Thanksgiving 2015

ITS FINALLY HERE!!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

I have SO much to be thankful for this year! I have been blessed with some amazing new friends and an amazing opportunity to not only improve my health, but also the health of my family and friends

I am SUPER thankful for my husband and partner in crime. He works tirelessly at his job, and still finds the time and energy to help me build our business. We share a vision and because of that we are a powerhouse. I couldn't have picked a better partner on this journey. Love you, my dear! 

I am also super grateful for my kids! They have also been super supportive when I am working and I am so blessed to have them, they are my "why". I love that they also love Herbalife and constantly ask to wear the brand and help me every day build a strong future for all of us!
I am so thankful for my leadership team! I learn so much from all of you and I appreciate all the time you put in to teaching us and helping us reach our goals and be as successful as we can. THANK YOU!

To all my Coach friends! I love you ALL! I am grateful for everything you post and your encouragement and your successes. You all inspire me to be better and I love being able to toss around ideas and strategies with you all! You have all touched my life in a special way and I will never be the same again Thank you!

I am so grateful for all my amazing clients! They are all fabulous and their commitment and tenacity to getting to their health goals inspires me all the time! You are all killing it and I am super proud of ALL of you!!

I am also grateful to all my friends and followers who have liked and shared my posts here and on social media and have sent encouraging messages. Your place in my journey is a valuable one and many times you have brought me to tears with your support and encouraging words. Thank you!

If you are having a dinner today, I sincerely hope that you are able to stick to your plan and that it stays the heck away from your thighs! I hope your day, even if you are not celebrating today, is filled with much love, happiness, and gratitude!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Will Power

Cardinal Rule for Staying on Your Meal Plan:
NEVER grocery shop hungry!!

Have you ever done that? Gone to the grocery store with your stomach growling? Have you noticed that somehow all kinds of crazy foods that you wouldn't normally buy? And you get to the till and your total is crazy expensive and you're trying to figure out how the hell that happened?

I've totally done that before. I once read somewhere that the best way to save money grocery shopping is to go after a meal instead of before one. I've tested the theory before and it's true. It's a lot easier to stick to your list and not be so easily persuaded to grab the junk. Actually, when I'm not hungry, I have no trouble walking past that isle all together.

Yesterday I broke the rule. I was out running errands and I got caught not having enough snacks. See, I've been doing much better on my meal plan after my little spill off the wagon. I've been on point and eating everything I'm supposed to, when I'm supposed to. But I was out doing deliveries and I remembered that I needed to pick up some stuff for Thanksgiving. So I went to the store. The first store I went to didn't even have a single turkey. Which meant I needed to drive to a completely different store. And then there was traffic. And for some reason everyone forgets how to drive as soon as it snows, which it just did, so it was snail speed ahead and before I knew it I was hitting that 2.5 hr mark. My body knows to burn my calories. So when that timing hits, I am freaking starving.

It all started while I was walking into the bakery isle. I can't usually have baked goods. I can't have gluten as it triggers a disorder I have. But as it's Thanksgiving, I will be having stuffing. And in order to make that happen, I require bread. Considering it needs to be done up right, I spend the extra and get GF bread so that I can partake in one of my favourite parts of the Thanksgiving meal.

Anyway!

So I was in the bakery area, at the little GF end-of-isle display. And there they were. Calling to me.
GF vanilla cupcakes. Omg, I could taste them in my mouth! They looked so good even though they were 370 calories a piece with 138 carbs, and 3 g of protein and I can't remember the sugar amount per 1 cupcake. I didn't have cake for my birthday. And on the way home from an Herbalife STS in Calgary, we stopped off at a donut shop and I could have NONE of them, even though they smelled heavenly. Oh, believe me, my stomach made all kinds of justifications.

But I was strong. I gave them a nice ride around the store in my cart, but had my daughter put them back before we checked out.

I'm not going to lie to you, I could have eaten the whole freaking package, I was so hungry. But I exerted the most insane amount of self control and I let them go.

Goals vs the food. The cupcakes aren't going to get me to my goals.  Cupcakes don't build muscle (as much as I wish they did!) So I called my hubby and he's fabulous and made a stir fry and had it ready for me when I got home. And it tasted amazing because he's an amazing cook!

