Yes I am having a moment!! I mean WTH!!

Ok I have to say that I am feeling good about my journey this week. Now I hope the scale feels good to me as well on Sunday when I do my weigh in. I need to vent for a minute sometimes that needs to be done doesn’t mean negativity.  

This week there was a video about dreaming big and long story short there was an in house dance pole at the end of the video and a Beyonce song called “Dance for you”. I FREAKING love the in house dance pole!! I can’t get one (to heavy) so I did the best next thing and I bought the song on Itunes. Needless to say it has been on constant repeat since last night, all I could do was think I want to be able to just look that sexy how the song makes it sound. Does that make sense that a song that plays that just displays mass sex appeal, desire, that “Oh HOT Damn” vibe, well that song is that for me at the moment although I don’t have any of that now. So you may be thinking ok so what are you venting about, well the more the song played my mind started racing and thoughts everywhere, I felt like my mind was a 2yr old child at a playground who just ate 3 Rock Candy sticks!! I was thinking I joined this plus size dating website a few weeks ago to try to see can a sister at least get a date. I tried Match last year and that was an Epic FAIL! One reason being that every profile that came my way and the countless ones I searched for all wanted athletic and toned or average. Then I thought I made a match with a gentleman that finally came across to say he liked what he saw and read. Well let me tell you his focus was on hey we have been on two dates we grown so let’s do what grown folks do. He never grossed the line with physical touching but he was crossing it in emails, text, and calls with the constant “nudge” about he is grown and has needs. Never anything explicit and I was like hey I am not doing that I want more at this point in my life. I was tired of that phrase a dear friend (also very overweight) would say about plus size women we are shade in the summer and warmth in the winter. I guess her way to deal that with how many don’t see us or sexy, hell most of the times they only want to see us in the dark. Yea um NO… He was cool but needless to say he found an excuse (in my eyes) to cancel our 3^rd date and then decided how we wouldn’t work out type thing. Then I was thinking about a FB post from my weight loss group that was about being tired of being referred to well you have a pretty face, I was like hum do I even get that and then the answer was yes you do. Then I was thinking about this new site with all this you are so pretty etc and I was like because I only had a face photo and then realized that some people actually come to that site from sister sites they have-err!

What I am saying is everywhere and writing it out will be long and who want to read a SUPER LONG blog? I guess what I am saying is why can’t I find a guy that wants to take a girl on a got damn date! Why can’t someone other my best friend and my mother think I am pretty as a whole person, why do people always say shit like you are such a pretty person inside. (Well don’t let me like I don’t get a pretty person inside a lot LOL). I was in damn near tears this morning with all the thoughts in my head and listening to that song. I want to be looked at with that “look”, I want to seen as sexy, hot damn, can I get that, not a fuck you should be happy I want your ass attitude. Such Bullshit!! I am with some of the girls in my support group I want to go to Vicky’s Secret and get me some shit too!! I want to come home to a man and turn on that damn song and dance my ass off!! I am tired of getting in my bed alone and feeling unworthy. Such Bullshit!! I want someone other than my mother to look at me with warmth, shit she is mom for goodness sake it is her damn job to give me that motherly warm look. I want that warm look, I want that you are cute, pretty, shit sexy look from a man damn it. Instead when they look at me they look threw me. I am that cool girl, you good peeps.

Ok enough Bitching and sorry for the cursing. I have to remain focused on taking this journey one step at a time and give myself permission to cry, to be angry at myself for letting me get this big and like disappear in the eyes of the world.  I pray that when I lose the weight that I let go and not hold a grudge because in my heart I know I will be treated differently when I am a 100lbs lighter.  I have said it before that maybe a reason why I have found a way to shipwreck myself in my previous journey because I was afraid to become bitter. Right now at this moment I feel like the scene in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, when he says you are just another bitter black woman and her response is I am not bitter I am MAD as HELL!!

Tomorrow is another day and I will continue to listen to that song and remind myself that one day I will look how the song makes me feel!! I will, I just have too!!

WITHOUT DISCOMFORT THERE CAN BE NO GROWTH!!

