Week #2

Week 2!! its almost Thanksgiving!!! Let the count down begin. I have done ok with no cheat meals. I was going to do prep today but apparently I didn't take out the chicken thighs to out to defrost, so prep will be Monday. I am going to throw those thighs in the crock pot to eat for the rest of the week. Tonight is egg whites and toast, not feeling hungry its the only thing that sounds good.

Also I want to get some Raw Meal/Raw Fit shake replacement, for the 24th to the 26 for a fast. Its a meal replacement shake, all organic more of a plant based protein powder.

It is super yummy. I like it with almond milk. This will be just for lunch or dinner. I'm not going to crazy. You can get it at local health food stores or online. Vitacost has them, it has the coffee flavor too.http://www.vitacost.com/garden-of-life-raw-fit-high-protein-for-weight-loss-organic-marley-coffee-16-oz

I love it, I just never buy it. its kinda expensive. but the only meal replacement I have come to like.

Also plan on making some Squash spaghetti with ground turkey.
 I havent lost any weight, but I did lose an inch in my waist. Been switching up my workouts. We will see how it goes come Thanksgiving. Then I will eat pie.

 I will do a bigger post in a few days. been busy with school. 

14 day detox!

                                                         14 day detox.

Week #1

So I suck at everything and meant to get this out on Saturday but it didn't workout cause I am crazy. So Today I started, for 14 days. Today till Monday the 24th. Meal prep day is today.

In the crock pot I have a small turkey breast cooking in 2 and half cups of water with poultry seasoning and a little turkey juice packet that came with the turkey. Slow cooking it for 6 hours and going to pull it apart and keep it for different meals.

One meal I plan on making with it tonight, is Cabbage soup. This is kinda just a simple typical soup.

Two cans of stewed tomatoes(no salt added)
 a cup of diced pepers (red,and green)
a cup of Onions
a cup of Celery
Garlic tsp
And about three cups of veggie stock. (organic, no salt added) 
one head of cabbage

In the pan add a little olive oil (or coconut depends on what you like) just a little. and sauteed the peppers and onions and celery and garlic. when the onions and celery look a little soft add the stewed tomatoes and the veggie stock. then bring to a boil. Then chop the cabbage and add in the pot and let it get soft. and bring to a boil again. Should take like 30 minutes. I will update (how long it really took)

I will add some of the Turkey too it.  that will be dinner.

I am also making egg white muffins.

In a muffin Tin I will be adding liquid egg whites and ham and spinach or turkey bacon. and In some I will be just adding a scrambled egg. Eggs are good protein. This is a way to have them handy.

I also bought some watermelon and banana's. I got my Quest Chips You can get them here.Quest the bars are also on my list. I think GNC might also have them. protein chips are yummy.

Along with Kay's natural almond cookies I got them at a local grocery store. they are low carb high protein.

I also got tons of lettuce for salads and wraps. I am still thinking bout week 2. but I got week 1 down. Meal prep is a good idea for any diet.

I had a mini melt down in the baked good section yesterday but It will be worth it!

This week is low carb. low sugar. These 2 weeks will be no cheat days. Not till Thanksgiving. But Monday the 24th is when my busy time starts getting ready for Thursday the 27th so it will be a few days of lean cuisines for dinner. They aren't bad just not clean eats.

I will post week 2 sometime this week.

Apple Crisp

I made apple crisp the other week. I used a
bag of Gala Apples.
 2 cups Quaker oats,
2 spoon fulls of Soy butter,
Cinnamon 
 1/2 cup Splenda Brown sugar
1/3 cup oat flour

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
I chopped up the apples and tossed them in a good sprinkle of cinnamon an lemon juice.
In an other bowl I mixed the oats and the butter and cinnamon and the brown sugar and oat flour, started mixing it with a fork but I ended up using my hands.
Then I put the apple mix in a baking dish and sprinkled the crumble over the apples.

Baked for 30 minutes.

Ate with Vanilla Maple Arctic Zero.

Nutrition: 152 Calories 29.5 grams of carbs, 4 protein. 3 fats

This is a healthy version I mean if you look at say a restaurants they are more like 450 calories, 60 grams of carbs and 2 protein. and like 10 fats.

Feel free to substitute ingredients like this last time I made it for my mom I used sugar in the raw Aguva syrup and not brown sugar. cant even tell. 


I will make a post about more of a grocery store haul soon. and go through what I eat on a daily basis. coming up with my detox for Thanksgiving.

Protein pancake review.

