timbuktu

Weight loss is hard. So stinking hard!
For the past few weeks I have been teeter tottering the same one pound. One pound!
It can get really frustrating, especially if you are like me and you are use to seeing really big and quick results. Sadly, those results don't last too long and then all of a sudden, SLAM. You've hit a wall.
In the beginning 10 pounds a month was nothing! Standard and expected weight loss for me and it continued like that until I was down about 75 pounds. Then all of sudden it completely stopped and I had to change things up. What I was eating, what I was doing, I even changed what time of day I was working out. I started to lose again but it was much slower, about a pound a week. Which is still awesome!
Now I am between and rock and a hard place- I've changed it all and I still feel stuck! I know exactly why: I have to work harder.

The more weight that you have to lose, so the bigger that you are, the faster you are going to lose weight to begin with. Why? Because you are big. When you exercise and move your body at a rapid pace, your heart rate is going to sky rocket and you are going to burn some major calories and fat, the scale will drop frequently.

Then you will hit an "ok" weight. Not your goal weight, but more of the in-between weight. You are not as big, you are not carrying around as much extra weight on your body. Which means that your old ways are not going to work and you need to make changes. Why? Because your heart rate is not getting as high as it was when you were +40 pounds and doing the same workout. You may be able to breeze through those workouts now, you will not be torching as many calories as you had before and the results are going to slow down. Change it up, you will continue to lose, don't give up. Be sure to sit down and re write your goals. It's no longer realistic for you to lose 10 pounds a month, so make new goals and remember, even one single pound is still progress! Change your workout, change your meal routine, change your protein.

You do this and you lose another 10 pounds, it took two to three months but you knew and planned that it would, so you were not discouraged or disappointed. But now you've come to another halt. These are the worst! This is where I am now, and I'm certain it's because I've been snacking and not counting it in my daily macros, letting the calories creep up on me. It's one of the main causes of plateaus. There are a few things I plan to do to kick this plateau to the curb and to start losing again:



-Count every little thing I eat. Even if I think that it's "not enough to count", it is and it does.

-Count every little thing I drink. I usually drink half of my body weight in ounces a day, but lately I have been more guessing rather than counting, so I am going back to tracking my water intake to make sure I really am getting all of the water I need.

-Back down from my carb intake. By no means am I going on a "low carb" diet, but Im going try to keep my carbs as the lowest bracket in my daily allowed macros. This way my body will burn through more of my fat rather than all of the carbs I take in.

-Protein. I am not a big fan of supplementing meals. I like food too much and truly believe in eating the nutrients. But, I do believe there is a time where it can be beneficial. A few weeks ago I posted about making your own Isagenix.  I only did it for two days, and I lost two pounds. I have kept that two pounds off, even when I went back to eating and stopped making the shakes. So for a little kick start again, I am going to do the shake supplements for four days this week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday I will eat a high protein, regular diet because I will be running 4.5 miles that afternoon and I want to keep my body guessing what it's going to get.

-Boost my workouts. Do 2-a-days or do one longer-than-normal workout. I plan on doing my regular strength training during the day, and then running 1-2 miles at a fast pace in the evenings. Normally, I would one strength training workout OR I'd run.

I am very confident that all this above paired together is going to get me past this scale stall and back to losing again. Of course, it's not going to be at the 10 pound a month loss as in the beginning, but it should be a healthy few pounds a month.

I will update at my end-of-week weigh in! As you can see, tracking what you eat and not slowly letting things back into your diet that you shouldn't is key to avoiding the dreaded plateau!

weekly rundown

Today is a bittersweet day, our youngest little boy turned three. Three? Excuse me while I go hide and cry. Why do the years have to go by faster and faster every year? I remember the details of his birth day so clearly, my first natural birth after three epi babies- he was born a whopping 9.7lbs of all boy! These past three years he has kept us on our toes! He is our family comedian, our escape artist (we won't talk of the time he ran away from home on the power wheel. Twice.) Our rough and tough, tree climbing, dirt digging, bed jumping, play outside until he passes out boy. He makes some days really hard, but even so, he is loved to bits by us all!

This week was a fairly slow one. We played at the park and splash pad with friends, and have I mentioned how grateful I am that our tiny town put in the money to build a beautiful playground and splash pad? We are blessed by it! We visited friends in their home, the kids chased frogs while I talked all things parenting, Jesus, homeschooling and life with my dear friend. Lets not forget that she made these amazing..HUGE..homemade peanut butter-oatmeal-M&M-homemade marshmallow cream stuffed cookies. To die for. I have all of the ingredients to make them now and I'm trying my best to hold out at least a few more days before indulging in another! So good.

I think I may have my first case of "runners knee". Maybe. I have a really tight feeling in my knee, not pain. Almost like something is squeezing it. Running actually makes it feel better, so I haven't stopped. I've gone a little crazy and began training for a half marathon in November- what is it about running? Can't stop. And on another note, my husband took a photo of me over the weekend. It was not a planned photo or a posed photo, he didn't even tell me he was taking it. Basically- there was no altering or staging or any trying to look good for this! And when I saw it, I was like "hey...that doesn't look so bad!" and then I was like, "hey...that is one of the first pictures I have seen of myself that I don't hate!". Non scale victory. It's the small things.

We have two weeks of school left. Two. This is my first year homeschooling that I have felt completely confident with what everyone has/is learning and the first year that I have really and truly enjoyed. It is also the first year that I have not gone back and forth on whether or not we want to continue homeschooling the next year, I am already shopping curriculum! Praising the Lord for this peace! Look out for a post on our curriculum run down for the upcoming school year this summer.

Tomorrow, our Addy turns SEVEN. Seven. I'm not even going to go there until I HAVVVEEEE to, so, not tonight! Enjoy your week, friends!