I tell you this morning I feel awake and tired does that even make sense? I was walking with my best friend to the company mailroom and I yawned and said I am tired, but I was a little sore and I wanted to tell her how awesome I was last night with my exercise. I didn’t though, like I said before I am going to wait to tell her when I lose like 10lbs so she knows I am serious about trying to shed the pounds. The other reason we have another friend so people see us as the three musketeers, our friend calls us Neapolitan actually LOL. This friend has the best intentions she does but we can butt heads for sure because we are both domineering in nature plus she has more a Jillian Michaels approach to help and I am SO NOT into that approach that just makes me want to jump on them with all these rolls and sit on the person till they CAN”T breathe!! It doesn’t work at all for me I need a Bob Harper type of approach. I don’t mind being pushed but do not drill sergeant me. So we basically always have these three way conversations so I don’t want it to come out by mistake. Don’t get me wrong I would leave my life in her hands and something to know about me I wouldn’t trust really anyone not in my family with my life and even some of my family members are questionable with this. LOL I did feel guilt this morning feeling terrible in not telling her something that she would do nothing but support me on, she would give me the Bob Harper support because she knows I do best in my personal life with that approach. I have to keep pushing forward and talk to myself and say she will understand when you tell her about this weight loss journey and about doing this blog. BTW she told me to do it and she even encouraged me to do YT but like I said I am too chicken for YT right now.

Ok we are at like 11am and I ate breakfast around 8:15/8:30am. I am feeling the um I want to eat brain saying we are little hungry. I have this bottle of water staring at me right now and watching this webinar at work. Good times…um no but yesterday seminar was great though. The water bottle is taunting me why is it hard for me to drink it-errr. I only drank half my cup of coffee this morning; I know I need to drink it. My mom’s oncologist said she wanted to start out that my mom needed to drink more since she has been experiencing joint pain. I was doing that Zumba and with the last walk I took my right hip aches badly.

Man I have no clue what my mom does to broccoli but I tell you I just love it. I like some broccoli and cheese any other way I am like um no, but there is no cheese on these broccoli cuts and they are so YUMMY!! Plus who knew I would enjoy eating squash, she makes them so that they are still crunchy on the outside, mean she doesn’t boil squash till they become mush. She puts in the pan and a little olive oil I think and man I tell you I like it!! My snack today was pretty yummy I am glad to say and hunger did hit me earlier than yesterday. I went with green tea with Truvia and my crème brulee mini rice cakes. It was a nice satisfying treat actually. Lunch was really good which was the squash, broccoli and meatballs.

My mom took a cleanser so no walking today, yes I know you are like say what!! Get your butt up and go and walk, but I don't have my headphones charged and I hate walking alone with no music or nothing. I guess it just reminds me that I am lonely (even when I have music) and I don't mean the company of my daughter who tells me of all the high school drama and I feel the need to say that crap don't matter, please study, pass your grades. Not doing what you need to do is going to hurt you in the long run and how you like the finer things you have to support that habit. Walking with my mom we talk about Adult things, lol now I think about it I am sure my mom is like see you are your daughter now and I am you. These things don’t matter, keep pushing forward to finish your 1st degree, the right man will come along for you, get your home in order (fixing it up), and let's stay on top of Boo (what she calls my daughter) so she goes further than we did. My daughter the first 5 minutes of the walk goes on and on maybe 1st 10 minutes and then she is like over talking, or rather telling me about these silly girls at school and she text and doesn't pay me attention, typical 16 year old.

I have completed my homework I feel achy so not terrible sore but I do feel minor discomfort. I want to go to bed but I know the right thing to do as I drink this green tea and eat some more rice cakes which will put me over calories today is to work out. I am like I don't think I can handle Zumba again tonight. I then feel so inadequate my Zumba instructor (when I had time to go to an actual class) is like in her 50s and teaches 12 classes a week and I am tripping about doing a 3rd day. I need to stop crying and WOMAN UP and do something so I guess I will do dance central tonight instead.

WITHOUT DISCOMFORT THERE CAN BE NO GROWTH!!

What, What!!

