Day 8 and cupcakes! OY!

Day 8 (3/8) was pretty uneventful for the most part. I had my first day of physical therapy and found out that my range of motion hasn't suffered too much. I just need to strengthen my muscles a bit more and still have some pain to get through. But it's nice to feel like I'm progressing a bit further to actually exercising the way I want to.

One thing that I learned on day 8 is that I'm not as hungry as I used to be...and since my cravings are slowly fading, I'm not eating out of boredom. I nearly forgot lunch until about 3pm and finally just downed a quick Premier Protein shake just to get some calories in me.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased the premium version of My Fitness Pal so that I can track my macros (carbs, protein, fat) more carefully. The goal that I set after using a pretty neat keto calculator is 1400 cals, 40 net carbs (or less), 100g protein and 93g fat every day. And Day 8 came pretty close! I came in at 1280cal, 28 net carbs, 100g protein and 82 fat. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around needing to eat more fat since essentially what I'm doing is training my body to use that for fuel instead of carbs. It's definitely an adjustment.

The hardest part of the day came when my 13 year old and I attended the baby shower of one of my dear friends and her old Young Women's president (church). All night long there was sugar everywhere it seemed! Most noticeably in the cupcakes that the girls had made themselves. Anyone who knows me knows that baked goods are a huge trigger/weakness for me!

My poor daughter kept looking at me with sad eyes and so I gave her a hug and reminded her that this was her choice and that if she really wanted a cupcake she could choose to have one. But she said she really wanted to do this with me and passed on all the treats being passed around. I was so proud of her! We talked about how there will always be treats available and when our 3 months is up, we'll enjoy something that will be totally worth the wait. One thing I've really been trying to tell myself when I have to pass up treats is that I'm just passing them up for now. They still exist. I can always get one later. It's not a once in a lifetime opportunity I'm passing up.

So day 8 was another success although I'll admit I'm getting a bit frustrated with the scale. It was 278.8 this morning, so at least it didn't go up again...but it should be going DOWN! Hopefully it's just my body adjusting to all the changes. I know the first week's loss was a lot of water weight and now my body is trying to figure out what's next. This is where I struggle though. When I don't see change...I tend to give up. But not this time. I can wait it out. I have to.

Week 1 results...and pizza. mmmm pizzaaaaaaaaaaaaa......

As yesterday (Day 7 - 3/7/17) came to a close, I couldn't believe I had actually gone an entire week with NO sugar and NO bread/pasta/potatoes/grains. Seriously. Who does that??? I think I did it once before when I tried out the South Beach diet, but for some reason it didn't feel quite this extreme. Maybe because I knew it would only be a couple weeks. And for some reason...this time...my hardest day came on day 7.

I honestly thought that if the rest of the week had been pretty easy...that maybe I had gotten lucky and my cravings were gone and it'd just be smooth sailing from here. HA! I got a bit cocky and I guess the cravings were punishment. On the menu for my dinner I had put bacon-wrapped avocado fries. I was really wanting something indulgent, but also very low carb. Since my husband and I are the only ones who will eat them, however, I decided I was strong enough to order pizza for the kids. And not just any pizza...STUFFED CRUST pizza. See how cocky I was? I was sure that I could handle it. I was now super woman and nothing could tempt me! BRING IT ON PIZZA HUT!

Yeah, not so much. The pizza came way before the bacon avocado fries were ready and as I was cutting up Cooper's slice, it hit me. HARD. Pizza is probably my biggest non-sugar weakness. I could eat it all the time. Seriously. I LOVE PIZZA. But after a whole week of no bread whatsoever, this tiny slice of stuffed crust cheese pizza looked like heaven and smelled even better. I looked at his litte pieces cut up and thought to myself, "I can just have one little bite. It will satisfy my craving and then I can move on." And I almost did it. But for the first time in as long as I can remember, I was able to remember what that kind of food does to me and how slippery a slope it is for me. So I finished cutting it up for him and then ran to hide in my room while the kids ate their pizza. I did take 2 garlic parmesan wings that we'd ordered because they're low carb and I thought maybe they would tide me over until my dinner was ready.

As I sat in my bedroom, I got onto Facebook and logged into my group and pleaded with my friends to talk me out of marching back into the kitchen and saying screw it. I REALLY wanted that pizza. My stomach was twisting and my mouth was watering and it was almost scary..the reaction my body had to knowing it was in the next room. And as I knew they would, the comments flooded in...and they saved me from myself. Such a small thing was such a big deal to me and I can't thank them enough. I truly could not embark on a journey like this with out so many amazing and supportive friends and family.

