Not In the MOOD :(

I have entered one of my funks again and I am not in the mood for anything. Honestly, I am starting to feel like maybe I am bipolar or something. I have moments when I am up and happy and excited about life then I have moments where I am down and just want to crawl into a corner and hide and wait until it's all over. And that is how I feel at the moment I don't want to be bothers.

With all that being said You know how my weight loss journey is going at the moment. It is at a stand still. I am currently 188lbs. I gained like 8lbs in the last two weeks which is well deserved because I really enjoyed the massive amounts of food that I was eating and I am happy that it was only 8lbs that I gained. Of course I would have enjoyed not gaining any weight but what is the point crying over spilled milk? It would have been worse if I  gain the weight while I was eating healthy and exercising.  

I have some posts sitting in draft that I have to make an effort to post. I just do not like posting when I am in a bad mood because I tend to write things that may seem mean or cruel and thats not a part of me that I want to share with the internet. I have learned that it is easier for people to remember the bad rather than the good so as much as I miss blogging I have to wait until my mood improves before I make posts.

If what I wrote before lowered your mood then I am sorry and believe me my life isn't bad my mood just is and misery likes company.... 

On a good note Sir will be here on Saturday YAAAAAAAAAAAAY ( see I think have some mental issues how did I go from feeling down to saying yaaaaaaaay in he same post?) so maybe he can help me find my happy side (not that I am sad I am just distant I guess? It's hard to explain). 

Thanks for reading :D

Detox Update:

Hey Everyone!

I want to say Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I really don't know how you manage but I believe good mothers do an AMAZING job! Keep doing what you do.

As my title says I want to update you on my detox. I ended yesterday because I was really craving protein/foods with protein. It started on Thursday, I was really craving morning star sausage patties. For those of you who don't know that is a veggie patty but it looks like meat sausage. The sodium level is a bit more than I would like but it is still quite tasty. More importantly, it has a good amount of protein in it. I managed to ignore the cravings and stay on plan, and then on Friday I started to crave eggs. It got so bad that I was hallucinating. 

No joke I could see myself frying up some eggs and eating it. At one point I saw myself eating boiled eggs and I HATE boiled eggs. Again, I managed to fight through it and then on Saturday, Tuna was calling my name. The can of tuna in the cupboard was teasing me because I didn't want to give in. As the day grew on the cravings were too much to deal with so I finally gave in and I had some spaghetti and cornflakes on Saturday evening. Then Sunday I ate regular food, I had grits and eggs for breakfast but I had too much grease for dinner, Bean and rice, baked bbq chicken, plantain and cole slaw (we have an early dinner on Sundays) and I paid for it this morning. My stomach was my worst enemy today. 

Even though I fell off the wagon, I am going to go back on the detox on the 11th. I will again try to get through a minimum of 8 days I am going to try to include hemp seed and flax seeds, (thanks Hyla for the suggestion of including seeds) maybe some hemp protein so I do not crave protein like I did the last time.

As far as detox symptoms are concerned I didn't have anything major, my skin was itchy but that was about it. I did notice that I was always sleepy around 3pm. Then I got a burst of energy around 6. I think my body always gave me energy around 6 because thats the time when I usually exercised. As far as weight is concerned: When I weighed myself Sunday morning I weighed 180.7lbs. Today I weighed in at 182 exactly. I am not overly concerned about the weight. It is what it is. I am getting to the point where the scale doesn't affect me like it used to, because I give myself 5lbs. Once I don't gain over 5lbs I don't sweat it. 

My goal is to work on maintaining while I am losing so once I reach to my goal weight. What I mean by that is  if I go off plan then my goal is just to maintain. For most of April I was off plan therefore I just spent a lot of time maintaining. My hopes are that once I reach my goal weight, I will already have an idea of what I can do to keep the weight off. Plus I want to enjoy my new/old body. The last time I weighed 180 was I think about 4 years ago. I don't want to be stressing over the number on the scale. I feel amazing and thats all that matters. I feel when you are happy with the way you look, you are more likely to take care of your body. I am happy with the way I look.

I will have progress pictures when I get to 175lbs. I have about 7lbs to get to that goal. I have started exercising again today. I did want to do Jillian Michael ripped in 30 but I can't. I don't like Jillian. Her voice makes my skin crawl. She doesn't motivate me at all... rather she irritates me. (Sorry Jillian I am sure you don't care because you are out spending your dollars and I am broke...lol) So instead I will be doing Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire and maybe some Leslie Sansone. At the end of the day or tomorrow I will post my workouts. 

Thanks for reading :D

You're Losing Weight too fast!

