Your Eating Plan: It's never too late to get things right!

I had to stop following the plan due to lack of funds to stay on the organic/natural foods. I did the best with what I had. I did gain some weight back but not too much. I have lost all but the last 14 pounds. I lost those extra pounds by juicing and cooking with Coconut Oil So here it is October 25, 2011 and I am ready to get back in the saddle and get this weight off of me once and forever more. This page will be a work in progress. I invite you to come and follow me as I work off these pounds and keep them off for good.

I am starting at Phase One and working my way through the four phases.   I am going to start eating the food without the supplements till they arrive, should be in next few days.  These supplements are NOT necessary to make the eating plan work.  But these are what my doctor had put me on so I am following the instructions as he gave me.  

This is the best stress reliever I have ever tried. Plus it helps with the unwanted fat cells.  It contains proprietary concentration of fucoxanthin.   When I was on it before my energy levels began to increase daily.  I noticed a difference by the end of the first week.  Not only could I see little fat handles disappear but I felt much better and my stress levels began to fade away.  I can't wait to get back on this again.

This comes in 90 or 180 count bottles.  Guess which one I am getting.

• I am going to follow the plan to the "T".   I have already either eaten, (after all I am still human) or gotten rid of the foods not allowed.   I am going to use my journal from before so I won't have to be concerned with what to eat.  I will just follow the meal plans that I used for the various weeks and phases.  The reason I decided to do this is because I just moved and still am living among boxes.  My focus is on getting unpacked and going back on this eating plan.   This will make it easy for me to get started.  Then I can start working out other meal plans as I get more settled.
   
• I am still going to continue to juice on a daily basis.  One can never get enough veggies. My main concentration will be on the eating plan and not exercise per say.  I will continue to do the daily living exercise like bending, stretching, that I get from cleaning and other activities like unpacking.   As I progress then I will get a regular exercise program going. Again it won't be a gym membership or anything like that.  I want to keep this simple.  I lost the wt. before without any added exercise programs.

• I will be weighing every week but will only report my wt. loss here once a month.   I will use my home scales as my measuring guide.  What this means is that any other places that I may get weight like doctor's office etc. won't count.  I want a consistent weight appropriate for this recording.

• I want to get closer to eight hours sleep that our bodies require and increase my water intake on a daily basis.

I really wasn't trying to make a face; but I was facing the sun.  I was 28 years old in this picture. My weight was the same as high school. This picture  was taking on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon.  I am in front of the pop-up tent that we camped in all the way from Florida to California.

I know that it's not the 25th yet; but with the Thanksgiving coming up, I wanted to go ahead and get this out.  Next month I will give you a report during the week of Christmas.  Starting in January I will be back on the 25th of every month reporting.  I am not giving up; so keep coming back and checking up on me.

Well I lost 5.5 pounds in the first week and gained 4 pounds back. Total weight lost 1.4 pounds.  So what went wrong?  I would like to say that my friend tempted me, but that actually isn't true.

I did very well the first week, then the second week I realized that I didn't have a complete shopping list as I should have.  More than that I still didn't have my kitchen stuff unpacked.  I only had a few things unpacked which I used the first week; but who wants to repeat the same meal for four weeks in a row.  I surely didn't.  I did run out of few key items, but my food shopping was done and I just had to do with what I had.  I did go out several times to eat, but honestly I didn't watch what I was eating although I did try to eat healthy.  I was tempted with cookies and cupcakes and I was so frustrated I gave in and indulged.   

For Thanksgiving instead of cooking and having left overs I am ordering a meal (single portion) to go.  No left overs to tempt me.  Will I have pumpkin pie? You bet, but it will only be a piece and not a whole pie left over where I can get seconds.   

Tomorrow is Christmas 2011 and as I sit here reflecting on this past year I have many things to be thankful about.  The first and foremost is that Christmas to me is all about celebrating the birth of my Lord and Savior.   This will be my first Christmas without my Mom.  Although she has been gone for ten months; I still miss hearing her voice and seeing her.  But the good news is because of Christmas she is not only in my past but is in my future, along with my Dad.  

This will be my last entry on my weight loss journal for 2011; there will be many more entries to come for 2012.   The last month I have held my own.  I didn't loose nor did I gain, yippee!   I did have my yearly portion of eggnog along with other Christmas goodies.   I did manage to indulge in moderation.   Instead of having eggnog all through the month of December I only bought one container of this wonderful drink.   It bought back many memories of Christmas's past.   When I ate goodies I only ate or bought small portions and not several containers of the goodies.   All in all I feel good about my weight journey so far.   I still  managed to loose more inches even though I didn't adhere to the eating plan exactly.  My love-handles are shrinking!  The one consist thing: regardless of what I ate I still kept those supplements coming.   I saw continual lower B/P when I would take my B/P.  My energy levels did come and go, more than likely it was due to my intake of sweets. 

2012 will bring a full fledged effort to follow the eating plan.  I am back on reaching my weight loss goals.   Will I be able to mark off one or more of my goals next month?  Come back and see the report on January 25, 2012. 

My how times goes so fast, it was just New Years Day just a couple of days ago. I was still taking a "review" of 2011 few days after 2012 started. I ran across some paper work that had my weight on January 1st of 2011. I sat there staring at this piece of paper and looking at my December weigh in. (As mentioned before I did gain some weight and lost some weight over the Holidays but was able to maintain during that time and didn't gain anymore weight.) I sat there at my desk just shaking my head. My January 2011 and January 2012 weight was one pound different. I wanted to scream and cry but I didn't. I also noted that I lost and gained the same 10 pounds through the whole year of 2011.

Now for the good news. January 1, 2012 I weighed in at 270.5 pounds. That is three pounds more than I weighed when I started this weight-loss journey. My weigh in for this report is 263 pounds. From my January first weigh in, that is a loss of 7.5 pounds. I am on my way. How close will I come to meeting my first weight loss goal: loss of extra 14 pounds that I gained since I had stopped this eating plan? Check back next month and see. See you on February 25, 2012.

March has been quite challenging in several ways. Because of my volunteering work I continued to eat out but did make better choices. I managed to lose and then would gain it back. Mid March I began to realize that I was "obsessing" about this weight-loss journey. Those that know me know that I am a very "serious" person. I have been most of my life and perhaps that is what helped me get through my nursing career. I have to learn how to turn that "seriousness" into a benefit and not a detriment for me. I have to learn to take care of myself like I took care of my patients. Is that an easy task? Sounds easy but in reality it's not. I have always cared for others and leaving myself to fend with what ever energy was left over: which wasn't very much. Part of this journey is to get me back into shape physically and learn to have fun along the way. I grant it that is a new concept for me. But I am just as determined to have fun as I am to get this weight off of me.

So I have come up with new goals and new strategy of losing this weight. One of my nursing instructors would always say, "The way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time". My parents taught me to break down large (big) projects into smaller projects, sounds like the same advice to me. My weight loss journey now has a new structure and I have already kicked it off these last few days remaining in March.

As with any change in your diet consult your physican first.  The reports found on this page are my results. They are meant to be informative only.  Don't be afraid to talk to your doctor work with her/him.