Personal Weight Loss Goals

I never actually like to write about my weight loss/eating/exercising goals on the blog. Sure, I've wrote a few things before but not really. I never really write what I'm actually doing, planning or thinking about each day in that area.

Partly because, well, if you were to re read this blog closely you'd see that I've said a lot of things that I was going to do and did not do them (ya, never quite made that goal of learning how to sail last summer). The follow through thing. Ya. I guess I'm still growing as a person in that area. So, with that known quality of mine, why would I want to post about how this month I'm going to do 60 lunges a day and only do it for 2? That's embarrassing. And, honestly, I have no time for 60 lunges a day or posting about them each day.  Current Weight minus 2. I absolutely hate this picture. 20 Pounds heavier than our wedding day 5 years ago. Feeling super vulnerable writing that out. :(  I also don't write much about that kind of stuff on here because I don't want that to be the focus. You might be saying, "Come on! A few posts here and there will surely not become the focus." And that's true. It may not become the focus of the blog but it easily becomes the focus of my heart. I've alluded to that and wrote about that a few times.           Korea around January 2011. 7 Pounds Less.  But here I am 20 pounds heavier than when I got married and 30 pounds heavier than 2 years ago when we did the elimination diet & then moved to Qingdao. And, I'm also two weeks in to steady healthy eating & clocking via Weight Watchers and 2 weeks in to 30 Day Shred. So, of course, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm feeling like, hey, maybe for once I won't flake out. Maybe I can stick this thing through. And then, I get brave, and think, I should share this! I should write about it and the putting it out there in the world for everyone to see, will help motivate me to keep going and keep me accountable! So, that's what I'm doing. Hello Reader. Here I am. Telling you my plan.                                 January 2012 After our first Half Marathon (not our time!), 13 lbs ago I am clocking Weight Watchers every day and keeping with in my points system. Weight Watchers is good for me because it takes my focus off "calories" and turns my head towards "points." I know, logically, that these are the same things but it's deeply relieving to me and my history with eating disorders and jacked up thinking to not think about calories. Even if they are the same, they look completely different to me. Also, Weight Watchers is great because you can eat anything you want as long as it fits with in your daily points. So, sure, I can have a green tea latte every day, BUT I can't have a green tea latte at lunch and rice at dinner. I must sacrifice one 5 point item to have the other. Get it? I do and it's great for me. I feel like I have freedom yet I am still eating with in the boundaries that I need in order to not blow up like a baby elephant before I'm 30. :)                            Bachelorette Party. November 2008. 18 Pounds Less.  The 2 weeks before last was getting back into a healthy eating mentality. It wasn't perfect but we started taking several steps to set our selves up for success. I started cutting out snacks/desserts after dinner and we stopped really going out to eat, even on the weekends. I also started cooking dinner from 4 to 4:15, right before my tutoring classes, so that at 8:00 pm when all my students cleared out of the house, we had something delicious and healthy to eat. Because let me tell you, in the past at 8:00 pm, I do NOT feel like cooking and it's too late to go shopping. We would usually order take out, pizza or make something fast and not so healthy like dumplings or make something healthy and end up not eating until 9:00 pm. Which, going to bed an hour or so later, is not a good habit. Sorry It's Grainy! Facebook steal. Summer 2007 30 Pounds Less. I think this is my "happy weight."  We bought a microwave for school so that we can now start bringing soups, which are great for lunches and an easy way to have a filling but low point lunch. I plan on taking one of the Weight Watchers vegetable soups & a lean protein everyday to lunch.  Another Grainy Facebook Steal. Freshman Year 2003. 55 Pounds Less. Ultimate Goal Weight. :) 
I am planning to do a few rounds of 30 Day Shred.  This has been on my Bucket List for ever it seems but I've never been able to stick to it. In the past 3 weeks I've done it around 9 times. Not everyday, way less than I'd like, but I've worked out 2 to 3 days each day the last few weeks, which is huge, considering I haven't worked out consecutively since my anxiety disorder appeared, ie. 2 years ago. This past week I did 30 DS 5 times. Next week I am planning on 6. I hope to persevere and do it 5 to 6 times a week. I will never do it 7 days a week like it suggests. I don't think that's good for my body and if the Lord needed a Sabbath, so do I.  So really it's that simple Clocking Weight Watchers and staying with in my points and doing 30 Day Shred.
I hope to find new healthy recipes, cook every day or most days, start running some again (our run in Thailand made me eager to hit the pavement again, the freezing China cold stomped that out a little though!) and maybe do some yoga. But for right now, I'm not committing to those things. Just Weight Watchers and 30 Day Shred, keeping it simple after two years out of the game.  There it is. I'm not going to write about this every day, maybe not ever again, but I will put an update on the bottom of my posts. A way for me to update you with my progress, but really to help motivate me to keep going and not have "Workouts: 0, Tracking: 0, Pounds Lost: 0" at the bottom of my post.  :)

Official Week One: Workouts: 5, Tracking: 7, Pounds Lost: 2 Jeans: Don't fit. 