I found Pumped Up pancakes on Instagram. I am glad I did. I have tired some other mixes and they usually have like 15 grams of protein or not a good taste. This taste very good. I do love Met-rx pancake mix but this is amazing too. I add cinnamon to the mix and I made waffles.

Used soy butter and walden farms Pancake Syrup. Seriously You should try anything Walden Farms. They make so many good stuff.

This was 200 calories,20 grams of protein, 20 grams of Carbs and 9 sugars. Walden farms is zero calorie zero carb zero sugar products. and you don't lose the taste.

Throw back thursday.

This was my motivational monday from this week. A year ago Nov 3rd 2013 vs Nov 3rd 2014. Same white shirt. now I don't have to layer when I wear shirts.well some I still do. 230 vs 173. I am a work in progress.

I have 27 more pounds to go. Goal by January 1st is to have lost 10 pounds and By March 2015 (my 2 year life style change anniversary) be my goal. 

Things I'll never understand.

     

 Things I will never understand ever:

Things that come with losing the weight have been hard, and I will never understand how after almost two years I still am not comfortable with myself. Maybe my self esteem has gone up a little but not much, and just as much as people comment on me being over weight, they comment so much more bout the weight loss. If I hear one more damn time about how I need to eat this and eat that and not this, I will pull my hair out. If I had a quarter for every time someone mentioned what I needed to watch on this road to weight loss I could buy a new car.

 I get so much shit for how I eat, Its almost borderline mental abuse. The well are you sure you wanna eat that much bread? or You look so much better now we can see your face and your body. (this has been said to me more then a handful of times and its gross) and as I have said before and these are my favorite what drugs are you taking? I don't take drugs. Or You shouldnt snack so much, you should eat smaller portions, I heard Dr oz said this it worked great for the lady on tv. Here is a news article they say if you take these pills you could be skinny. You should be like 110 pounds its a good size for a women.

These are things I hear almost everyday from family, friends, strangers. And Im not ashamed of my weightloss, I will tell anyone. Hence why I am writing this out.

people assume I lost 123 pounds they can just say whatever like when I was fat. and that is something I do not get, like I love postive feed back and I love talking bout my weightloss, its my bigest accomplishment. I will listen but there is some out there who says stuff and its not helpful at all. Its hurtfull.

I actually get very sad and depressed when I hear all this. Which does not help my recovery from my eating disorder.

Lets be real here I do suffer from binge eatting and purging and i have bad body image problems. I use to eat and eat I loved that full feeling and then not eating for a while or throwing some of the food up so I could go binge some more, and telling people I felt sick so I could go home and eat more and get sick later. And I lied about my weight to everyone I ever met. I was not fat. I was in denial. I was losing weight cause I bought pants way too big for me and let them be loose. I didnt go out much and I didnt get in pictures very often.

And you know why i hid food because I was tired of hearing about how much I was eating and how fat people thought I was getting. Now its the same thing, how much I am eating and how skinny I am getting and how I dont wanna be fat again. And that damages a person.

I am not as bad as I use to be, Id freak out if I hadn't lost pounds and want to die, I would write fat on my self and then over eat. Its been a year since then. I saw a great therapist. She helped me control my anxiety. Becuase it was stopping me from living and eating.

Now I eat and I am learning more about my body. But I'll never get why people think they can still comment about how I eat. I eat so much better now. Or they can say whatever. It still hurts. Its still body shamming and it should stop.

My body image is getting better, I see were I am losing and I can see changes not always I still do flip out but It hasn't been damaging to myself. Its hard losing weight and over coming being unhealthy.

 You may think my self esteem has gone up but I think its lowered, I still am not sure of my body or myself and hearing all the garbage that is spit out too me is not helping. I think I cover up more now then when I was in denial of being over weight.

You don't know the sturggle of a person, so next time you wanna come at me about me having a healthy version of french toast or a protein style in and out burger, see if you would wanna hear it.

I am still very aware of what I eat, I beat myself up over cheat and I count calories like crazy. I am afraid when I do reach my goal it will be hard to ease up on it, or if I will be this way forever. But thats me and what I need to work on.

On another note, I am working out a 14 day Thanksgiving detox. A low cal low carb type diet to help shed some water weight and feel good when I stuff myself full of pie at the end of the month. I will be posting it on the blog. So follow me. I'm starting it Sunday. so the post will be up Saturday I hope. I have been pretty bad at posting.

I am on Instagram;  melfit1031.


I will post some recipes and things. Like healthy apple crisp and zucchini shrimp pasta. Who knows. I have a few things going on with school. So when I have time. Not that Im sure if anyone is out there lol.

