2 Day Cleanse...DONE!

So, of course, knowing how amazing I feel on it and knowing it works, I've gone back to using the Isagenix system. Monday was a shake day, Tuesday and Wednesday were cleanse days, and today it's back to shakes. I'm feeling awesome about it. The last few times I've tried to cleanse, I ended up eating. I don't know why it was so difficult to just do it, but mentally, I think I just wasn't ready. This time, easy peasy! Sure, there were times that I got hungry, and when my friend brought over a ton of kettle corn to thank me for playing the piano for the choir on Sunday, I REALLY wanted some, but I remembered my why, I remembered how great I used to feel and I knew it just wasn't worth it. (Although, my husband did inform me that it was the BEST kettle corn he had EVER had. Thanks, hon!)

I know I'm not supposed to weigh myself until after my next cleanse, but if you've read my blog, you know that doesn't ever happen. So, if I write it really, really small, it doesn't count, right? I'm down 11 pounds in three days!!!! Official weigh in will be in a week, so we'll see where I'm at then. I know I'll gain some back now that I'm eating solid food again, but I'm more than thrilled with the results so far. I knew I would be. In just three days, my pants have started falling off! They were a little loose before, but now I definitely need a belt. I should have measured when I started, but I didn't.

Yummy shake this morning and off to a great start!

I'm sure you can figure out how THAT went!

So, based on the lack of posts for what..over a year? I'm guessing that you can figure out how my thirty day no cheat challenge went. It turned into a one year cheat, which wasn't a challenge at all, unfortunately. Blech.

Things have been crazy lately! I just completely my first year of college. This is a huge accomplishment for me! I got kicked out of college after one semester right out of high school and never went back. I opted instead to start a family, support my husband through his degree and just live the life of a stay at home mom.  The plan has always been for me to go back to school, but it just never seemed like the "right time." I decided that it was going to be like having children. If you wait for the "right time" it will never happen. So, I bit the bullet and enrolled. It certainly wasn't the right time, but we made it work. Thankfully, I have a very supportive family and the children understood that I couldn't make it to their activities and that they needed to help around the house quite a bit more. We all made it through the first year and we are all VERY glad I've decided to take the summer off! I am now half way through my AA in Deaf Studies.

School was VERY stressful. I attended classes five days a week, four of which were night classes. Food wise, it was really difficult. At the beginning of the year, I was really good about starting something in the crock pot in the morning so the kids had food while I was gone and so Drake and I had food when we got home. Towards the end of the year, there was a lot more picking up fast food or pizza on the way home from school and just trying to get them fed before they went to bed. I need to be MUCH better next year about planning a menu and sticking to it. Fast food is easier, but health wise, I know my family has suffered. Diet wise, it was TERRIBLE. I would spend all day doing homework, taking care of the kids, etc., then by the time class rolled around, I was BEAT. I would realize I hadn't really eaten anything all day and I would be dragging. So, many nights I started class with an energy drink and whatever snacks I grabbed out of the vending machine. Not good for my wallet or my health!

So, weight wise, I've really suffered. I gained back a good deal of the weight I had lost. Energy wise, I have suffered. I'm tired ALL the time. Mental health wise, I have suffered. I'm really unhappy with what I have done to myself. I need to find a way to balance my school life, my home life and my health. So far, I'm failing miserably.

To say that I've been going through some personal issues lately would be putting it lightly. As an emotional eater, I've really struggled. When I feel the time is right, I'll go into more detail, but for now I'll just say that my world feels as though it is spinning out of control. I've decided that I'm going to take control of what I have the ability to control and that is my weight and my thinking.

I know how to lose weight. I've done it before. I know how powerful I felt when I had that control. I know how fulfilling it was to be doing something for myself. I know how amazing I feel when I'm eating right, cleansing regularly and working out regularly. I allowed myself to go back to where I was before. No more. I'm taking control.

I know how amazing it feels to be self confident. I know how powerful it feels to be self assured and worry only about how you feel about yourself and not to allow self doubt cloud your view of yourself and life. I've allowed a multitude of negative thoughts to enter my mind. I've allowed myself to think that I'm not good enough, that I'm not funny enough, that I'm not skinny enough, that I'm not pretty enough. I've allowed all of this self doubt and self hatred to control my thoughts and therefore my actions and personality. No more I'm taking control.

The world lost an amazing woman today and it is through her words that I am drawing my strength today:

Week One...DONE!

So, week one of my no cheat challenge ended yesterday, but I was mid cleanse, so I figured I'd weigh in today instead! Can you guess by the image how much weight I released in the past 8 days? If you guessed TEN POUNDS, you're right! WOOHOO!!!! Give yourself a sticker! I thought I had lost that much just a couple of cleanses ago, but either my scale was wrong or it all came right back on in the next couple of days, so that was a bummer.


Weight: 212 lbs. -10 lbs
Waist: 46" -1"
Hips: 47" -1"
Right thigh: 25.5" -0"
Right calf: 16.5" -1/2"
Right upper arm: 16" -0"

Just 15 pounds until I hit 100 lbs released! It's almost painful to say that when I was only seven pounds away from it six months ago, but I've decided I can't focus on where I've been, I can only focus on where I'm going. Much easier said than done, but I'm working on it!

This past week has been really difficult. With birthdays and parties and homemade lemon bars for the last day of dance class and field trips to the Pizza Place, there has been temptation around every corner, but I did it! No cheating! It's getting easier as the days pass, which I knew it would, but there is still the desire there. I imaging the desire will always be there, it will just keep getting easier to ignore. Now, if I could just desire to eat salad!

