Hello, Confidence. It’s been a while!

I am happy to finally report back to you all and say, that my absence from writing hasn’t been because of going into hiding from falling off the wagon or from not working my tail off. Believe me,  I have BEEN WORKING MY TAIL OFF!  And I am happy to report back to you with great news.

I am finally a size medium. for real!

Here I am, in the dressing room, trying on Medium sized shorts and top.  I was so happy and amazed that I immediately started to cry the happiest of tears and then took a picture! This is a pretty huge milestone for me. And I think back to when I started, and I am really impressed with myself for sticking out this long.  Now, I need to follow this up with the obligatory… I still have work ahead of me.

Am I happy with how I look? HELL YES! For the first time in years, I can say that with full confidence. The main goal I had when I started this journey was to get my confidence back!  Here it is.

And here is a picture of the transformation thus far…

 

I have the Keto diet, my supportive friends here, and the C25k app to thank for the progress, AND my determination to not give up. There were many moments of weakness along the way, and lots of stalls but that’s okay… that’s called life.

I have transitioned some in my diet from keto to paleo, I guess??. Still keeping it high fat and low carb, I allowed oats into my life and my current carb intake is less than 100g a day and keeping my calorie count in check.

I have started a new workout routine.  I am on week 3 of it, actually.  I have started lifting weights at the gym! This means I am no longer stepping on the scale, and I am keeping progress documented by measurements, how I feel, and by pictures. The scale was driving me crazy. It became a game of numbers instead of being healthy, making right choices and determining how I was feeling on a daily basis. The scale served its purpose in the beginning of my journey, and it kept me going on the right track.

I have lots of time on my hands now that school fell through. I have until December to really step up my game in the gym and working out.  It has helped me so much with how I feel on a chemical level, feeling great 🙂

I hope you are all doing well!

xoxox

-Shana

 

 

My 18th Week of Keto. and the 5 mile run.

Last Friday, I weighed in at 151 pounds. To celebrate this new number, I went shopping for clothes and was able to fit into and purchase a size 10!

I haven’t been a size 10 in 14 years!

To celebrate this new and exciting number I decided to spoil myself at the Cheesecake Factory.

This was the first time I have been there in 18 weeks. It was a well-deserved cheat day. BUT, this well-deserved cheat day cost me 5 pounds!

Ever since Saturday I have been working my ass off to get back down to 151.  Sunday I completely finished my C25K app! I am now on to these things called “free runs”.  which really sound awesome, don’t they? Like I can spread my wings and leave the cage, to run amuck in fields of poppies and dandelions with the wind blowing through my hair and me singing … ” the hills are alive, with the sound of muuuuuuusiiic”. Except, it’s not like that at all. It’s still hot outside, I still run on concrete/pavement and turn a bright shade of red and have sweat pouring down my face. Nothing at all like the app leads me to believe these “free runs” are made of.

Today marked my longest run yet… FIVE miles! I think I am in denial about liking running. Whenever someone tells me to enjoy my run, I scoff at them.

” Psshhh, yeah right, like I could EVER like running… Give me a break”.

And yet, I find myself going out for jogs almost everyday…  It’s either I am a masochist, or I like running, or both, but I am definitely in denial about both of those things. Hopefully I will be able to embrace these things about myself one day soon.

Pretty soon, I will be at the 150 mark. When I hit that, I will have ten more pounds to go before my next goal of 140! (this time with no trips to the cheesecake factory).

I have a FitBit now, this will most definitely help with my goals, I am sure of it.

I wont let another 2 weeks go by without updating my blog, it helps keep me accountable and to be honest, it feels like I am confiding in a friend, because outside of this, there aren’t many people who really give a damn. Even if you all don’t, which I am sure is a high likelihood. IT FEELS like you do, be it true or not, it still feels that way, and it warms my heart and keeps me going 🙂

 

 

 

Back to Keto – Changing the plans again! Week 16

I just completed Week 9, Day  1 of the C25k.!  Only two more days of the app to go until I run 3 miles! =D I can’t believe I made it here. Looking back, I was huffing and puffing and cursing my lungs, and my excess fat. I just ran for 30 minutes without stopping!  I am proud of myself tonight.

Last post, I said I was jumping off of the keto-wagon, but as it turns out, my hives are still present even with more carbs in my diet. So, I have made the decision that I am going back to keto, but I am going to eat many more veggies, and cut down on the dairy. We’ll see how it goes. The fact is, I need to get back to keto, I need the familiarity of it. When I tried to eat noodles, I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall head first into a carb binge. Its easier to do than I thought, and thinking of gaining a bunch of weight back because of something stupid like that terrifies me!

