“Lucky” Number 13

Anyone for superstitions?

Honestly, let’s just say I’ve never worried too much about breaking my mom’s back if I stepped on a crack!  I’ve broken a mirror and the following 7 years weren’t excessively unlucky!

So 13…despite all my common sense, there’s something about the number 13 that always seemed unlucky in my head!  I wasn’t going to party on Friday the 13th, nor did I want the 13th of anything for that matter!  Funny how that all changed in an instant when I jumped on the scale this morning!  I had lost 3.4lbs, oddly the same amount to the point that I lost last week, bringing me to a three week total of 13lbs!

When I say I’m pleased, clearly that’s not strong enough of a word!  I’m noticing less “biscuit dough bubbling out the can” (see yesterday’s post lol) already, I feel it in my jeans even after this small amount of weight!  And while a loss is truly just a number, to me it’s motivation!

So as you’re plugging away today, through whatever issues are weighing you down, look for that motivation wherever you can find it.  Our journey to a goal is never short, far from easy, but focus on that reward, that’s when it’s all worth it!

Well celebrating over for me…I’ve got some steps too get in!  🤗

Success and Hopefully Some Inspiration!

Well I’m making this one quick, taking a quick break to let everyone know how I did this week.

After being up a pound when i did a “spot check” weigh in Saturday morning (damn water retention), I was happy to see that I had lost 1.8lbs when I got on the scale this morning!   There’s nothing more motivating than seeing those numbers on the scale drop! 

This morning I was thinking about food.  I am learning that in order for me to succeed, I had to adapt a whole new way of thinking about food.  As I am more conscious of everything that goes in my mouth, I find myself noticing now that sometimes I eat when i am stressed.  I’m sure NO ONE can relate…lol yeah right,   I guess food always brings me comfort, and in those situations the worse for me the better I feel.  Twice this weekend I stopped myself from grabbing something bad for me just because I wanted it, or just because I thought it would make me happy.  Instead I’m focusing on how happy I will be when I hit my goal, reminding myself that all that food is going to do is prolong my goal, and that is one thing I am not willing to do again!

So let’s get it in this week…drink that water, hit the gym, I know I will be!

Will You Forgive Me…Will I Forgive Me?

Well, it’s me!

Still Chesty!

It’s been a long time…as in over a year long time.  I have been struggling for months now to reign myself in.  I discovered that starting a diet is easy…changing your lifestyle…not so much!

So, I won’t bog down the blog with lots of excuses.  I can’t also say that I have gained all the weigh back, but what weight did find me again had me feeling pretty awful.  That awful feeling turned into my eating to make myself feel better.  As I’m pretty sure you can imagine, I wasn’t exactly munching carrot sticks to mask the sadness!  Nope, there were burgers to be gobbled, cakes to me smashed, and the forgiving elastic waistband of some leggings to never make me feel bad about it! 

Progress jeans stopped fitting, and I stuffed them to the back of the closet.  Shirts got snug, and I convinced myself that they shrank.  I was lying to myself, and finally had to wake up and realize that lying is something I don’t tolerate from others, so why would I do it to myself?  I remembered that it wasn’t torture, hell with Weight Watchers it wasn’t even that hard!  I was just acting like I had no rules, and my waistline paid the price!

But rather than beat myself up, I will do like my best friend Natisha did!  She didn’t judge me, didn’t have anything to say when I confessed what I had gained.  Just told me that she was in it with me, and that we could do it!  With that…I’m off and kicking!  There are new recipes to review, new light foods to tip you off to, and I’m even going to get together again with Gym, my old boo!  I’m SURE he’s missed me!!! 

So welcome back to myself…to my new followers thanks for stopping by, and those that wondered where I went, I’m HERE!  This is a journey with no end, this weight loss battle, but this time i’m in it to win it!!

To Thy Own Self Be True!

Happy Thursday to my trusty group of fat fighters! 