WOW!! Amazing I had breakfast basically the same time today around 8:30am and it is now approaching 12:39 and it’s when I am starting to feel hungry!! That is great well at least to me. I had a lot of calories for breakfast but it has held me over. So this morning was oatmeal, raisin bread (1 slice), 1 scrambled egg, coffee with vanilla latte creamer, and 2 slices of low sodium bacon. Ok so it is now like 1 something and I ate a red pear and I am eating a cheese stick (which would be super yummy if cold). It’s mozzarella and provolone how delightful is that!! I am almost like hum… I wonder how many calories in crackers because I would want it with some crackers. I am still having a little hunger pain but I am not tripping since I go to lunch at 2:30 so I don’t have a long time to go.

Ok so the FB ladies are asking about water intake, can I tell you the shame I feel!! I am struggling to get this one bottle of water down (2cups) and these women are like at 32oz or more!! I tell you I have a LOT of work cut out for me when it comes to water but I have to remember when I changed last year it took me a while to get up to 8-10 cups a day so patience and pushing to drink the water will get me there! The crazy thing is I don’t really drink anything so if I not drinking water then I wasn’t like substituting it with soda or anything. Yesterday all I had was like 4 cups water the day before all I had was like 2 cups of water, no coffee, no tea, nothing else.

Ugh I blew it with lunch I should have not eaten the pork chops which I brought or declined the gorditas that my co-worker brought for me to try since her mom made it. I didn’t say no she likes when my mom cooks when she comes down so her mom made something and she wanted me to eat her mom cooking. I mean a gordita is nothing but a corn tortilla very small and like 3 tortilla thick and not even the size of a tortilla in width maybe like a 3.5 in biscuit I built it with avocado and queso fresco and I mean a little of the queso fresco, she brought two of them and it was 423 calories for that according to my fitness pal. Then I forgot I had a red pear with the cheese stick today. I thought I had 113 calories left for dinner and was frustrated but I didn’t add the pear so yea- I only have 13 dang calories left for the day! Err!!

Well I posted my frustrations about my 113 calories left for the day and hadn’t eaten dinner and I tell you my group if FABULOUS!! I explained may skip a meal and do like a glucerna shake or slim fast and they said no don’t do it!! I got feedback and was asked questions that forced me to think a little more about my choices. I felt better I have to say about and get this I took out a bottle of water and down it!! I had to set my mind to you know what if I am not hungry tonight pack it for lunch tomorrow no biggie! Then I even thought well my mom and I should walk this afternoon and I should Zumba too so if I did get hungry it’s ok

Ok so when I got home my mom and I took a slow pace walk (she has to take it slow doesn’t have all her strength back after stopping Chemo midyear last year, shoot I have to take it slow because I am a big girl LOL ) we walked for 37 minutes. I must have been thinking I was all that and told her to come Zumba with me (kinect) she said no I will watch you. I did a short class and a bunch of songs so was working out for 56 minutes. I did a bunch of songs she wanted to see different intensity and then also wanted to see if the dances were like she did when she was younger, my mom is panamainian LOL so is my dad. So I basically burned all the calories I ate LOL and I tell you my non-exercising tail is feeling it right now. I need to finish these 2 cups of water close my fitness pal and head to get ready for bed!!

Calories

I think I am doing all good by eating more fruits and I use myfitness pal to track my calories. Well you can imagine I felt a little hurt when I saw the pear was 100 calories. My mind doesn’t wrap around it to well because all I could think of was Special K cheddar cracker chips for 27 is 110 calories! I mean I see why we struggle with making the right choices because not only do we have to deal with calories and such but we have to deal with satisfying our hunger, taste buds, and wallets. If I go to McDonalds and buy a salad it is like almost what $6 versus if I buy a double cheeseburger, small fry, and any size fountain drink it will cost $3.24. Yes I know the most appropriate thing is to stay away from McDonald’s altogether but sometimes that lunch doesn’t get made or your lunch is for errands and you have to have something on the go. I guess a little frustrated today because it is almost 11am and I am STARVING!! It maybe because I only had cereal at 8:30am and I was upset that I didn’t have eggs, bread, to make a decent breakfast. Here is a tip don’t wait so long between meals if you can help it because then you want to eat everything in sight!! Right now I want to eat my lunch but I keep thinking I am supposed to be here till 6:30 tonight and if I eat lunch now I will be done for the rest of the day. I will be hungry again probably around 2.

