What a busy week!

The past week, things have been crazy, we are in the process of buying a new apartment, I always wanted a garden and a outside area where my girls can play, and although I like our current apartment, but the new one is bigger, it has an extra room which husband will turn into big boys hobby area (he calls it a house office!!) but he plans to get those big auto massage leather chairs, an LCD, and a play station…what I like about this new apartment is its huge land where I can plan my own vegetable and fruit garden, and my girls have a huge area to play instead of being stuck between four walls, now it will take us like 250000000 years to pay the mortgage but we do not care, this is the apartment we want to grow old in.

I did some home cooking last week, below is my spinach chicken rolls. The chicken was a bit dry but overall not bad,

Day 20: Reflecting back and looking forward

September passed, and although I wasn’t successful in losing more than 1 kilo, I have made some good changes with my daily routines, the past 3 weeks, I developed small healthy habits:

1-    Ate fruit, which I still don’t enjoy but force myself to eat them,  the past week I actually ate two servings of fruit daily

2-    I have increased my overall vegetable intake

3-    I exercised almost every day and even if it is for 15 min, the below pictures show only my treadmill routines.

October goals are:

1-    Exercise daily even if it is only 15 min

2-    Continue eating fruits daily

3-    Plan my meals for the week, and freeze them

4-    My night eating is triggered  when I sit alone at night and watch TV – Find other activities to do at night

Day 18: What am I gaining from staying fat?

I am usually successful in accomplishing whatever I set my mind to, and I give it 100% and never rest until I make it happen, but when it comes to actually losing weight and committing to a healthy lifestyle, I fail miserably! I know that the weight involves a lot of emotional issues, and it is more than just eating the wrong stuff…

There must be something I gain from staying fat? I sure hate being fat so what is it? Can’t I see what horrible things I’m doing to my body by eating all of this junk! I am steeling years of my life by choice why? What am I gaining from this?

1-      I have always loved food, staying fat will allow me to eat whatever I want whenever I want.  

2-      For some reason people are more relaxed and comfortable around me. People are not threatened.

3-      I used to get depression episodes, but lately I can not even remember the last time I got one! I am using food to make me feel better.

4-      All of my social activities revolve around food, major changes are needed to my lifestyle, am i resisting change because I like my comfort zone, it is safe.

5-      Avoiding working on my emotional issues and taking serious steps in alleviating the stress in my life.

It is obvious that I am focusing on what I will lose if I changed my lifestyle, I think It is all about bad habits, my concentration should be towards building new good habits that replace the current ones.

One good thing about my fat ass I get to sit in the front seat of any car :P

Day 17: No Weigh In today

I know I didn’t do well last week, so I am seriously not weighing myself!

Yesterday I went out with an old friend that I haven’t seen for ages and I loved the fact that we just took off from where ever we left off. No blame games, no strings attached and certainly, no annoying “where-have-you-been-all-this-time” questions.

I started fresh today, belly danced for 30 minutes and prepared my breakfast and lunch for the office.

Day 12: The Devil made me do it!

I didn’t do well the past two days, I got a cold, and I craved all kinds of comfort food (comfort food is eeeevillllll, plus I didn’t have the energy to exercise for more than 10 minutes.…I can not stop thinking about FOOD! I think of it all the time, when I am having breakfast, I think of lunch, and when I am having lunch, I wonder what’s for dinner? There is this constant conversation going on inside my head, and someone whispering in my ears like we see in cartoons and movies, the devil and angel on each shoulder, last night didn’t go as planned, and YES it is the devil’s fault, I was sick and helpless…OKAY!

The Devil: Junk food is not devil food, it will give you gratification and comfort

The Angel; you need a home-made chicken soup for your cold

The Devil: but you are too tired to cook anything now, how about having that chocolate you hide in the cupboard

The Angel: This chocolate is not what your body needs right now, a cup of green tea will make you feel much better

The Devil: It is just a KitKat!! it will not ruin your whole journey

The DAMN Devil won and I had the Kitkat, chips followed by pita with cheddar cheese, I felt so bad afterwards and checked the calories I consumed in that hour and it reached around 700 calories!!! I feel so bad!

