The First 43: My Life Now

I will be MIA this week.  No new blog posts from me.  I look forward to starting back up with this after Labour Day!

This is a bit of a continuation from my previous blog posting.  I referenced portion sizing at the end of my post and I think this has been the most eye opening portion of my lifestyle change. When you look at packages and it says per 250ml serving or per 100g serving you think you know how much that is.  You eyeball it and you think you've only had one serving. I know I did this for years. I was wrong. Very very wrong. It is absolutely mind blowing how small portion sizes are on a lot of food items and how many calories you can eat for the smallest items (even items that appear healthy like Avocados!)   I am now that person at home who measures out pasta, yogurt, fruit, vegetables and everything else imaginable. I have never in my life spent so much time looking at and measuring food portions but I don't really have much of a choice. When you are calorie counting you need to know exactly how much you are eating and measuring food is key to that. The one thing I should buy is

Most of the time people diet in silence.  They decide they want to lose some weight but decide not to tell anyone because they think they can do it on their own or that no one will understand.  I know this because I was the same way.  Problem is, when it doesn't work out there is no one around to hold you accountable and you're definitely not going to get mad enough at yourself for cheating. The more people you tell that you're making a lifestyle change, the better.  Yes I have a blog now, but there is no way I would have shared my story so publicly in the beginning. I'm saying tell your significant other, your family, your closest friends and your coworkers.  The more people that know, the more people will notice the change. They are also likely to ask you how it's going in a few weeks or a few months time and you want to tell them you've been working toward your goal. I have to say this is one of the best things I did, it helped me to know that people knew w

Genetically speaking, I've got a large bone structure thanks to both sides of my family.  On top of that, I've naturally got a pretty slow metabolism. I never expect to be a lean 120 lbs, it's just not realistic.  That said, my genetics didn't force me to be as large as I was, or as I am now.  I have packed on more weight than I can blame my genes or metabolism on. Over the last 20 weeks I've been trying to sort out why it is that I can never keep the weight off.  After watching a few episodes of Extreme Make Over: Weight Loss Edition this summer, it hit me. I never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but I'm pretty sure I am. When I'm stressed out I have a tendency to not eat enough, with my stomach in knots the last thing I want is food - this slows down my metabolism further. I always thought that my emotions couldn't be a contributor to my weight gain.  I forgot about other emotions, like happiness and unhappiness unrelated to stress levels. 

I decided to do a little photo comparison tonight to celebrate the half way mark! The first photo was taken in April, a week or so before I started my weight loss journey. This is the photo I referenced in my first blog post that really got the ball rolling. When I saw that photo it really hit me as to how much I'd really let myself go and I felt really awful about myself at that point.  The last picture is from today (Please excuse the luggage, I am packing for vacation and forgot it was there!) When I put the photos side by side, I can really start to see the difference.  It's hard to imagine what this will look like when I am showing my 22 lbs lost photo vs. a 43 lbs loss photo.  Can't wait!

The first thing I want to say today is thank you to everyone who is reading my blog. I never imagined people would actually read this and want learn a little bit about my journey.  So, with that said I thank you all for your support and for stopping by to read my daily ramblings.  Now, about reaching my half way goal! I weighed in this morning and I lost another 1.5 pounds this week. Yippee! This means I am officially past my half way mark. It's crazy to think now that I have less to lose than I've already lost. My weight loss goal is actually finally feeling like it is within reach! This has been a very long journey, full of frustration and questioning whether or not all the difficulty is worth it but I can say now that it definitely is. Patience is everything. It was so easy to put the pounds off and takes so much work to take them off.  I've learned though that if you truly are committed to it, anything is possible. Every pound I lose gets me close to to being a