I couldn’t take it anymore I went to the café at work and got an English muffin (120 calories- err I should have had just bread), a banana (medium banana 105 calories) add a little whipped spread and strawberry jam (39 & 35 calories respectively). I am thinking of getting Zumba for my kinect but I already have my dance games and I haven’t played in months, when I get home I am just worn out and I want to complete my homework and sleep.

One of my friends in my FB group shared this site to help you track your Zumba calories burned if you don’t know how to track it:http://www.zumbacalories.com/

I tell you what that I was feeling a bit down about my calorie intake today and I feel like I haven’t really eaten. My mom says I need to remember that it will take at least 2 weeks for my body to adjust. Right now as of lunch I have eaten 1216 calories. I am allotted 1540 in calories so I only have 324 calories left for the day. My break down was breakfast was 203 calories (not bad right but I was so hungry about 2.5hrs later) so I had a before lunch type meal which was 299 calories (it’s that muffin fiasco I mentioned earlier). Now before that I had special K cheddar chips so that was 110 calories. My after lunch snack was a fig bar. I am thinking that I need to have what I had for lunch for Dinner to keep the calories down, but no salad just the meat & the bread. I had the salad, the meat, the bread then I will be over since lunch was 390 calories and I only have 324 left.

Well I made it!! I did just that I had the chicken, half avocado and the flatout bread, which I might add taste pretty darn good! I stopped at the store and got stuff to make for breakfast. I am going to be full in the morning and lunch and keep it light like a protein shake for dinner. I have left over pork chop I need to eat so why I have to keep it light for dinner since breakfast and lunch will take up my calories.  Speaking of calories I did buy the Zumba Rush and I tell you I worked out for 45 minutes and it was good and the calculator said that was 785 calories!! Oh yea!!  Now as for that water intake I am sitting at 4 cups. I may down another one but I doubt it.

What a week

I tell you it has been a very rough first week on trying to do the right thing. I was terrible with exercise thank goodness for the San Antonio day full of walking. Like I was saying I was not expecting anything from the scale because of how I ate for the week. Can you believe I lost 1lb!! I am happy about it although when I saw 1lb lost I was in shock then to sadness, but back to being happy. I posted my loss on my FB group page and I tell you the support I have there is AMAZING!! They really celebrate all success no matter how small. I guess I am use to doing that for other people and I don’t feel I get that really in return. I felt guilty as well for not telling my best friend about my choice to start this journey again or that I even lost a pound. I know she will celebrate with me because she has been a rock for me and my craziness since we have been friends!! She is a person who has accepted me as myself and knows when to give me the look of -you know that is BS!! I am going to wait though till I lose some more weight maybe when I hit my first 10lbs or after we come back from Vegas about my journey. I am have to figure out how not to be so tired from work and school to get my exercise on. Plus I have to say that I had 7 glasses of water yesterday!! Woot Woot I am getting better! It has become a race to the finish with water seems in a day I can do two bottles which is 4 cups of water (I am not even drinking anything else) so I see that I am done with two bottles I will force another bottle even two depending on how late to get the water in. LOL

Now on to something that really caught my attention on my FB group page. There was a post about being afraid to lose weight and that as a overweight person it was like a security blanket and how it kept you from doing things. I tell you I read that and was like I have thought of the same thing or asked myself rather why are you afraid to shed the pounds? Last year when I did this journey with my friends I lost 20lbs it took forever to lose it but I did and my stomach went down so clothes in that area fit a bit better not what I wanted by no means but better then the mess it was. I haven’t been able to answer I think completely why I am or was afraid to lose the weight, meaning the weight was coming off so why stop? I have to be honest with myself a part of me was upset that I wasn’t dropping the inches like they were or the pounds. Yes I was excited to be able to fit a plus size dress in Old Navy but sad that my friend was no longer in plus the plus section so every win I had, it seemed there win was bigger. I guess I wanted to be on the same field to be able for us to jump together form the plus size store, to the misses side of the store and have to exchange pants like 2 weeks later. Now I know I wasn’t doing boot camp like them or eating like them so of course their results are different but I always felt like when we exercised together I was keeping them back. Like I was the bothersome way younger sibling you are forced to be around by your parents. I think one of my most major fears is that I would be a different person a person I am not sure I want to meet. Weird huh? I have this thought in my mind I lose the weight I will become a Royal B…..!! I think I am afraid that I would be spiteful for all the people who wouldn’t give me the time of day because I was a large woman, that wanted to treat me lesser than a person because I was a large woman. I would become this woman that you can’t tell me nothing!! I do not want to be spiteful or mean. I do not want to become a “man” in my approach to relationships because of how I was treated or lack of treatment because of my size. I am also a mother so I know I have to have some sort of decorum about myself although all I can think of some times is how scandalous can I dress when the weight comes off! Will I be the woman that checks the mail in the shorts so short they look like panties? I don’t want to be that woman either (I do just a little though) I want to feel sexy but have the sexy under control I am a woman in her thirties not in her teens. Maybe that is what is an issue I wasn’t like that as a teen and when I lost a bunch of weight my senior year, I graduated and thought I was grown starting having sex and bam pregnant and fat all over again! I pray to stay ground on this journey to not lose who I am at my core (I have to believe that I am not that ugly person at my core).