In other great news, I might be starting school in August! Friday, the admissions department called me and told me I passed my exams with flying colors, and have enough points to secure an interview with the director of the program. I am so anxious. In order to ease my nerves about it all, I thought some retail therapy would do me some good. So, today, I went to Old Navy and bought a cute dress for the interview, I fit into a Medium size!!! Best believe I bought it, and I am going to ROCK that size medium dress 🙂 My next hurdle is the interview.

In the meantime, I am going to keep on keto’ing on, continue running and going to the gym.  my future is starting to take shape! I am feeling proud and hopeful. NEVER GIVING UP!!

 

– Shana

Feeling great! Week 11, Day 4

 

I am feeling GREAT today.

Yesterday, I finished week 7 of my c25k app. 25 mins of running! 6 weeks ago, I would have called myself crazy and thought that I could never get to where I am now. But, I am here! It hasn’t been the easiest of roads, my main obstacle has been my mind. The nagging inner voice of ” Oh this is getting hard, you should quit” and having to push through it instead of saying ” I can’t do this”, and changing it to ” I can totally do this, look how far I’ve come”. It feels really good. I know that I am still in the middle of my journey, I know it’s not celebration time yet, but seeing all my progress really gets me amped up to keep going.

Today, I made it to the gym. I spent 45 mins on the elliptical and broke the biggest sweat I have had in a long time and kept pushing myself. It feels so satisfying and lifts my mood to cheery and smiley. I love this version of myself. Such an upgrade from the chubby, grumpy girl of nearly 3 months ago.

I am a little concerned about the vacation I am going to be taking in a week.  I will be around my parents who are “feeders” for an entire week, and there will be lots of long car rides which means cheap nasty food will be around me all the time.  Which means temptations will be greater than usual.  After that, it’s a vacation to Wyoming, and staying there for a week. Lord knows I am going to have everything forbidden thrown in my face over there. Its time to make a list of things I need to buy at the grocery store when I get there.  I guess the reason why I am sharing this is because I need to validate and mentally prepare for it.  Two whole weeks of vacation!  How am I going to work out?! Will I be able to maintain Keto?! I think the 11 weeks of keto I have done are a good solid base for me to stand on. I have MFP and my self-discipline, that should keep me straight, right?!  I would like it if I came back from vacation having lost some weight rather than having gained weight. Let’s see if I can do it!

In the meantime, I will Keep Calm and Keto On, continue to kick ass at the gym, pool and pavement.

Funny little side note : A friend admitted to me that she didn’t think I could keep up my diet and exercise for long, thought I would have quit weeks ago…. and I am still going! HA!

Week 11, Day 2

Went for my week 7 day 1 run tonight. 25 mins of running! I did it! I am pretty happy about it. I thought I would have had my ass kicked and that I would be swearing and regretting ever starting running but that isn’t the case. My feet are a little sore tonight. It might be time for me to start saving up my dimes and pennies for a new pair of running shoes.

I got my blood work back from the Dr. and I am happy to report that all of my levels are looking good! Except for my thyroid, the numbers were a bit high, which puts me into the hypothyroidism range.  A few weeks back I went in there complaining about how my weight loss has stalled. The doctor told me to up my calories, and guess what happened, I went in on Monday and they weighed me… up 1.5 pounds.  The doctor told me it was most likely due to my thyroid. Now, I am taking thyroid medication. Not at all too happy about it, BUT if it helps me shed these unwanted pounds then I certainly will not complain!

I am going to try a new goal for the month of July. NO DRINKING ALCOHOL! IT will be  Dry-July challenge. I could certainly use a buddy for this. I welcome you all to join me 🙂 it can be a joint endeavor. If not, well, I am sure I will be on here complaining often.  My social life kinda revolves around drinking, so my friends are gonna have to deal with a Sober Shana. Sorry guys.  I have a feeling that drinking is seriously impeding my weight loss. Instead of burning up fat, my body is burning up alcohol and before it gets around to burning fat again, I go ahead and give it more alcohol to burn. That cycle must end.  Plus, it’s just not healthy.

This whole next week is going to be an interesting one. I am down to my last 30 bucks. I have a full 5 meals planned for dinners, the rest is gonna have to be either leftovers, or something creative.  Needless to say, I didn’t meal plan very well for these past 2 weeks. I was slightly lazy and enjoyed the pool nearly every afternoon, focused on getting to the gym, and catching up on reading. It’s going to be tight, but I feel up for the challenge 🙂

See you soon,

– Shana ❤

Listen to your body- Week 9, Day 7

This concept has proven to be a difficult one for me to grasp in the past. It’s easy to confuse the mind with the body when you don’t work at differentiating the two. Mind says one thing and the body says another (same goes for matters of the heart). It’s also easy for the mind to impose itself on the body.