I think I had a breakthrough of sorts.  Well, not so much a breakthrough as an awakening.  I was trying to talk a friend of mine back onto the diet bandwagon.  She’s struggling to lose weight and keeps promising herself she’s going to work out, and never does it.  I can’t judge, nor I’d imagine can any of us.  how many times have we told ourselves with the best of intentions that we were going to eat better tomorrow, hit the gym later, etc, etc…only to never do it?  I can tell you more times than I have fingers and toes!

So I thought, I’m a responsible person.  I get up, get to work on time.  If I commit to something I do it.  If I tell my hubby I will bring home some milk, I bring it.  If I tell my mom I will come shopping with her, I go.  I’m not one to lie, I keep my word, and if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.

Except…with myself.

Why is it that I won’t hold myself accountable to myself?  It is because I can’t punish myself?  Is it because no one really has to know that I’ve let MYSELF down?  I was almost embarrassed when it became clear to me…the only person that I wasn’t finding worthwhile or important enough to keep my word to, was myself!  And that’s a jacked up thing to realize…sorry for the expression!

I had a good loss again last week, 2.6lbs, and I’ve been going hard to the gym on a very regular basis.  My eyes are open now and I realize that first I must value my word and my promises to myself, or what is the point of living?  So my advice to everyone is think long and hard about that.  If you promise yourself in the morning you will go to the gym after work…go as if the President was there waiting on you…race to that gym like you were going to lose your paycheck if you didn’t show up!  At the end of everything, if we aren’t healthy and taking care of ourselves, what can we be for anyone else? 

So push through the rest of this work week…enjoy the weekend!  I’m hoping that my little revelation will help motivate someone else to keep all those promises that we make to ourselves…even when no one else is looking!

Asian Sesame Stir Fry

I made up this stir fry using veggies and protien I found in my fridge, but you can certainly swap the meats or the veggies for anything you’d like to use.  This version is low in fat, comes in at only 8 WW points per serving (with 1/2 cup brown rice), and is filling and full of flavor!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound(s) uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast(s), sliced into thin, bit-sized pieces   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked shrimp   (shell and tails removed)

1 medium uncooked onion(s), sliced into thin strips   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked asparagus, cut into bite sized pieces   

1/2 pound(s) uncooked zucchini, sliced into bite sized pieces  

 1 tsp minced garlic   

1 pinch ground ginger   

1/4 cup(s) soy sauce   

2 tsp sesame oil   

2 tsp rice wine vinegar   

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, 1 to 2 tsp for taste preference   

1 tsp sugar   

1/4 cup(s) fat-free chicken broth, Plus two TBSP

2 tsp cornstarch   

2 cup(s) cooked brown rice   

 

Cooking Instructions:

In a small measuring cup, combine 1/4 c chicken broth, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sugar and red pepper flakes, set aside. Cut up chicken, and marinate chicken and shrimp for short time in a small amount of extra soy sauce and a dash of rice wine vinegar. Set aside while preparing veggies. Heat skillet over medium heat while chopping vegetables. When ready to cook, turn skillet up to high heat. Add a coating of cooking spray, and brown meat in two batches over high heat, just until browned and cooked through. Set aside. Add a little more cooking spray to the pan, sauté onion a couple minutes until it starts to brown. Add garlic and ginger powder, stir, and then add veggies, starting with the veggie that will take longest to cook. Any veggies can be used. Sautee all veggies for a few minutes til browning but not soft. Add back in chicken, stir, and add sauce. Stir to coat and for about one minute. With two TBSP of chicken broth and 2 tsp cornstarch, mix together to make a slurry, and add to the pan. Stir just until thickened. Turn off heat and serve immediately over brown rice.

That Time of the Week Again!

It’s Monday yet again fellow fat busters!

We all know what this means…well ok, maybe none of you do!  But if you’ve been following along, that’s weigh in day here at Chesty Changes!  After last week, I was skeptical to jump on the scale.  I knew I had once again busted my butt working out, 5 days last week to be exact, but I also knew I had kicked it into gear the week before and saw only 1.2lbs fall off per my trusty scale.

