Back on a DietBet!

Well, who do we have here?!?!  Long time no see!!!  Well...last month I hit within 5# of my highest ever weight and we just can't have that.  So...I am back in a DietBet and working hard.  I am still following a Keto way of life and love how it makes me feel.  I have been going overboard on the calories though so I am dialing that back.  I have moved to doing One Meal A Day (OMAD) and have been doing that for several weeks now.  I'm really liking it!  I have been spending my lunch break walking my neighborhood instead of sitting here wishing I could eat.  I am usually eating my dinner around 4-5pm and then not snacking at all.  I've been doing better about my water - I have my decaf coffee first thing in the morning and then before I allow myself a 2nd cup I have to drink my Tervis full of water.  Then after my 2nd cup it is usually time for my walk.  After my walk I drink another Tervis and then I can have an iced coffee.  With dinner I try to drink another Tervis but sometimes I treat myself with a Fresca.  I also just picked up some decaf cold brew tea bags so I plan to start incorporating that during my day as well.  I've lost 10.2# during the first month of the DB but most of that occurred during the first two weeks and it was a combination of reining in my eating, drinking water, and weighing-in in the morning rather than late afternoon like I did when I first signed up for the DB.  This next month will be a little trickier and I will have to be diligent with my day to day discipline.  I know I can do this!!!

Losing DietBets and Trying New Things

This morning is a little sad because I've lost another round in my current Dietbet. I'm at 201.1 and I needed to be at 192.8 so it's not something I can hop on the treadmill and meet. This is my second 6 month diet bet and the first one I won every single round. This one I've really been struggling and it's caused me to obsess over the scale. I'm trying to move to a more healthy place with weight loss and just health in general.  Not 100% sure how that will look but I'll work my way through it.

I'm still fighting the foot thing and that has me down a little bit as well. I have been able to get in 30-40 minute walks each evening so I'm glad for that. It seems that my running shoes are really causing me problems but that when I put on my hiking boots I'm able to do more. I think I'm going to contact my doctor when we get back from vacation and see what can be done. I'm still doing the calf stretches on the stairs and the frozen golf ball massages but I can't tell if they are helping. No quick fix for this issue is what I've come to understand - ugh!

On the eating front we are transitioning out of juicing and I'm going to try using Weight Watchers SmartPoints program (on my own because they are wicked expensive). I know that I feel better when I eat a South Beach type of diet but SB is way too free flowing for me and I overdo it on portions. However, my research on the WW SP program looks like they are moving more toward a SB stance on sugars and their resulting carbs. They are still really low on the good fat side of the house but I can always use the extra points I earn for fitness (30 minutes of walking is 5 points) to incorporate more fat. I bought an inexpensive tracker app for my iPhone and I like it so far. It's called iTrackBites and it was $3.99. I haven't purchased any of the extra guides yet but I'm thinking about it. Last night I just went through my kitchen and scanned the barcodes of some of the items in my salad and it worked for all of them except the code on the avocado. It was 4 points for the half an avocado I put on my salad - yikes!! See what I mean about the good fats? I was surprised to see that my juices run about 10-12 points each. The fruit is free on the program but I guess when you juice out the pulp it increases the points value. It sort of makes sense that if you are throwing out all the insoluble fiber your body will use the energy quicker but it's still disheartening. I have a days worth of juice still in the fridge and a days worth of juicing produce on the counter. My original thought was to finish off the juices that are already made and then I will peel all the oranges we have left and freeze them - I love eating frozen orange slices on a hot day. However, when I shared that plan with my hubby he really wanted me to juice what's left and continue with juices for another day or so for breakfast and lunch. He really loves the juices and does really well with them. We will still eat a healthy dinner of solid food. Compromise is the name of the game! :-)

I would love to get to a place where I am eating a healthy diet, exercising by doing things I love, and maintaining a healthy weight. I know I will get there but the journey is really hard!

OMG!!!

A card I made a while ago but it represents how I feel inside!!
It's a party with ferris wheels and balloons and everything in my head!  

