Day 1095 and Still going STRONG

Today is day 1095 on my journey; 3 years today I started my journey to get healthier and to find a new and better me. Happy Anniversary!

Exactly 3 years ago, I looked like this:

Today, I look like this!

On *9/11/2012 I logged my first day on My Fitness Pal. What a journey it’s been so far. Here’s my very first log and my log now (saved from *9/1/2015). *Click on images to see larger pics

I get asked OFTEN what kinds of foods I eat. The thing is that’s not an easy question to answer because what I’m eating today is so much different than where I began. To ask me today what I eat, well the food I now eat, took these three years to build up to. I would never have been willing or able to eat the way I do today, when I started. I slowly made changes to my diet, so what I ate then vs. what I eat now is dramatically different, and it’s okay to take the baby step approach. Little changes along the way add up over time. Also, the exercise I did then and do now is different.

This got me thinking… why not share it all? Share MY process. What I did and what worked for me!

Maybe you’ll see something here, some little nugget of inspiration; an aha-moment, a thought bubble… whatever! Maybe by sharing my process, you’ll see something that you connect with and see how you can tweak things up on your own journey.

Or maybe you’re doing great, and just enjoy reading how someone else did things.

It’s NEVER a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s about trying a variety of things and finding what works best for you. Be it with nutrition, or exercise, or BOTH! So please know that in this post, I’m sharing what “I” did. And I’m in no way saying this is what “YOU” should do. I’m just sharing MY journey. Take anything you’d like from this story. Maybe share with others. I’m all for sharing the journey!

MY HEAVIEST WAS IN 2004. 10 Years ago, this picture was taken at my Grandmother's 80th Birthday Party. It's rare to find ANY photos of me at this size. I was over 300 pounds, and didn't think that I was unhealthy. I actually thought I looked cute in this outfit!!! This is BEFORE my Beginning. 

My TRUE beginning came in the fall of 2012 I was 2 months postpartum and had high blood pressure. I was also around 300 lbs. My husband was having a minor surgery, and I was hanging out at the hospital with my 2 month old son. My daughter was at school; a new kindergartner. We figured he’d be in and out of the hospital in 2-3 hours. No big deal.

But when 3 hours had passed, then 5, then 7… my mind went reeling.

They ran into a complication during his procedure with getting an air tube in him. He had a restricted airway, due to carrying too much weight. After his procedure, his surgeon told me he HAD TO LOSE WEIGHT. He said some people can be heavy and healthy, others no; and that we were in the “other” category. Meaning we needed to “lose the weight or die!”

Yeah, not the news one wants to hear.

It was scary! It hit home hard. What if he died? What if I did? What would happen to our children? I wanted to be a part of their lives. Not a sad cautionary tale.

I decided to do something about it. And I started looking at both Weight Watchers and My Fitness Pal.

I opted to try My Fitness Pal first, since it was Free (still is). I figured, if it didn’t work out, I could always try Weight Watchers next. I decided I was going to give it a month. I honestly thought I was eating fine. I thought I was eating well enough. I had my son. He was nursing and thriving. Obviously I was doing great. I was wrong.

I learned that I actually wasn’t eating enough and wasn’t eating frequently enough. I was skipping breakfast, typically ate lunch around 2-3pm, and dinner was often in bed around 9pm. Yes, I ate in bed. All the time!!! I never had snacks. I never felt hungry. And most days I would get around 800-1000 calories. I only discovered this once I started logging it. My first logs were very telling. And I met with a dietitian and lactation consultant. She suggested I needed to eat more; that I needed a LOT more calories at my size (again, around 300 lbs) and because I was nursing my son.

I logged my first day on 9/11/12. And I logged honestly. Not going to lie, that part was the hardest. Seeing what I was doing. Knowing what I should be doing, but wasn’t. My first month at it, I decided just to be honest. Eat what I was going to eat, but write it ALL down. Some days I was great! And by great, I mean I stayed in my calorie goal. Other days, I’d close up shop and the app told me I hadn’t eaten enough. Ouch! Nothing better then getting lectured by my cell phone! Sometimes I ate too much and didn’t even come close to burning it off, and I saw my goal blown. But all of this was good information. Good intel’. I could see what I was doing so I could make a change! And change I did.