Epic Fail

Yesterday went to San Antonio to drop my daughter off at Fiesta Texas while my mom and I went to the River Center mall to spend the day walking and window shopping. The day was started with breakfast which was bacon and toast and I have to be honest here 3 slices of bacon and one slice of dry toast with my cup of coffee. I was trying to do the right thing and I figure I would be full for some time since I left a bit early. When my mother and I made it to San Antonio she needed to eat to take her medicine, so we got a pizza special why didn’t I listen to my mom and just split the combo with her instead I got my own and I tell you this pizza was huge and full of bread and it taste good! Why didn’t it taste awful so I wouldn’t eat it.  After we ate the pizza we walked the river walk and talked it was nice walking so that afternoon (several hours later) we went to Marble Slab- yes gasp how dare I go to Marble Slab and the worst part is that they have yogurt ice cream a better choice, but I haven’t been to San Antonio in a year and I was craving the double toffee sundae. My mom and I both got one and we went walking again, we walked for awhile because we were trying to waste time till Fiesta TX closed. When we went to pick my daughter the hunger hit me the last food I ate was like at 11 when I had the pizza and the ice cream was around 3 or 4 and we were on our way to pick her up at 8:15. I was starving so on the way home I make a stop at Popeyes chicken and eat it when I get home around 10pm. I had two pieces of chicken, rice and beans and two biscuits. Needless to say I was way over in calories. Being depressed that I couldn’t stick to the plan my mom said it was ok and that the next day was a new day and that we did some good exercise with all the walking we did in San Antonio. I wake up the next morning and kept thinking of a FB post about interest vs. commitment. I want to be committed not have interest only. I stayed in bed till about 10:30am my mind was saying if you stay in bed all day you won’t eat and that means staying in my calorie amount. The growling kept going and I was feeling hungry for real so I got up and figured I still have left over chicken and I will eat chicken because not eating breakfast so that chicken would be lunch and breakfast. Ok so I snack and eat a red pear (yummy) but then hunger sets in like 6 so I make tostadas (refried beans, ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado) oh did I mention the skinny cow snack of the heavenly crisp peanut butter. I have failed this weekend and I weigh in tomorrow and no I do not expect to see any weight loss and won’t be surprised if I see weight gain.  I think I have only done right two days out of this week.  

BMR and Nutrition App

Today I started using a tracker for my food and it is like a 1.99 or free app (sorry I can’t remember). I remember I used this app when I started this change a year ago (and failed because I quit even though I was losing weight). The app was great and then I decided to join WW and paid for the service and for some reason wasn’t keeping it together. I like the app because you can use the WW point plus system or the old WW point system or just track calories. The app is called Nutrition ok that was lame not to remember the price so I went and looked it up again and it flashed $.99 I tell you it helped me out a lot.  Well I thought I may take a calorie type approach to this new journey and see how it works out instead of a point system. The thing is I don’t what my calorie intake should be to lose the weight minus that I know I better not go below 1200 calories as a woman as I have read and friends have told me as well. I started to read about something called a BMR. A BMR basically says the amount of calories you need on a daily basis to maintain your weight and all you did was lay in bed type thing. I went to few sites so let me share some information.  My BMR is 2070.2 (5’5 female weighing 294lbs), not I must say I have been to a few site and I get different numbers so that caused a little frustration another site gave me a BMR of 2484 ( I found 3 sites that gave me this number so I am sticking to that number). This number again is based off my stats and little to no exercise vs the other of 2070.2 was sleeping all day.  Now you might be thinking that is a lot of calories and you are right so I found a guy that posted how we would determine the amount of calories we needed to lose weight. He provided this example: think it's important to point out that these numbers are to MAINTAIN your current weight. To lose weight you'd need to subtract the amount of pounds from that number. So for example to lose 2 lbs a week=7000 cal. So take the number they give you, multiply by 7 (7 days a week) subtract 7000 (if you want to lose 2 lbs a week) and divide by 7 to ge the total per day. You'll find that total makes a lot more sense.