“My body deserves this piece of chocolate cake.”

“I can get away with eating a handful (or 2 or 10) of Doritos.”

Do any of these sound familiar?  They were familiar to me also a couple of months ago, and sometimes my mind still tries to talk me into things I shouldn’t do. But today I had the opposite problem with my mind speaking for my body…

As you dear readers know, I am quite heavily into motivation. I post pictures of it, I talk about it nonstop, I vow nearly every post to that I will never give up. Well, I have many new phrases stuck in my head from listening to this amazing motivational speaker that I found online, and one  goes ” You have to want to succeed more than you want to sleep”.

Here is where my story comes into play. This morning I rose early with plans of going to a garage sale, picking up breakfast for my family and then hitting the gym. Sometime between the garage sale and the grocery store, I had an allergic reaction to something. I do not know what. I was covered on my legs and arms with red itchy spots. I was so incredibly uncomfortable that I took a healthy dose of Benadryl.  And just like that my plans to go to the gym became severely compromised. I could barely keep my eyes open. But the words

” you have to want to succeed more than you want to sleep”

kept playing on repeat in my head. I got my gym clothes on, and the kids got their bathing suits, I was determined to go to the gym. I want to succeed more than I want to sleep… Well, I walked into the building and I felt like I was going to fall asleep while standing. It was at this point I realized. I need to listen to my body, there was no way my mind could push through the sleepy haze I found myself in.

So, I listened and went back home and slept all afternoon, and woke up to clear skin. Success of a different kind.

I ended up eating a tortilla and fried breaded chicken for lunch because I was exhausted and hungry. This made the pain of not getting to the gym worse, BUT… I am going on a run tonight. So, Everything ended up just fine after all. I will just pretend this afternoon never happened  I will run my best tonight and work that much harder at spin class tomorrow. It’s all good.

Off course I wouldn’t sign off my blog tonight without leaving you a piece of encouragement and motivation. Here is the video I was talking about.

The words really resonate, very motivating.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my blog and sharing this little bit of life with me!

milestones and motivation – Week 9, Day 5

Motivation. I am drunk with it. I have been for 9 weeks. I live every day thinking about it, eating with it in mind, working out with it, when I lay my head down to sleep at night I think about it and then I dream about it. In my mind I have this vision of where my body can be if I keep working HARD. How my body will look if I keep pushing my limits in the gym. I am proud of myself for everyday that I stay true to my goals. This is what keeps me going more than anything else. I know that I didn’t get fat overnight, and I also know that I won’t get thin overnight either.

Last week I had gone to the doctor to get my blood work done. I want to make sure that my diet is making my body happy. My muscles may be as uncomfortable as all get out, but I need my organs to be running top notch. I stepped on the scale, and the medical assistant wrote it down. 163lbs. When the doctor came in, I asked her what I had weighed on my previous visit last February. 189lbs. yikes!!

Yesterday, I stepped on the scale, and this is what I saw.

Lets do some math : 189 – 158.5 = 30.5 🙂 I have officially lost 30 pounds!

I was elated! I still am. I celebrated last night with a couple of glasses of wine with my dear friend, ended up pretty toasted and woke up this morning with a terrible hangover. Feeling like I was hit by a truck, I threw on my gym clothes and went to spin class with a raging headache and nausea. Typically, I am pretty good at keeping up with the instructor but this morning, I was dragging. Hard. By the time class was over, I was feeling unsatisfied with my performance, and sick. So, I went home, rested, napped, and ate. Sometime around dinner, I decided I was going back to the gym. I HAD to get my satisfaction. And I DID! I feel so much better 🙂 30 mins on the treadmill doing 4mph on an incline up to 8.5. I kicked my ass. Also, did 10 mins of abs.

I wanted to share a picture of me in Feb. when I was at my heaviest, and one that I took yesterday of my face for comparison.

I’m not at my goal yet, but it feels damn good to see progress! Really.Damn.Good.

Things just got interesting (Week 9, Day 3)

It used to be that I could maintain my keto eating separately from my family. But, now that I am jobless, this changes things in a big way. Now, I have to feed myself on keto and keep 4 other bellies full on 120$ a week. This brings a whole new challenge into my life! Before I had financial wiggle room and could spread my wings and buy all sorts of keto-centric things, Not anymore! Luckily, I have all my staples pretty well stocked and that’s where the majority of the expense is. I am slightly stressed about this, but like being on a diet and a workout schedule. This will be a challenge I will face head on. I am not about to let all the hard work I have put into this (9 weeks, 3 days) go to waste and go back to the old way of eating. I just flat-out refuse! This might mean, however, that I have to change HOW I keto… Frozen veggies, cheap cuts of meat. Which ( if I was smart), I would have been doing all along. leave ti to me, to stress out about things like this AFTER the fact. After I quit working, after I blow all my money at the grocery store without planning ahead. *sigh* This is how I learn though, by fucking up and finding out how to fix it. So, I guess, it’s an ass-backwards positive thing.

