January Dietary Challenge Ends + Confession

Thank goodness January is done! The beginning of Cassey Ho’s dietary challenge was super easy. I didn’t completely cut anything out (except alcohol which I already cut out years ago) but instead cut back on everything.

My normal daily eating habits included several slices of American cheese, a ton of French bread, summer sausage, cookies, misc pastries, coffee etc. And then there were the special meals where we went out for eat – Burger King, Jimmy Johns, misc diner, Subway. Really, I think Burger King is the worst one there and we don’t do it all that often because I’m in love with Jimmy John’s sandwiches. I only get the sandwich but it’s still too big for one meal so it becomes 2 meals. I’d say that’s healthy enough and if it’s not, I don’t really care.

So I did my best this month to cut out desserts, cut out that cheese, bread, and summer sausage. We still went out to eat every weekend and I didn’t change my coffee because the sugar content on that is as low as I’m prepared to make it. When we did go out, I tried to keep it to Jimmy Johns as that is the tastiest and healthiest. Some might argue and say Subway is but I get pizza when I’m there sooooo…yeah…Could be better, could be worse.

Let’s shrug it off.

To buy the 28-Day Reset meal plan, click above – Eat Healthy, Be Healthy

On top of the dietary changes, I added in at least 30 minutes of exercise. It was cardio and it wasn’t intense because I don’t like to be intense these days but it was 4-5x a week. I’m doing a Couch Potato Triathlon challenge at my YMCA so I’m working my butt off trying to get everything in.

My cardio:

• swimming
• cycling
• walking

Strength training:

• POP Pilates (30-min, 45-min classes)

Every day opens my eyes to a new sore spot. It’s good though. I tell my students that that pain is weakness leaving. It’s screaming and holding on for dear life and that’s why it hurts so much – it’s putting up a fight. But we master it with every workout, every class. And we’re getting stronger and stronger so it hurts less and less.

Before/After measurements from eating cleaner (not clean, just cleaner). On the left is 1/1/17, on the right is 1/31/17, in bold/italics is the difference.

• Weight – 182.4 lb // 180.6 lb ( – 1.8 lb)
• Arms – L 12 1/4 in, R 12 5/8 in // L 12 in, R 12 1/2 in ( L – 1/4 in, R – 1/8 in)
• Bust – 40 1/2 in // 39 3/4 in ( – 3/4 in)
• Chest – 32 in // 32 in ( 0 )
• Waist – 36 in // 35 in ( – 1 in)
• Lower Belly Pooch – 42 in // 41 1/2 in ( – 1/2 in)
• Hips – 44 in // 43 3/4 in ( – 1/4 in)
• Thighs – L & R 23 3/4 in // L 23 1/2 in, R 23 1/4 in ( L – 1/4 in, R – 1/2 in)

And to think these numbers would have been even better had I not had junk food over the weekend and on Monday. Bloating is bad if you’re only worried about the numbers.

Here’s my confession…

To be honest, I was seriously stressing this last weekend over what to eat because I wanted to give the best possible numbers here. In fact, I was stressing about it so much that I realized I wasn’t eating.

If you know me, you’ll know that that is sooooo NOT like me. I love food. That’s why I’m overweight – I LOVE food and I LOVE to eat. Now, during the month I wasn’t stressing about it and I was only focusing on eating healthier. When I was hungry, I ate something and I was happy. It was just at the very end for about 3-4 days when I started stressing about it. By Monday I realized I was skipping meals and only lightly snacking. I was constantly hungry and I was depressed because I was hungry and because I wanted my numbers to be as low as I could get them. I wanted to be as small as I could be in my After pictures.

My body was not feeling good after all the salt from the nuts, and the celery and PB was not leaving me feeling good because I had eaten so much of it (and I was worried about running out before I could go grocery shopping again). The Kind bars were only upping my blood sugar levels because I wasn’t eating anything else so I wasn’t feeling good from that. Nothing I ate made me feel better.

I didn’t know what to eat because nothing was making me feel good anymore. I was surrounded by snack foods along with food for sandwiches and I didn’t want to eat a sandwich because then I would be eating processed foods, dairy, and gluten on non-cheat days. For 3-4 days, I was afraid to eat. I wanted actual food and I wasn’t seeing it. All I was seeing was snack food and then I thought if I didn’t eat, my numbers would be smaller so then I was doing things to distract me from eating and it was working all too well.

Monday I realized what I was starting to do and I had forgotten that the challenge had ended on the 29th so I thought I was still in the challenge. By Monday I was dizzy and tired. I’ve been drinking plenty of water so it wasn’t that. I gave in and had 2 hot dogs (no buns…we don’t have any) wrapped in American cheese. Damn did that taste good. And damn me if my dizziness didn’t go away soon after I had finished eating.

I realized then how stupid I was being putting numbers before my health so for lunch I had a sandwich. Raisin bread, mayo, a slice of American cheese, and some honey ham. It…felt…AWESOME! And so did I.

And now for my pictures!

