But it hurts so good ...

Well yesterday was a very good day. I achieved my goal of trying to see if 2 shakes and one meal a day would keep me full - and it did. I think that I have figured out the secret that works for me. Most people who do this Herbalife shake thing drink one shake for breakfast, one for lunch and then eat a sensible dinner. This didn't work for me. At lunch time I am usually so starved that I used to just shove things into my mouth until I felt sick. So, I have figured out that if I drink a shake for breakfast, eat my "sensible meal" at lunch (which usually consists of either salmon or chicken breast with spinach salad and some fruit), I then really do feel full when I drink my last shake for dinner. And I don't feel sick and full when I try to work out after dinner. Working out also went really good last night. I replaced the batteries in the elliptical so last night I was able to tell how many calories I was burning, plus I was able to up the resistance - which coincidentally you cannot do if the batteries are dead. So I cranked the resistance up to about 7 and was able to go at a fairly good pace for about 12 minutes. And believe me, I was definitely sweating when I jumped off of that and got on the bike. Then I turned the resistance up on the bike to 10 and went another 9 minutes. All in all I burned a total of 250 calories in 21 minutes. It doesn't seem like much but it is the equivalent of one shake - so it's like I didn't eat it at all! And let me tell you, my butt and legs are sore today so I know I did some good. Plus, I am feeling so much better during the days at work. I have so much more energy! It's still sucks getting out of bed every morning to do my newspaper route, but what person in their right mind would be perky at 4:45 a.m.? By the time I get home and start getting ready for work at Haechten's I'm feeling pretty good and by the time I get to work and get settled in about 9:00 I feel great! I don't know if all of this feel good energy is from the supplements I'm taking or the exercise or the good food, or all of it but whatever it is is working. It would almost be worth it just to feel like this and not lose weight. Almost ..... But nothing will ever feel as good as hitting my target weight loss (and winning this competition!). I know that there is no way I will lose all the weight I want to lose in 6 weeks, but I am aiming for a good 30-40 pound loss. And this will certainly get me jump started towards my ultimate goal of about 100 pounds. This sounds crazy to me, but I know that I can do it and I need to do it. I don't know if I've said this yet, but my start weight was 258 pounds (yikes!), so a 100 pound loss would put me at 158, which I think would be an extremely healthy weight for my 5'7" height. But hell, let's be honest, I would be thrilled to weigh anywhere south of 200. Which still would be a 60 lb. loss, but I ultimately want to lose more. Anyway, I'll check back in later ... if anyone is reading that I haven't bored to death. :)

Looking Good

Well, things have still been going pretty good with the whole diet thing. Day one finished up good. I actually stayed really full from the shake and so I ended up only eating a small spinach salad with chicken breast and mushrooms and felt stuffed. I don't know if it's healthy to skip the 2nd shake but I think for now I'm just going to listen to my body. I'm taking vitamins and a supplement so I should be getting all the nutrition I need, so I'm definitely not going to force more calories just because the diet says so. If I'm full, I'm full. I also managed to fit in 8 1/2 minutes on the stationary bike. Not great, but better than nothing and I did break a light sweat. Day 2 (Sunday) was another good day. Once again I ended up only having one shake and 3 small snacks and then part of a chicken breast. However, I felt really good about this day because we went to Abilene to do some grocery shopping and when Brandon and Brayden ordered pizza from Sam's to eat, I grabbed one of those rotisserie chickens from the deli. When we got home I pulled off the skin (the good part, lol) and ate one of the breasts. So I faced my first Abilene take-out food challenge and did pretty good. Plus I haven't had a diet dr. pepper since Friday and I just knew that I would cave and get one in Abilene and I didn't!!! Yay!!!! I'm no longer having headaches as of today (Tuesday)so I think I'm through the caffeine withdrawals. I probably would have lost 5-10 pounds just by giving up diet soda on it's own. Sunday finished up pretty good with exercise as well. I managed to do 10 minutes on the elliptical and 10 minutes on the bike. Batteries on the elliptical were dead so I don't know exactly how many calories I burned or how many miles I did, but I was sweating! Yesterday was good. First day on diet back at work. Made my shake and took it with me to work - kept me pretty full. I snacked on a string cheese about 10:30. Went home for lunch and some salmon with spinach salad. I had planned on having another shake for lunch but it was cold outside and I wanted something hot to eat! Plus I was pretty hungry by lunch time. Then for supper I had a chicken breast salad instead of a shake (about 6:00 p.m.). I was pretty hungry and I still needed to get in a big dose of protein so I went with it. But maybe a one shake diet will work better for me for a while until my stomach adjusts. I mean come one, even with eating 2 salads and 1 shake plus snacks I MAYBE had 1500 calories for the whole day. That's probably half of what I was eating. I really want to win this weight loss competition, but I also want to keep the weight off this time, so I've decided to be really hard on myself for 6 weeks, but at the same time listen to my body and try to do it realistically. If I can't realistically have 2 shakes and one meal then I'll have 1 shake and 2 meals and then maybe exercise a little more. It's all a work in progress. I am going to try again today though to do the 2 shakes and one meal because I want to see how hungry I am at the end of the day and if at any point I feel sick or light headed or whatever. I'll let you know! I didn't get to exercise yesterday so I plan on getting in a good one tonight. Wish me luck!

