Today starts week 4, day 2….

Today starts week 4, day 2…..

Of the Eat to Live healthy eating/living plan…

Easy Fruit Breakfast with Coconut! Yummy!

And…..I feel fabulous!

This was my breakfast!   

As we, Sara, Matt, Winter and I have traveled this road together, our pace of life has changed, we no longer stop on the way home for whatever fast food sounds good to us and the kids, we now arrive at home and either help make our new food recipes or we warm up what we made in advance….

We have all lost weight, ( I have lost 11 pounds in 3 weeks) but that to me is not as important.....as the fact that we all have a better quality of life!  We have glowing skin, better digestion, immense energy and happier attitudes! Really! Our emotional health has been affected too!

GLOWING SKIN…..what a beautiful thing! I have also noticed that the lines next to my mouth that make me look like a puppet are diminished also….it is the food that I eat…the Eat to Live food plan for life……

Forbes Woman has an article: Foods To Make Your Skin Glow, and it explained why my skin is so awesome…..I am eating all these wonderful foods that are so good for me and I am NOT eating all these awful foods that are so bad for me.,….

My heartburn is still gone, my skin is clearing, my intestinal difficulties are much improved, I have more stamina, more energy……

I am not saying that sometimes this eating plan isn’t hard…sometimes it is….many times it is the detox effect that makes me crave soda, chocolate, chips, etc….many times it is the emotional eating rearing its ugly head….I had a really stressful week this week and I craved my usual Maverick Bahama Momma dog, chips and a Pepsi several times….but I resisted and have been rewarded with a healthier body and life.

Last week our  team at work had a BBQ in 7 minutes...I was really anxious…I was hungry and I was sure my lunch wouldn’t compare with the BBQ and all the trimmings......I wanted chicken too.....what was I saying? I hate chicken...but I wanted to eat bbq'd food too....I knew that my lunch was tasty and would fill me up...but I felt cheated....

Mango Back-Bean Salad

In retrospect, I did fine!!!  The mango-black-bean salad was awesome and was actually really very tasty!!!  

I was pretty proud that I did so well....everyone could tell that I was doing something different than they were...everyone asked....I explained what I was doing the best that I could...really it is Sara who is the expert and her and Winter are saving my life...

My children are saving my life…..

I make my own luck…………

Where I work, it is a sales job and if you don’t meet your quota, you are canned…and quickly…

I usually do pretty well and am either at the top of my floor in sales or do well enough to be off the radar…

Though, what this means is that on a regular basis my friends get fired.

I hate that, good people, people with kids, people with plans; they get fired for not making a certain number of sales.  Never mind that the training can be deficient, the equipment sorely lacking and the quality of true leads non-existent,…no, they are expected to meet a quota and when they don’t, they get fired.

About 2 weeks ago another team member and I were talking about this very thing, she told me, “every day I am afraid for my job, I am afraid that I will get fired.” We talked about this for a while and she felt that is was only our team that is this nervous…..I wondered about that…is the manager of our team prone to quick firings and ramping up our nerves, or does this feeling permeate the whole floor of 60-70 sales reps.

Right after this conversation, I saw one of the TOP reps from the team that I was on 3 months ago. I asked him, “Are you ever afraid for your job?” to which he replied, not really, I asked, “Do you need this job for money, or is it just something for you to do in your retirement?”, he explained that the money is good, but he needed it for the insurance.  Then he said something really profound, “I don’t worry about things that I can’t control.”

I walked away vowing that I would never say something so incredibly stupid in my entire life, because as you see…..I MAKE MY OWN LUCK….

1 week later he was fired for not making quota.

I make my own luck…..I know the deal here, I am not stupid…..I sit on this dialer everyday and I make my own luck, I search for jobs, I apply for jobs and I work my ass off to MAKE MY OWN LUCK….

Part of not being  ‘PAUSED’ is not to let anyone else control my destiny but me…..I work hard to have a positive attitude because this enables you to make the best of every situation, giving you power over your circumstances instead of allowing your circumstances to have power over you!        