With the failures I've had over the last few weeks, it feels good to be winning again. My mindset it right, which means my will power and focus are back! I'm excited to see what I can accomplish now :)

Reemergance

So I know you've been hearing crickets from me over the past week. I'm not going to lie to you, I've been hiding from you. Why? Because when I feel like a hypocrite, I can't face people. That's the truth.

See, as an Herbalife Coach, it's my job to uplift and support and model the healthy active lifestyle. And I wasn't. My eating habits were all over the place. And it wasn't pretty. Sure I was eating "healthy" snacks, but over-indulging is over-indulging. If you're putting too many calories into your body, you're going to gain. That's just the way it works. And I was. There's a quote that says "What you eat in private, you wear in public." How true that really is. The scale reflected it.

Last week, I weighed in at 187lbs. 3lbs up. And it was not muscle mass gain! I actually lost muscle mass. it went down to 103. I was super depressed last week. And I couldn't bring myself to share. I was in a huge funk.

I took the opportunity and I reached out to a fellow coach.

After that last text, she called me. And then proceeded to jack me up about how giving up wasn't an option and I needed to stop thinking like that or I was going to self destruct. And she was right. I needed to get out of that head space. We had plans to hang out the next night anyway and we got the opportunity to just chat honestly about everything. We chatted about the good and the bad and I found that knowing that I wasn't alone in my struggles made me feel validated and that's all I really needed. I was able to boost the energy the next day and the momentum has kept me going!

Things are not always going to be sunshine and rainbows, but that's ok! And it's like that for everyone. But the point is, you have to stop focusing on the problem. And that's what I was doing. I was spending so much time focusing on what was wrong that I couldn't see a way out. And the longer I couldn't see a way out, the deeper into the funk I got.  Know why? The law of attraction. Some people call it Karma. However you choose to describe it, the truth of it is the same: What you put out into the universe is what you will get back, be it positive or negative. All I needed to do was focus on the solution. If I focused on what could be done and what I wanted in the end, the problem essentially sorted itself out. And I am now a happier person ready to take on the world!




That being said, here are this week's pics:

I know, I had every intention of using the same clothing for every picture, but turned out there was a little hiccup with a company that is branding all my workout gear and in order to have some, I had to purchase a couple pieces more. There are worse things then buying more gym clothes!

I think I see, even with the 3lb gain, some change in shape. I know that I'd lost a few inches the weeks before, so that's exciting, right?

Maybe I'll get my measurements taken again tomorrow. I think every 2 weeks for those would be good. Now that I've hit the gym too, I look forward to seeing more definition and that muscle mass number going up!

I haven't forgotten!!

I promise, i haven't forgotten about you!! I have a post started and then life happened, as its wont to do.

 A proper post will be up tomorrow!!!

I love surprises!

Remember when I was like, "I think I've lost, but I'm not sure. I could be just seeing things."? Turns out I'm not crazy!! YAY!!!!!

4lbs gone!! YAY!!! Omg, I was not expecting this at all. After all the struggles, and realizing that I needed to reset and then doing so and sticking to the plan, I have managed to not only lose the 2 I gained last week, but drop another two more! SO EXCITING!!!!

This was really just the boost I needed to really solidify my goals! I am now 9 lbs away from my goal! It's SO go time! I am going to kick some serious butt! My goals are so close that I can taste them!

I am now going to go out and celebrate with a workout with my Fit Clubbers tonight and follow it up with an Herbalife Mug Cake.

Looks amazing right? It tastes amazing! And it's on my nutrition plan. Win/win!

Mug Cake Recipe:

2 Scoops Herbalife Formula 1
2 Scoops Herbalife Protein Drink Mix
1 Egg
1/4 Cup Water

Mix ingredients into a batter. Coat regular drinking mug with non-stick spray. Pour batter into mug. Bake in Microwave for 2:30min- 3:30min (microwaves vary). Turn upside down into a bowl and drizzle with no sugar added sundae syrup or melted peanut butter.
Enjoy!