I have to share this recipe because it was such a hit.  It was a very delicious cake full of moisture and could be eaten without guilt 193 cals/serving! I was excited to make it mainly to use my brand new bundt pan. The majority of this cake was eaten by members of my family that are not on a diet, they loved it. I had to make a few substitutes to make this a low calorie recipe that I could eat and they were as follows: No Butter. I used light margarine instead. Less sugar. I put in 1 cup instead of the two it calls for. No sugar glaze. I didn't make the sugar glaze to put on top, and it tasted great without it. Greek Yogurt.  Used as asked for, do not substitute with regular yogurt. Making all these substitutions brought down the calorie/serving about 100 calories, which is quite a huge savings. The cake still tasted great, was moist and was sweet (It really doesn't need two cups of sugar!) If you don't like using sugar, I'm sure this would still work wi

A question I get asked a lot is why MyFitnessPal (MFP)? How does it work? How is it different from something like Weight Watchers (WW)? The main principal behind MFP is keeping a food journal.  It's a digital log with thousands and thousands of food options within the calculator. You can use an app on your phone or you can use their website. It goes further than a traditional food diary because it gives you all the health information that goes along with it (carbs, protein, fat etc.)  It is the modern day food diary.  They do say the most successful way to lose weight is with a food diary and this makes it really easy to keep one, even on the go.  MyFitnessPal has flexible calories. You need to be 3500 calories under the number of calories you'd need to eat to maintain your weight over the course of the week to lose one pound per week.  3500 calories = 1lb of fat.  So for example, if you needed 2000 cals/day to maintain your weight, your daily goal would be 1500 cals/da

Another diet killer - MUFFINS! They run anywhere from 250 - 500 calories depending on what kind of muffin it is, the size and where you buy them.  This means on a diet, a muffin is basically a meal which makes you cross it off the list. Yet another food I found I missed as an occasional breakfast. I spent forever trying to find a low calorie muffin recipe that actually tasted good. Finally, I found one for flourless Banana Oat muffins.  Sure, they are a little bit more dense than regular muffins but they still taste great, they are healthy and most importantly, won't kill your calorie counting for the day. MFP Recipe Calculator has these at 128 calories/muffin. I recommend eating them warm, much more delicious. I originally had a link to the recipe but the blog it lived on seems to have been disabled, so here it is: Ingredients: 2.5 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats 3/4 cup Greek Yogurt (plain) 1/2 tsp baking soda 2 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 2 bananas Directions:   Prehea

The hardest part about being on this diet was giving up going out for dinner as often as I was.  I love treating myself to a meal that someone else is cooking, having a glass of wine and relaxing; especially in the summer on a patio.  Unfortunately going out for dinner causes issues when you are calorie counting and makes it a tiny bit more difficult. At home it's easy to take the MyFitnessPal app and scan bar codes and find fresh foods but unless the restaurant is a major chain, you cannot find it in MFP. This leaves you guessing as to exactly what you ate. I also find I end up eating like a bird for the entire day when I know I'm going out for dinner.  To the point that I'm ready to just eat anything put in front of me by dinner time (which is probably not good!) That said, the things I do to make things easier for myself are as follows. I find eating out at independently owned restaurants that make all their food fresh is a good fit.  It's easier to calculate w

Mozzarella bites are delicious but the ones you get in store or at restaurants are full of calories. It was a sad day when I found out just how bad they actually are. We didn't have them often but seeing the reality of it stopped me from ever considering them again. Then I came across a recipe for Skinny Mozzarella Bites and I decided to try it out. Very easy: 1 package of 8 Cheese Strings 4 TBSP of Bread Crumbs A little bit of milk to dip the cheese in Cut each cheese string into 3 or 4 pieces.  Dip the cheese bit into the milk and then coat in bread crumbs.  Once done, put them in the freezer for a little while before they go in the oven (though you could completely freeze them and cook as needed.) The recipe said to put it in at 425*F for 10 minutes. I think they would have been perfect around 7 minutes as the full 10 minutes made them a little too melted. That said, they are delicious and you can have more than double the number for less calories than out of the

Usually I only weight in once every two weeks on Thursday mornings but, I'm so eager to get to my half way mark that I decided to weigh in today only 5 days after my last weigh in.    I lost 1 full pound in 5 days! This means that I am only half a pound away from reaching that half way goal. I'm so excited since I wasn't expecting much of a change when I stepped on the scale this morning. It's still so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I've lost this much weight.... I don't really see it on myself yet but everyone else does. Hopefully one day my mind will catch up with the rest of me. By this time next week I will reach half way to my goal and I will have been calorie counting for about 120 days.  That's 1/3 of the year.  I can't wait for that day to come, now to figure out what I will reward myself with!

