My measure of success.....it happened in my own time.

I was thinking this morning about my journey through my weight loss and it was not an easy one as I have said before. Many people look at me now and think that the way I look now is the way that I have always looked and cannot fathom a person like me being 25 pounds heavier than I am now. 

I help a few people where I work with their weight loss and they see the way that I eat and listen to what I say but they can't see that I have had a journey of my own to go through so I feel the need to talk about that so that you can understand where I came from and how I got to where I am.

I used to be the girl that would look at celebrities and say to myself....I want to be like her, I want to be like her. I want to lose weight.

I bought cleanses, I bought exercise DVD's that I never used and I bought crazy drinks that would promise me a better body. I didn't work out and I didn't eat healthy all in the name of creating a lesser budget on food. I wanted the results but I wanted them in a week just like many of you who are starting out. So there I was heavy and busting out of the biggest pants that I owned.......what a shame. All of those pills and cleanses didn't offer me anything in regards to my weight loss because they never TAUGHT me how to eat healthy. I can and will always say that you can lose weight with just eating and not with just exercising. I can promise you that one, but I prefer both because of the many benefits exercise has to offer that we can't see in the reflection of the mirror.

So When I started eating healthy and got really serious about making my change. I bought bars of all kinds protein bars, fiber one bars, almonds, protein shakes, and a LOT of microwave meals that are laden with sodium. I would barley eat fruit and what the heck was a vegetable? I ate corn and green beans and out of a can at that. After the scale stopped budging which was after a good 15 pound weight loss I started playing in the kitchen.

I lived in AK at the time so money was on my side. I invested in cookbooks, read blogs and researched about healthier things to eat. I had cauliflower mashed potatoes, tried the P90X pork tenderloin which was amazing and not something that I would normally eat in addition to signing up for a nutrition certification.

By trying all of these new things I figured out that I liked vegetables and that I could make them taste good. My nutrition certification helped me understand what good food was and how natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats are the ONLY way to lose weight in a healthy way and keeping it off. It wasn't about the newest fad that Dr. oz has out there to try out. No offense to his fans but if you follow him you are wasting serious cash buying ALL the supplements he wants you to take just eat REAL FOOD. Now I have seen food documentaries and marketing is solidifying the claims put in those documentaries so I am leaning toward having a 75% plant based diet. I am not ready to give up meat for good but personally I think that having meat once a day versus 3 times a day is good for me for now.

I have been where I would eat what the stars would eat, or what my beachbody coach would eat and sometimes there were good ideas there but I wasn't ready for that drastic of a change. 

What I am trying to say is, you have to go and move forward when YOU ARE READY. I can't tell you how to eat or what to eat you have to figure out that on your own, I say that because my palette and yours are not the same, what tastes good to me now may not taste the same to you. Only you know what you like and only you know what ingredients and things you enjoy.

I can and will always give you suggestions, recipes, and meal plan skeletons; but maybe giving up chocolate is a NO for right now but giving up full fat milk is so do that. Start eliminating the "bad" things from your diet and REPLACE them with good things and over time you will see a change. If you take small steps and they give you results push yourself harder to get that "ideal for you" lifestyle diet.

Find things that are healthier replacements for what you already eat like replacing beef meatballs with turkey ones or lacing your meatballs with spinach. Over time your palette will change and you will crave healthier foods.

Being healthy and at optimal health is not something that changes over night. If someone had told me that I would be eating the way that I am today I would have laughed a big belly laugh in their face and tell them that I was not going to give up my beloved PRican food, but I never had to, I found a way to keep the flavor and lessen the fat. Change happens gradually and it has to happen (with this because it is something YOU control) over time and slowly so that you can win and by winning I mean you being at optimal health :)

No one is perfect and perfection is not attainable. I am not perfect and do not pretend to be. I ate sour patch kids and I am going to drink margaritas tonight with my husband. BUT I do know that tomorrow I need to not eat candy or drink, exercise and eat healthy. Just because I had a drink doesn't give me the permission to treat my body badly by continuing to do so tomorrow. It is all about balance and once you find that in your own life and in your own way, you will then be good to go. When you stop wanting to look like someone else and LOVE YOURSELF enough to want to make your body a machine for you THEN you will succeed.

Until next time!