Trim Healthy Mama Progress - Update!

"In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears." Psalm 18:6

I posted previously about my, Too Good To Be True experience on the fairly new and very popular, Trim Healthy Mama eating plan. 

It's been close to 2 months since my last progress post. By next Sunday I'll have been on the THM plan for 7 months. To date I'm at a total weight loss of 50 pounds. My heaviest weight having started at 180 pounds and currently I'm at 130 pounds. I'm only 5 pounds now from the goal I set. Just this week I moved out of the "overweight" range on the BMI chart to the "normal" range. Before starting THM I was in the "obese I" range.

This has just become a normal way of living for me. I have no desire to "cheat" because this way of eating so plentiful and satisfying that there is really no reason to. I do have planned cheats. Once a month I play Bunco with my friends and that is my cheat night. We have a potluck-style appetizers and it's just not realistic to try and eat on plan in that situation, so I made it a fun night where I get to have some off plan foods.

I would also like to point out that I have, for the most part, not used the recommended sweeteners. At the beginning I used stevia. I had been using stevia for 3-years already, but then a friend had written a blog post that pointed to stevia as a culprit for miscarriage. I dove into this further and read and read as much as I could find about it.  And while perhaps the evidence is just anecdotal, it struck a nerve with me.  From 2010 until just two weeks ago, I have miscarried FIVE pregnancies; all while using stevia in some form. I quit using stevia about a month into the THM plan, but didn't realize it was in the protein powder I was using until just a month ago. I also made the mistake of using Truvia for a short while after the stevia also without realizing it was stevia. My new Dr. is doing a full work up and testing to see if there can be another reason for the recurrent miscarriage. 

My main sweetener of choice has been coconut sugar. It's low on the glycemic index so it won't spike blood-sugar like regular sugar will. While it's not, "on plan",  it has not stalled or slowed down any of my weight loss. 

My friend started a facebook group geared toward whole foods for those who are not using on-plan sweeteners, but rather real food sweeteners like raw honey, dark maple syrup and coconut sugar. Here is the link if you're interested in joining. Trim Healthy Mama - whole foods style. 

And here's the evidence that this works. PICTURES!! 

5 1/2 months on plan

6 months on plan

7 months on plan and down a total of 50 pounds gone FOREVER!
180 pounds to 130 pounds
Size 14/16 to size 4. 

Breaking Radio Silence: Too Good To Be True "Trim Healthy Mama" Success

A couple of years ago I tried to lose a bunch of extra weight I had gained. These posts are here, here and here. I was doing well for the most part but it became too difficult to continue. I was HUNGRY! I had tried to limit myself to 1200 calories a day and remove sugar. I fell into a sort of depression after another  miscarriage I suffered in September of that same year. Despite continuing to eat mostly healthy and organic foods, grass-fed meats and raw milk, I gained most of the weight back and lost the motivation to try again.

I felt sick all the time. My body was in pain: migraines, carpal tunnel, headaches, knee pain, numbness in my legs and arms, and depression. Honestly, I hated myself, I hated the way I looked and the way I felt. I became overly critical of everyone and everything. I was just a miserable person. I prayed, I cried, I just wanted to feel better. The thought of exercise just depressed me more, my body hurt way too much. My marriage was suffering; we had a treacherous two years and actually discussed divorce. 

In January of this year I saw posts showing up on my Facebook news feed about, "Trim Healthy Mama". I "liked" their page so I could follow all these too-good-to-be-true success stories. These women were losing 20,30,100 pounds in short amounts of time. I figured this was probably a scam, this doesn't work for real people like me. Weight loss is hard, right? It requires tons of exercise, deprivation and being hungry. No thanks, I'm just not ready for this again.  I became more intrigued as the success testimonies came rolling in, so I looked up how to buy the book. The price of the book was discouraging, there is no way my husband will let me buy a diet book for $35. Oh well there went that idea. A month later in February I suffered another miscarriage, that was my breaking point: I had to get healthy; I had to buy this book. I sacrificed some things for that month and bought the book. 

I started my Trim Healthy Mama journey on March 10, 2014 at 170 pounds and a size 14/16. I'm only 5'1" so this weight put me in the obese category. My previous high weight from my original attempt to lose was 180 and size 16. I read the book and jumped in full speed ahead! I started following the plan with the utmost skepticism and my clothes started to become loose almost immediately. My weight began to fall and the more it fell the better I felt. I suddenly had more energy and my body was hurting less. 

This works! My current weight as of today  is 139 and I'm in a size 6. In just 5 months I am that too-good-to-be-true story. I have 14 pounds until my goal of a healthy BMI. I no longer have daily headaches, pains in my knees, carpal tunnel, numbness or depression. I feel fantastic! I have tons of energy and just the other day I was at the park with the kids and I was able to run with them all over the place. I was never able to run before. My menstrual cramps are nonexistent, before I had to take RX pain pills because the cramps were so painful; for the last 5 months I haven't even had to take an Advil.   This has been the easiest weight loss plan I've ever done. The food is real, delicious and plentiful. I never feel deprived or hungry. I still have chocolate and muffins and cake and cookies and ice cream.  I eat cheese and sour cream, eggs and bacon! 