So I survived. I didn't have a single bite of pizza. Not one. And at the end of the day I was at 27g net carbs, which is really hard for me to do. For breakfast I had tried my first "1 carb waffle" which was actually 2 carbs because that's what's in my protein powder...and it felt good to at least FEEL like I was eating a waffle! haha. Lunch was a fajita salad that was to die for. Romaine and power greens topped with steak and chicken, peppers, onions, salsa, cheese, guac and sour cream. Definitely going to have to make that one a regular.

It's been a week, but I'm still learning what affects my body in what ways. I had very low carbs yesterday, but I was extremely high in sodium, which I'm definitely feeling today and which is why the scale isn't as low as it was yesterday. But it's just water retention and that's okay! I'm learning that on this kind of diet, more sodium is actually necessary because of the amount of electrolytes lost. I'll figure out what works best for my body eventually.

So what's the grand weight loss tally after 7 days? Well when I made the decision to do this I was 284.1lbs. Not a number I'm happy to be sharing. It's hard to admit that I was 15lbs higher than I was at 9 months pregnant in December of 2014. but it's the last time I'm going to see it, so say goodbye. On the morning of day 7, I weighed in at 277.2, which is 6.9lbs down and I was pretty excited about that! Now that day 7 is over, today's weight was 278.9...but I'm not too worried about it because I can physically feel the water I'm retaining and know that it will most likely be gone tomorrow.

I'm excited to see what week 2 brings and to hopefully start working out a bit more! I can totally do this!

Day 6 and the evil Girl Scout Cookies...

Day 6 was a Monday and Monday's are typically easy for me because they're the day before my Jilly's Losers weigh-ins. So it's always been mentally easy for me to eat healthy and drink lots and lots of water. And I did just that.

And then...our girl scout cookies that were ordered months ago showed up. 11 boxes to be exact. Samoas, thin mints, trefoils...and other ones that don't tempt me, but the kids wanted haha. Since girl scout cookies are a once a year thing, we always stock up so that they'll last us a while. Have you ever tried a thin mint from the freezer? Yeah...I can eat a whole sleeve by myself. And samoas are like coconut crack, but if you saw their calorie count you'd die. I never tried Trefoils (shortbread ones) until about 2 years ago and I wish I never had. I'm the only one in my house who likes them so they disappear....all by my hand. Man. I love girl scout cookies. But of course when we ordered them, I didn't know I was going to be doing this no sugar thing!

So my daughter's best friend showed up with our cookies last night (since my girls no longer do girl scouts themselves)...and the girls were SO excited. And then it hit them. We can't eat these....for 3...more...months. WHAT!?!?!?! They did this kind of...laughing cry. Like they couldn't believe what they'd gotten themselves into and they saw the irony in all of this.

So we looked at the boxes. We ooo'd and ahhh'd and hugged them goodbye. And then we hid them away in the cold storage room that we never go in so that we won't think about them for a few months. (Frankly, I won't be surprised if it's October before we go "Oh yeah! we have cookies!") But we did it. We didn't open a single box. Gregory has opted out of the no sugar thing, so he took his box of Tagalongs and hid it in his room and I'm fine with that. I also left out a box of the new cookies (S'mores) for Cooper to try/have because they don't tempt me at all. But the rest may as well not even exist. I will not let a cookie break me! haha.

With my weigh in today, I'm excited at how much I'm down after 6 days! But I'll post here once I've weighed in tomorrow after 1 full week of no sugar/low carb. It's obvious to me now that it works. If it didn't, I'd be in the kitchen making me some Grandma Sycamores toast right now! But it does...so I'm going to keep going.

My week of strict menu planning from my group challenge ended yesterday, but it worked so well for me and saved me so much stress that I decided to keep doing it. So I have my menu all planned up for the week (including snacks) and I'm going to stick to it! I just wish time would go faster!

Day 5, fast Sunday...