Forever the optimist, I jumped on the scale hoping for the best.  It was hot and humid, I was worried I would be retaining major water, but to my surprise and delight, I was down 5lbs!  Yes that is 5lbs, not 4, not even 4.5, but a whole 5lbs!  After I jumped off the scale, I did my little naked morning dance of joy alone in the bathroom.  After being “plateaued” for a couple weeks, and off track for a while before that, I had forgotten the euphoria that a great loss gives you! 

Moving forward this week, my plan is to stick with the increased workouts.  I’ve weaned myself off white rice, and when I do carbs I’m doing brown rice or something else high in fiber.  I’ve left the potatoes alone for the most part, so I don’t know if that’s helping, but I think it’s just the discipline and continued hard work paying off.  I’ll end this post with a quote that I read last week.  I felt so bad about myself when I was off track and eating delicious crap…but any time I feel myself sliding, I remember this!  Hopefully it will motivate you all too!

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ~ Jim Rohn

Is This Thing On?

So, I sat there sleepily this morning…muttering to myself about how my thighs hurt from last night’s workout.  But I calmed myself down thinking, “Hey…it’s finally THAT TIME.” Weigh in day.  The one highlight of my Monday!  (Ok that, and Love and Hip Hop ATL, my guilty pleasure.) 

See any dieter who’s been there knows this feeling.  You know you have busted your butt all week, and you are dying to get on the scale and see that magic number go down, down, DOWN!  Well on I jumped…but instead of a great dive…my scale took a teeny skip.   1.2lbs….is this thing on CRACK?

Well, after drug testing, and even shaking my scale, it became obvious that the scale was NOT on drugs and apparently was in fine working order…who would have thunk it?  Now the first thing that I used to do when this happened was to get all down and discouraged, but this morning, a funny thing happened.  In my brain I heard “Well that’s still a great loss, and far better than a gain!”

I looked around the bathroom to make sure no one else was in there, and then had to pride myself on the fact that I, alone, had not for once beat myself up, and had instead given myself the kudos that I deserved.  I think we tend to be hardest on ourselves, not looking at outside factors such as humidity, bloat, or just simply blaming ourselves for the fact that our body didn’t drop as much as we should have. 

But not this morning…and I want you all to start doing the same.  Give yourself credit for the small victories.  Don’t let anything take you off track.  All this week’s minor weight loss did for me is push me that much harder to see a great loss next week.  It’s all about the small tweeks, and a tweeking is what I can do.  I’m taking an honest look back at least week, seeing any areas that I could have been doing better with, and making the adjustments today! 

Funny thing when you grow older, you realize that life is not always about coming in first…but more about making sure you stay in the race!  Keep truckin fellow fat fighters!  🙂

Squeeze in a Quickie!

Now that I have your attention!

Well it’s Monday fellow fat busters…and hopefully you remembered, because I had almost forgotten, but Monday is my weigh in day!  I had gotten into the bad habit of jumping on the scale almost every day the last few months…watching it teeter totter and became a kind of a game…but a game I was not winning.  Even though I was breaking even, I had forgotten how much better that feeling of watching those numbers on a scale go down was than almost anything I could eat! 

Well when it dawned on me what today was, in my sleepy morning state, I was apprehensive to say the least.  Although I did well this weekend, I skipped the gym (yeah I’m human), and indulged in two cookies last night.  I mean, better than 10 cookies, and I had points for them, but I was still knowing that was not the best choice I could have made.

So I jumped on…held my breath, then blew it out (cuz air must weigh something) and waaalah, I had lost 3lbs!  I wanted to jump up and down right there on the scale, but knowing I would break it, I stopped myself. 

So we’ve made a good start…this week’s mission is to stock the house up once again with all the healthy foods I need to fool-proof my diet, and throw out all the badness that doesn’t mean me any good!   Tonight, “Operation Sweat and Swear” is back in effect, I will be sweating and cussing my way through a great workout…all with love of course! 

