When will I finally drop below 300?

When I set my goals a little bit back, one of them was to be under 300lbs by the 30th of July. It does not look like I will make that goal, although I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch. I've been doing lots of Orange Theory. I did 5 days last week, and plan to do 6 this week. (They are playing a bingo game, and it motivates me.) I know that doing Orange Theory is making my body into a fat burning machine, and that right now I am transitioning to muscle, so I understand why the scale isn't moving, but it is still frustrating.

We've been really busy, and perhaps my food hasn't been as on as before. I've stayed pretty good on my calories, except for a couple of days while I was adjusting to Orange Theory. What I've been eating has changed some. I was busy and tired last week, so I think I ate more grain based carbs than I normally do, and that may be part of the hold up as well.

So, I'm looking for non-scale victories. I'm going to take measurements later today, so there will probably be some. Movement, in general is getting easier. I'm working on so many things at once with Orange Theory that I could not pinpoint all the victories. My speed and incline on the treadmill has almost doubled, the rowing machine isn't killing my knees anywhere near as bad as it did at first. I even completed a 2000 meter row, something I didn't think I could accomplish.

This is a good journey, and when I get discouraged I look to all the people who support me on it, and most importantly Jesus, for my encouragement. It always comes, just when I need it, just what I needed to hear to keep going. This is a battle I will win, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the race He has set before me, and I am going to run it as strongly and with endurance, as I can, letting His strength sustain me.

Accepting My Curves

I'm having a problem with the accepting my curves movement. I think it is fabulous to be good with where your body is at, but I think many are using the "Loving my Curves" movement to embrace unhealthiness. I have been overweight all my life. It has always been a struggle. I am not trying to be a skinny model type, I know I never will be. I am striving to be fit and the best I can be. For many years I was okay with being bigger, and it became a sort of excuse. A reason I couldn't do things, that eventually became an omnipresent reality. I had so many things on hold for when I lost weight, but I honestly wasn't putting any effort in.

The rub for me, and probably others, since I don't think my journey is that unique, was that being okay with where I was meant I didn't have to try to do better. My husband used to work at a place that had a sign that read "Good Enough is the enemy of Excellence." I was living a "good enough" life for years, but God promised excellence. Did that mean he would hand it to me on a silver platter? No, it meant I needed to go out and run the race that was laid before me, and in that race I would discover a deeper, more excellent relationship with Him. That doesn't make it easy.

Everyday I am walking in a new healing. My thought patterns are changing. The excuses are getting eliminated. This week I'm doing something I would have thought I couldn't do in the past. More importantly, because I was living in "good enough" I didn't really want to do it. So, what is it I am doing? Well, a few weeks ago I talked about Orange Theory Fitness, and I have joined them now. Twice a year they do what they call a challenge week, and this is that week. I had originally planned to do only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week, but every day is a different challenge, so I am going Monday-Friday.

Does it intimidate me? Heck yeah. Am I wondering how I'm going to do it? Definitely. However, this will give me all sorts of bench marks so I can check my progress in six months. I don't think it is chance that this is basically the first week I'm there. I believe God will give me the strength to see it through. I believe out of it He will create excellence. I'm excited to see how the week ends, and I feel like this is only the beginning of the fitness side of my journey.

Busy-ness & Plateauing

As I blogged about not so long ago, I set some goals for my weight-loss. Something I have never done before. Right now, the next milestone, getting under 300 is just around the corner. I have been sitting on a plateau around 315 lately. It is a bit frustrating. I'm hoping to get into Orange Theory Fitness by the end of this week, and hopefully hard work can help me reach the under 300 goal by the end of the month. The one thing I'm not going to allow myself to be is discouraged even if I don't make that goal.

It has been quite a while since I wrote a post here, I have just been so busy. Time seems to play tricks on me, by one token my days seem to pass slowly, by another token I seem to never have the time to do the things I want to get done. I'm slowly learning to overcome my tendency to procrastinate. I know that sounds silly. However, it is a real problem I face on a daily basis. It effects everything in my life, cooking, cleaning out my closet, and exercising.