The struggle of plateau is so real

 Something I hate so much is plateau stages of weight loss. It comes off so easy and then a few months later its like you don't lose anything at all. No change at all. weight doesn't go up doesn't go down and I get frustrated. I mean how can all this hard work and strict eating get me no where. Then It happens I'll lose a pound and Im like thank you sweet baby jesus. But its the times when it takes so long to loose anything.

Sure I still loose inches but its always nice when the scale goes down.I mean it is called Weight loss. I am trying to loose weight, pounds, be a smaller healthy number. But inches are nice, Ive gone from a 55 inch waist to a 36 in waist but I am still a little discouraged.

A lot of people quite at this stage, the I haven't lost anything in 2 months now I will go eat pizza. Starting over is just as hard as keep going.

I use to just lower my calories try and only eat like 1000 calories a day starve myself till I seen the pounds come off that way, let me tell you I was just as unhappy as I am now when I hit a plateau. Now I still keep eating, I may cut down some of the snacking I do and replace it with a protein shake or fruit.

Things that I do know can be a part of this horrible part of weight loss is, Water weight, gained muscle or if you are a girl that evil time of the month is coming and your body is going to be out of whack pretty soon.
(which never weight your self for those seven days)

Water weight is your body is holding on to water because you didn't drink enough. You need water to flush out your system. You're body already loses water during the day, so keep your self hydrated.

Eat the green stuff, I find if I feel like crap and nothing is working, I add more veggies to my daily meals. spinach and broccoli and lettuce... I am a rabbit lol. Added to my daily serving of watermelon

Protein, lean protein chicken , turkey. I eat bout 100 to 120 grams of protein, They say you should eat like 46 to 80 grams to be healthy which I don't know if I believe that, but you should be eating protein. When someone says eating too much protein will make you bulky and fat I get a weird look on my face. I have yet to find if you are working out and not tryin to get massive gains, it wont happen, but I am not a expert, I don't know everything yet. I could be wrong. I am speaking for me and me alone. I will tell anyone to balance protein to carbs and stay low fat. But with me when I hit my nothing has changed, I step it up and I cut carbs. for me. Find a balance that works for you.
\
I change up my workout routine, many times your body can get use to what you are doing with workouts and get use to it that its not helping lose the fat. I change it up with the way I lift, the days I run where I run. Also getting enough in, I upped my workout HIIT to 54 minutes because it was getting to easy at 51 minutes. I try and get a better pace with running. Change it up.

The other thing other than cry about it is I look at what I have been doing, have I been over eating have I been doing to much and I scale back or add on.

I try not to do that 21 days of no sugar detox, becuase the last time I did it, I was sick and my body hurt and then when I did add sugar back in I wanted to die. So I already am at low sugar. So I might change that up, but a big thing is Sodium. salt holds onto water, water causes water weight and bloat. I will cut back my salt intake if I start to feel bad or hit a plateau. It helps.


Beating the plateau is only one hill in this journey. Just keep swimming (hahah) I know that I will one day reach my goal. All this hard work will not be thrown away.

Workouts.

I am intimated by the Gym. Ive gone and I spend an hour. The first problem is going. I feel like everyone is looking at me and I will talk myself out of going to the gym. So I bought an elliptical one year. I didn't really use it till now. I also invested in a treadmill. I have a punching bag and a barbell and a few sets of dumbbells and kettle bells and bands and a step and I have an addiction to buying all types of fitness equipment. Does that mean you need to, well no. Sure its nice, but there are so many cheap ways to workout. Also buying a set of dumbbells doesn't hurt. Rule should be it should be more then your purse. Girls who lift will not get bulky, you will change the muscle 

  Working out should be fun. Find something you love to do. Also it should involve some type of strength and cardio and weight training. Building lean muscle burns fat. The more muscle you have the more fat you will burn. I love Cardio and weights. My problem I work on is body weight exercises. Like planks or push ups and wall sits.

My favorite thing is running. I am outside running like 4 days a week. Mostly 3 to 5 miles per run. I started walking the trail by my house till I felt confident to run.I love it. Its the best feeling in the world to know you did this. The whole 3 miles.And pushing myself to do 5. I have to take it slow some days because of my fibro and I get bad pains in my back and hands and feet but those days I do feel good I take advantage.