I decided I need to try to figure this out so here goes 2484*7 (days in a week) = 17388

17388-7000 (2lbs a week projected weight loss) = 10388

10388/7(days in a week) 1484 (total amount of calories to intake from my current amount to lose 2lbs a week with little to no exercise)

Don’t get me wrong I will exercise but I figure icing on the cake if I figure this out with little to no exercise that I really can make sure I lose the 2lbs a week. Now I have not figured out what my carb, fat, protein, sugar intake should be since this app also lets me adjust these measures as well, even sodium.

Today I had no problem tracking breakfast, snack, and lunch. Now for lunch I am basically making some stuff up to make the calories I think I am eating. This is when making your own food can cause an issue. Breakfast was 2 slices of classic white bread, 2 slices of bacon, 2 scrambled eggs, and a cup of coffee with flavored creamer. I can drink coffee with no sugar because the powder creamer has sugar already.  Snack was a cup of fruit (cantaloupe, a few grapes and strawberries) bottle of water, then for lunch was a Glucerna hunger smart shake. Dinner was a large salad made with tomatoes, egg, chicken and turkey sandwich meat, and avocado and ranch dressing. Plus a skinny cow wafer thing that is a 110 calories ( the item is in the pantry and I am not near it, I will tell you later the name of the skinny cow product) My is recovering from Cancer and her treatments had her gain weight so not only is she weak from all the Chemo treatments but also her gaining weight, so she wanted to walk. We walked 1.36 miles says I only burned like 128 calories (not sure that is right but any calories is better than zero)  Well my run keeper app said 128 calories but my nutrition app said 200 calories. I have to remember not to give up although information seems to be all over the board and you can get lost in what you need to do for you to lose weight. Hey this is a journey right so let’s see what works and what doesn’t.  

I am going to take the approach though that I need to lose over a 100lbs so as my FB friend said look at losing 10lbs at a time. That is easier to digest that I need to lose 10lbs 10 times. J Let’s get to the first 10 lbs!!

Post for March 14 (yea- a day late wrote and didn't post it)

Well I started this journey Sunday and I have not done well.L I can’t believe I am actually writing this down since I do not talk about my actual weight numbers to anyone. My weigh was on Sunday so that I could know how bad the damage is. The scale showed that I weighted 294lbs and I got very misty eyed. I was only 1lb less than I was a year ago Jan 19^th. I was able to drop my weight to 275 and gained it all back; I tell you the feeling of failure was so deep when I stepped off the scale. I didn’t get my measurements done yet; I need to get someone to take them for me. So I wanted to do go and almost felt like I needed to starve that desperate need to break down and cry and be angry at myself. I have eaten more fruit this week, but I still had a soda and ate a shrimp poboy and Texas Road house this week. I will say that the poboy sandwich was pretty large so my mom and I ordered the sandwich and had them split it for us. At Texas Roadhouse had a bone in ribeye (20z) that had Portobello mushrooms with baked potato, butter and bacon bits. I didn’t eat the entire thing I had half and saved the other half for lunch today at work. As far as drinking, I haven’t been drinking enough water; I actually had an Armadillo punch drink at Roadhouse (alcohol) . Losing weight is more than just saying no to food but learning how to say yes to it and still lose the weight and also fight with the demons you may have that keep you saying yes to the food. The other day I had a co-worker post on FB how she went from a size 16 to a size 6 in the past 9 months and I have watched her just disappear little by little. I started to think when she started to disappear was when the job had changed in a great way, so I was a little worried from the stand point that the stress was so great that she was losing weight. Then I was upset with myself for being so weak that when I am stressed I eat and I eat desserts the most, such an emotional eater and they way I look I have been emotional almost my entire life. I had the self conversation of “Why can’t you stop eating” , “Why must you eat cookies and cake”, “Why do you LOVE food, when you know your body is not made to love food and try new interesting and not good for you dishes”, “Why are you not normal and eat less or stop eating when you stress?” Well I had no answers for any of these questions I was asking myself instead I had to say, “I don’t know why and I don’t have answers but lets find out what she did and maybe we can do it too”. I sent her a FB message and said I was curious what she did because I HAVE to lose weight. She did respond and said I did the basics – I cut soda out, I cut sugar out, didn’t eat bread or pasta.  So you think I would be like YAY let’s do this!! No instead I was like what I can’t eat anything then. I couldn’t wrap my head around all the I cut this, I cut that and thing you can’t have this or that and I know myself the more you tell me NO I want it (food anyway).  I went to bed thinking ok woman, take what she said and find a way to do something about it anything!! So I decided what I said from the start I won’t say NO completely but I will have to say NO from time to time and also when I say yes to say yes to less!!

