go tanning in the winter? I don't know. I really don't know what would happen in years past to make me overeat after my summer weight loss. What I do know is that I am aware of this pattern, and I have a lot more to lose this year by not paying attention to this pattern. This year I've lost 47 pounds, not 20. This means that I will be much more careful.

Today I'm thankful for bank holidays. That's right, I am totally not at work today, HA!

How Fast Can You Lose Weight?

So I've been creating graphs to chart my progress so far. I had a week a with some pretty intense cravings and it was hard for me to remember to stay on top of my diet, so I decided to remind myself why I'm doing this by showing myself how good I've done so far. You can find the graph I created on my new Progress page. I created three graphs. The first one I created shows my actual weight starting back in February when I got put on my new seizure medication. As I have mentioned, I don't feel secure enough quite yet to reveal this information, but I will soon. The second graph I made shows my BMI since February. Same with weight, I feel like BMIs are a little too revealing, so this graph, too, will soon be revealed, but not quite yet. However, the third graph I created shows how much weight I have lost since February. This third graph I made is the one you'll find on the Progress page.

The tricky part about this is that I did not maintain accurate records, so a lot of this is guesswork until September. They are very educated guesses though. Like I am assuming for instance that I was at my peak weight when I went in for my neurologist appointment back in February. I dropped ten pounds without really doing anything on my own, so I guessed that two months later I was at a weight ten pounds less. Between then and somewhere in July I tried half-heartedly to eat better since I was on medicine that hindered my appetite, and I ended up yo-yoing back and forth another five to ten pounds. It was in July that I made a conscious decision that I was going to take dieting seriously. That is when you see the graph going up significantly. Between the middle of July and the beginning of October I lost another 30 pounds. That is ten weeks, for three pounds a week! It's no wonder I have been unsatisfied with my rate of weight loss lately after my rapid weight loss earlier this fall.

This got me thinking. What has changed? Is it me? Am I doing something different? I found an awesome website with some amazing insights. It gave me some answers as well as helped me to refocus.

#1 The fatter you are, the quicker you will lose weight.

A fatter person doing the same activities as a lighter person for the same amount of time will lose more weight, simply because more calories have to be burned to move a heavier person.

Voila! 46 pounds ago, I was losing weight more rapidly because I was burning calories faster just to move myself around.

However... I'm not completely innocent.

#2 What you eat and how often you cheat on your diet

I definitely cheat every once in a while. Diets have too often failed for me because of deprivation. I am trying to create balance in my diet so I don't balloon when I eventually reach my goal. I have talked and talked and talked about my lifestyle change goal. However, I still need to be careful. This website provides a very nice article on how to cheat on your diet and still be successful. It also provides a list of foods to eat, and on the list is high fiber cereals and oatmeal, which I eat frequently, yeah for me! The website also says not to drink soda, but we all know that's not gonna happen. :) When I get closer to my end goal, I may have to give it up, but I'm not quite willing yet!

#3 How motivated you are

Obviously, I've been more motivated in the past. It's hard to stay as motivated when you've had success. I need to stay in the same mind frame. Now that I've tasted success, I need to keep going strong until I make it to the end. I'm not worried that I won't make it, I've just slowed down. You'd think that with the success I've had, that I would keep going full steam, but maybe I've gotten cocky?

What is the point?

I need to refocus. I don't expect to lose three pounds a week, but I need to remain as motivated as I once was.

Today I am grateful for the people in my life who keep my attitude in check. Sometimes I need a reminder to be positive!

A Lucky Girl's Journey

It's hard to say when it all started. I've been dealing with body image issues most of my life. I've spent half of my life either on a failed diet or thinking I needed to be on a diet. I yo-yo dieted back and forth twenty pounds every year for six years. Something needed to change.

The Catalyst:

I have a seizure disorder. This does not affect my life in any way other than I have to take medicine every day and I have to send paperwork to the DMV every six months with a doctor's note saying I am fit for driving. Oh, and I see a neurologist once a year. I think I am very lucky. People try to tell me how brave I am for handling this problem so well, but really, it's not an issue in my life. So February 2010 I went to visit my neurologist for the yearly checkup, and she decided it was time to put me on a newer, safer drug. Sure, whatever keeps the neurologist happy and gets me out of the office quicker with less lecturing. Then she says the magic words: "Side effects include lack of appetite and weight loss." BAM. I am sold on this idea! I went home thinking all my problems were solved! But in researching the drug, I found that people on this particular drug tend to lose 2.5-5% of their body weight and then level out. So what happened was I lost about ten pounds and leveled out. If I wanted to lose more, I was gonna have to do it on my own. But it was the catalyst that started it all.

Why did I finally start taking myself seriously?

Have you ever gotten all dolled up for an event and been shocked when you get pictures back? This has happened to me on more than one occasion, but there was one in particular this summer where I decided I didn't want to look like that in a picture ever again. At this point I had lost sixteen pounds already and I started taking dieting very seriously. It was when I had lost forty pounds that I started this blog as a way to keep myself motivated and to help inspire others. I have had to overcome my bad attitude in regards to exercise and have had many learning experiences along the way. Although this journey has been tough, the outcome is a much happier person.