I did it!!  I made my DietBet weigh in!  I'm now at 205.1 - holy cow!  It wasn't easy but it was worth it!  Yesterday evening my husband and I went on a walk (the last half felt like a death march) around a lake in our town.  I ended up with 16,016 steps for a total of 6.79 miles for the day.  Then when I got up this morning I weighed in and I was at 206.3.  My husband had mentioned yesterday that if I was close that we would go for another walk in the morning.  However, I developed some hot spots on the balls of my feet so I could not fathom another death march so I put on my regular running shoes and got on the treadmill.  I did 30 minutes of walking at 3.0 MPH and then weighed in again.  I was pleasantly surprised that just that little bit of exercise moved the scale that much.

I'm now sitting here happy as a clam and enjoying my first cup of coffee since Monday.  Boy does it taste good in all it's fat-free, sugar-free yumminess!  I'll tell you that if someone would have told me just a few years ago that I would celebrate a weight loss with this cup of coffee I would have told them to go get their head examined!  I would have celebrated with a DQ Blizzard not a boring cup of fat-free sugar-free coffee (and did I mention it's even decaf?!?) - I a much better party animal than that!

My next DB goal is getting to One-derland!  I'm super excited and so incredibly motivated!  Now...back to this amazing warm celebratory mug!  Hugs to all!!

Changes and Disclosures!

Well...I am on day 19 of a juice fast (the last 8 without any coffee at all!!) and I've lost a little over 10# which is great.  However, I have been pretty miserable the whole time.  Not really all that physically miserable but emotionally worn out.  While juicing has done incredible things for me I have come to realize that I need to do something more sustainable and easier on my psyche.  I've done South Beach in the past and have really liked it.  The losses are definitely going to be slower this way but that's ok with me.  I miss so much about eating real food and it's been a huge struggle to either be going without real food while I'm juicing or having another juicing fast looming over my head.  I am finishing off the last of my juices today and tomorrow starts some new eating patterns.  I am definitely going to try to make the majority of my food fall into the vegetable category but it's time for some real food again - you know, the stuff that tastes really good and you have to chew?!?

So that's the changes part of my title and now comes the hard part - the disclosures!!  I've been very hesitant to share my weight on this blog but I've recently realized how much I get from the blogs of people who share where they started, where they are, and how they got there.  Hopefully by putting myself out there I can maybe inspire someone else like I've been inspired by others.  So...here goes...

My history prior to January 2015 when I started this blog is written about in this post:  http://gabbyspersonaljourney.blogspot.com/2015/01/first-post.html.  The highest weight I referred to there was 262 pounds (yikes!).  I got down to 206 on my wedding day and that has been the lowest I've been since 1999 when I got down under 200 for my sister's wedding.  I've already written about how I started to gain some of the weight back after I got married in 2013 and what I've been doing since then.  And that brings us to today...when I weighed in this morning I was at 207.6.  I'm getting really close to One-derland again and my next DietBet goal is 205.5 but unfortunately I have to meet that tomorrow.  I've been struggling the last week on the juice fast by staying right around the 208 mark.  I'm planning on a long walk with my husband tonight and crossing my fingers that some of this latest plateau is some water weight that will come off between now and tomorrow.  However, I'm not completely living in fantasy land - I definitely understand that tomorrow might be my first ever unmet weigh in on my DietBet journey.  If that's the case, I can't promise I won't shed a tear or be sad but what I can promise is that I will not give up.  I have goals and I plan to reach them!!

Here's my plan over the next month to reach my DietBet goal of 199.2 by May 9th:

Follow South Beach phase 1 for the next two weeks and then slowly introduce phase 2 foods
Do not go to bed until I have at least 7,000 steps on my Garmin
Drink at least 84 ounces of water a day (3 fills of my water bottle)

First Transformer Complete!!!