My first month I captured it all, and had it all on record. My first month I focused on logging it. And I nursed my son. Honestly, that was my “exercise”. Since I would burn 500 calories a day from feeding him, I was good! Or so I told myself. My first month I lost 11 pounds. Just from this act of logging it, staying within that calorie goal and burning those 500 breastfeeding calories.

Did I eat healthy? Probably not. I remember many TV dinner’s and many ice cream treats. But I did lose weight. 11 pounds! After that first month I decided I COULD do this. I had momentum. I actually was feeling a bit better. Maybe not super physically better, but emotionally I had hit the jackpot.

My next step was to set up goals. And by that I mean, just out of reach, but obtainable goals; small ones. I needed the wins. I knew from those first 11 pounds, that seeing the losses gave me gains!

One goal I never had was a weight goal. I never said “I need to lose 100 pounds”. I knew that would just be too overwhelming for me, too big a goal; impossible to achieve. (It wasn’t, more on that in a bit).

Some examples of my goals were: lose 1 pound a week, drink an additional 16 ounces of water every day for a week, take the baby out for a walk around the apartment complex, instead of McDonald's try Subway, and instead of ice cream try frozen yogurt… small changes and only one goal a week.

Then when I achieved whatever mini goal I set, I would give myself an award. A prize for doing a good job, and the prizes were never food related. Prizes were fun things like nail polish, new earrings, hair accessories, new earphones, a fun app for my phone, a new song on iTunes, that sort of thing.

After a few months of logging and making these small changes, I had lost more weight. I discovered that on My Fitness Pal, every time I lost 10 pounds, it would change my daily calorie goal. Coolness, I didn’t have to over think this. Just followed the program and stayed within my new calorie goals. Although, I do remember being bummed out the first time it said CONGRATS, you lost 10 pounds, now you get to eat less! Ugh. Just when I got used to finally eating more!!!

Around this time I decided to start wearing a pedometer and see about starting some walking. My son was thriving, and I had probably dropped around 30 pounds. I had more energy and I was starting to see my clothes hang. It felt fantastic.

When I started walking, just like with my eating, I just walked and took notice of where I would end up at the end of the day/week. Those steps would be my baseline. And then I slowly increased them. I started walking further, and when it became to cold and snowy out, I walked inside on a treadmill (my apartment complex had one). Then I tried a program on my phone called C25K; Couch Potato to a 5K. It’s a training app that gets you from walking to running a 5K (3.1 miles).

(read about my C25K adventures here: http://bwarsh.blogspot.com/2013/05/c25k-scenery.html)

Soon my pedometers got more advanced, and for Mother’s Day, my husband treated me to this brand new FitBit Flex. It was so popular it was on back-order for months! He ordered it in April, and it arrived mid-June.

I loved it. I was hooked. After a year I had lost around 80 pounds. I had My Fitness Pal, C25K, and Fitbit to thank for this. And that surgeon that told us we had to lose weight!!! 

(read about my first year here: http://bwarsh.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-i-went-from-288-lbs-to-213-still.html)

At that point in time I had joined a friend’s online support group, and was getting great inspiration and motivations there. She called her group “Relaunch your FIT Life” and I was 100% on board. I really thrived with the support and accountability I found there. Around this same time I decided to meet with a Registered Dietitian (RD). I wanted to see what my next steps should be. I was running, and eating pretty well now, and clearly I’m doing all the right things because the weight was coming off. Melting off!

The RD suggested I switch up my program. I was getting tons of Cardio with the runs, but I was doing zero strength training. She taught me about “super foods” and made some suggestions for tweaks; brown rice or quinoa instead of white rice, egg whites instead of the whole egg, coconut oil instead of canola or vegetable oil… things like that. She showed me HOW these foods were broken down in my body and how these changes would be beneficial to me.

She signed me up for a month free at the local YMCA, and threw in 3 free personal trainer sessions. I would take full advantage of those, and have them show me how I can do strength training at home. I had no desire or disposable income to pay for a gym membership, let alone childcare, so continuing my home workout was the key to my success.