I blinked three times when my mother said that to me today. The first thing that came to my mind was no you are just realizing that I have lost weight! But I just said no I am not. Then she said yes you are so I left it, I was not about to have a conversation talking about how long I have been trying to lose with excess weight with anyone that is the purpose of my blog. I could have told her that I actually started working towards losing weight last August. But that wasn't something that I wanted to do because I know my family. As fair I am concerned  I look the same as I did a year ago because I am not going there with them. Whenever they mention that I lost weight I say "Oh OK I didn't notice."

Then after a few minutes of silence she said to me and you really don't have to lose any more weight just do some sit ups or crunches to turn your stomach area some and you will be fine. My response to that was "Oh OK" What was on my mind was since when are you a personal trainer? When it comes to my weight and what I look like the last group of people that I want any compliments or advice from is my family. 

My family is extremely "honest" in the rudest way possible when it comes to anything weight related. I have a cousin who weighs around 300 to 400lbs. Whenever anyone sees her this is usually what the conversation sounds like.

Cousin walks in

Family Member (dont matter which one) Well goddamn aye? Girl ha ga get so big? You need to stop eat man. You barely manage to fit through the door. Well gee,,, Ha you let yasef get like that? An sun so hot an you big so? Gurl you have ta do sumting bout all that fat. Well muddoes dred girl you is big. ( Basically if that was difficult to read, they usually ask her over and over how she get so big and how she manages with it being so hot. They even tell her that she needs to stop eating so she can lose the weight. Yes my family is brutal).

My grandmother cannot really do much for herself so in the day time she is at my house. I honestly thought at one point that she forgot my name because she only used to call me fatty. That was my name for three/four years now.... Then all of a sudden she started calling me Shan again so I guess she didn't forget my name. 

But don't feel sorry for me its what my family does. I accept it, you have to have a tough exterior to be a part of my family if not you would probably hang a rope in a tree or something and be done with it. Also, before you think that my family only discriminates against overweight persons they do the same thing to the underweight members of my family. I have a cousin who is 5'6 and about 100lbs if that. She is super skinny and every time someone sees her they offer her food. They always tell her that she is way too skinny and she needs to gain some weight and how old she looks because she is way too thin. Like I said my  family is brutal.

Finally, before you think its only my family that is brutal it actually seems like all Bahamians are like that. I have had friends ask me how did I get so fat. I have had random customers from my aunts bakery who I have served in the past ask me how I gain so much weight. I actually wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me that. My guess is soon they will be asking me how I lost so much weight. Maybe I missed the memo of something but when did it become acceptable to judge a persons weight?

30 Day Fruit and Veggie Detox. aka Going 100% Rawish for 30 Days

Hey Everyone! I had this post sitting in drafts for three days now. When I had originally written it I was on my 3rd Day of eating Raw now I am on day 6. When I started the detox on Sunday I weighed 189lbs. Yesterday I weighed in at 182lbs exactly. Therefore I have lost about 7lbs in 5 days. I think that is an impressive amount to lose in under a week. I have not exercised at all. I had planned to start Ripped in 30 last Sunday, however I decided not to do it because I wanted to tackle one difficult experience at a time. So I decided that I would postpone starting Ripped in 30 to this coming Sunday. This is my second time doing an extended Raw detox, the first time I did it was late February / early March and I lost about 10lbs in 5days however this was with exercise, I was doing Turbo Fire at the same time. To be honest I wasn't sure that I was going to disclose how much weight I lost because I have no idea why not but I was debating it. So far I haven't had any detox symptoms I believe that is partly because I am not eating any nuts this time around and partly because I am drinking enough water. I think the first time that I did the detox I did not drink nearly enough water. Everything beyond this point was what I wrote 3 days into the detox. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will be sure to answer.

Why am I doing this detox?

I am assuming that all my readers know what a detox is, so I am not going to go into explaining what it is. I decided to do this detox because I ate really bad in April. I had pizza and a lot of fried foods and eating so poorly made me feel sluggish and bloated and I wanted to get rid of that feeling. This is not the first time that I am doing this detox. The first time I did it was in late February. (I talked about it sort of in my Raw eating post). I did it for 5 days and for the most part I felt really good afterwards. I had lost some weight, my digestion was better and I had more energy. Last week I was feeling sick from being bloated and so I decided that I would do the detox again but only this time for 30days. However, unlike last time I will not be including nuts because I find that my skin is itchy when I eat nuts. Another reason why I am doing this is because I am switching to being pescetarian; meaning that the only meat I will eat will be fish and I feel like this will be a good transition into my new way of life. I am learning that my body does not like when I eat too much meat. Actually for most of my childhood I did not eat any kinds of meat so it is going to be fairly easy for me to make the switch. 