Reset

Sorry guys!  I did remember that i wanted to take pictures first thing yesterday morning. And then I completely forgot until just before I was drifting off last night. Go figure, right? I am still committed to getting those up, so here they are:

I was switching back and forth between last weeks and this weeks and I can't tell if there is any true difference aside from the fact that I am wearing different pants. Clearly, I need to make sure I'm wearing the same thing. But there looks to still be a little loss in the bra-ish area. Which would be nice. But again, I can't be sure. And I could be wrong. Oh well, At least it doesn't look like I've gained, so that's a positive, right?!


So here's how things have been going lately:

This past couple weeks have been difficult for me. And the scale has reflected that. And so has my general feeling of wellness. I explained it really well in the weekly 80/20/100 call my coaches team does every Sunday evening, but I'll go through it again here for you guys.

I'm a veterans wife. My husband served in Afghanistan early in our marriage and when our oldest was just over a year. It was a rough 8 months, I'm not going to lie. I'd like to say I handled it well, but I'm the kind of person that hates showing weakness and if I show it then I'm not strong. So I tend to internalize everything. And that never ends well, at least not for me. Instead of taking advantage of the many programs set in place for those whose spouses or loved ones are overseas, I soldiered on alone and it ended up causing me lots of anxiety and grief, most of which I'll bet i could have avoided if I'd simply asked for help. But I saw that as weakness, so I have a lot of issues that are leftover from that time. We also have friends who served, some who came back, some who didn't and some who came back, but not the same. In Canada we have a holiday at the beginning of November called Remembrance Day. This is the day that we honour not only our current service members and our veterans, but our fallen soldiers as well. I know that our neighbours to the south have separate days for each, Veterans Day (which is the same day as Remembrance Day) and Memorial Day. Every year around this time I get pretty emotional and as a person who doesn't know how to share their feelings very well or ask for assistance until its way too late, I get overwhelmed by them and I routinely do two things: 1.) Recluse and, 2.) Eat my feelings. All my food issues really come to a head right at this point in time. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, any other holiday this time of year is not so much of a problem for me. But November 11th gets me every year.

Essentially, I fell off my nutrition plan. I hid my setback from my friends, my coach, my clients, and yes, even you. And honestly, I was even lying to myself, I tried to play it up like I was some great coach who even though they were struggling, they still had it together. Yeah, I didn't. I may have won the battle over the rice cakes and cheese snack, but I was losing the war for my nutrition plan. And I knew I was failing, but I didn't want to admit it to myself.

Well, I did. I admitted it to myself, I admitted it to all my clients, my coaches and now I'm admitting it to you. I 100% fell off. I not only ate crap in secret, but I totally overate. I cared not if I was hungry or not, I just ate. And the scale showed it. But after admitting that all to myself and everyone, I got to still come out on top because I get to reset. That means I get to take responsibility for the fall and the crap i ate and how often I ate it, say, "yup, that happened" and move on. I could beat myself up over it, but really, what good would that do? Will it change the fact that it happened? Will it magically change what the scale said if I do enough penance? Nope! A good friend and fellow coach posted this and I think that it illustrates that point nicely:

Ah, the profound lessons Disney teaches. Now, if you've seen The Lion King, you know that nutrition is not what they are referring to, but it still illustrates my point. Actually, it speaks to a lot of things I've been going through on numerous levels.... But lets stick to this one point. The past doesn't matter. It is what it is. There's nothing that you can do about it. Yes, it may still affect the present, but you can either stick your head in the sand and be doomed to repeat the mistake, or you can learn from it and move on. I'd much rather learn and be smarter and stronger going forward. I've never had to deal with this situation in this context before. I've never been on this journey before like this. So now I know that of the entire year, this is my big battle. This is when I have to be keenly aware of myself, and not allow myself to get so caught up in my emotions that I let them derail me from my goals. This could be my Achilles heel. Or it could be a speed bump in the road. I get to decide.