I see a difference in both shots but only a good difference in the front shot. From the side I can see that I’m bloated from what I ate yesterday. And you know what? I’m okay with that. It beats being dizzy and hungry. I didn’t like seeing it at first but then I thought back to what I ate yesterday and I’m okay with it. I needed actual food in my stomach and that sandwich, while I knew it would bloat me, was exactly what I needed.

Don’t punish your body. Don’t skip out on meals to have better numbers. It’s just not worth it. I was miserable for those few days. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who actually have eating disorders and have to deal with this sort of thing every day of their lives.

I’m all for being happy. If I’m fat and happy, that’s fine. At least I’m happy. But if I’m starving myself to look better on social media, then I’m not happy and that is not okay. Not only does it affect me but it affects my family. My kid shouldn’t have to feel bad because I do. He’s a kid. He should be happy. But if I’m starving and tired then I get super cranky and emotional and I can’t handle anything as well as I should be able to and then he suffers for that. Not to mention the strain it puts on my husband. That’s not fair to anyone.

Don’t do it to yourself. Don’t do it to others. Just don’t do it.

P.S. I’m not belittling people who do have an ED. I know their struggle is real  – unbelievably real – and I wish them all the luck and strength in the world. This was meant for those people who don’t have an ED.

Couch Potato Triathlon & Practice Makes…Better

It’s almost time! The Couch Potato Triathlon starts at my YMCA tomorroooooow! That’s Monday, 1/9/17, in case this post is read on any day other than Sunday, 1/8/17.

In the past I bought tankinis and bikinis for swimming because I wanted to show off all my hard work with my belly. It was much smaller then though I never got it flat. I also wanted to embrace my feminine side by showing off my boobs. Heck, I wanted to wear a bikini so I did! But then I was always so self conscious about wearing them around kids that I almost never did. Pools are crawling with children. I felt immodest showing off that much skin especially when it came to the boobs. Then I gained a lot of weight again and even my tankini didn’t fit so I felt doubly uncomfortable.

Why not wear a single piece swimsuit perhaps? Because they never fit properly. My torso seems to be a bit on the longish side so it was a bit difficult to find a suit that didn’t pull the boob part down. And then I have large boobs so I needed a lot of support. I was never comfortable with the amount of support given with those suits. So I moved to tankinis and the fit was always awesome…when my weight wasn’t fluctuating on a large scale.

Anyway, so the triathlon-type challenge is starting and I only had low-cut swim tops to wear. My fear that I would fall out was a real one I found when I tested out swimming half laps and noticed my boobs would start to ooze out a bit, so I got a high-necked swim top (with matching swim bottoms to hold in that lower belly pooch) to fix the problem.

Bikini from Freya brand through Amazon

Yes, this is a bikini despite my weight gain. I deliberately got a bikini for 2 reasons. 1) I seriously loved that top. 2) One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to learn to love my body. That includes my Jelly Belly. While I feel super self conscious showing off my blobby belly, I don’t think I’ll feel as bad with my cleavage being hidden. I mean, I’ve posted pics of myself in a sports bra on IG. This is the same…right? Except I’ll be face-to-face with people instead of hidden behind a screen.

Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.

Anyway, I’m super excited about starting the Couch Potato Triathlon tomorrow. It’s going to be so much fun!! Swimming is the only problem I foresee. I’ll also be walking instead of running. Walk a couple miles to warm up and then swim as far as I can tomorrow. It’ll be a great start!

My other bit of news is that I tried something new and succeeded! Eventually, for the most part anyway. The #FaerieYogiTales IG challenge called for a Fallen Angel pose on the very first day.  I’ve seen this move but never tried it myself because it looked super hard and I didn’t know how to get into it. Really, I had no desire to learn how to do it as it looked way beyond me. Here’s a beautiful version from @moonyogini, one of the hosts of the challenge:

She’s an angel falling from the sky, her brains about to be splattered all over the ground in a 30 foot radius. It’s much less glamorous when put like that… But the pose is very pretty when caught before brain-splattering.

I resigned myself to attempting the modified side crow that I knew:

It always hurt my wrist and thigh so much though having the legs pressing against my elbow so hard. It’s not my favorite pose and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Luckily I had the brilliant idea of looking up fallen angel how-to videos on Youtube to see exactly how it should be done. I clicked on SarahBethYoga‘s “How to Fallen Angel Pose | Arm Balance” video and that’s where my search ended. Awesome how-to video! Really really helpful. And it showed me how easy and painless Side Crow could be! I had no idea my thigh could survive bruise-free. My wrists argued about the painless part toward the end but those are my wrists for you.

As you can see, I “successfully” completed the pose and am super excited about it. The way I define success is that I was able to be in side in crow, get my head down and my leg up. Even better was that I was able to do it more than once and on both sides and I was able to hold it for a few seconds. After awhile, my wrists got super tired and started hurting big time. That was my cue to stop practicing. It was so awesome though!! My fallen angel is awkward and not pretty but I did it and that’s the first step. I’m so happy! So happy in fact that I made a video of my practice. All my attempts cut up into a 1-minute video following as I went through getting Side Crow and then Fallen Angel.

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If you want something, never give up on it! You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it.