Hello everyone, welcome to my new weekly series about my healthy lifestyle journey. These posts are going to be predominately about my clean eating journey, exercise, how my journey is going, and any fun or motivating things I have come across in the previous week.
I will track my highs, my low, and be completely honest with you all on how my journey is going. Mine isn’t a perfect journey, so this will document all the good and the bad, the real life. This will be a sort of accountability for me. I hope you all use it as one for yourselves as well. Each week we can come together and see how we are progressing on our journey.
I might mention my minimalism lifestyle sometimes in these weekly posts, but usually only when it relates to my healthy living journey. I am working on a weekly post all about my minimalism journey and hope to get that out to all of you soon! Until then, check out all my previous minimalism posts!
This is going to be a long post, but I wanted you to all really understand my path and I hope some of it resonates with you and where you are. I will keep them shorter in the future! Please let me know your story in the comments, so we can help each other through our journeys!
My Story
I figured the best way to start these weekly posts was to give you my journey in all it’s gory details. To let you know where I have come from, where I am now, and some of my goals for the future.
I was an athlete all my younger life. I played soccer, sometimes on more than one team at a time, all the way through high school and college. This was back in the days when no coach really talked about nutrition that much. We worked out like crazy and usually ate whatever we wanted. My teammates and I didn’t really worry about weight because we were never still long enough for anything we ate to really affect us, and we were young! Gotta love that youthful metabolism!!!
I stopped playing soccer for good my senior year of college when I was about 21 years old. I quickly put on a ton of weight because My eating habits did not change at all, but the amount of exercise I was doing decreased drastically. Then began the never-ending yo-yo dieting!
I am sure a lot of you have gone through this yo-yo phase as well. The “let’s try so and so diet,” have a ton of success and then stop because the cabbage soup only diet isn’t really sustainable. Then you gain it all back, if not more, as quickly as you lost it. I was in this phase for a good 15 years of my life!
I had also tried to out train a bad diet many a times. Half marathons, boot camps, daily morning DVDs, I tried it all. It would be great for a year maybe two. I would see some results, and even collect a decent amount of race bling, but never stick with it. I always got to a point where I could not out train my diet, because eventually the unhealthy food would catch up with me. Eventually I would stop losing weight and obviously it was the boot camp’s fault, not my diet’s. We have all been here before.
It took a long time for me to finally hit the point where I was done with this lifestyle and knew it was time to change!
Things Had to Change!
In June of 2017 I went on an extended family vacation at this great resort where I spent the majority of my time in a swimsuit or a sun dress. There were over 20 of us and thus a lot of pictures were taken in all sorts of outfits. I remember looking at those pictures and thinking is that really me? Did I really let myself get that unhealthy? I was at my highest weight and my most unhealthy!
During this trip my relatives went on hikes, which I didn’t do because I was afraid I couldn’t keep up. My sister did an amazing spin class by the lake, which I didn’t do because no way was my fat butt sitting on that uncomfortable bike seat and keeping up with all those healthy people! Running around with my niece and nephew was not a possibility, much less trying to keep up with them in the pool. I knew that this was not the lifestyle I wanted. Was I always to be the one missing out on a ton of amazing memories simply because I was not healthy enough to try them?
The last straw was about two weeks later. I had a doctor appointment and for the first time she said my blood work came back pre-diabetic and my blood pressure was getting high. Before I knew it, I was on my way home with prescriptions for my blood sugar and blood pressure. I couldn’t believe this was me, I was the athlete of the family, even if it had been years since I had actually played a sport.
A couple days later I stood on the scale, looked down at the highest weight I had ever been and wrote that down. I decided on that day I would never be that heavy again. I weighed in at 288.4 pounds! That weight became my starting weight and I have never looked back.
The Start of My Clean Eating Journey
A couple week later I was invited to a party a friend of mine was doing about a clean eating challenge. I knew I needed something and the timing was perfect, so I jumped in. This program was the start of my clean eating journey. It was 30 days of clean eating and trying to rid my body of toxins. I am not going to lie, it was rough! Headaches, tummy issues, and acne, all in the first 2 weeks. I was ready to give up. But my coaches kept telling me it was just my body getting rid of all the crap I had been shoving in my face for the past 15 years! Yes, sometimes your body gets mad at you when you finally make the jump to healthy eating and is trying to heal itself.