I seriously do not know why I always think of FOOD! It is not that I am depriving my body from nutrients, I am eating more than I am supposed to, my friend says it is boredom, but I am always busy with a million thing to do, I guess it is just the opposite, I need to slow down and work on decreasing the stresses in my life, 

Goal: always always have vegetables and fruits ready to be eaten in my fridge, so that when I binge, I binge on cucumbers, apples and carrots.

Day 8: Monday’s Scale Day

I weighed myself this morning and I am 1 kg down, yipeee

Going through my food journal:

1-    I am having too much carb. – lower carb portion

2-    Fruits were not part of my eating the past week – add fruits (had an apple and a peach)

 3-    Good change: I am eating veggies daily – increase veggies’ portions

4-    My day starts great, my problem is at night, when the girls fall asleep, and I am watching TV. – My night habit of watching TV is not helping me one bit, I should start doing other activities at night especially nights that hubby stays late at work.

I am planning to lose another 1 kg this week. There are 3500 calories in one pound of body fat. To lose 1 kg, calorie in-take per day should be reduced to 1000.

Accomplished goals for today:

1-    25 min on treadmill 

 2-    10 min quickfix DVD core workout

 3-    20 crunches and 20 twist crunches

 4-    Food intake – went as planned until I had 10 french fries at dinner

Mika's song Big Girl, You are Beautiful

No one has the right to make you feel bad about your size

Day 7:Yes I am Fat but you’re Ugly!

I was always comfortable about saying the word fat, and I had no problems with sharing how much I actually weigh, I wasn’t ashamed of it, I didn’t like it but it was part of who I am. I have had my share of rude comments about weight and I learnt to answer back.

After returning to work from my 3 months maternity leave I got many comments from coworkers: “Oh My God, are you pregnant again?”, “You don’t look like you lost a lot of weight after delivery?” Or “did you join a gym yet?” and I answer back with stuff like, ”At least I can do something about my weight, but darling what about that nose of yours?” Or “NO I am not pregnant again, but you have been married for how long 3 years now? No babies? Is the wife ok?” And then they get offended what the hell! Why is it ok for you to insult me and give me rude comments, if you have your own insecurities don’t come and throw your crap on me…

Insults from family members are the best – my aunt actually thinks she is doing me a favor by calling me a cow! She actually thinks that she is motivating me and giving me incentives to lose the weight! I keep my mouth shut around her, because I know if I answered back, she will stop talking to me, and I don’t want that.

An Ex-good friend of mine during her last visit, kept hitting my ass saying “Oh Mary lose that ass, you can do it”…”Oh my god I seriously can’t believe how much you gained? It is not healthy”…and in all of our telephone calls, she asks about my current weight? a couple of months back, I went to visit her at her house, her dad was there, and the weight comments continued, and her dad joined in with a couple of fat people jokes! Oh come on…her father and husband smoke, so don’t come lecture me about becoming healthy…ARGGG some people!

I have food addiction, I can not hide it like the other addictions. And it is not only about exercising or eating right, there is a lot of emotional stuff involved and it is a daily struggle.

I didn’t get the chance to post anything yesterday. I did my exercise 25 min on treadmill, and the crunches exercise but over did it with the carbs.

Mini goals for today:

1-    Food journal

2-    25 treadmill

3-    20 crunches and 20 twist crunches (10 each side)

4-    10 min Quick Fix DVD

5-    Drink  8 glasses of water

Day 5: Just say NO! Ya right!

Today was my baby girl’s baptism and as in all of our family gatherings it revolved around food anddrinks. My husband’s family is very close, we have weekly get-togethers where my Mother in law spread the table with all sort of saliva-inducing food and sweets. Problem is it involves a lot frying and oily carbs. Fattening like hell!

It is not that they do not support my efforts in losing weight or push food in my face on purpose, I think it has more to do with them showing love and care through food, and for some reason they get offended if I didn’t try all the kinds on the table. It is like I am not showing appreciation for the effort and time they put into the cooking and preparation. Although I enjoy spending time with them, but it is very hard sticking to a meal plan
I tried the below and they do work sometimes:

1- Hide in the bathroom and fake Diarrhea 2- Fake terrible stomach ache 3- Schedule baby’s nap around lunch time so that I can excuse myself and go to the bedroom. 4- Invent and emergency and leave before desert 5- Start with the salad and eat very very slowly

Mini goals for the day: no goals were met for today, I just want this day to end so that I can start over tomorrow.