                                                                                     

                                                    I am reading this book...it is just FABULOUS!!!

McDonalds French Fries addiction......

Tomorrow dawns the beginning of week 3….I will have been on the Eat to Live plan for 14 days. As the eating plan becomes more mainstream in my life,  I realize that some food was and is an addiction for me….

Have you ever heard a song that just totally changed your mood and made you so sad and so sorry for yourself that you went from happy to crying in 5 seconds flat? That happened to me on the way home from work today. About 5 minutes after I was just thrown into the pit of despair, I passed a bill board with a HUGE picture of McDonalds French Fries on it, now I wasn’t hungry, but I remembered exactly what those French Fires would taste like and how salty they were and how yummy they were and I knew, I knew, that if I got a jumbo size and sat and ate it that I would feel happy again…..

And so it is true…..I would feel happy to stuff myself with those French Fries…I would lay there and feel satisfied and feel content…never mind that his kind of eating got me to the 3 ring circus of obesity, pre-diabetes and most likely heart disease…but when food is used for comfort….

But……….. I didn’t stop and buy any, instead I reflected on my mood, my sadness and what food used to do for me….and instead of drowning my sorrows in a McD’s FF box, I came home to write about it instead…

I read the excerpt of this poor girls abduction....it is very well written and thought provoking.....

Day 7........hit a WALL.........

Please take pity on me and show me your love and concern…..

I am hiding in my cubby thoroughly victimized and heartsick!!! There are sandwich fixings in the break room!!! I am not hungry BUT I WANT TO EAT THEM!!!

I have had the WORST 24 hours!

So far I have written about how wonderful, AWESOME and MIRACULOUS the ‘Eat to Live’ plan is!

It has been all rainbows and unicorns….

LAST NIGHT it wasn’t!

YOU can’t overcome emotional eating in a week and NEITHER can I!

It is obvious that I am an emotional eater…food soothes me….or rather I trained myself to let food soothe me…

There are those people who deal with their stress in other ways than eating….sometimes their ways are not healthy either……. 

When you use food for comfort, it shows.

I have had a pretty easy go of so far…no cravings, no desire to emotionally eat…

THEN last night I hit the WALL!  It had been a terribly anxious day at work, 2 co-workers were fired, friends of mine from my own team....

No matter how hard you work here, you have to have the numbers and my friends just didn’t..... a lot of us struggle to get the numbers…I am usually okay with mine, but this environment is so frightening at times…the constant concern, the fear, “is this the day that they tire of me and my numbers?”     

By the time I got home I was a nervous wreck……the cravings started about a half an hour before I left work, I was being pulled by a heavy-duty magnet to the vending machine for crackers, cookies, a BEAR CLAW!

I resisted, but again by the time I got home I was struggling. I wanted a Maverick Bahama Mama hot dog, kettle chips and a Pepsi, a far cry away from the plant based diet that I had been eating….I laid on my bed and the urge was so strong to give in….

I wasn’t hungry, but that is NOT the point and NEVER is to an emotional eater….I KNEW THAT THE Bahama Mama hot dog, kettle chips and a Pepsi would make me feel better! I can’t explain it, but it really does…..

But that is unhealthy, I resisted the urge.....

I remembered talking with my counselor as he asked me what the other people around me did to deal with stress…the ones that aren’t overweight…and so I went and played an hour of Plants vs. Zombies….the game distracted me, I was able to go to sleep later and the urgings passed with the dark (kinda)….PHEW!!!

Weighed in today...........Day 6............

So even though it is NOT about the weight (yeah right) I weighed in today....

I have a gym at work and I am going to weigh in on that scale every Monday to make sure that I have a benchmark from the beginning...

Remember that I weighed at the Dr's office on Wednesday and was 275, today I weighed 273.5. 

I feel better in my clothes and other than still feeling a bit fatigued from being so sick....I have TONS of mental clarity and energy! ( still NO hint of heart burn)

Tonight for dinner Sara made curry something and for desert an apple crisp..(remember no salt, no sugar, no carbs, no oils)

Very tasty!