He showed me how to use the resistance bands. And he gave me a printout with diagrams to show me how to do them. And those were horrible. I couldn’t remember the steps, and did better following along like on a video or in person. I could go to you tube, but only on my phone or computer, and I wanted something on my TV screen. This was before I was able to stream to my TV set.

So I decided to invest in a home program and bought my first Beachbody workout; Ten Minute Trainer. I figured I could do 10 minutes. Even with the baby underfoot. And it came with the bands and instructions to follow along. Perfect.

I loved it. I followed the program kind of loosely. I avoided the abs workout. But did the others. Sometimes I’d do a couple in one day. Mostly, just one. I had ridiculous results.

And remember that group I was in? Well a bunch of them were trying a new program called Turbo Fire, and they were really excited about it. I new it was way to advanced for me, so I kept doing my own thing. Then they started going on and on about another new program called T25. Again, way to hard for me, but maybe someday.

After I completed 10 min trainer, I wanted to try something new. I talked with my friend and she suggested I try Turbo Fire. I might really like it. Sure it’s hard, but there’s a beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels to it. Not one to turn down a challenge now, I figured, why not?

So I got it and I LOVED LOVE LOVED it. I was hooked. I was looking amazing. I was getting muscles!

After trying these Beachbody programs, seeing my results, and getting encouragement from my friend, I signed up as a coach in 2014. Since I had seen a lot of success in my health and weight loss and was already helping many others, it seemed a logical step to give it a shot.

Since becoming a coach I've continued to help many people find success in their own journey's and it's been extremely rewarding. I love helping others the way my friend helped me. Kind of paying it forward. Plus I've made a ton of new friends and connections along the way. I got to meet other amazing coaches and our support network is strong. We all help each other out. We meet and share ideas. We have a lot of fun together.

My friend saved my life. Even if she didn't know it. I hope that maybe I'm somehow saving lives too.

I love coaching because you all make me proud. I hear your success and I'm over the moon thrilled. I hear your frustrations and I've been in your shoes. I am growing as a human and I have you all to thank for that. You all make me a better me. I love everything about this process and I'm excited to be on this journey with all of you.

UPDATE: I am no longer a Team Beachbody Coach, but I am still here to help you with your health and fitness goals. I still love helping, just not going to be selling Beachbody products anymore. WILL still be using them and sharing what I learned along the way. 

In my 1^st year, I lost 80 pounds. In my 2^nd year, I lost another 55; 135 pounds total so far.  I dropped 10 sizes. I am a completely different person. I’m also now in “maintenance mode”.

On My Fitness Pal, I changed my activity level to "Very Active" - I'm a coach, and always running workout groups. And then I adjusted my calorie goal to lose 0.5 pounds a week. On Fitbit, I keep trying to stay around 5000-10000 steps a day. I recently had foot surgery, so recovering is a process and I’m healing well. Once I’m all better, I’ll get those steps back up.

For Beachbody workouts, I keep mixing things up and changed my focus to mostly strength training and slightly less cardio. Some examples are CLX, and Combat. And I’m looking at Body Beast the beginning of 2016. I also make up a lot of Hybrid program blends to keep it exciting, challenging and FUN. 

I like the strength training because it helps tighten this loose skin. It’s not perfect, but it’s come a long way! So my plan is to keep the momentum going in that direction. Plus, with these strength training programs, I actually need to eat more.

(read about my loose skin here: http://bwarsh.blogspot.com/2015/08/this-is-what-it-really-looks-like-when.html)

For the scale… put it away. I put mine away and try to weigh in maybe once or twice a month. I know with strength training, gaining weight is normal, so I don’t need to obsess on the number on my scale. The way my clothes fit is all the measurement I need to know I’m still on track. 

To sum up, I couldn’t have gotten here with just one program. I absolutely was not a one size fits all solution for me. I use My Fitness Pal, Fitbit, Beachbody, and this online supportive community. It’s been an amazing 1095 days. An amazing 3 years. I’m a better me, a better mom, and a better wife. And I’m thrilled to still be around to share my story with all of you!

Here’s to another 1095 days! And many many MANY more!!!!

Follow me on my Facebook page: fb.com/UnderConstructionWithBwarsh 
Join my Ladies MFP Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MyFitnessPalLadies.