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!

Weight loss progression photos

I don't notice it too much myself, but I can definitely see it in the pictures.

180 pounds

163 pounds

Weight Loss Progress

I'm still truckin' along but for the last 3 weeks I've been stuck at the same weight. I've been sticking to my 1200 calories for the most part, but I think the plateau is due to not enough exercise. I've upped my treadmill time to walking/running 1 mile as quickly as possible regardless of how long it takes. Whew! That is a bit of work.

I regret to inform that I don't have an updated photo, yet. It's coming, eventually. 

For now the status is: 

My stats:

MY GOAL: 130 pounds

July 1: 180 pounds. 

August 1: 169 pounds 11 POUNDS LOST! yeah!

September 1: 166 pounds 14 POUNDS LOST!

Big fat loser

A post about weight loss, because that's never been done before (insert sarcasm). I don't want to be all cliche-ish and stuff, but I figure if I put it out there, in writing, on the interwebs, it just may keep me motivated.

I've known for some time now that I need to get it together and change some of my eating habits. We rarely eat any processed foods. Fast food is not a frequent meal here. And, over the last two years I've slowly switched us over to organic foods; we are about 90% organic. Still, the weight just keeps piling on. I really was eating too much and not exercising enough. The two final nails in the coffin for me were #1 Seeing the pictures of me at Disneyland. Yikes! and #2 My wedding ring no longer fits, and I have to wear this silly fake one. Adam calls it the fwedding ring. Ha!

I have done my share of ridiculous crash fad diets and all that jazz. They don't work. I did a lot of reading and decided that I'm just going to gradually add small changes that I know I can do indefinitely. If I don't just dive into it full speed ahead, I may just stick with it. The first things were, using my treadmill for just a short 10 minutes each day; lowering my calorie intake to 1200 a day; and no sugar. I added an app to my phone, My Fitness Pal. It tracks my calorie intake and exercise for the day. It has a huge database and almost everything you eat is in it. If you can't find what you ate, and it has a bar code, the app will scan the bar code and pull all of the nutritional information in.

The first few days I was a little hungry. I searched for things to do to help with that. I started squeezing lemons in my water and that really helped curb my appetite. This really is the first time I've ever done any kind of "diet" and actually see results. It really just seems way too easy. The weight just keeps coming off.

My stats:

MY GOAL: 130 pounds

July 1: 180 pounds. (yeah, I know, totally embarrassing)

August 1: 169 pounds 11 POUNDS LOST! yeah!

This was the picture that made me so upset. We'll call this the, "Before Picture"

Start: 180 pounds

I will try and get a new picture up here soon. I need one of my kids to take it for me. I have already went down a size and my belly looks a lot smaller, I think this is due to not eating sugar.