Cleaning out the closet needs to happen soon. A lot of my clothes don't fit, and it is time to sort through them. Perhaps, some of the nicer ones can be consigned or sold to help me get my gym membership, and or new clothes. I hate to spend much on clothing because I know I'm not staying here. That is really sinking in. I'm not staying here. I'm going down, and rather I'm on a plateau or not, this size is temporary.

Non-Scale Victories

So, the scale has been moving very slowly lately, but it is at least still going down. I am choosing to focus instead on non-scale victories. I've had a load of them lately. Some big, some small, some...well I don't know how to explain, so let me try. As you lose weight, one of the first things that need to be replaced is undergarments. You know, a dress, shirt, or pants can be too big and okay, but you can't have your undies falling off. My issue was not so much the undies as the bras. My bras were already kind of needing replaced, and then I was looking at pictures of myself in the blue dress and realized they were really beyond use. I found a good deal and ordered new ones. I wasn't even entirely sure the size I needed, so I ordered three sizes. I ended up needing the smallest band size, and the smallest cup size I ordered. The rest got sent back for exchange.

Okay, here is where it gets real, and honest. I went down two cup sizes. TWO! Yep, I have nothing much to speak of left up top. It is amazing to see how different things fit now that I have the correct bra size on. The best part is the next time I need bras I won't have to order them because I fit into a fairly normal size now. That is truly a non-scale victory.

Just breaking news, I can usually wear a seat-belt now. Something I have not always been doing. In many cars seat-belts didn't fit, in our car it fit but was tight. It is somewhat dependent upon how far forward I have the seat, and as such, when driving, it can be a bit too tight still. I've been out of the habit of wearing a seat-belt, so now my daughter is reminding me to put it on.

I've had several non-scale fitness victories. Last night we watched the fireworks and I sat on the ground. I got up without any help. Also, two weekends ago when I was away, I went up and down stairs several times a day. All in all, small victories are adding up, and today I finally got my new hair-cut. My daughter had colored my hair last week. So, here is to victory over all the challenges involved in losing weight. (Including the sagging skin, which will be discussed another day.)

Freedom in Movement!

Life is constantly changing. It has been almost a year ago that I went into the hospital with sepsis, and stayed for 9 days. The life changes that have happened since then are amazing. Just after closing the shop, my health was so poor. I don't know how many times I caught colds. I was having a hard time just walking around the store, many times resorting to the wheelchair cart. My knee was in pain pretty much constantly, and it was severely limiting my movement.

This week I'm really feeling changes in that area. It has been happening for about a month, but this week is when I really noticed how limited I had been. Now I'm parking further from the store on purpose, and it is freeing to not have to drive around and around to get a better spot. This is something I didn't really even think of, much less consider a kind of bondage.

I feel better, stronger, and healthier everyday. Just yesterday I tried Orange Theory Fitness, something I'm sure I would have disliked and dreaded in the past, but not yesterday. It is like I'm craving the challenge now. I cannot even fathom the changes that God is working in my spirit and body. Yesterday was exhilarating, and I'm hoping to be able to go again soon.

Finally, I'm going to finish this off by saying, I'm starting to take the stairs. Going down is still challenging to my knee, but I'm confident I will be able to reverse that. This morning I took my fasting blood sugar, and most of the time that is about 135-140, today it was 105, so I'm confident I'm reversing the diabetes. Most importantly, I'm sure that God is transforming me into a more abundant life, and I praise Him for the transformations.

Chicken Meal Prepping

So, I follow a very general reduced calorie plan, where I eat 6 small meals spaced through the day. Generally speaking I try to keep the meals about 200 calories, with at least 10 grams of protein, and get a couple of veggie servings in each. I'm a bit more flexible about carbs and fat. A large part of my daily diet is chicken breast meat that I cook myself and keep on hand to add to meals. Today, that is what my blog is going to be about.