Day 4: Damn my mushroom tummy!

This picture were such a wake up call, seeing how my tummy actually look like when I sit…ewwww it looks disgusting…I vow to lose that ugly mushroom tummy, remember baby steps.

Mini goals for the day:

1-      Morning Exercise:  treadmill for 20 min, 25v on treadmill

2-      Crunches 20 sets, crunches with twist 20 rep each side. Didn’t have time

3-      Drink 8 glasses water – had 4

4-      Food Journal – done

Today was a success, the office ordered Pasta for lunch and I ordered mozzarella salad with balsamic vinegar dressing.

Day 3: No more Mr. Scale

Go away bad scale go way…GO AWAY!

Seriously my scale is alive and has evil powers, it keeps giving me different reading every half an hour….you are doing this on purpose Mr. scale…I know it!

Whenever I start my weight loss program, I develop this crazy obsession with the scale, and weighing my self every hour! I vow to fight back and strip you from your evil powers. You do not control me anymore.

We will meet next week, until then you belong under my bed.

1-      Morning Exercise for 20 min - 25 min on treadmill

2-      Drink 8 glasses water - had 6

3-      Food journal - done and I followed the meal plan

 4-      Find exercises that target Belly fat - will start with the basics 20 crunches and twist crunches

Mini goals for the day:

Day 2: Not a complete success

I seriously didn’t feel ready for today, it is my mom’s birthday and since all of our social gatherings involve food and drinks, today was no different.

We invited the family to our place, and there it was, the Juicier, most delicious looking Chocolate chip cake and it was calling me…my mind was going crazy No No please NOT TODAY…but it is my mom’s birthday…it is my second day …mmm a small piece maybe, No don’t, maybe one small bite… DAMN IT I am not ready for this just yet.

My problem with sweets is that It is no way in the world that I can take one bite and be satisfied, It is either all or nothing…and It is usually impossible for me to pass on any cake, but today I am proud to the fact that I didn’t have one bite of the cake, but I am disappointed that I had 3 cups of the spaghetti salad I made, I feel bad that I didn’t stick to my portion of the spaghetti salad.

The Salad Ingredients are: Spaghetti, crab sticks, corn, mushroom, spring onion, and carrots. Dressing:  one tbsp light mayo, lemon, 1 tbsp olive oil and mustard.

Now I did lower my calorie in-take through out the day just in case I didn’t rise to the challenge (and yes it is a challenge) any one who is struggling with food addiction can relate to how hard it is to say NO to food lying there begging you to eat it.

Today’s goals:

1-      Morning Exercise for 20 min-  I did 20 on treadmill and danced around the house for 15 min

2-      Drink 8 glasses water – had 6

3- Meal plan – didn’t stick to my eating plan. Will not allow this to affect me.

Baby steps

It is never a good day to start with my “HEALTHY EATING LIFESTYLE”  there is always an excuse and a reason to not commit and make the right choices. Lately I am finding my self munching all the time, I can not stay an hour without actually shoving something in my mouth… I eat when I am happy, angry, and stressed, I eat all the time except when I am hungr­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­y! I actually do not recall the last time I felt hunger!!

The worst part is that I am no longer able to keep up with my little girls, I collapse on the sofa after 10 minutes of running after them, playing tickling monster. I want to come from work and have enough energy to take them to the park, dance and jump with them.

I didn’t always had weight problems, my emotional binging started back in 2005 during my first pregnancy. I didn’t get any of the typical morning sickness, or stomach nausea, in fact it was the complete opposite, I craved all sort of food and sweets  cheez balls at Midnight, super sized chili burgers, ate quantities of pesto pasta that can feed a village,….and the pounds crept in, I did eat the healthy stuff because I always liked my veggies, but with the broccoli came cheddar cheese and white sauce. Thinking back I can not believe the quantity of food I ate!

Whatever I did before didn’t work, going on strict diets, taking diet pills, and joining a gym didn’t work. For s starter I am going to take it one day at a time, baby steps through changing bad habits… I am hoping this blog will help me stay focused and motivated, but most importantly to be true and transparent to my self.

I usually start strong, excited, committed, and focused, then when I do not see quick results, I give up…baby steps, one day at a time is what I will do differently, small daily goals.

STARTING WEIGHT = 88 kgs