I already chose. I chose to reset. And the great thing is, I get to do that! I choose to go back to the basics, start again like I did. We do a 5 day Eat Clean Challenge with new clients. I joined one, not just as a coach, but as a challenger. I'm doing the challenge myself and re-setting myself up for success. Being honest about what I'm eating. Tracking my calories so I know what's going into my body and keeping mindful of my goals. Being accountable to other people. Being transparent and honest with myself. Because at the end of the day, the only person who loses when I make poor choices is me. And eating all that junk did not make me happy. I always knew in the back of my head that I was cheating myself out of the results that I wanted. And my body definitely didn't need it, so I ended up feeling gross and over stuffed and just miserable. Because the food didn't take away that I was feeling crappy. Instead, it just added to it. So it wasn't worth it.

So yay for resets! We'll see what the scale says tomorrow. I almost don't want to step on to see what the damage is. But burying my head in the sand isn't going to change anything, so I need to just go and not take it as a negative and just take it from a starting point. Go on, move forward and get that goal of 175. Because I can do it. I'm going to accept that the choices I made have consequences, deal with them and continue to chase that goal and crush it!

The choices we make

I remembered that I wanted my measurements done as I was walking to the car, leaving the Nutrition Open House and on my way to take my littlest to school. If I'm honest, after today's number's, I don't know if I want to know what they are! Hubby is home tonight, but for consistency I want  my coach

to take them, so I will try and remember to get her to take them tomorrow after Fit Club and I'll post them then. 

So that's last week in comparison to this week. *Insert whimper here* But then I knew that this was coming this week. My weekend was off. So the 2 lb gain isn't a surprise. It doesn't make me happy, mind you, but I am not abysmally disappointed by it. I would rather have been presently surprised to at least stay the same. But that's not how things work, so.... yeah.

I did have one of those moments today, where I had to be honest with myself and ask the hard question. I was having my snack this afternoon, 2 rice cakes with a couple oz of cheese on top, and I finished them all too quickly. And you know how you get when you haven't mentally prepared yourself for the last of your snack to be gone because you are sidetracked doing something else? And then your snack is gone and all you want is more snack? Well, that was me today and I got up and I was in the kitchen getting more rice cakes out when this thought popped into my head: "What is more important to you right now? The food or getting to your goals?" I'm not going to lie to you, I kinda really wanted those extra rice cakes and cheese, even though my head knew that cheese can be a BIG calorie hit if not properly portioned out. And I was even justifying to myself, "Oh, I'll do some working out this evening, it'll be fine. I know you can't out workout a bad diet, but it's not like I'm eating potato chips smothered in creamy cheese sauce." But when I got there I really thought about it. How much did seeing that rise in the scale suck for me? I wasn't happy about it. And what had caused it? Over indulgence. And what was this really? I didn't need the extra snack. I wanted it. But what was more important to me? Having the snack that tasted yummy right now? Or the results on the scale next week?

The true answer:  The results. My results were more important to me. I'd rather get to my goals then have more food. Yes, food is yummy. Yes, I love to eat yummy food. But isn't that what got me into this whole darned mess to begin with? It wasn't being pregnant with my kids! I slimmed right back down after my oldest. And then ate like absolute crap after and piled the weight back on. I lost a bunch again due to stress as my husband was in Afghanistan before we got pregnant with our second, but I fell into the same trap after. And then I just kept going! And before I knew it, I was almost 250 lbs!!! Do I want to go back to that? Do I want to give into the small temptation now after having already done so a couple of days ago and knowing that my numbers just reflected it? HELL NO!

Love my water with Mango Aloe

So I put the food away. And I grabbed my water bottle and filled it up and added a bit of Aloe and it is so yummy! I love the mango flavoured aloe and it makes drinking my water that little bit easier and it's just a better substitute. And you know what? I've had some of my water and about a half hour has gone by and I'm not hungry anymore. My body didn't actually need more food. I feel satisfied and not over stuffed, which I likely would have if I'd kept eating. So I'm glad that I chose to drink water instead of eating more. Because I'm happier now. It's that short term "pain" for long term gain. And I now have that pride in myself that I stuck to my plan. I had the chance to deviate and make another choice this week that would continue to keep me off track. And I made the choice to not. And if I keep making these kinds of choices and I keep on track with my nutrition plan those +2 lbs will be gone and they might even take a few friends with them. And how good I feel now will just double next week when my work this week reflects on the scale. And I know that it will reflect in those numbers. I know that there are numbers that I can definitely make a difference on. Even if the weight number doesn't go down, the muscle mass can do up. The body fat percentage can go down and the water can come up. Those are all things that I can have an effect on in the next week! Believe me, seeing that muscle mass go down those couple points hit hard. That was worse to me then the +2lbs. I need to up my game. The weight will come off with my nutrition plan. But my overall fitness and physique rating and muscle mass will not change without the fitness aspect. And being active totally helps burn extra calories.