Day 5 was a bit different because it was fast Sunday.  What this meant is that I abstained from food & water for 2 meals...so I had to plan a bit differently for the day. I made my favorite chicken chili in the crockpot while we were gone and despite being so hungry by dinnertime, still only enjoyed a single bowl with some cheddar cheese and light sour cream on top. And I didn't make corn bread this time!! I don't think I could have resisted it, so I just didn't make any. No one else seemed to notice ;)

For "dessert", I cut up a HUGE bowl of gorgeous strawberries and since my girls are doing no sugar with me and suddenly saw Strawberries as the most delicious treat in the world...that bowl was gone in less than 2 minutes. It's amazing how much sweeter fruit tastes when you give up other forms of sugar and your taste buds adjust.

One of the hard things about fast Sunday was not getting a start on my water until the afternoon. I like to drink 80-100oz a day and to not start on that until 3pm was HARD. I think I managed about 60...and with the sodium from the chili I am definitely feeling a difference the morning after. Water is SO important and I think so many people forget that.

At the end of the day, I went to complete my food journal on myfitnesspal.com and it wouldn't even let me. Instead it gave me a lecture about eating less than 1000 calories (I was just under 800) and said it wouldn't reward me for it by posting that I'd completed my journal and been under my calories on the main wall for all to see lol. I can totally understand this and think it's a good way to make sure people eat enough...but it still made me chuckle to see that. I have NEVER seen it before in all the years I've been tracking my food. Eating enough has never been my problem. Oddly enough, I still felt plenty full!

This morning, however, when I weighed in to see how day 5 affected me, it was the first time all week that the scale hadn't changed from one day to the next. I'm sure that uh...mother nature's visit is playing a role in that but I also feel as though the lack of water and not eating enough may have made a difference. It will be interesting to see what the scale does on my official weigh-in day for my group (always Tuesdays) after 6 days of completely clean, sugar-free and low carb eating. Hard to believe it's only been 5 days though. At least it hasn't been horrible. Yet.

Day 4 (3/4/17) and the unexpected bagels...

For the past few weeks, I've been able to start working at the gym again behind the front desk doing various busy work and making phone calls. While it's no Zumba class, it's been a lot of fun getting to see another side of my second home and to meet some more of the staff! But this week I got lucky. Rather than spend my Friday afternoon calling people I don't know (which gives me major anxiety), I got to go in at 6am on Saturday and help run the staff mini-triathlon! I was in charge of tracking their bike split up in the spin room and while it was absolutely madness (which caused me to break a major sweat from weaving in and out of 30 bikes with my stupid boot on)..it was a total blast.

After everyone was finished, there was breakfast in the party room. And they had my very favorite bagels in the whole world. Einstein bros cinnamon sugar.....with shmear. My heart sank when I walked in. Bagels are definitely not low carb and they are definitely not on my meal plan for this week. But after 4 successful days (and several pounds lost already) I was NOT going to cave for a bagel that I can always get in a few months. So I sat there...and socialized...and said "no thank you" several times...and I SURVIVED IT haha. I know this sounds simple and stupid, but when you've had no control for almost 3 years straight (or at least it felt that way to me)...this was a huge deal.

Someone up there knew I needed the will power and helped my 5:30am protein shake last me until lunch. And I'm grateful for that.

For lunch I had planned a "salad w/grilled chicken". I kept it vague on purpose so I could be a bit flexible with where I got it and what I put on it. Since after the mini-tri I had to go and sit at Emma's gymnastics club for 2 hours while she did team photos...I was pretty hungry by the time we left at 11. She asked if we could go to Subway. My first instinct was to say no, but then I remembered that you can make any sandwich into a salad! SO I DID! And I was converted. For only 200 calories I got to have my favorite sweet onion chicken teriyaki in a salad. It was HUGE...with spinach and lettuce mixed, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, chicken and just a bit of the sweet onion sauce. I only ate half of it and it was sooooo delicious. I will definitely be making this a regular so that I don't feel so deprived without the bread.

We had planned to be out and about with the kids around dinnertime so I had made sure to pre-plan for it on my menu with a Carl's Jr. chicken club lettuce wrap. They are SO good and I feel like I'm still indulging while still keeping it low carb. And I'm proud to say I didn't steal a single french fry from my kids dinners! That...was hard.

So day 4 was definitely more of a temptation, but I made it through unscathed. And honestly, it's already getting easier. I'm hoping that trend continues. But seeing the scale move is definitely motivation to keep on going. Hopefully in one more week I can start adding back in some more exercise as I get to start trying to walk in sneakers again! Fingers crossed.