My tips for running or walking are these: (btw I am not an expert this is just all from PERSONAL experience)
1. Start off slow. don't try and do like a half Marathon your first time out. You will end up hurting something and possibly end up throwing up. I don't know what any one's fitness level is, but I am still working up to wear doing 6 miles is easy for me. I can knock out a 5k in 45 to 55 minutes Slow but its better than nothing. I started out walking a mile three times a week and then worked up to 3. I also did my first 5k this year. I highly recommended doing a color run.

2. Listen to your body. If you are feeling fatigued or feeling an ache, slow down. Sometimes I have trouble breathing and I have to stop and start walking its a pain but I have to not push it too hard. Also not trying to out run myself then not want to run or move any more.

3. Music. If you make a play list that is full of songs you love that get you in the mood to run, just enjoy listening to. I listen to a lot of everything, Beyonce is on my play list,Far warned tho I wish I could be beyonce lol I also have a soft sport for Justin Timberlake and when I cant push myself anymore, I put him on and I can run further. I also listen to like AC/DC and Coheed and Cambria and Florida Georgia line. I am all over the map. I find it helps me.

I also find if I wear cute workout clothes I am more into wanting to workout. I don't know why that is but it is just something that motivates me. Also love proving the Dri-more tech clothes wrong when I am dripping in sweat.

Rest is also important. One days I go on big runs I am not very active during the day because I try and rest my muscles, I do know if I run 5 miles and then I do a bunch of stuff that day,its hard for me to sleep. Rest days are also important, but since I am not too active through out the day I use my old rest day for a short 30 minute workout, and I now workout every day. but its cause after I'm usually sitting around after cleaning, but I felt like crap Sunday nights after not working out and then it was hard to get going Monday.

For other workouts to do at home... I will use Pintrest. I am on Pintrest My pintrest. Follow me, my board for Fitness has a lot of at home workouts.

And if you are not like me and you need the gym to stay on top of workouts, take me with you.haha

Its all about finding what you like to do. This is your body, you are going to do the workout, we cant transfer workouts.

I just started this, I can only tell what I enjoy and hopefully that motivates someone to do something.

Top 5 things you should know about weightloss.

Things I have noticed about losing wight so far on my journey. It might be one of the hardest things I have ever done and stuck with it. let me be honest, I am pretty lazy and Im very good at doing things last minute, it is a talent that I hold dear. Also I can't keep attention to one thing for more then a few hours, unless it is a very good book or tv show. I did watch all of supernatural 7 season in a month.Any way theses are a few things I have noticed and that I would give out advice to most people who ask or dont ask, or because I just feel like talkin.

5. Haters are going to hate.
This is something I am still struggling with, like how can anyone hate on getting healthy?! But they do. Pathetic little assholes who think of any way to make this proud accomplishment a horrible thing or make you feel bad because they ate a bag of cheetos in an hour.(it can be done) They will say things like "but if you didn't get so fat in the first place you wouldn't have to lose weight" "wow, you must be taking drugs" "Did you have the weight loss surgery?" "what is your secret, you cant just tell me its all eating right and working out" They get pretty crazy. Ive spent many hours crying and pulling my hair out because these people who are hating me and sometimes even reporting my progress photos or fitness status on facebook. They are the same people who made fun of me for being over weight. accepting people for the assholes they are is just a part of life, and knowing they will never stop hating. It is hard to know that people are just waiting for you to fail so they can say I told you so. but the feeling of proving people wrong is one of my favorite things.

4.Drink water.
If you are like me you probably hate water. Well I use to hate it, but I started buying cute tumbler cups 26 oz and gallons of water to fill them up with and its been my best tool. Becuase water is the shit. also useing mio drops in it, or drinking sparkling water with mio drops. But good clean water has helped not only weight loss but the acne I get. Don't get me wrong I love a good diet coke here and there, but water will be your most supportive best friend. (and so will the bathroom, after all the water)

3.Track your calories.
I use my fitness pal like its my life support. Its been the easiest to see what I need to balance out from day to day. I think it is great for starters, it holds me and me only accountable for everything I eat. plus I keep track of weight and inches. I have the App so its easy and Its all there to show what I ate and lets me know how much I do eat. Also I eat 1800-1950 calories a day. sounds excessive but factor in workouts and my BMR( Basal Metabolic Rate) the number of calories my body burns even if i sleep all day, because your body is a well oiled machine it works even if you dont do anything. mine is 1581 adding in the workouts I do, I'm burning enough and taking in enough calories to lose weight. You can google BMR and find yours. I wont tell anyone how to eat or what to eat, but I do know meals and things that are yummy and not horrible and gross to lose weight.

