Shred Week 2: Challenge Results

Well this week was interesting. I was definitely not in the right mind to follow the plan completely during half of week 2. I know there was some pms going on this last week. So, knowing that, I wasn't expecting much with numbers this week. I was definitely not at my worst, but I know in the evenings I would have more than the 100 or 150 cal snacks. The meals themselves were fine other than I still can rarely get all 4 meals in each day. I don't go to bed hungry so I don't think it's hindering me much. Overall, I feel really good. I have energy and don't feel bloated or anything. I do feel slightly hungry in between breakfast and lunch with just the 100 cal. but it's not unbearable. I do drink herbal tea throughout the day. I don't think that is technically on the list of being allowed, but between being cold at work and just loving tea, I'll keep drinking it unless I see something that specifically says it ruins this plan.

So my numbers did not change other than I went down 1/4 in which is great especially since I was definitely not very strict nor did I follow through on the exercise side of things much last week either.

January 21, 2013
Bust: 36 1/2
Ribs: 30 1/2 in
Abdomen: 32 in
Hips: 40 1/4 in
Thighs: 27 in
Calves 16 1/2 in
Arms: 13 1/4 in
Weight 170.2

I did start working out with a trainer again at Core Health and Fitness, and for the next 5 weeks I'll get in 2 sessions a week with her, so that will definitely help me get in at least 2 really good workouts.

For week 3, I'm determined to follow it as closely as possible at least up through Friday. Yet again I have plans that were planned weeks ago and will definitely not allow for following this plan. However, I didn't follow anything in between week 1 and 2 and I was able to lose, so maybe if I try to be careful when possible and not eat too much I may be good to go. We shall see.

Whether I lose 5 lbs or 15 lbs I will complete this plan. If I don't see enough results I'll look for something else, but at least I will have followed thru.

Shred: Week 1 part 2

Well, week 1 was kind of a wash. I did go down 1/2 in in my hips and calves(however, my calves tend to fluctuate between 16 1/2-17 so I don't really want to count that til I'm below 16 in for my calves).
My weight did actually go up even though I ate less on Tuesday night. I think the biggest thing is the fact that part of my meal was chick peas. I have started noticing that wheat products as well as beans such as kidney and chickpeas tend to cause my weight to go up, so I'm thinking my weight went up due to the chickpeas rather than anything else b/c Thursday morning my weight was down to 170.0.

Here are my numbers from the end of Week 1:

January 9, 2013
Bust: 36 1/2
Ribs: 30 1/2 in
Abdomen: 32 in
Hips: 40 1/2 in
Thighs: 27 in
Calves 16 1/2 in
Arms: 13 1/4 in
Weight 171.3

As I said last week, I was heading out of town for my best friend's wedding/ girls weekend with her and her sister. So, my plan was to try to eat relatively healthy, but since I was at someone else's house I couldn't guarantee what I would have available to eat and I wanted to enjoy the weekend. I think I was successful at both and since my weight this morning was 169.4 I can truly say I did ok this weekend. Amazingly, I enjoyed chocolate, jelly bellies, cheesecake and DQ ice cream cake at one point or another through out the weekend. However we were not eating non stop all day, so the calorie factor still stayed in a healthy range. I'm also wondering if maybe week 1 is already kicking my metabolism into gear and that continued to work well even though I was definitely not "dieting".

With that being said, I started Week 2: Challenge today and while I ate very healthy b/c I needed to get groceries and a few other things, my Meal 3/4 were a little screwed up. I still ate healthy and didn't veer from the plan as much as it could have been. This is the first week that my usually routine will be relatively normal, however several evening plans begin again so the evening meals are going to be difficult, but I will make it work. I will finish this plan, even if there are times I can't completely follow it or it takes me closer to 7 weeks, I will complete it!

Here's to week 2!

Shred: End of Week 1

My plans for the rest of the week/weekend drastically changed so I thought I will share how my week went and I will post hopefully by Monday my numbers. I'll be able to collect them, but I'm not sure I'll have time to blog them on Thursday.

My best friend gets married on Friday and I'm heading up to spend the rest of the week with her and her sister (another close friend), so being able to truly stick to this diet after tomorrow is going to be difficult. I've decided I'm going to try my best to be "good" and follow what I can, however in order to get the most benefit from this plan, I'm just going to begin week 2 on Monday. This will make it easier for tracking purposes going forward as well. If my weight is drastically different (which I don't think it will be), I'll post the new weight when I post the numbers for Week 1.

