Laura's Journey 365

Things have been going along pretty well.   I've hit some bumps along the way.  I was craving something sweet the other day.   Once I allowed myself to have something, a little while latter I was looking for something more.   I couldn't figure out why, what was going on.  Then it dawned on me...I have a visitor coming.   She makes me crave chocolate, leaves me feeling bloated and very unlike myself.   I'm going to have to find something 21 Day Fix acceptable for these days when they come around again....and they will more than likely come around again.   Having said that I have found that I have given up most sugar fairly easily but it is salt that I'm having a problem cutting back on.   I just can't shake the salt.  See what I did there?  Sorry for the pun but I couldn't resist.  I didn't really realize how often I was reaching for the salt shaker in the past, but now that I'm hyper-aware of what I'm eating, I find that I...

I knew I wouldn't be able to hold out until I finished my 21 Days.   I stepped on the scale this morning.  I was very pleasantly surprised.   The numbers were lower than they were a week ago.   Lower than I thought they would be.   I'm pretty pleased with myself.   I'm not going to tell you how much I lost, I want to save that for the day I'm complete the 21 Day Fix.   Did I mentioned that I'm pretty pleased with myself? lol Today was a challenging day, but not in the usual temptation way or the I have too many veggies to eat way.   I had back to back meetings today.   The first one was a surprise.   I really enjoy those.   You know the ones.   They start with "Hey, are you doing anything right now?" I should always answer yes to that question and then find out what is being asked of me.   However, I went with the truth and answered "Nothing too important what can I do for you?"   I should mention that the person...

It is the end of week one.  Today is officially day 7.  I must say it was much easier than I thought it would be.   I was never hungry.  Never forced to choke down anything I didn't like.   Enjoyed all the food, and there was sooooo much food.  I am at the top of the calorie group so I have a lot of veggies and protein to eat.   Who knew that eating healthy could leave you feeling satisfied and full and, well, happy? There are a number of things that I didn't have this week that I would have considered absolute staples in my diet.   Now is the time for another confession.   Not only was I a sugar addict, I have a mild addiction to Diet Coke.   I don't drink coffee, I do drink tea, but never coffee.  When I work my 12 hour night shifts, I can easily go through 4 Diet Cokes a night.  I used to bring in a 12 pack of Diet Coke the first day of my tour of 4 days and sometimes there were none left when I left for my days off. ...

I have been eating very well these past 5 day.  I have exercised for these past 5 day and I feel really good.  I noticed that I do seem to have more energy so I can't wait until I'm further into the program to really feel that surge.   I have my family starting to change they way they eat which is a bonus.  My son is trying things that he hasn't eaten before and even though he may not always like what he is eating he still finishes it.  He has hockey playoffs coming up so every little bit helps.   I will admit it to you now.  My name is Laura and I am addicted to sugar.   For the past 30 years I pretty much treated sugar as my favourite food group.  There was sugar, chips, ice cream, pop and Pizza.   Those were the food groups I was using.   I knew going into to this that my craving for sugar would be hard to give up, but I thought that if I ate a balanced diet, drank all my water and exercised with time my sugar cravings w...

So this is day 3, and welcome to day 3.  Today was a good day.  I always find when I'm at work it's easier to stay on course with my healthy eating plan.   The day is more structured and I pretty much have 5-6 small meals in the day.   I work 12 hour days from 6 am to 6 pm.   I work in a dispatch centre and we are not allowed to leave the building.  I pretty much only have what I brought to eat.  There are some days when the guys arrange to have have a big meal or a special meal, but since I work with fire fighters they are pretty health conscious most of the time.  I just have to watch my portion sizes.   Today I am counting as a small victory that fact that one of my co-workers brought in cookies and I didn't have a single one.   Normally I would have had at least 2......or maybe 3, but I would have snuck 2 of them when I thought no one was looking.  Today I managed to stay clear.  Even when the 3 o'clock munchies kicked...

It's officially day 2 of my first 21 Days and already I had temptation thrown my way and I'm pretty sure I have a lot more to learn.   It was my day off today, but we had arranged to do some training with my Platoon (I'm a Dispatcher for a Fire Service).    When we had our lunch break they all wanted to go out together and have lunch.  Since our time was limited it would have to be a fast food restaurant.   I did bring my own lunch.   A lovely, healthy 21 Day lunch that was sitting in the fridge.  I just didn't want to miss anything, so I went.   I settled on a chicken breast on a whole wheat bun with lots of veggies for toppings.  This finished me off for my yellow container for the day.  I don't think that decision was so bad.   However, I caved and had some onion rings.   I probably should have skipped the onion rings, but sometimes old habits die hard.   I marked everything down on my tracker and had a veggie ...

Yesterday I began the 21 Day Fix.  I did my first 30 minute exercise video and let me tell you, nothing shows you just how out of shape you are like exercising for the first time in 15 years.   WOW.  It was actually not as bad as I feared it would be.   I followed the modifier the entire video, but I did sweat.  It was the Total Body Cardio Fix and I actually enjoyed it.  I felt a sense of accomplishment when I had finished.   I followed the eating plan, but I found it was a lot of food.   That's right, I said it, I found it was a lot of food.  I'm in the highest calorie category and I found that 6 green containers of Veggies was a lot.  I didn't get through all of them, so I will have to add more to the earlier portion of the day.  I hit my portions on all the other container allotments.  So here is my before picture just to give you an idea of where I am now. As you can see I have a ways to go, but as...

I am ready.   I have read my 21 Day Fix booklet.  I have sorted out the number of each container I can have in a day.  I have printed out a tracking chart. I have grocery shopped.  I have cleaned, sorted and stored veggies, fruits and other items.   I am ready to go.   I will be starting tomorrow, March 4th.  I will post my starting pictures, I will weigh and measure myself and I will dive in.  I have looked up recipes on the Internet.   I have looked at the recipes in the book.  I actually have been trying out some of the recipes I found on the Internet for the past week and my family hasn't noticed much of a difference.   My son did comment "are we ever going to eat out again?"  Up until about 2 weeks ago I think we were eating out 3-4 a week.   WHAT!!!!!   Yes it is true...we ate out a lot.  You name it we ate there.   Fast food restaurants, pub style restaurants, Mandarin, Sub places, Montana's, Swi...

21 Day Fix There is no easy way to say this.   I need to lose about 175 lbs.   That's right...its not what I currently weigh, but rather the amount of weight I have to lose.   The equivalent of another human being, not just another human being, but a man.   I have to lose the equivalent of what a healthy man weighs.   That is what I have been carrying around for almost 20 years now and to be quite honest I am tired of it.     I don't travel.  I tell people its because my husband doesn't really like to travel (which is true), but the real truth of the matter is that I'm afraid to travel because I know that I will not fit into the seat on the plane.   I know the seatbelt won't fit around me and I will have to ask for the extender.  My biggest fear is that I will get there and they will make me buy an extra seat.  I went to Vegas 14 years ago and I was smaller then than I am now, and I just fit in the seat.  I was uncomfo...