How was your weekend?  And who’s got some great tips for staying on track during the weekend, which I know is the hardest time for many of us!  🙂

Happy Diets to ya!

Chesty 🙂

Chesty is Back in the Saddle Again!

Well…some of you are probably wondering where I have been?  I know the speculations…did she fall off the wagon?  Has she ballooned up to 300lbs again? 

Well, first off I’m happy to report that I have not fallen completely off the wagon…I was sliding for a minute, but I kept riding along with enough of a grip that thankfully I have not gained back weight.  Here is some recent “photographic evidence” from my little brother’s wedding a couple of weeks ago in Minnesota.  I’m proud of where I am…but not where I want to be!

I could claim I hit a plateau…yeah, a self-inflicted plateau.  See, what had happened was….all those good fatty foods that I had knocked off my radar started to creep back in.  I had a couple of months of a cheat here, and a cheat there, followed by enough days of good eating to get me back to my same weight.  To be honest I have been playing this yo-yo game since January…and looked up the other day and thought…this has GOT to stop. 

I’ve had loving and well-meaning friends and family tell me that no…I don’t ned to continue and knock off these last 30-40lbs…but in my heart, I know where I will feel comfortable, and I know I need to get there.  I’m not sure if it was all the compliments that I have gotten about my transformation, or just laziness that got me into stall mode, but rest assured as of yesterday…things are changing back for the better.

So last night, in 90+ degree heat, husband at my side, I hightailed it back to the gym.  I realized that was where my motivation, in large part, was coming from.  I had really been so focused on things going on with my family and life that I was not taking the time for me.  In my mind, I was taking the time for me by feeding myself all the badness I was craving, but I never felt “good”, even when it tasted great.   I know now that this journey will have ups and downs…let’s hope we don’t have any more of these LONG dry spells, but I’m proud that I nipped my lack of forward movement in the bud before I found myself gaining back everything that I fought so hard to lose!

So be prepared for many more posts…I’m going in hard…and let’s hope by the end of this year, we can put a bow on the gift of weight-loss that I am giving to myself!  LOVE to all of you for reading, and support!  MUAH!!

No Spanx, All Thanx!!

I would NEVER have taken this picture.

Like NEVER..ever.

6 months ago, hell even 3 months ago, there is no way I would have crammed myself into some leggings and a fitted t-shirt and posted a picture anywhere.  I said there were going to be some changes…and I haven’t let myself down.

I took measurements today.  Before I say that, let me make the big announcement!  When I did my weekly weigh in last Monday, I hit the 50lbs mark!  Actually 50.2, so let me say that I SURPASSED the 50lbs mark.  Never in my wildest dreams when I started my serious weight loss journey in the first weeks of SEptember did I imagine that I would be able to say I had lost 50lbs by year end.  I knew I’d seen people do it, with the assistance of a reality show’s dilligent trainer, or even a risky weight loss surgery, but I knew what I was going to try was going to be a new type of challenge.  I don’t take away from anyone who loses weight through surgery, because without the very same willpower that I have they won’t succeed.  But I guess I doubted myself, that me and my “hard work” approach would get such fast, good results.

As I hit that scale the morning after Christmas, I thought about how many people would have “gains” that week, but a gain was not even an option to me.  I did enjoy some Christmas treats in moderation, but knew the best gift would be to see a number that showed i’d reached my goal.  I couldn’t believe it when the scale hit that number, with a week to spare until the end of the year.  I have not felt so proud in a long time, nor have I felt so motivated to keep going.

I have to give a BIG thanks to my health club, Anytime Fitness in West Allis, WI.  Without my membership, and the fact that I USE it, I guarantee there is no way I would be seeing such great loses, as well as so much transformation in my shape.

So keep up the good work.  I know I want to lose at least 50 more pounds, and I no longer feel like that goal is far from reach.  I hope that this new year leaves you with a commitment to yourself, to the ones that love you, and to a better 2012!!!