My philosophies:

As I have mentioned, I spent most of my life with body image issues. Now that I am finally having success with dieting and weight loss, I am bound to have some opinions. Of course everyone knows that yo-yo dieting is terribly unhealthy, so it's best to avoid it. It is my goal to avoid yo-yo dieting by changing my lifestyle habits rather than by dieting alone. It's best not to deprive yourself too much. I'm hoping to be a different person when I make it to my end goal. I will have different eating habits. I will have lost weight slowly. This way I won't gain it all back immediately when I am no longer "dieting."

My other philosophies include having a support system. You can't do it alone! I am so appreciative of the amazing support I have from my family, my friends, my roommate, and of course the other health bloggers I have found out there who have amazing and motivational posts!

One of my principle philosophies is POSITIVITY. I have a rough exterior, and it's hard for some people to see through it. Underneath my blunt and sometimes brutal honesty is a POSITIVE ATTITUDE. You cannot lose weight with a negative attitude! After a bad week with no weight loss, you have to be able to bounce back. You have to be able to re-evaluate yourself and give yourself constructive criticisms, which you cannot do without a positive attitude. This is why I end each post with what I am grateful for.

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be featured on FITBLOGGER. Fitblogger is an amazing new website dedicated to highlighting the accomplishments of the healthy living community on the web. I'm so thrilled to be a member!

Diet Dr. Pepper - My Only Indulgence

I know that I have mentioned that the catalyst to this entire journey has been when I paid a visit to my neurologist last February and she decided to put me on a safer seizure medication. This new drug involved lots of fun side effects, my favorite one being decrease in appetite, of course. People who are put on this drug lose 2.5-5% of their body weight, so while this drug definitely helped, it wasn't magic. Some of the other fun side effects I got to live with were dizziness and drowsiness (which I was already use to from previous medicines) and abnormal skin sensations. What they mean by abnormal skin sensations is tingling of the extremities, or like when your hands and feet fall asleep. This happens frequently now, and it's pretty annoying. Well, whatever it is in this drug that makes my hands and feet tingle also makes carbonation taste funny. When my neurologist explained to me that carbonated drinks were going to start tasting funny, I almost said no way. I love soda! When it comes to soda, I am equal opportunity, I love it all. I used to, anyway.

My family and friends were pretty annoying about this when it happened. I was in a grieving period, and they just kept telling me it was a good thing. Water is better for you, you shouldn't drink soda anyway! They kept telling me that I shouldn't try to get used to the funny taste of soda. They were right. Soda is not good for you, and water is. But it's hard to explain that to your addiction.

This monkey knows how I feel.

Soda still tastes funny if I drink it out of a can. I love Diet Dr. Pepper. It really is my only indulgence. I had a bad week last week, but I'm back on track now. I can only drink it out of a fountain though. I am a frequenter of gas stations. I definitely have my favorites - Common Cents in Bountiful of course, and I do think that the Bevrons and Mavericks do a good job. It really depends on the syrup to carbonated water ratio. Thanks to this medicine, you will never see me buying soda from a grocery store, and I don't keep it at my house. For some reason that I can't explain, I can only stand it from the fountains.

I don't feel guilty for my Diet Dr. Pepper consumption. I really do drink a lot more water now than I used to, especially the last few months. I have even come to enjoy water a lot more than previously. But my diet is pretty strict, and if I don't allow myself my one indulgence, then I don't have my balance that I'm trying to create.

Today I'm grateful for the test I have tonight. Why? Because then I'm DONE with stress for a little while and can play for Halloween weekend!

Lifestyle Change

One thing that me and my mom have talked about for years is the topic of today's blog post. Someone in your life is always on a diet, whether it is yourself, a friend, or a family member, someone is always on a diet. People are always talking about diets. It's the number one scam out there, it's in all the magazines and talk shows. The truth is there is no easy fix to losing weight. It's a long battle. But there are ways to make it easier.

When me and my mom would have discussions about going on a diet, we would invariably decide that we didn't want to go on a diet. Diets tend to fail. They are hard. It's just a bunch of rules that you don't want to follow. What we would decide is that we would want to just have a "lifestyle change." What does that mean? Change your lifestyle habits so that they are healthier. Don't just do a crash diet, lose a bunch of weight really fast, go back to your old habits, and gain it all back. This is called yo-yo dieting and is extremely unhealthy. Change your lifestyle, lose weight slowly, and when you're done losing weight, your habits have changed. Eat like a normal healthy person. A normal person going out for ice cream doesn't eat the whole gallon. A normal person still goes out to eat every once in a while. A normal person eats dessert. They just don't overdo it. It's okay to go out to eat. It's okay to have a cookie. If you follow too rigid of a diet plan, it is likely that it will fail. If you restrict yourself too much, you end up binging later.

I'm hoping for a lifestyle change. My diet is probably a little too strict, but I'm doing really well. I go out to eat with my friends, and I feel like I have created a good balance for myself. When I'm done losing weight, I have done it in a way that I don't believe I will have a problem with possibly gaining weight back. I'm not fixated on food anymore, it doesn't control my life. I will have a healthier lifestyle when I'm done going down this path.