A little background

I wanted to give you a little insight about me. I started a lifestyle change a year ago and in like 4 months I lost 20lbs. Yes I know it took a while to lose that weight but let me explain that I LOVE food, I really enjoy eating although I can be very picky about what I eat. I am a self diagnosed food addict. I can’t go all gun ho and say I am not eating this or that. The “you better not eat ranch dressing” you are such a cow type approach, that you can only have vinaigrette dressing. The other question you may have as well is why “did you stop losing weight, didn’t you feel good”. I did feel good and the 20lbs did make some difference it allowed me to shop in places in the plus section I was able to shop before.  I am my own worst enemy so how I derailed myself. I had to evaluate why would I do such a thing, part of it was because my friends were dropping lots of weight and my process was slow, which I was ok with. I did feel pressure and stress that I think let get in my head way too much and caused me to derail myself.  I am a very large woman and my friends are overweight but I am obese and they were going to boot camp. I attempted to go one time to this boot camp and it was too much for me because my knees are bad, joints are terrible and as a beginner to never exercising to walking and then bam boot camp, it was too much. I felt like such a failure and all they kept saying is “you can do it, you need to stop making excuses you can do it”, but the entire boot camp was modified for me and it was still too much for me at the time. Then my inner me kept going back to the feeling yea I am never good enough, why can’t I make them understand I can’t do the things they can do right now. I am a big girl and yes I am exercising but I need to start out slow like any doctor will tell you. They feel because I am big girl and not immobile that means I can do EVERYTHING! This is not true, yes eventually I am sure I can do all those things but I am not able to start there.

Ok ENOUGH about the past. It is the past and I am ready to fight my demons and move forward in my life. I have decided that I can’t let people make me derail myself to tell me that I will be a failure because I eat ranch dressing, that I can’t do boot camp (to start), that I do get tired from working a full time job and being a full time student and a single mom to top it off.

That is just a small insight to what happened to me last year and I tell you I watched two YouTube channels that inspired me to remember that I am the master of my own destiny to lose the weight and that between the two of them that there is no right or wrong way to lose weight nor is there truly a time line as long as you shed the pounds and you get moving. One channel she lost such much weight in such a short time and the other channel she lost so much weight as well but it took her a little longer. I felt good about knowing it can be done and the only importance was that I start and that I finish!  I am thankful to those Ladies although they have no idea how they have helped me over the months to say: “Enough is enough start and change!!”

My First Blog

I have been saying for months that I wanted to create either a youtube channel or a blog. I have finally taken the plunge and here is the blog. I am so nervous and excited about it all at the same time.

The purpose of my blog is to be a weightloss journey with all my ups and downs as I start down this road and pray that I stay to. It will also be really about myself and the things in my life and I am not sure I will be helpful to anyone but I wanted to have a venue to express my feelings about wanting to lose weight, to have somewhere to talk and hopefully have others to talk back and understand that we are not alone in our journey. We share alot of the same feelings and some you may not want to say out loud, but I will say them out loud.

No one may ever read this blog and that can be ok too. I am going to try to blog at least once a week because I have a full time job, I am a single mother, and a full time student.

Tomorrow my journey will begin!