What will you eat?

Fruits and Veggies. (Organic as much as I can afford) I will eat fruits that are low on the GI (glycemic index) Like apples, grapes and oranges. I do eat bananas but I limit it to once a day because of the sugar level. I eat romaine lettuce and tomatoes, but I am staying away from carrots because of the vitamin A. (I am still on Roaccutane) I need more ideas for veggies though because I only like romaine lettuce, spinach  and tomatoes. Also I am doing this almost completely raw. I am currently on Day 3 and I like the convenience of just washing my food and eating it. I am not going to experiment with any fancy meals, I simply wash and eat. I do not count calories and I eat as much as I can handle.

Isn't this too restrictive?

Today this isn't too restrictive for me. I am on Day 3 so it is still pretty early. I am still doing research to find out what I can eat to still get protein and all my nutrients so that I will not be deficient in anything. As long as I still feel good I will continue on with the detox. Therefore, I am not committed to the full 30 Days, I am only committed to 7 Days. Which means no matter what I will do this for 7 days, after that I will do it as long as I feel fine with 30 days being the maximum amount of time that I do this. The reason why I am not committed to the 30 days is because when I did this for 5 days I had really bad detox symptoms. I had headaches, I lost my voice, mucous build up, constipation, restlessness, really bad tongue pains, anxiety and a little bit of paranoia. The paranoia was at night when I couldn't sleep and I would hear things move in the stillness (my mind playing tricks) so don't be alarmed. Update: 6 Days into it I am thinking that I will not make it through the full 30 days. I am getting tired of the food selection and I miss flavours like spices and those are things that I am also staying away from for this detox. What is also making this quite difficult is that I am in a house with other people who are not on a diet and they always seem to be cooking and fyi, food always smells better when you know that you can't have any!

If the detox symptoms were so bad why are you doing it again?

I am doing it again because I am crazy...lol On a serious note, I am doing it because I feel like it. I need to do it. I remember how much energy  I had when I did it the last time and I don't have any health issues that would prevent me from doing it, so why not? In addition, I also felt overall healthier when I was eating less of everything else. 

If you lose weight doing this do you think you will regain it once you eat regular food again?

I think the possibility of gaining weight exists no matter how you lose it. I also do not expect to lose more than 15lbs by doing this for 30 days. The first two week I may lose a significant amount of weight but once my body adjusts, it will all taper down and so therefore I do not expect to lose a massive amount of weight.

Just thought I would share...

I came across this article and I thought I would share it. Let me know what you think about it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1383049/Malissa-Jones-Britains-fattest-teenager-battling-anorexia.html

How about buy better snacks?

Yesterday I made a post called unconventional tips. In a nutshell, it was about simple things that did/do to help me along in my journey. One of the tips I made was to pay for your snacks (with exercise) before you eat it. In response to that Hyla from Bloggest Loser (great blog check it out if you haven't already) left me a great suggestion which was to not buy junk food at all and she gave some healthy alternatives and great suggestions on how to make it more convenient. 

This was the comment left by Hyla: 

How about  Buy better snacks dont buy the junk and keep it in your home. Stop buying that and buy healthy things, like fresh fruit and veggies, cheese, eggs. Then when you get home, take the time to prepare it, so when you go to snack it is easily accessible.

Fruits: wash and cut them up, place them in a bowl with plastic wrap on the top, you can easily see it and it is easy to get too. Baby carrots and snap peas, rinse and eat cheese, cube it and put it in a see through container

Eggs, hard boil them, very easy to grab and eat and great for protein which equals energy and slower absorption on sugars, so an egg and some fruit is a great snack. Nuts and seeds have protein and are great like eggs

Like I said before I agree 100% with what she wrote but the reason why I didn't make that suggestion was because that was something that we always read about. It is one of those tips like drink more water. You can read any health tip and without fail drink more water will be there. I chose to "pay" to be able to eat unhealthy junk foods because I am a recovering sugar addict and it was unrealistic for me to say that I would never eat junk foods again. There is no way, (and this is my present frame of mind) that I could give up sweet stuff cold turkey. I had to ween myself off it them. I could say that I won't buy junk foods but it is hard for me to actually do it. This is the case of some things are easier said than done. I found that by making myself workout for the snack I was able to burn "earn" it because the exercise that I did to eat the "snack" did not count as my daily workout. I still had to do that too and as much as I love exercising there came a point where junk food wasn't worth it. This way helped me to drastically cut back on the amount of junk foods that I was eating and I thought maybe it would help someone else. 