The new challenges I face make the whole initial premise of this blog seem like mere child’s play. Now, instead of focusing my efforts on just my will-power and determination, I have to make room for the menu-planning, sale-searching, deal-finding side of things. UGH. Boooooooo! Reminds me of those terrible reality shows of obsessive coupon clippers. I refuse to go that route.

In light of everything going on in life, I got to catch up with a dear friend over couple cups of coffee and catch up on things, it was nice! Afterwards with my newly found caffeine buzz, I felt like going to the gym! And found my other buddy there. haha!
I ended up doing 35 minutes of cardio, and lifted weights. How much can Shana lift?? a whopping 5 lbs per arm. I know, I know… curb your enthusiasm. When lifting with both arms I can lift… *drum roll please* 10lbs! hahah! But I’m not worried, today was the first day I even tried to lift. I plan on working on arms at least 2x a week. Strength and Toning and whatnot. Baby steps.

Time for me to inventory my pantry and fridge, and then clean. At least I started the day doing fun stuff. 🙂

See ya tomorrow!

– Shana

A letter to Fat

Dear Fat,

 I’m writing you this to let you know 2 things. The first one is, I’m breaking up with you. The second one is, I’m kicking you out. So, let this letter serve as your eviction notice as well.

  I know you have been living here for over 10 years, that I have been feeding you, and that you basically could get mail delivered here. But, the fact of the matter is, I am sick of looking at you, you do nothing but weigh me down and make me feel bad. I want to be able to look in the mirror and be like “Damn, I look good.”, not “Damn, I look fat.” I know that I have been enabling you to stay here, I know that it’s my fault that I let this toxic relationship go on for as long as it has. None of that matters now. What matters is that I am responsible for my happiness and that happiness doesn’t involve you in any way. So, I am going to keep up on my keto, and I am going to WORK MY ASS OFF to lose you. I know you are stubborn, but I am more stubborn and this is my body. Plus, since I have been running and eating better, I have been starting to see some muscles that live right beneath you. My god, muscles are damn sexy. SO MUCH SEXIER than you! AND muscles make me feel better about myself, make me feel sexy, too! I feel proud when I am seen with muscles. I would like to see more of them. I am choosing muscles over you. Bye, fat.

Love, Shana

Can I get a “HELL YEAH”?!

Bright and early this morning, I stood in front of my scale. Hesitating and wondering if I should wait until Friday before I weighed myself. I shrugged and said “fuck it”, stepped on the scale, AND……. *drum roll*

I have officially lost 20 pounds! 🙂

The smile that swept across my face and the tears of joy that met the corners of my smile made every moment, every temptation, doubt and fear worth it. I feel triumphant today, even though the road ahead of me is only halfway completed… I fucking made it halfway. It almost feels as if I am at a new starting point. New ground to stand on to work on making more progress.

Today was a beautiful day. I was happy for all of it. Tears of joy were always near the surface.

I went on the last day of week 4 on c25k. It was much easier that the earlier 2 days. However, during the last 5 minute cooldown, walking down the road to my house at the corner of a busy street, my elation was somewhat popped. A car with 2 young boys driving by yelled out their window about ” look at that ass shake!!!” and they erupted in laughter. Is it enough to make me give up running HELL NO, is it enough to make me give up and stop all the hard work? HELL NO. Is it motivation to keep moving forward and not give up? yeah.

did it hurt my happy feelings? yeah. a little. I know I shouldn’t let it. I know that I have no emotional investment in these strangers that yelled at me out the side of their car. I know that I should shrug it off and say ” fuck em ” and move on. I don’t understand why I am letting that deflate me even a little bit. Wish I knew.

What does it teach me? well, I have learned all those lessons early on in my 20s, to not be a fucking asshole. Maybe, their lessons have yet to be learned. I swear, sometimes I think the youth of today are being raised by a pack of wolves. No manners, no social graces, no common courtesy. I don’t mean that for everyone, but for the assholes I run into, that’s what I tend to think.

ANYWAYS, look at that, a sad little paragraph where I was proud, and 3 larger ones of complaints and grievances about something that was said in the span of 2 seconds. That’s stupid! I worked SEVEN WEEKS on losing this 20 pounds! What kind of idiot would I be to let a remark that took all of 2 seconds, take any of that pride and happiness of 7 weeks of work away??
Silly, silly me 🙂