Part of my meal prepping strategy is to cook extra when I do cook, and package it into meal size portions. In fact, I do not leave food in the pan for "seconds", when I serve a meal I make all the plates up for my family, then I package "leftovers" for later meals. This allows me to always have a stack of grab and go meals in the fridge. 

Chicken is sort of an exception for me. Every week I buy a pack or two of chicken breasts, season them simply (either Spike, or salt & pepper), and then I cook the entire pack. After it cools I shred the chicken, put it in a bag and store it in the fridge. Chicken is such a great source of low fat protein, and by shredding it I have lots of control over portion sizes. I also find that when it is shredded everyone in the family is happy with less. I often eat a 2.5 oz portion of chicken. The pictures below show a comparison of 2.5 ounces of chicken in a single piece, sliced, and shredded. You can see that shredding makes the portion seem much larger. Each 2.5 oz portion is about 86 calories, with not quite 2 grams of fat, and 16 grams of protein. (I don't mention carbs, because it has none.)

86 calories of a blank slate. What are some of things I do with this? I use it with leftover cooked veggies and a tablespoon or two of sauce. Think any type of leftover veggie, chicken, and sweet chili sauce, or, sliced onions and peppers with barbecue sauce. I throw it on salads, into "pasta" or zoodle dishes, and sometimes I just eat it plain, with raw veggies. A recent fave is to take about 1.5 ounces, mix a tablespoon of salsa, and throw it in a corn tortilla with lettuce and lite sour cream and cheese. The options are basically endless and it takes on any flavor.

Planning ahead for success when you are hungry is the best way to succeed, and this is why meal prepping works and is so popular right now. However, you have to make meal prep your own. What do you eat regularly? What could you eat everyday in different ways? Get creative.

Little Steps

Changing a little bit each day adds up. Navigating this new life style becomes easier daily. There is always the question of what I might do today to make another step to pursue my health. This week I have been much more active. Parking further from stores, going to the pool, taking walks. I cannot say that each week I decide what part of the journey I'm working on, but that just seems to naturally happen. I have the food part of my plan pretty under control, the next thing to work on logically is fitness.

I hear a lot of talk about non-scale victories, and I've been experiencing those frequently. Things like being able to sit with my leg underneath me, like I used to do before I had so much knee pain. The lack of knee pain is becoming a thing. Last week I set myself some weight loss goals. The weight ranges I wanted to be by certain times. This week, I'm realizing I have fitness goals. That may sound silly, because it would seem they go hand in hand, but fitness goals are not something I ever thought I would have, or set.

Even more amazingly, is the type of goal. So, I have secretly always wanted to do a triathlon. Clearly something I never spoke of, or shared with people because it was absurd considering my weight. You may even think it is absurd now. The crazy part is I can see myself enjoying two parts of the triathlon, the swimming and bicycling, but the third part, running is something I have never really enjoyed, not even as a child.

To take this a step further, this will mean I need to train in running, and the best way to test my endurance in that would be to do a marathon. Obviously this is not something I plan to do soon. probably not this year, but perhaps the next. This is something that is going to take training and planning, but I am seeing myself at the finish line. I'm not sure when that mind shift happened, I only know it did.

I've tried to lose weight so many times, but this time is so different. I cannot explain what has happened, I'm trying to wrap my own mind around it. All I can say is it must be the Holy Spirit transforming my mind. My goals don't feel the same, they don't feel out of reach. It used to be such a struggle. I worked so hard to try to lose weight, to even try to care about it. I couldn't seem to succeed because I was so focused on how hard it was. Now, it isn't so hard, just a series of steps. Small steps that are leading to a big outcome, a big revealing of sorts. What will I look like, be like, and do at goal? A question I'm constantly asking and answering. A question constantly being answered. I cannot wait!