Harder Than I Thought

Boy did I pick a bad month to be good!  Lol  Saturday was my husband's birthday and my daughter's birthday party. Eggs benedict for breakfast ( for the family...a shake for me), then we BBQed and swam. I had my husband grill me up a chicken breast and a portobello mushroom. I ate the mushroom like a burger with a lettuce bun. I'm trying to stay away from red meat, but did end up eating half a burger patty. Can I call that not really cheating because I stayed within my calories and haven't said absolutely no red meat? I have to say that I have been tempted to cheat and just not blog about it, but I haven't! Go me!

I wanted to do something with my husband for his birthday that was semi affordable. I found it difficult to think of anything that didn't involve food! We ended up just enjoying a nice night in.

Sunda I had a fireside at church that I am played the piano for. I was totally stressed out about it. I wanted to gorge on all of my usual stress comfort foods, but I didn't! It's really eye opening being on this no cheat challenge. You never really realize how much of an emotional eater you are until you can't rely on foods during emotional times. I had a double shot of Ionix Supreme to help get me through! I also had to bring five dozen cookies and not touch a single one of them. Of course, there were SO many goodies after the fireside as well. I just drank a lot of water.

I wasn't going to weigh in until I had a week of the challenge under my belt, but I did sneek apeak this morning. I'm not disappointed, that's for sure! I'll give an official weigh in on Thursday morning after my two day cleanse!

Day 2

Today is going well! I woke up this morning, pretty hungry after my two day cleanse. It was the perfect time to try the new vegan shake from Isagenix! Two boxes were delivered on Monday morning...just when I started my cleanse. (Isn't that how it always works?) So, I got to try it this morning! I have to say...it wasn't my favorite. It was just too sweet for my liking. I can understand why they made it so sweet, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I think I may add some Want More Energy to it tonight to see if the tartness of that makes it more palatable to me. If I were vegan, however, I would still drink it everyday. It's not bad...I just prefer the vanilla and chocolate!

Lunch came around noon. I'm SO happy to be back on track! Who could look at this lunch and think that I'm either depriving myself, or could be eating something that tastes better? 

Today's lunch consisted of a chicken breast (seasoned with some Himilayan Sea Salt and rosemary), four cups of fresh spinach (which I wilted with some sea salt and water that I used to reconstitute some sun dried tomatoes), which was topped with some sun dried tomatoes and about 1/2 ounce of goat cheese. The pizza on the right is on a flax and quinoa tortilla, which I crisped up in the oven, then topped with a tablespoon of pesto, 1 oz of fresh mozzarella, quartered artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes and capers. Oh my goodness, lunch was SO good! I ate half of the chicken, then saved the rest for a mid afternoon snack!

I'm only about 9 cups of water into the 16 I try to drink each day, but I should be able to easily reach that by the end of the night! 

30 Day No Cheat Challenge

I've decided that I need to stop allowing myself to slack. I need to stop allowing myself to "cheat." I'll eat something "bad" and tell myself I'll make up for the calories by not eating as big of a lunch. I'll eat something "bad" and tell myself that because I'm conciously allowing myself to eat it, it's okay because that means I'm in control. I'll eat something "bad" and tell myself that I'll do better the next day.  No more! I'm officially starting a 30 day no cheat challenge!

Today is Day 1! I'm cleansing today. (As I did yesterday as well) So far, I've an IsaDelight, Cleanse for Life, a Natural Accelerator and three cups of water. So far, so good!

Weight: 222
Waist: 47"
Hips: 48"
Right thigh: 25.5"
Right calf: 17"
Right bicep: 16"

I've taken "before" pictures and will post them with my "after" pictures at the end of 30 days.

After taking the before pictures, I was feeling pretty poorly about myself, so I pulled out an old pair of jeans and put them on. You know how in amazing weight loss stories, you see a picture of a person standing in a single leg of their old jeans? Yeah...that's not me. lol However, I looked at them and cannot believe I ever allowed myself to get that big. I'm hoping that in the next six months or so, I'll look at the jeans I'm wearing now and won't be able to believe that I was ever that big.

So, here we go!

My New Toy Rocks my World!

My eldest daughter has started drinking tea. She decided that she needed a fancy tea cup and saucer to drink her tea from. I'm not quite sure why, but she insisted she just had to. So, we made a quick trip to Goodwill to find a tea cup and saucer. While we were there, I was browsing the electronics and ran across this little baby. It's a George Foreman 2 serving classic plate grill.

One of my biggest complaints about eating healthy is all of the dishes it creates! Every single lunch, I dirty at least four dishes. My normal lunch of chicken breast with goat cheese and spinach requires a pan to brown my chicken, a baking sheet to bake it, a pan to wilt my spinach in, a plate and a fork. Now, keep in mind that there are eight people in my family, so I do not own a single small pan. I'm using a full 10 inch diameter pan to fry a single chicken breast in! So, when I saw this thing for only $6, I just had to get it! I cannot believe how easy this has made my lunches! No need to separately brown, then bake my chicken. The grill does it all! Even better, it does it in 8 minutes as opposed to the 30 my chicken usually spends in the oven! I still use a pan to wilt my spinach, but I think I'm going to try to wilt it in the grill today...just for giggles. ;) I'll let you know how it goes!

Cooking for a single person is so strange to me. I never used to eat lunch. I would just snack on whatever I could grab all day. For breakfast and dinner, I always have at least six people to cook for, so I'm used to cooking large quantities. It's kind of nice to cook for just myself. I feel like I'm doing something special for myself. Some people like to have a spa day. I like to cook myself lunch. Now, dishes...I'm not horribly fond of those, which is what makes this grill so ridiculously awesome!