Baked Stuffed Life: Getting Real With A Big Reveal!!

Before

I've been at this for just about 3 1/2 months now. I hit the halfway point in early July and I was pretty proud of myself. I made the promise that I would lose 20 lbs and by July I had lost 10 lbs., gained lots of lean muscle and dropped almost two sizes!! Whatever that "thing" is that clicks on in your head--you know, that mechanism that engages and makes you feel guilty when you even think about skipping the gym, that thing where you no longer crave the bad food and all you care about is fueling up on anything that screams "I'm healthy--pick me! pick me!"-- it was here to stay. I was on a roll! I looked back on my before pictures and I was so pumped that I didn't look like that anymore. More importantly, I didn't feel like I did when those pictures were taken.

I shared the idea of writing a blog about reaching the halfway point in my weight loss journey with several friends. While most were supportive, one friend in particular was somewhat horrified that I'd put myself "out there". I explained that a big part of this journey is an exercise in accountability. Accountability coupled with the fact that I'm the type of person who "needs the shame" to carry out the second half of this battle. It's not easy to show all your weaknesses but at the same time I know in my heart that I'm not alone. So many people struggle with this stuff. Overeating is the American way. We live in a culture of super sized everything and you have to consciously choose healthy living and healthy eating every single day. I just hope that my journey and my struggles will help just one other person.

While I view what I've accomplished so far as a success, it hasn't come without pitfalls. I've shared the good, the bad and the ugly with you along the way. I'm completely on track with the exercise portion of this transformation and for that I am eternally grateful to my trainer, Chris Engel. She's in this with me. She's been a coach and a mentor and my lifeline on the days when I just couldn't get out of bed. She ROCKS and I tell her so all the time!

With the diet portion of this journey I'm on my own and I've been struggling. I hit the ground running right out of the gate but when I hit that 10lb mark I got tired of it. I loosely kept to the eating plan and started to stray every once in a while. Ice cream reappeared on my daily menu. I'd eat well and stay on plan all day but when the sun went down I raced for the freezer. I made excuses to myself about it, joked about it, promised myself I'd knock it off before I got myself into trouble. Truth be told I had a bowl before sitting down to write this. It haunts me. I'm fine all day and it haunts me at night. That's not the only thing, I struggle with potato chips too. I don't have them every day but I do have them. Other than that, I stay on plan. If this is the big reveal then let's talk about water. I'm supposed to drink 3 litres a day. For the last two weeks I've barely had 1 litre a day and I can feel the difference. I need a swift kick in the backside. I've got to stay on plan.

I haven't lost any weight since I hit that 10lb mark. I'm not done, I still have so much work to do. I talked to Chris this morning about whether I've hit a plateau. She offered me information about it, referred me to several articles on the topic and said we could talk about it at length, perhaps tweak things a bit. We discussed keeping a food diary......uh oh. Busted. Is this a plateau? No, not in my mind. Time to get real. I recapped in my head--5 meals a day, a protein, a carb and a fat. Three litres of water, daily exercise, one meal off a week, one day off a week. Am I doing all that? No, I'm not, it's more like 3 meals a day, 1 litre of water if I'm lucky and daily ice cream binges. The only thing working in my favor here is the exercise and I'm damn lucky that I haven't really screwed things up at this point. I've worked so hard! I've got to get back on plan!!

My struggle will continue and I'll reach that mark and be better for it. With that said, here, as promised is the BIG REVEAL! I'm halfway there and I'm proud of myself so far. Stay with me, work with me and don't give up! I sure won't!!