2.Cheat meals keep you sane.
I plan each meal out and either Friday or Saturday I plan out a cheat meal. Its usually something super sweet. Do not let anyone tell you that cheese burger you ate is going to ruin your workouts. As long as you have done enough to kick your metabolism you will have no ruined a diet, lost your workouts. Factor in meat is protein so is cheese and lettuce and tomatoes are veggies, bread is grain. Its eating burgers every day and not working out that might one day lead you down to size 40 pants. But everyone's body works out differently, my brother works out and eats burgers every day and he is skinny, he also is gaining muscle. I can not eat like that to lose weight. But I do have a cheat meal. Second is not to let that cheat meal make you crazy, don't beat your self up, I do but then I move on. Accept the burger, go back to eating healthy and move on till the next cheat.

1. Body Image/Mental Battle.
Something I have noticed and mentioned before, I suffer from a distorted body image now. All I see is fat and loose skin. I sometimes miss fat melissa who some days I feel was prettier than I am now. Losing weight is a mental battle too. You may think that 5 mile run was hard, but in you head you told your self you can do this, i got this, just a little big further. your legs hurt and you think it was all physical but it was also mental. Just like losing 100,123, 150 or even 50 is coming over something. most people think I have more confidence that I just wake up and go damn I look good. but however wrong that is, I do notice changes but not like all the people who tell me I look thin see it. Maybe it is because I had at one time lived in denial of being fat and that I had come to terms with it and lost it I feel like I lost part of me. I feel like I am becoming a new Melissa there is someone else staring back at me in the mirror. I also developed and Anxiety about eating. that even with eating healthy those one cheats some time get to me and I start regretting it and getting down on myself. No one will understand, unless they too have had to loose weight or gain weight. I know a few people who are under weight and are trying to tone up and build muscle and become healthy. I cant speak for them. But I speak for myself. And I changed my body. I spent so many years looking at my heavy self and it will take a while to get use to the changes in my new body. Also Don't trust the scale he is a liar. Also he doesn't care bout you. But I get days where the scale has gone up and Im like I am fat. The scale will felx from one day to the next. gain muscles (muscle weights more than fat) and water weight. (if you dont drink enough water and you work out your body will store fat and water and you become bloated).

There is no magic pill there is no fast way. It is hard to lose weight and if I can do it anyone can. Will power is stronger than being unhappy.

I was unhappy with being fat, but I was so tried of being sick and hurting all the time that I had to change. I mean don't get me wrong I loved food and I love eating it and I miss taco bell but I could no longer be the girl in the pictures, I am doing this for me. I proved myself wrong I never knew I could do this and its a little overwhelming, but its getting easier.One day at a time.

My Story

 In 2013 my awaking at how unhealthy I was started, I had before just done every fad diet but I let my binge eating control me. I lied and was like no way am I fat or heavy. I let depression consume me and filled the hole in my heart that my grandmothers death left with tons of taco bell and panda express. I also used my Thyroid condition as an excuse as to why I couldn't lose the weight, but I stopped letting that hold me back once I realized how big I was seeing my self in my friends photos. I couldn't take it anymore, I got my doctor to even out my medicine and It was working and with a nutritionist I started to eat better and I used that eliptical machine I got and then I started walking and using weights. clothes were fitting,I felt great. There is just one problem I developed a body image problem. I have a hard time accepting that Ive lost the weight that I have and trust the process. I still see the girl who is heavy, I see the bat arms, I am highly picky over my body now, which people look at me and go why you lost so much weight?! How about you losing half of your self or even more than half of yourself and not even recognize yourself in the mirror or being constantly told how much better you look, it can get to a person. I Don't let this stop me from my goal I know it will happen I know muscle weights more than fat, I'm gaining muscle. However the scale and I are horrible friends and if Id let it, he would send me on a wrong journey but I am doing this slow and healthy and I didn't have any surgery. I take vitamins and drink protein sakes and have cheat meals.

In June I found out I have Fibromyaliga and some days my body is hurting badly. I don't let that stop me, I'm not doing the miles I was before but I walk and I lift. I am lifting light about 55 pounds but I'll work up to heavier when my body feels a little better. And my Thyroid has been doing great lately.

I want to help people. I was lazy and I still am, hello netflix is my boyfriend we live happily together with my cat. But I will post workouts and recipes and some rants and feelings and we will see how long it lasts. I just want to get out my story and maybe someone else will see it. I don't and wont care for fat shaming, skinny shaming, fit shamming. Support all types of people, I hope everyone will do the same when in reading this. But then again it is the internet and trolls live every where.

Till Next time
Melissa