I wish the font or my typed words could express how wonderful I feel and of course how grateful to God I am for answering my desperate prayers for help. This isn't about vanity, it's about health. If I'm not healthy how can I be a good wife and mother? Feeling better has helped me to be better in everything; I'm happier, more confident and excited to live my life. I have many friends who have now started THM just because of my success, I pray that they would feel as good as I do. 

Here are my photos: Warning this is going to be pic heavy. I always appreciate a lot of photos when I'm looking at someones weight loss and I would assume others out there feel the same. I've had a successful 31 pound weight loss in 5 months.

At my heaviest 180 pounds

My heaviest non-pregnancy 180 pounds

175 pounds

This is February prior to the latest miscarriage. I'm on the far left. 

This was one of my first progress photos. The picture on left was taken
 a few days before starting THM.
The center is after a couple of weeks and the right was after a month. 

Progress. The 150 photo was after 3 months on plan. 

Progress: 180 and 147

And this is my most recent photo taken last week at 141 pounds.
 I'm now at 139 pounds and wearing a size 6 and a small in tops. 

This all still seems too good to be true, yet here I am. It works!

Migraines and Baltic Amber Teething Necklaces

I have had migraine headaches since I was seven years-old. They are genetic in our family. They have been debilitating throughout times in my life. During my working days, I lost more than one job due to missed work because of migraines. I saw several Dr's, went to a Headache Clinic in San Francisco, tried a myriad of medicines, special diets, vitamins etc: but nothing helped. At age 23/24-ish, I quit all the medicines I was taking and the number of migraines began to lessen - by age 25 they were gone completely.

During January of my 29th year, they returned with a vengeance  I was coming down with 3 or 4 a month. They would come around the same dates of each month: the 6th and the 8th and the 20th and 22nd. These were, "aura warning" migraines. I'd start to lose vision in one eye, and that was my 30 minute warning to get to a place I could sleep before it was too late. After 30 minutes had elapsed, the migraine was in full force on the opposite side of my head from where the blindness occurred. It was the strangest thing that they had started back up. I still have no idea what to attribute it to. Maybe because I was getting ready to begin my 30's? Who knows.

At that time, I was also a smoker, having smoked on and off starting from age 13. On March 1, 2009, a few months after the migraines returned, I quit smoking - cold turkey and never went back. I was hoping that this would finally help make the migraines go away. No such luck.

After a year, the type of migraine I was getting changed from the, "warning aura" to a sneak-attack migraine. The sneak-attack ones are not as painful (to me) but are not easy to predict and that makes it harder to take the medicine in time to end it quickly. I have always taken Imitrex to stop them in their tracks. It works well, but makes me feel dumb. It gives me a floaty, strange, not-all-there feeling and my chest gets tight. It's rather unpleasant, however the migraine goes away after a nap and I can return to my regular duties.

This bit of history now leads us to the point of this post:

I'm hoping I can safely say this now. I heard great things about Baltic Amber necklaces from several friends who used them for their teething babies. I did some reading in preparation for the day when we have another little one. I soon learned that the amber necklaces help to heal much more than just teething pain. On the list from the website they state: reduces arthritis pain, reduces and PREVENTS MIGRAINE HEADACHES, golfing pain relief, baseball pitching elbow and shoulder, reduces acid reflux, heartburn, reduces and eliminates eczema, psoriasis, balances digestive system and GI track, improves sleep cycles, lifts over all mood and feelings of depression.  

I'm ALWAYS  a skeptic about migraine cures, as any chronic-migraine-sufferer will understand. People, having the best of intentions, always want to heal your migraines or they know someone who used this vitamin or that vitamin. In actuality, someone who has suffered migraines for years, has already tried just about everything anyone can recommend.  Graciously smiling, I appreciate the thought and care.

I purchased two adult sized necklaces for Adam and myself from this Baltic Amber Teething Necklace online store. Click here for the one I purchased. I bought one for Adam because of his chronic pain due to the hard labor from working. I wear my necklace all day and night except for showering. I've worn it, mostly everyday since I received it three months ago. I'm a bit leery to put this in writing, but so far, I have not had one single migraine. I still have had regular headaches, which I believe are allergy or weather related.

I'm not positive it's the necklace working, or the change in diet I started back in July. Possibly a combination of both, but the diet started 3 months before I got the necklace and I was still having migraines up to that point. Now, I have a box of Imitrex in my medicine cabinet that has gone untouched for 3 months. Normally I would have to take 3 to 6 in a month.

I hope this information is helpful to someone.

This is the Baroque Cognac Amber Necklace that Adam and I both wear daily.