Now to the real reason for this post...how did the week go?  I am at the end of day 6 and am feeling pretty good. Every day in week one has 4 meals and 3-4 snacks. Since I am following the plan and am definitely satisfied but no where near full after each meal, it is not hard to eat the food. However, the timing of the meals is a little trickier. It is not feasible for me to have more than 2 meals and 2 snacks from the time I get up through my work day. This part of my day is great. I'm satisfied and while not starving at any point in the day am usually ready to eat by the time the next meal is due. My evenings are not as easy. These days I've just been exercising at home, but still I usually like to exercise first thing, but that doesn't work well for the timing of the other meals. So either I wait too long between meals and then have to cram the last meals in so I can exercise or I have to exercise in between meals. In order to get both meals in I need to eat almost instantly when I get home and then I have to eat the next meal as soon as the 3 hour mark is up. If I eat much later I'm pushing into the 1 1/2 hour before bed constraint. I've managed to make it work for the most part, but if there is any cooking I need to do for meal 3. Tonight this was my predicament and I just didn't feel like cooking anything, so I compromised. I ate the food listed for meal 4 which just needed to be chopped, as far as preparation goes. Instead of having another snack then actual meal 4 and then another snack I decided to splurge a little bit and had a little more than a serving of Greek Frozen Yogurt, which in reality is much less food than what I would have eaten. I don't think it will effect me on the scale. My hormones are a little wacky these days, so who knows what the scale will say and between the 2 I'll never know which was the problem.

I really don't have any complaints but it seems like if there are going to be suggestions to do brown rice, there should be a few more days that that is an option. I'm single, so it's just me eating meals.  Making half a cup of rice is a just not an option, so my rice sits in the fridge just waiting until the next day on the plan allows for it.

All in all it was a great week. I don't know if I will have lost any inches but I feel as if my clothes are looser than they have been in a few weeks. Technically tomorrow is day 7, so I should wait til the Thursday to measure, but I don't think one day will make a difference in the first week as far as inches go, plus I was practically following the diet unknowingly the whole of last week, so all in all I'm going to count my weight and inches tomorrow morning. The book also mentions that for people that have already been eating fairly healthy or are closer to their ideal weight won't always see big results in the first week. I've been eating healthy for the last couple years and I think this diet is really more rearranging the meals and adding a few new aspects, so I'm not expecting great things for this week. I do think the next couple weeks after than will truly show changes!

Shred: Prime Week 1: Day 1

Before I discuss how Day 1 has gone, I have to share something I found today. To preface my find... Over the last couple years since I began blogging I have talked about having lost a lot of weight starting at the end of 2009. While I have maintained most of it I have put some back on about 20 lbs, so my hopes for this 6 weeks is to at least lose close to that and then the rest of the year can be getting off the additional 15-20 lbs I think I need to lose. In reality it's not about the lbs but the size. My ultimate goal is to be a size 8. Based on how I'm built I don't think I need to be smaller than that, however the last time I was that size was in elementary school so I have no idea what I will look like.... I digress... My intention when I started this paragraph was to share just how far I have come. In February of 2010, I had already lost about 15ish lbs and weighed in at about 192. I found a slip of paper that someone at my fitness club wrote. My measurements from that time are as follows:

February 2010
Bust: 38 1/2 in
Ribs: 32 in
Abdomen: 46 in
Hips: 47 in
Thighs: 29 in
Calves 17 1/2 in
Arms: 14 in
Weight 192.

Here are my measurements as of today...Day 1 of Week of Prime.

January 3, 2013
Bust: 36 1/2
Ribs: 30 1/2 in
Abdomen: 32 in
Hips: 41 in
Thighs: 27 in
Calves 17 in
Arms: 13 1/4 in
Weight 170.8

My plan is to take my stats and share the full weeks thoughts at the end of each week. So, hopefully next Thursday or Friday I'll share how week one went as well as update my stats. If I follow the average loss I will hopefully be 150 by the middle of February. If this happens I will be lighter than I have ever been in my teenage/adult life! I know I have the discipline to follow this, but still if you are an encourager and enjoy commenting on blogs, I can definitely use your support and encouragement.