Days 2 and 3...annnnnd 93 more to go :-/

Since Day 3 is almost over and I didn't have time to write about yesterday, I'll just knock them out together in one entry. My goal is to write about every day on this 96 day journey though it's merely for my benefit and I don't expect people to stay riveted by every entry haha.

Day 2 had far less temptations, which helped immensely. But more than anything I'm becoming more and more grateful to have planned out every single thing I will eat through next Monday night. Taking the decision making out of each meal has made this SO much less stressful than it usually is and I honestly think I may start making this a regular thing for me.

However, one thing I've learned from trying to meal plan every single thing that goes in my mouth...is that I did not plan nearly enough calories. A lot of people in my group are finding the same thing. I don't know if it's that we graze and snack a lot more than we realize we do...or if we were all just really determined to plan for a super healthy week and overdid it a bit. Thus far I've been under 1200 calories every day, which in the long term isn't something I would ever be able to handle...especially once I'm back to working out.

Day 2 also included a workout at home, which felt good to do. I put on my headphones and worked through some of my old Zumba choreography in the chair just to make sure I don't forget it for when it's time to start teaching again. Then I got down on the floor and got in some much needed ab work. It really is frustrating how quickly you lose muscle and cardiovascular endurance when you're not working out. I have a lot of work to do to get it back (and then some!) But getting in a 550 calorie workout and only eating 1200 calories is something I would never do or tell anyone else to do...at least not as a regular thing. Luckily it didn't seem to affect me too much, but I won't be making a habit out of it.

Day 3 was a big one for me. My 10 year old had her first gymnastics meet (which we'd already paid for) at a gym an hour away from home. Since it was during the day, Nathan had to work which meant I got to really drive for the first time since my injury. I was nervous...and it felt very weird to try and fit back into my Converse sneakers in the car, but my foot felt great and I felt safe and we made it there and back with no issues! More importantly, she did a GREAT job at her meet and we got to stop at my favorite place for lunch (pre-planned) on the way home.

Zupas has these amazing protein bowls that I can't get enough of. My favorite is called the Mexi-cali braised pork protein bowl. It has kale, which normally I cannot stand...but SO good in this bowl, red/yellow peppers, black beans, corn, pork, quinoa and guacamole. So it's a bit high in carbs, but still far more healthy than most things you would get in a restaurant. And I didn't even finish it. We had also packed healthy snacks for the early morning drive so that we wouldn't be tempted to stop for a McGriddle haha.

Nathan and the kids have been doing great so far with the no sugar thing! I've been very impressed. That is...unless they're sneaking it while they're at school haha. I know this isn't going to be easy for any of us, but hopefully it will get easiER at least.

So Day 3 isn't quite over yet, but I think I can call it a success. I decided to try something fun with my Quest Cookies n' Cream protein shake tonight and put it in the freezer to see if I can pass it off as ice cream. We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow will be a bit tougher. Fingers crossed.

Day 1 down...barely!

The universe knew I was embarking on a new journey because Day 1 (3/1) was TOUGH. I coordinated the weekly challenge in Jilly's Losers with my no-sugar/low carb journey to give me a little extra motivation and I think it actually helped me to stay on track despite the temptations.

Our challenge this week in my group is to create a meal plan for the entire week, including all meals and snacks...and then stick to it 100% without eating a single thing that was not written down ahead of time. With a $200 prize on the table, this is a big one. But it was great for me because planning is where I struggle. So working out a full week's worth of meals/snacks and making sure to leave out anything that resembles dessert or bread/pasta/potatoes will make it easier to stick to it!

But before day 1 was over, I had one sweet friend make me some healthy homemade no-bake cookies that smelled AMAZING!! And another friend brought my favorite sugar cookies (aside from my mom's that is) to our church meeting. It was unbelievably hard to say no to both these things, but I managed to do so. And hopefully my wonderful friends know how much I love and appreciate them!

Despite the temptations, I survived day 1 with a final count of 1200 calories and only 28g of net carbs! That's pretty great for me! Once 3pm hit, I was hit hard with the afternoon munchies, but a handful of almonds from my list and a LOT of water helped me through it until dinnertime.

For dinner, Nathan grilled steaks (that man makes the best steaks I've ever had) and we tried some mashed cauliflower with cheddar and bacon. It was pretty good!!

More than anything else, it felt good to finally have ONE DAY of control and no sugar under my belt. 95 more to go.