I have a few things to do yet before I can hit my fitness hard again. My fabulous massage therapist has been working diligently with me, but there is only so much she can do to teach me how not to re-injure myself. The way my legs are puts me at a higher risk for injury. And that sucks, I'm not going to lie. But there are things that I can do, people I can see, that can help me make sure that I don't get injured again. And then there are different activities that I can do to up my fitness without putting that stress on my knees. And at some point I will be able to do what I could. Right now I can't even do the cardio I used to be able to do. But if I plan and work on it, I'll get there. And then I can use that 20% fitness to work along with my 80% nutrition and I will be where I want to be in no time. I don't know what my end goal is going to actually look like. And there is going to be things that are just not possible. My body is never going to be "perfect", because that just doesn't exist. But I want to get down to 175lbs. If I can get to 175lbs, a weight that I was happy with earlier in my life, then whatever the scale says after that, I don't care, so long as the muscle mass number goes up. So I have 13lbs to go before I focus on toning. Do you know how amazing that is?! To know that the number is that small?!?! If I hit it hard, I could do that by the end of 2015! That's within reach and so totally doable!

 I'm excited!! Are you excited? Because I'm OUT OF MY MIND EXCITED that I could be where I want to be in just 18 months from the very beginning!!

You know what? I just set a goal! I'm going to work for that! A scale that says 175lbs by Jan 1st, 2016. I'm going to get it! It's MINE!

Like a pheonix from the ashes...

Yesterday was frustrating for me, as evidenced by yesterday's post. And the truth is that those days are going to happen. There are going to be days where the whole deal just sucks and you don't want to do it. It seems too hard. And your goals just seem so far.

I promised honesty here and you'll get it. You'll get the crappy days. The days when things are hard. You'll also get my failures. I failed my goals this weekend. I have no self control when it comes to candies and sweets. I can resist them in the grocery store, but if you bring them into my house.... So I ate more chocolate yesterday. And when I had more then a couple wrappers in front of me I realized that I had some drastic steps to take.

So I called my girls and let them pic 5 pieces each and those went into a ziplock baggie on the fridge and the rest went into the bin for pick up this morning. It's gone. And the girls were ok with it. They didn't fuss, they just picked their pieces and that was it. I'm so lucky that they are such great kids and understand that in order for me to stay on track, junk cannot be in the house. In fact when my 7 yr old saw me with the wrappers she asked me, "Are you sure that's on your nutrition plan?" As much as I would like to have told her off, she was right. They weren't. And the scale might reflect that. I'm sure the excess sugar and salt will cause me to retain some water. Which will suck. But it's my own fault and a set back is not the end of the world. While it is frustrating, it's not like I will have gained back 20 lbs. And if I continue like I have today on my nutrition plan, my body will readjust again and all will be right in the world once again.

That being said, here are this week's photos:

My pants were sitting a little lower, so I definitely have a bit of a muffin top this week over last but I'm happy to see that my tummy is a bit smaller and my little post-baby apron has shrunk! YAY! That's more noticeable to me, but it's those things that keep me going. Every little bit counts!

It took me a fresh night of sleep to dawn on me that my daughter could take my photos for me and she's always around to do them! It took a few tries to get some that weren't blurry, but practice will make perfect. And I like that it has the dual job of teaching her that she doesn't have to be ashamed of her body at whatever shape it is. She's 7 and lean, yet solid, but there will come a time all too soon when her body will change. And I want her to be proud of it instead of ashamed. 

Weigh in is tomorrow. I'll get measurements then. I love my daughter, but there are some things I just need a grownup for. In the meantime, I'm happy with small victories. Today was better than yesterday. And you gotta always take it just one day at a time :)