Day 1: So far my day has been great. I haven't noticed anything drastic. I've not really felt hungry per se but have definitely not felt full. One thing I didn't complete follow was the drinking a cup of water before and during the meal. I drink 10-12 glasses of water/herbal tea almost every day, so adding those additional cups seems to keep me in the bathroom more often. I know I will adjust so if I take it a little slowly with adding those additional glasses of water or juice I'll deal.
I chose to do Lindt chocolate plus a piece of fruit for one of my snacks and that certainly didn't feel like being on a diet:-).
I also got in 35 minutes of exercise in and I plan to do a 10-15 min yoga video before I head to bed, so I'll get more time in that the "required" amount for Day 1.

Overall, I'd say Day 1 is a complete success. We shall see what the rest of the week brings!

2013- 1st Quarter Weight Loss Plan

As I said in my first post for January 2013 I plan to lose weight and get healthy in 2013. I hadn't decided what or how I wanted to go about losing weight this year other than continuing to eat healthy and get back to exercising faithfully. Then yesterday I watched the Dr. Oz show with Dr. Ian Smith and his new book Shred: The Revolutionary Diet:6 weeks, 4 inches and 2 sizes. In general, I love Dr. Oz, but I don't run out and buy everything he recommends but occasionally I will actually check out his suggestions and if there are enough good reviews out there I will try it. What I loved about Shred is the fact that other than rearranging my meals and to some degree the portion sizes I was already practically eating the way he recommended eating. I liked his concept of food confusion as well as breaking the foods into different meals and snacks and combining them differently. Then to change each week some weeks more drastically than others. So, after seeing the episode I went to Kindle and purchased the book. I read through the beginning as well as the first 3 weeks of meal plans. I didn't have enough time to read it all and I basically wanted a general idea of how doable this really was. I'm not going to spell out the plan since that would be illegal, but it basically consists of several options to choose from for each meal (3-4 a day) and then saying to pick 2-3 snacks a day from the lists of snacks, basing them on a specific calorie amount. Each day is different, varying the amount of meals/snacks and he recommends you switch up what option you choose at each meal each day. There is an entire chapter for snacks that are broken up by calorie amount and the options are endless. It is very possible that you could eat a different snack and meal combination every day for the entire week. However I think when it comes to practicality you are not going to buy 20 different types of veggies and 10 different fruits so that you don't have to repeat. But you can change up the combination so that no meal or snack is the same. I love that! I am a creature of habit so I won't be quite so imaginative, but there is still options that always make being on a "diet" much easier. The only thing I think may be more difficult is the break down of timing for meals/snacks. I eat breakfast @ 6:30 in the morning but don't take my lunch until noon or later. The morning snacks seem to be the lower calorie options and I just don't want to deal with eating lunch early at work. Then the afternoon/evening I think I'm going to have to cram more food in to make sure I get the majority of the food. It'll take a little getting used to but really, I know I can do this for a 6 week time period. If I'm not as successful as the average person or just decide I don't like it, then I'll figure something out. However, I'd been practically eating this way starting on the 1st and have lost 2-3 lbs already without this diet being a part of my life.

In addition to the "diet" portion he also has you exercising 5 days a week. The time changes and he has lots of suggestions and options for you to consider so again you do not have to get into a rut. He also says, if you have to break the amount of time into 2 sessions that's fine.

With this in mind, I began my 6 week Shred journey today.

2013 A New Year, A New Plan

Happy New Year!  I pray that we all have an amazing 2013 and can make it our best year yet. I have not taken the time to create official "Resolutions" this year, but I have several goals in mind for the year. As usual...lose weight.... Since I completed the HCg diet I have truly had no desire to "restrict" myself too much. I have continued to eat healthy and have tried a few other random diets but they were done half heartedly because mentally I was just not prepared to stick to a plan. I think I am finally mentally prepared to stick to a plan.
The only other thing that I have officially processed about a resolution for the year is to truly focus on my walk with God. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel these days. I'm in this numb phase after my Mom's death. I feel like somewhere inside I'm bitter and angry with God and it's going to come rushing out at a most inopportune moment if I don't get a handle on it soon. I'm still going through the motions of reading/listening to the Bible but more often than not my mind wanders for part of it and I just don't apply anything to my life. So, my hope for 2013 is to apply myself to what I read and actually allow God to transform me from the inside out.

These two goals will completely transform me inside and out by 2014 if I stick with them.

Here's to an amazing, challenging, transformational 2013!