Well...I did it!!  I met all the goals on my first DietBet Transformer!!  I made it by the skin of my teeth (.5 to spare) but I made it!!  I officially lost 24.1 pounds in this six month DietBet challenge.  That makes my total loss 44.1 from my highest weight!!  I'm super happy with this!  And I did it even though during this DietBet I had Thanksgiving, Christmas, a 12 day vacation to Disney/Universal, and numerous business trips!  In the past that would have been an open invitation to putting on at least 10 pounds and most likely more.  The key to my success is definitely juicing and the support of my husband.  I never would have been able to stay on the juicing train without him.

I'm going to sign up for another Transformer right away so I don't do any backsliding.  I'm not sure what day that starts but hopefully it will be this week.  I'm also going to have to really get back into working out.  I have no real excuse for not doing it other than lazy butt syndrome (LBS).  LBS has gotten me into more trouble over the years than I care to admit and I need to banish it from my life!!

I started to write here that I wanted to get to my goal weight by the end of the year but I just did the math and that would be setting myself up for failure.  I think instead my goal is going to be to continue with DietBet on a continuous basis and that should put me at goal around October next year.  It sounds so far away but it seems so much more doable than my normal way of setting goals that usually leave me feeling like a failure.

I don't have the grand total on what I won during this DietBet but I'm guessing I will have about $325 in my account.  I spent $125 to join the bet so that's a $200 profit!!!  I'll have to give some thought to what I'm going to do with my winnings to celebrate.  I'm leaning toward some sort of jewelry that I can wear and remember how it felt to meet my goals.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

I can't believe I was the winner this week on the DietBet token weigh in drawing!  I'm not one of those naturally lucky people so winning anything at all is a huge excitement.  I won a $75 gift card to UnderArmour and I should have my selected items before Christmas.

I've been sort of lax about getting on the treadmill and getting my 10,000 steps in.  Maybe the new workout clothes I ordered will spur me on.  I replaced my Fitbit with a Garmin Vivofit that I earned through my health insurance plan.  I like that it has a digital readout that tells me how many steps I've taken and how many I have to get to my goal for the day.  However, I let it set my goal for me so the goal has been around 7,000 steps a day.  Most days I've met that goal but since I had been doing 10,000 previously I sort of feel like I'm cheating. *blush*

I've been doing pretty good with weigh ins and have hit a number this morning that I haven't hit since I got back from my honeymoon in 2013.  This is completely due to juicing!  Thank you Joe Cross for finding a solution and then sharing it with others!  My husband and I have been juicing in between other events we have going on so we haven't been doing it exactly like Joe did but this is what works for our lives.  We are going to do mainly juice until Christmas and then ease up a little bit when my son comes over for Christmas with us.  Then we will go back on the program until we leave next year for our fabulous DisneyWorld/Universal Studios trip!!  I'm turning 50 in 2016 so that is the trip I picked out to celebrate.  I know, I know, I'm such a kid!  I wanted to get to One-derland before the trip but I don't think I'll make it.  But...as soon as I do I will definitely be posting about it here!!

In the meantime - here's the recipe to my favorite juice - this makes four servings:

1 Pineapple
8 Oranges (I prefer juicing oranges but can't always find them)
6 Apples (Fuji's are my favorite)
14 Carrots

Juice all these ingredients together - it takes 3 rounds in the pitcher on my Breville.  Sometimes I also use my inversion blender to add in 4 bananas.  Other times the hubby and I eat a whole banana each while we are drinking our juice.  My hubby prefers a green juice I make so I'll share that recipe in a future post.

Time for a DietBet!

Have you heard about DietBet?  I was looking for a way to create some motivation to get back on track and I think this might be the way.  I signed up for two bets - one is a one month group led by Danni from The Biggest Loser and the other is run by DietBet and is a multi-phase contest that goes over the next six months.

Here's the link to Danni's bet which starts tomorrow and the goal is to lose 4% of your body weight within the month:  http://diet.bt/j1iasU

Here's the link to the six month competition which officially starts tomorrow - this one is tiered over the next six months with a final goal of a 10% loss:  http://diet.bt/KgNGk0

I hate to throw away money so my odds are very good that I will keep up with this!  Now to go put on my airport attire, jump on the scale (yikes!), and take my pictures!!