It's Been a Long Time Coming

I haven't posted in ages. I know. I have my reasons. In the spring whenever I sat down to write a post I thought to myself "I am really busy right now, and as many good ideas as I have for this blog, marking assignments and doing lesson planning and a million other things is really more important, and I am being selfish and letting my students down by not marking their papers during my 'free' time." So I made a mental list of all my good ideas and started a post here and there and never got around to finishing them. I told myself that over the summer I would post more. But it was the summer, and going to the beach became more important than sweating in front of a computer screen. I also wasn't feeling well, and had some health problems over the spring and summer. I found I was losing my passion for food a little bit, and that made me sad. I think a lot of it was because I wasn't feeling well or like myself. But a few things did happen over the spring and summer that have given me a new perspective:

1- I got engaged. Eeep! It has been a long time coming, but at just the right moment, in front of a gorgeous waterfall in Cape Breton, we decided to make it official and spend the rest of our lives together. I knew then that I wanted to look fabulous and loose weight and be healthy for the wedding.

2- I spent some time in the Emergency room, scared out of my mind and in tons of pain. According to the doctors I had kidney stones. Two of them. A big one and a little one. Reality check for needing a healthier lifestyle. 

3- I had chest pains. I didn't go to the ER for this, although in hindsight I should have. I made excuses and told myself it was something else, no big deal, no need to worry. I had too much to do to be having a heart attack. But in my mind, I was terrified. I went to my doctor and got some tests done and apparently my heart is ok, but I was still advised that I needed to loose weight.

Ok, so this wasn't new news to me. I have been overweight my entire life. I was a size 12 before I was 12 years old. I was a size 22 before the age of 22. It was one of my greatest fears that I would keep going up in size with age. I tried to eat healthier and make better choices but the most I accomplished was maintaining my weight and not gaining any more.  I was also afraid of dying young, and not being able to successfully have children. I'm taking cholesterol medicine. I have been on it for a while now, and I fought with my doctor about taking it for the longest time, trying to get it down on my own to no avail. I fought and won the battle over blood pressure medicine and I wasn't forced to take it by my doctor but I knew in the back of my mind that my blood pressure was high and took some pretty abnormal spikes. There were times when I simply couldn't control it. I didn't feel stressed but my body was flushed and red and HOT (not in the sexy way) and I couldn't seem to cool down or sweat it out. It was a dry, scary inferno. I needed to do something.

After getting engaged I made a plan to go to the bookstore and buy new cookbooks with healthy recipes in them. I wanted one book in particular- the "Eat Yourself Thin" cookbook. I have watched the show on tv that uses this book. It converts favorite high fat and calorie dishes into healthy and delicious alternatives. The bookstore didn't have it. No bookstore in the area had it. It's apparently a very popular book. I was devastated. But I looked around the store and perused other cookbooks and books in general and I stumbled upon a 30% off diet book. I was skeptical. These books don't work. They all advertize the same things and don't deliver. Or they offer a fad diet that is sure to leave you malnourished and then have you gain the weight all back as soon as you stop. But I was desperate. I haven't been able to do this weight loss thing on my own, and even a dietician didn't actually help me all that much. But I took the book and found a bench in a private-ish corner of the store (away from the Starbucks where everyone else was reading and drinking expensive, sugary, delicious coffees), and I sat down and began to scan through the book. Then I began reading some of it. And it made sense. It wasn't a completely crazy idea, and It seemed like sound eating advice. It read kind of like a conversation. That's when my relationship with The 17 Day Diet began.

I bought the book, took it home, and began reading. It was something I could do. But did I really want to? Would it really work? Could I handle the disappointment if it didn't? The basics boiled down to these three steps for me:

1- The diet would cleanse my system and set me free from my horrible addictions to sugar and processed carbs

2- The diet would re-start/jump start my metabolism to help me loose weight and develop healthy exercise routines and eating habits.

3- The diet would teach me a new way of eating and living that would allow me to develop, implement and maintain a healthier lifestyle while still enjoying some of my favorite things. 

So I planned to start and eased myself onto the diet and then finally jumped in with both feet and said "okay, I am doing this now."

I have been on this new Healthy Living Plan (as I call when I don't want to just say "I'm dieting" because it is really much more than that..) for 32 days. I am almost done the second cycle.  It's called the 17 day diet because you do it in cycles of 17 days each. There are 4 cycles in the book but you can also tailor it to your needs and weight loss goals. I will explain how later. 

What you need to know now is that in 32 days I have lost 18.6 pounds, including a bad week where I fell off the bandwagon and gained 4 pounds back, and then had to loose them all over again. I did. And then some. You should also know that in addition to my weight loss number, I am down a dress size and wearing size 22 jeans, and size 2x tops for the most part. I also rarely have to wear a bra extender and I don't get red raw lines around my sides after supporting the ladies all day with a too tight bra. And my fiance hasn't complained yet about them shrinking (and he better not!)

This diet is working. I occasionally fail, but it is always my own fault and my poor choice to fail. It isn't the diets fault, and it isn't really my fault either. It's life. Life happens. And I just keep going and trying my best and eventually I will get there if I am determined enough.

Every day and every meal is a new opportunity to make healthy and better choices. If you start choosing what you eat or how much of it you eat from about 15 years old, and you live to be 100 years old, and you eat 3 meals a day, you have about 93,000 opportunities to eat healthily or make a better choice than the one before it. More if you count snacks. That being said, I love the 17 day diet because it is trying to teach people how to enjoy the foods they love responsibly, not give them up all together. In the words of my wonderful Mom, 'If you want desert, have that piece of pie. What you have to do is not sit there and eat the whole damn pie!'

Also being on the Healthy Living Plan for me is about life. I want to enjoy more of it for as many years as I can. I want to pass on good eating habits and happy eating habits to my future family. I don't want to pass on high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes,which already runs in the family.

I know a lot of other people are also trying to loose weight. And some of us are struggling. Some of us need support (I know I often do!). I am not a success story yet. I am a big girl with big dreams and I have set the bar high for myself. I learned this week from Facebook that there are many people out there who are trying this and other strategies to loose weight and get healthy. And I learned that it is good to share our ideas and thoughts and feelings because it means we are not alone, and we have hope and we can do this.

I have been on this new plan for 32 days. I have re-ignited my passion for food and cooking in a new way. I love to come up with new recipes and I love to find my own ways of making delicious food healthy. I also love to share it with people. So this blog will now be dedicated to my foodie adventure in loosing weight and creating a healthy lifestyle for myself. I will share my 'secrets' and how I have tailored the plan to suit my needs. I will also share recipes and celebrate my milestones here. And I look forward to hearing from other people about their secrets and recipes too!

 These pictures are me at my heaviest. They will be a reference I guess for when I take new pictures. We will see what happens!