Another thing that I have learned from experience is that if I am craving chocolate for example, I have to eat chocolate. I have tried substituting it for maybe a banana or green tea (for the caffeine) but the craving only grows and I had to get the chocolate. The results of that was that I consumed calories by eating a banana (or whatever substitute) I ate and it didn't kill the cravings so I ended up eating the chocolate still but if I had just eaten the chocolate instead of the substitute then I would have eaten less calories. I know that part is kind of confusing but I hope you get what I am trying to say.

Finally, I definitely think that not buying junk food at all is best but I also believe that everything has to be done when you are ready to do it. If you aren't ready to do something it gets that much harder because you are not only fighting against what you are trying to change you are also fighting against yourself.  (this part was a bit off topic right?) 

 

"Unconventional Tips"

I call this post unconventional tips because these are things that I do to motivate myself whenever I feel like I am slacking off. I hope it helps someone...

1. Keep a picture of you not looking your best visible: My background picture for my laptop is a picture of me at a weight that I hate. (hate is a strong word that is why I am using it.) Every time I turn on my laptop I get reminded that I have a lot of work to do and I do not want to look like how I looked in that picture ever again.  
2. Write ENCOURAGING and POSITIVE messages to yourself. Sometimes when you are losing weight it is easy to focus on the things that you want to change and just thinking about the huge amount of weight that you have to lose can be overwhelming. To avoid getting caught up in self hate, I take time out to write nice things to myself. Sometimes I say for example " You are a really strong person and you look fabulous today" Self praise puts a smile on my face and makes me feel good about myself. And my motto is if you feel good about yourself you will take better care of yourself. 
3. BELIEVE that you can lose the weight. As I mentioned in number 2 sometimes thinking about losing 50+ lbs can be overwhelming and you may doubt yourself. Doubting yourself is EVIL (just like food commercials). There is no room for doubt when you have a goal you are trying to accomplish!
4. Pay before you snack. I haven't done this recently but I do plan on getting back into it. Whenever you feel like eating junk food just because you are bored look at the amount of calories on the package and exercise. If you burned the amount of calories on the "snack" and you still want to eat the snack eat it because you earned it. But if you can't burn the calories you can't eat the junk food. 

Those were four things that I do to motivate myself or to help me stay on track. I hope everything was clear and straight forward. If you have any questions feel free to ask...

Thanks for reading :D

Food Commercials are Evil...

Hey Folks, I hope everything is going well with everyone and I hope you are all staying on plan and getting that sexy summer body in order. I know I am working on it. (more about that later). Before I get into what my post is about today I want to say that I will be posting everyday this month, I totally slacked off in April but that is about to change 

Now that that is out the of the way time to get into what I really wanted to rant on which is Food commercials are EVIL! If you want to stay on plan and if you want to avoid random eating and cravings,  DO NOT WATCH FOOD COMMERCIALS! Yesterday I started a detox (more about that later too) and I was doing just fine until I started watching tv and up pops some random food commercial! I am telling you almost instantly I started craving chicken and cakes and pies and everything greasy. Up until that point I was completely satisfied and I didn't feel hungry at all.  Honestly, I didn't even realize at first that the food commercial was triggering my hunger. 

I ignored the cravings and eventually it went away and then a Mcdonalds commercial came on tv and all of a sudden I felt like eating a big mac. I have not eaten Mcdonalds in a couple of months. I bought it maybe in mid April and I took one small bite of the big mac and I didn't like it so I gave it to my sister but previous to that I think it was last year that I actually ate any meal from Mcdonalds. It was at that point that I realized that the commercials were triggering my cravings. Who would have thought right?

I know that there are some studies out there that blame television for the rise in obesity. They claim that the huge amount of food commercials on television trigger cravings and the amount of time spent watching television rather than being active also adds the pounds because like I mentioned before you are less likely to be active but for a long time I was in denial about it. I was in denial because I know that my obesity could not be blamed solely on the amount of television that I was watching. However, after yesterday I am now a believer!

I just wanted to let you know if you are struggling with binging or even just cravings pay attention to what you are doing because that could be a trigger for you. Sometimes we think that other foods are triggers but that isn't the only trigger I know that aside from the tv commercials that my boyfriend is a trigger for me.  Whenever we are together we usually get a lot of junk foods (well I normally get a lot of junk food.) and it has almost become a tradition for us so whenever we are together I always gain weight because all we do is lay in bed, watch movies and eat junk foods together. 

Losing weight and trying to keep it off is way to difficult to let something like triggers hinder your progress. 

Until my next post!

Thanks for reading