Day One

Well, this is my first full day of being on me "diet," or as I like to call it my 6 weeks of "I can do anything for 6 weeks" phase. Isn't it funny that I have been trying to lose weight on my own for about 5 years and the only things that have really gotten me motivated in the past and now are some crazy weight loss competitions with cool prizes. I know that there is probably some mental and psychological point to ponder with that realization, but my brain is too fuzzy with lack of caffeine to ponder it. Plus, I intend to keep repressing it as long as possible. Anyway, on to my first day update as it has happened so far. Every day on this Herbalife wellness plan :P I am supposed to replace two meals with shakes, eat one sensible meal, and have about 3 snacks. I am supposed to consume about 150 grams of protein a day. They don't count calories, so I'm not exactly sure how many calories I will be getting, but I can probably figure a rough estimate. The two shakes are supposed to be around 250 calories each depending on what you add to them, so there's 500 right off the bat. I would guess that all of my snacks add up to about 300-500 calories, so that's about 1,000. And then my meal which I intend to be a boneless chicken breast with spinach salad, some cheese and balsamic vinegar dressing is probably about 500. Oh, and then I am drinking some kind of green tea crap 3 times a day which is probably about another 100 calories. So about 1,600 calories a day give or take. Good Lord, no wonder I'm hungry! Anyway, the lady that is my contact person said that if I am still hungry after drinking the shakes that I can add some protein powder to them to make me fill full longer. I might try that next week, but I think I probably just need to give my stomach some time to adjust. I'm thinking it will shrink a little bit on it's own. I mean, it's used to eating God knows how many calories a day - so if something's used to holding a cow and now you're trying to fill it up with a hamster, there's bound to be some adjustment. (I know that metaphor was kind of weird, but just go with it.) Okay, so far today here is what I have done:
Got up at 5:30 - had 32oz. water with Grape Crystal Light, string cheese and banana (7 grams of protein)
10:30 - had an 8 oz. strawberry banana shake (15 grams of protein)
12:30 - 7 hard-boiled egg whites (30 grams of protein)& 8 oz. Green Tea
2:30 - 32 oz. water with Grape Crystal Light


So far, so good. At about 52 grams of protein. Not feeling very hungry, but my stomach is kind of rolling around. I don't know if it's just trying to get used to the changes or if all the liquid is sloshing around. Plus I still have another shake, a snack and my chicken salad meal to look forward to. Surely with all of that I won't get too hungry. I'm going to try and fit in about 30 minutes of exercise today also, even thought they say that on the Herbalife plan you don't have to exercise to lose weight - but I want to anyway. Wish me luck for the rest of the day!

Herbalife or Die

I haven't been on here in nearly a year, but with the start of 2011 and all of the New Year's resolutions being thrown around, I thought that I would give blogging a try. I'm sure that there are no longer any readers that check this page at all, so I'm just going to treat this as my own personal diary for the time being. If you happen to stumble upon it and read, great - if not, I have the perfect place to keep up with my newest endeavor ..... the great Herbalife Weight Loss Adventure of 2011. That's right, as of today I am officially involved in a 6 week weight loss challenge that centers around the Herbalife brand of weight loss stuff. I am not a big believer in Herbalife products, it's just that the prizes for this particular competition were too good to pass up. Plus with the entry fee I was given several different Herbalife production to try that are supposed to aid my weight loss goals. Anywho, back to the important stuff - the prizes! First place gets an Ipad and $200, 2nd place gets a 37" HDTV and $200, 3rd place gets a HD video recorder and $200, and 4th and 5th place just get $200. There are only supposed to be 100 people participating, so I am sort of feeling good about my chances. I mean, I can do anything for 6 weeks right? I'm hoping that this will be the kick in the butt that I have been needing for about a year to get some of this weight off that has constantly been creeping up since I had Brayden 5 years ago. Enough is enough! Wish me luck!