At My Heaviest

Today I am at my heaviest, well technically, I hit 10 pounds heavier then where I am today in Korea, but more or less, I'm at my heaviest. 

And here's some honesty, in my flesh,  that part that is so influenced by the world's standards of beauty, longs to have a body, right this instant, that could fit into anything I tried on. A body with long, cellulite free legs and toned arms and stomach. A body that looked perfect in a swim suit and shorts. A body that didn't require discipline & calorie counting.  But here's the thing. That other part of me, my spirit, the eternal part of me, longs for something more. That part of me, my spirit and heart, longs to be completely satisfied in the Lord.  I long to be completely at peace and confident in the Lord and who He has made me and is making me to be, no matter what size I am or what the numbers on the scale are.  Tomorrow, I am going to start trying to loose weight. I'm not going to do a fad diet or go crazy like I have in the past, but I am going to try to seek to eat cleaner and exercise more, and by God's grace, be at least a few pounds lighter by the time we go to Thailand in the middle of January. I could cry thinking about what I look like and the fact that we are going to Thailand in the middle of January. But instead, I'm going to claim it. I'm going to claim truth. I want to remember something in his moment, at my heaviest, before any pounds come off.  I want to remember, now, at my heaviest the truths of who I am today. I am loved & created by the King of the Universe. I am loved no less today than when I weighed 50 pounds heavier.  I am loved by my husband.  I am loved by my family. Their love is not conditional. I have worth. I am valued. I am beautiful in His eyes.  I am blessed.  Beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.  These things I want to remember. These are the things that I want to cling to for all of my life. I don't want to cling to calorie counting websites, scales or size 4 jeans. I want to cling to the eternal truths, the life giving truths, of God.  Sister, these truths are the same for you. No matter your size, please know, you are so extremely loved, sought after and seen beautiful by Your Father in Heaven. Claim it against the lies & thoughts of the flesh & the culture we live in. Karate chop those lies and thoughts in the face and the balls while you're at it. Do it for me to and the women around you. Do it for your daughters. Do it for the women that will come after us. Let's be women who have confidence not in the tape measure around our hips and thighs, but women who stand boldly and confidently in our skin that God made for us, knowing that we are loved and have value, and that this, this is beauty.

I gained 20 lbs in Asia

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That's right. I gained 20 pounds while living in Asia. I'll wait for the gasps. Gasp. I know. In the land of the skinnies, this girl gained 20 lbs, a whole Chinese 5 year old or something.

How did I do it? How did I do the impossible? Did I eat a Chinese 5 year old? Did I eat all of my coworkers lunches every day?

Well no, no I didn't. Let me let you in on my 5 point, how to gain 20 pounds in Asia, secrets.

1. Get a full time, 40+ hour a week job, teaching grade 1, 2 and 3. This will ensure that you are extra, super tired at the end of the day, leaving you no time to work out and little time to cook healthy.

2. Get a cold or sinus infection once a month for 2 weeks, further disabling you from starting any healthy routines. Because of those 240+ kids mentioned above, that are just swarming with the creepy crawlies, you'll most likely get sick atleast once a month.

3. Develop an anxiety disorder and have your first panic attack while working out. This will help keep you in that "no working out" for a year+ mindset that you really need to pack on the pounds.

4.  Develop a Starbucks' Green Tea Latte with whip cream addiction. Wait until your husband goes out of town for a week, so you're extra mopey, and in need of comfort foods. Since he's out of town this also prevents him from putting boundaries on your Starbucks spending, which allows you to really drink all the green tea lattes you want. Don't even worry about getting nonfat milk and sugar free syrup, I tried that every time, and here I am 20 pounds heavier. On second thought, do get the nonfat milk and sugar free syrup, because if not maybe you'll be writing a how to gain 25 pounds in Asia post. Continue this green tea latte habit for a whole year.

5. Get a real paycheck & live around super awesome Western food restaurants while living in Asia. A real paycheck enables you to actually eat at the super awesome Western food resturants and the super awesome Western food resturants will enable you to eat fattening Western food when ever you want. The "in Asia" part is also really important because that small little clause will put you in a weird mindset where you think eating burgers and french fries is the thing to do because supposedly you can't get them in Asia, and well, if you can't get them, you better eat them when you can, even though you never ate them or were interested in them in America.

And as a bonus,
Go gluten free for 4 months and then eat gluten for a whole week. This will give you a good 5 lbs, to add to the 20 goal.

And there you have it. My 5+ secrets, my herbs and spices if you will, of gaining 20 pounds while in Asia.

If you are interested in how to loose 20 pounds in Asia, just do the opposite of all the above, and you'll be good to go.

**If you're a 40+ hour a week workin', surrounded by kids doin', paycheck gettin', once a month sicklin', nonfat sugar free green tea latte drinkin', kind of girl and still managing to not gain 20 pounds, please, please for the love of this post and all it's snark, keep your comments to yourself, but please, please for the love of these thighs, email me all your secrets-I'll be sure to include them in my upcoming "how to loose" posts!**