Progress

I started to change my habits on July 6th. In a little over 5 weeks I have lost 14 pounds, 1 inch around my waist, 2 inches around my hips and 1 inch around my thighs.

I’m reinventing the wheel with recipes. I’ve had some that were hits like Mexican Chicken and Rice , and Healthy Chicken and Vegetables.

I have decided to undertake a 14 day meal plan. I am only planning dinner since I usually eat leftovers or salads for dinner. My hope is that planning our dinners will not only make things easy but also save money. I have a meal plan starting today that will fit in with that busy schedules.  Some of the meals we are trying over the next 2 weeks are, Mediterranean Chicken and Brown Rice, Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken, Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff, Slow Cooker Pork Roast, Saucy Meatballs, and Hawaiian Crock Pot Chicken.

School started August 5th and our afternoons and evenings have become a logistical nightmare once again. We have a small amount of time to do homework before the boys head to Taekwondo about 3 evenings a week. We also have swim lessons starting tomorrow for the next 2 weeks. On the days that the kids go to Taekwondo I have a crock pot meal, casserole or a freezer meal. The days that I have time I have plans for meals that take a bit longer.

Today I have 2 things in the works. I had some beans that I wanted to use so I am making white bean chili with ground turkey. I will be freezing half and I traded my neighbor for the turkey and I will give her the other half for her freezer. I also have in the crock pot.

I spent some time this weekend looking for healthier options for freezer meals and discovered a good blog called the skinny mom’s kitchen. It’s a good resource and I have written down several recipes to try. I encourage you to check it out.  I am hoping to make breakfast burritos for the freezer tomorrow as well as spaghetti sauce.

As far as a fitness plan I have had some help with that. The kids go to a school here on Schofield and there is no bus so I have to walk them each day. It’s 1 mile each way, so I am walking a total of 4 miles each day. I really don’t have to do much else on the days that I walk the kids to school. But I’m finding that I enjoy being active and the right activity doesn’t feel like working out. I’m not a gym person. I don’t like going to the gym and working out with a bunch of sweaty people. It makes me self-conscious about how I look. I am learning to be comfortable in my own skin but I would still much rather be outside hiking, walking, swimming, body boarding or some other form of physical activity.

This is a picture from today. I neglected to take a picture when I first started but it’s just as well. I probably wouldn’t have been comfortable posting a picture anyway.

I have also learned another trick with the SparkPeople website.  When you track fitness it doesn’t credit you with the calories burned for that day.  I decided to play with the activity tracker and see what effect changing my goals would have on my recommended calorie intake.  I changed my weekly goals so reflect the walking I am doing in both minutes and calories burned.  Once I did that my nutrition tracker now recommends that I eat 1300-1800 calories a day instead of 1200-1500.  It solves my problem and eases my concern about not getting enough to eat.  The fact is that when you do a lot of activity your body will need more fuel.  I was concerned because I want to lose weight the healthy way, not by starvation and excessive exercise.

My start weight: 207lbs

Goal weight: 160lbs for starters

Current weight: 193lbs

Total Lost: 14lbs

Changing lifestyle with Spark People

I got on the scale after the 4th of July and my worst fears were confirmed.  I was as heavy as I have ever been.  That, and the fact that several of my girlfriends are going on a diet, was the kick that I needed.

I know that a simple diet isn’t enough.  I need to change my entire lifestyle.  A diet lasts as long as you maintain the routine and most of the time it’s a starvation routine.  So I need to change my idea of normal.  I need to find new go-to recipes and establish new menus and habits.

I have used sparkpeople before and it’s worked well.  I have had good success with Weight Watchers as well but that’s not free.  Spark People is a free website that lets you track calories, fitness and other goals.  They also have a huge community support and a complimentary web site www.sparkrecipes.com where I have found dozens of recipes that offer healthy adaptations to my old favorites.  I especially love the recipe builder where I can enter the ingredients to my recipe and it calculates the calories per serving for me.

I have friends that use other apps like Loseit! or Myfitnesspal.  I decided to go back to spark people since I am familiar with the program.  The idea is that you have to create a calorie deficit.  So I have been eating between 1200-1600 calories a day.  The food database is huge and I often find that if the food I want isn’t in there that someone has entered it before I have.  I don’t think I have had to enter a food yet.  I also enjoy the bar code scanner that is part of the mobile app.  I had to get the paid version to get that feature but it was worth the $3.99.

The fitness side of the app is equally easy to use and gives credit for almost any activity.  I have been known to count heavy housework as activity.  It’s acceptable to count any activity that causes you to break a sweat.

So far I have seen a 5lb loss in the first week and I am expecting about a 2lb a week loss from here on in.  My goal is to lose 45lbs by Christmas.  I find that it’s important for me to be accountable for the calories I put in my mouth.  Even though I went straight to reducing my caloric intake I can definitely see the value in tracking what you eat for a few days or a week before you start confining yourself to the calories recommended.  The reason is it opens your eyes to what you are eating and how much you are really taking in.  It is definitely an eye opener when you start measuring your food and realize what you used to call a serving vs what is a serving now.

In addition to counting calories I have tried to be mindful of the types of fuel I give my body.  I know that by putting healthy fuel in my body I will feel better and be healthier.  No more do I sit down and eat large deserts or salty snacks.  I can still have those things in moderation but not like I used to.  Cravings are a reality I’m learning to deal with them by eating something healthy.  When I crave sweet I reach for fruit rather than sugar.  When I crave salty  reach for a few almonds rather than a bag of chips etc.

Not only does spark people provide free tools to track nutrition and fitness but it’s also a great resource for health information and articles.  They have a chef on staff that creates great new recipes all the time, and fitness experts that offer great workout ideas.  They also have nutritionists who write articles on the benefits of certain types of foods.  There is also a huge community that offers support along the way.

The hardest part of the journey for me is finding recipes that my family will eat and enjoy.  My youngest son is really picky and hard to feed without throwing a lot of new food at him.  So I try to stay close to what he eats and make substitutions or reduced portions for myself.  I hope he will adjust though and we have seen slow progress with him over time.

A few years ago I read the book by Spark people founder Chris Downie called “The Spark” in which he tells his own story of getting fit and healthy.  He also offers insight into how to make a lifestyle change.  Recently another book called “The Spark Solution” written by a dietician and a spark member.  It offers encouraging words and even a 14 days meal plan where they show you how to make similar foods that taste good but cut the calories.  I have been reading the book but I freely admit that I doubt I will use the 14 day meal plan in its entirety because I’m not that good at planning my meals a week at a time.  I usually open the refrigerator in the morning and look at what meat we have and take out something that looks good and then go find a recipe for it.  I am enjoying the book and I think I will use a lot of the recipes, just not in the highly structured way.

I will keep this blog up to date on my progress since this is the most fitness related content of my blogs.  I already live a pretty active lifestyle.  I’m hoping to make being active easier by becoming even healthier.