Fall 2009

I can do this!!!



I can make healthy changes for my life!



I can grab life by the tail and make it wag!

No kidding! Simple Bean Burgers for dinner....

Ending Day 5 and I am feeling pretty good.....

Tonight's dinner was 'Simple Bean Burgers' from the recipe portion of the 'Eat to Live' (EtoL) book.

We all went into this with some trepidation after we read the recipe at lunch:

mashed red beans, mashed sunflower seeds,  finely chopped onion, a few spices, ketchup (YAY!!!) maybe something else....then baked.

But I have to tell you, the thought of a mashed bean burger, didn't have me too excited for dinner...

All in all? It was pretty good!  We had these tiny little healthy bun type thingys and we ate them like real hamburgers. We can have all the mustard that we want, so we had them with Dijon mustard and a nice thousand island dressing that Sara made from the 'EtoL' book.

Sara has been working on dip and dressing recipes for me. I am a true Hidden Valley Ranch fan and I adore the 'real' Thousand Island dressing...

Thanks to Sara for all her hard work! 

As I learn this new eating plan and see the benefits; 5 days no heartburn, circulation better (swelling continues to reduce in my ankles), weight loss and clearer mentally, I see all the horrid food that exists in my house and I want to share this better way of eating with my kids....

This morning I was so excited to introduce to my adorable much-loved 11 yr old son, Tuffy, to a breakfast of blueberrys, bananas, sunflower seeds and a tiny drizzle of soy milk.

Ha! After cajoling, temper tantrums, and a talking to; he decides to 'try' a bite. As soon as the very small spoonful reaches his tongue he starts gagging and runs to the bathroom and dry heaves over the sink while crying for 5 minutes....

EPIC FAIL........he gets it from his brother!

This is not about weight loss....but I am excited to lose weight....

I don't feel much different than I did here on August of 1979...

I just want to say that I am excited to lose weight.....

I am really looking forward to weighing myself tomorrow

I have struggled for 20 years with my weight being over 200 pounds, before my surgery I was at my highest at 288 pounds....On Wednesday I weighed 275...

By looking at my surgery and the cost of it...by asking myself and my family to sacrifice and support me, I don't ever want to let them down.....

My surgery was a transformation and started me on a journey that I want to continue....

The surgery to remove my pannis was HUGE! I had an immediate 'better quality of life', I have more self confidence and can move freer.

Soon I will start to post about what the surgery actually entailed and how I look and am feeling about it today.

I must say that I also have a lot of apprehension about losing weight...I am scared, what if I fail....So many people want to see me healthier and around for a very long time....I don't want to fail them or myself....

Day 5......thinking about other things....

Day 5 dawns a rather sleepy Sunday for me....but also with the knowledge that my last day home with my family and relaxin’ is over...........

..onto another facet of my life, my career....this is one area that I am truly NOT happy with!

I went back to college after 30 years and 1.5 credits in January of 2008. I worked my ass off, many times walking up the stairs of UVU with tears running down my face. There aren't many places in a campus setting for a 50 yr old and I keenly felt all my rough edges...

I had it better than most, I had TONS of acquaintances and friends from my hockey days, but still there were so many problems and issues and heart-aches...

I sacrificed time with my family, my children and my grandkids, there were more days than I can count that I felt guilty for being with my grandkids while my homework went undone.....

In April I walked in the graduation ceremonies and now I am waiting to finish one online class this fall and then my diploma comes in the mail....WOW! It went by so fast, my degree in Business and Communication is something that I am very proud of! 

BUT.....

It was supposed to be a springboard for me to get a great job….

I don’t have that job yet…..I work for a company that does NOT value their employees, 2 of the TOP managers in our sales teams have left for other pastures in the last 3 months with the same advice to me, “get a new job”. 

My skills in Marketing and Communications are solid and exemplary, this week of contemplation has really helped me define my job search and I am refining my resume and focus…

This morning I wake up ready to tackle the world again….is this the energy that I was told that I would find from ‘EATING TO LIVE’?