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a runner. Not at all, not even a tiny bit. Mid April 2012, I probably couldn't run longer than a minute without feeling like I needed to take a break. About a week after I started MyFitnessPal I decided it was time to give C25K a try.  C25K stands for "Couch to 5 km." C25K is a program that takes people who do not run, to being able to run in and around 5km by the end of the program. Week by week the amount you run increases and week by week you get a little bit better.  I decided to give it a try. It was hard but, I completed the program with the help of the iPhone app made by Zen Labs.  You can run your iTunes through the app and listen to music and the app times your run. A nice voice comes on and tells you when to walk and when to run and when your warm up is over and when you've begun your cool down.  It is incredibly helpful to not have to time myself, the app takes care of that for you. After 9 weeks, I didn'

Healthy dessert! I found these brownies on the SkinnyTaste website (linked below!) The brownies have two ingredients - boxed brownie batter and black beans.  They are so easy, healthy and full of fiber! Don't add the eggs, butter or oil, just puree your black beans with some water and add to brownie mix and bake.  They taste great! http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/06/black-bean-brownies-2-pts.html

I touched on this in my last post but want to write a whole post on having a solid support network. In the past, when I dieted,  I never really told anyone for fear of failure (which ultimately always happened) and I didn't want to face that with anyone else.  I realized this time that I needed to tell people because otherwise I was going to fail again, I needed people to know what I was doing so I stuck to it. Part of MyFitnessPal (MFP) is becoming part of a network and losing weight with other people.  That is where my Knot friends came into play. There are about 25 of us using MFP.  Every Thursday we do a check in to see how everyone is doing but during the week we can read the MFP feed as to who is checking in, what exercise they are up to and how well they are sticking to their calorie goals. In addition to that, a few of my girl friends in Toronto have also started the program which has been a really wonderful support too. Beyond that, my husband has been the biggest su

MyFitnessPal is were it all began. Well, kind of. I've been fortunate over the last year and a half of my life to get to know a wonderful group of women through TheKnot.com.  We were all getting married in August 2011 and helped each other with wedding planning. How we all found ourselves on that message board was in my mind a miracle.  We continued to keep in touch and it is because of some of these wonderful women I even heard of MyFitnessPal. After months of seeing some of these women trying it out I started to think about it.  In January 2012 we took a delayed honeymoon and I managed to gain 5lbs in a week.  I guess an all inclusive vacation with fantastic food and drinks will do that to you. I didn't really get around to starting my weight loss journey until April 2012.  I was looking through photos of myself from a friends bridal shower and was really upset with how I was looking.  On top of that, a number of stories had been in the news about overweight women and c

Most people start their weight loss blogs at the beginning of their journey. In my case, I'm starting half way through. Over the coming weeks I'll be writing about the ongoing journey I'm on as well as the successes and challenges I faced over the last 18 weeks. The reason I am beginning half way through is honestly because I didn't know if I could do it. I've tried dieting and exercise and weight loss techniques practically my whole life.  Nothing has ever worked so, when I started using MyFitnessPal I wasn't entirely sold that it would work for me. 18 weeks later, and 20lbs lighter I have decided that it works and I want to share my story. I'm not brave enough to post my starting weight but I will say that I'm on my way to losing 43lbs.  A goal that seemed completely unattainable and now seems within reach. I will post about exercise that worked for me, recipes that I adapted to be low calorie (or were low calorie and tasted great) as w