I stuck with it and did 2 months in a row and that was the turning point for me. I felt better, and I knew that it was something I could keep up long term. In those first 2 months I lost 15 pounds. I loved the program, but I wasn’t really pushing myself to get creative or try out new options. I was getting a little bored.
Finding My Groove
The next 4 months or so I bounced around from paleo to whole 30 to keto to just being mindful about what I ate to all sorts of things. I learned that all of these programs were great if they are right for you. During this time I managed to lose another 15 pounds. I just didn’t feel like any of them were really the right journey for me. They involved a ton of cooking and prep!
I love to cook and try out new things, but I love quick easy recipes . Since I live alone and eat alone a lot of the time, cooking for 2 hours to sit down by myself and eat for 20 minutes just isn’t something I am interested in. In order to not have to cook every night, I ended up spending hours during the weekend shopping and preparing for 3 meals a day for the next 7 days. It just became too much for me.
After 6 months and too many programs to mention, I had lost 30 pounds and was back on my original program. This plan supplements some of your meals each day with amazing vegan protein power shakes. Which makes the prep so much easier. This allowed me to not see cooking as a chore and really start to love my time in the kitchen. It was at this point that I started following food bloggers and trying out some recipes of my own (including my most popular, Egg Roll in a Bowl)! I started to truly embrace the clean eating lifestyle.
Hitting My First Goal!
The next 6 months went really well. While sticking to my 80/20 clean eating lifestyle, I hit my first goal of losing 50 pounds in my first year! I was officially down to 238.0 one week before my 1-year anniversary of my clean eating journey. This was so beyond exciting! I had done it! And not on some crazy lose a ton of weight in 2 months and gain it all back diet. I had done it with a lifestyle change that I was loving. Over the previous year of trial and error, I had learned what works for me and how to stick to my clean eating journey!
I was so happy that I started exercising more and really telling everyone about my journey! On this high, I was also able to start tackling some other major goals, like starting my minimalism journey! I was on a roll! Next, I decided to start my blog. Life was good. I was going places!
My First Slump
Unfortunately, over the next 6 months, that 80/20 lifestyle slowly slipped into more of a 60/40 lifestyle and my weight loss stalled. I was never able to get below 230. The last 6 months I have been in this holding pattern. The one good thing I can say is I have never gained more than 10 pounds back from my first 50-pound milestone. I did not gain it all back because I had truly made some major lifestyle changes. Even if that fast food window was visited way more than I would have liked over the last 6 months, I was sticking to some good habits I had gained as well.
Some pluses were that my exercise was continuing, and I was still way healthier than I was. I could do so much more of the outdoor activities I loved. My doctor also decreased all the amounts of my medicines, even if my numbers were not low enough to come off them all completely. But I knew I was making progress. In years past, by this 6 month mark I would have gained everything back after stopping a strict adherence to some crazy diet.
This was different, I was different.
Where I Am Now!
I am finally coming out of my slump and started to make some forward progress. I have cut out a lot of the processed food again, or at least have made a better effort. Have made small strides on getting back to a full clean eating lifestyle. And the scale is moving slowly right now. But I know I have eaten too many non-plan foods the last couple months for any major changes to happen. As of today, I weighed in at 240.2 pounds. Only 2.2 pounds up from my 50-pound accomplishment. 10 pounds up from my lowest weight. And about 7 pounds down from my most recent high weight.
My journey has not been perfect, and I know it will not be straight forward in the future, but I know I am getting healthy and will continue to do so. I am on this journey and am not going to stray far from it, no matter how hard it gets. I will continue learning my clean eating lifestyle and continue making strides to be a healthier, happier me!
Stats:
In true accountability fashion, I will add in a couple stats at the end of each of my posts.
Starting weight – 288.4
Current weight – 240.2
Exercise – 3 time this week
Fast Food (my weakness) – 2 times this week
Current helpful favorite – Farm Fresh to You
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