LET'S DO THIS! I am determined to lose this stupid 50 lbs that refuses to disappear....In the past 5 years, I've modified diet, added exercise, a fitbit, apple watch, myfitnesspal AND added new docs like nutritionists, cardiovascular etc...All last year, I spent time checking blood levels, seeing doctors, physical therapists etc etc and yet ALL the doctors say that I'm perfectly healthy and there is NO reason or NO anything *internally* that is preventing me from losing the weight. The only holdup is metabolism, diet and AGE. Unfortunately, as we age, it gets harder and harder to get the weight OFF and there's no way to ramp up the metabolism except by losing weight and being more fit. Being in my late 40's, the fact that I haven't lost even 5 lbs this past year with ALL the little changes I've made the past 5 years simply drives me crazy now. So, I'm back to the 80% diet, 20% exercise as recommended by my nutritionist and I invite you to join me on the next 6 month quest.
I say 6 months because 6 months of slow change is doable, even in a travel society like ours. In 21 DAYS, you can build a "habit"...in 6 months, it's rule of thumb that you *should* see some change whether weight, inches, triglicerides, A1C, thyroid, etc. We could go for a year and maybe we should considering our daily lives are totally not consistent, but I think 6 months could be enough to get us on track and if we want to keep going after that 6 months, I'm all for it.
If you lose too much in a 6 month period of time, the nutritionist says it will be difficult to maintain afterwards and that brings in the potential for YoYo effect. I do NOT watch the scale more than once a month. the scale every week tells me nothing because...water and hormonal weight (we ALL have it). The scale once a month tells me whether or not I'm going in the right direction. Doing diets like Atkins, Whole30, Paleo, fasting etc aren't maintainable on a long term basis, in my opinion...so I'm not going to do them. You may try them if you like but I don't think they're applicably healthy for the organs *in the long term*. I may do a healthy green 3 day juice cleanse every now and then because...gut health matters! Honestly, I work on eating "clean and green" and we regularly prepare our own food and learn to cook dishes so we know what goes into our food...My biggest challenges are eating out too often where I can't "count" in myfitnesspal and eating too much sugar and cheese (I'm a cheesehead).
So my trick for the next month is going to be weaning off the sugar one teaspoon at a time. :stir: My nutritionist says it's ok to have 150 calories of sugar (good sugars) a day but I want to give 80% of it up to where I'm only ingesting a healthy amount and not feeling the need to binge. I've already cut the sugar out of my coffee, that was step 1 for me last year. Now, I have to cut the rest back and cold turkey won't work for me. Anyone have any good ideas I can try?
I'm also cutting back cheese to 100 calories a day...meaning one string cheese a day or one slice a day (I'm already finding this really difficult to do UGH) and I'm going to work on keeping better track in myfitnesspal as well as upping the challenges/cardio/fitness on my fitbit.
Who would like to join and if you want to join...what are your challenges, goals and tricks or apps that you're going to try this year that would be helpful to the group? Is there anything else we should considers as a healthy addition to our challenge? What will be your first healthy habit of 2018?
Keep in mind...you are accountable for your own honest actions. The only way to make change is to do it yourself and be accountable for it, yourself. This forum and post can be a source of support but you have to create the habits yourself if you want them to STICK. Let's build one healthy habit at a time...
My fitbit info is: https://www.fitbit.com/user/22B4GR
Myfitnesspal info is: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/profile/ktaylor458
Who's into making some changes this year?!
