how I lost 15 pounds without trying all that hard

I am proud to announce that I am officially 15 pounds DOWN! I have been wavering between 10-15 pounds of weight loss for a few weeks, but yesterday I stepped on the scale and it was the lowest I have seen it in three years. THREE. I emphasize three because it's kind of depressing that I had been carrying around that extra weight so long! Luckily though, it's gone now.

How did I do it?

Well, let's start with how I didn't do it.

No pills
No weird shakes.
No crazy fitness programs.
No calorie counting.
No starving or depriving myself.

I hate gimmicks and though I'm one or all of the above has been beneficial to someone out there, I know myself. I don't follow through with set "programs" and I don't like counting calories because a) I'm bad at math b) I'm lazy and c) I used to struggle with eating disorders and I used to obsess with every single calorie that I put in my mouth and it was unhealthy. I don't ever want to go down that road again.

So what have I been doing?
1. I discovered that I can't eat gluten, so cutting that out immediately made me feel better and drop a few pounds.

2. I eat more fruit and vegetables. I don't always eat at least five servings a day, so I just make sure to add extra the day after I didn't eat as much. The easiest way to do this: salads.

3. I eat smaller meals throughout the day. This tricks my mind into thinking I get to eat more throughout the day even when I don't. It also makes my metabolism faster.

4. I don't deprive myself. If I want gummi bears, I eat them. If I want extra mayo in my tuna, I add it. I'm sure if I was more strict on "bad for you foods" I could be down even more pounds, but if I ever feel deprived I'll overeat. Since I started eating healthier months ago I haven't felt the need to binge on anything.

5. I have cut out almost all processed foods. I still eat them on occasion, but generally speaking, if it has more than five ingredients, I don't eat it.

6. I started working out again, anywhere from 1-3 times a week. Sometimes I work out hard, other times I do 30 minutes of strength training and call it a day.

7. STRENGTH TRAINING. Ladies, I can't stress enough how important this is. Most women I see at the gym stay in the cardio section. Cardio is obviously important, but if you really want to feel good and see a change in your body, it's important to strength train. I honestly feel like I've lost over 20 pounds just because I now have toned muscles.

Fifteen down, fifteen more to go!

what I ate Wednesday #3

Today was my first day of school, so naturally the day was hectic. Today's "meals" were virtually all snacks, and though this list of food may look like a lot, I didn't eat all that much in each sitting.

Meal 1: Two slices GF toast w/ PB, a banana, and coffee
Meal 2: Fruit leather, almonds, hard boiled egg
Snack: Dark chocolate covered almonds (from Trader Joe's--they are amazing!) and iced tea (unsweetened of course)
Meal 3: Sandwich w/: GF bread, turkey, 2 slices havarti cheese, mustard, and mayo; pickle, small bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream (Tillamook Brand)
Meal 4: One black bean-zucchini patty (it's literally three ingredients: black bean, zucchini, and ground flax seed!), polenta, and a bit of ranch dressing

Again, you may be thinking "Ummm you're trying to lose weight?" Yes, I am, and I am.

1) Smaller meals trick my brain into thinking that I get to eat more than I actually do. Because inside, I'm really just a fat ass who is obsessed with food. 

2) Smaller meals boost my metabolism.

3) I have to incorporate some slightly-very unhealthy food into my diet or else I'll feel deprived and then want to eat EVERYTHING. Today I ate more sugar than I have been eating on a daily basis, but hey, it was my first day back teaching I needed it!

As I'm winding down to go to bed, I'm still satisfied: not too full, not too hungry. Smaller meals WORK!

lazy, healthy snacks

Since this is now aptly titled "the lazy girl's guide to getting healthy," I figured it was time I shared some of my low-maintenance yet healthy snacks.

Before I get into these "snacks," I should probably clarify that my definition of a snack is anything that doesn't require intensive cooking. Therefore, many of these "snacks" end up being my meals. Now that I'm back at work (I'm a teacher) I tend to eat many smaller meals throughout the day rather than three big meals. This is actually healthier than the three meals a day model many of us grew up with, but being on the go constantly, it's just practical for me when I teach.

To be honest...I cook an actual meal maybe twice a week (eek! I know). The rest of my meals are more snack-like or eaten out (healthy options of course).

Here are my lazy, healthy snacks:

• Yogurt (goat) w/ berries and GF granola 

• Hard boiled eggs 

• Almonds

• GF crackers and hummus

• Cheese and salami/turkey/ham (okay I know these aren't super healthy foods, but I don't eat this that often and I buy minimally processed cheese and meat)

• Tuna w/ mayo, pickles and GF crackers (again, mayo isn't healthy but I get low fat mayo and don't eat it that often)
  
• Seaweed
  
• Fruit leathers
  
• Pickles (I've had an obsession with pickles my entire life. Don't judge)
  
• Apple w/ peanut butter
  
  If there any other "lazy" snacks that you suggest please let me know! I'm always looking for lazy ways to eat healthy :)
  

what I ate Wednesday #2

Breakfast: two slices gluten-free toast w/PB and jelly, two cups of coffee
Lunch: two slices of havarti cheese, roasted turkey, two pickles, and a bowl of canteloupe
Dinner: steak salad from Chipotle (lettuce, rice, black beans, steak, pico de gallo, corn), tortilla chips and guacamole
Snack: gummi bears

Workout: none

Two notes:
1. I try not to drink my calories, with the exception of wine. I drink my coffee black (I actually prefer it this way) and don't sweeten my tea (hot or iced), so when I note what I drank during the day, I don't factor in calories (except wine) because black coffee and tea have very small amounts.

2. While I am lactose intolerant, lately I have been experimenting with hard cheese (in small amounts) and have been okay. It's not something that I consume on a regular basis, but today I wasn't very hungry around lunch time and was just craving some cold cuts.

what I ate Wednesday #1

I don't want to post what I eat everyday because that would not only be boring but laborious, but I do find it helpful when other bloggers post a random sampling of their diet to get a general idea of what they eat.

Here is my commitment to post what I eat every Wednesday, for better or for worse.

Yesterday, my friends, was unfortunately for worse.

Here's what I ate:
Breakfast: two chocolate chip cookies (home-baked GF), oatmeal, coffee
Lunch: Fruit smoothie (goat milk yogurt, OJ, strawberries, peaches, pineapple, flax seeds), hummus and GF crackers
Dinner: Handful of chips & salsa, three carne asada soft tacos (one tortilla each) w/ pico de gallo, side of rice and refried beans, mojito
Snack: GF beer and handful of tortilla chips w/spinach artichoke dip

Workout: 45 minute hike

So I know you're thinking "You're eating like this and expecting to lose more weight?!?" On a normal day, I'm not. This is why I think a set day a week is good to show what I eat because I absolutely do not believe in depriving myself and for the most part, I do eat pretty healthfully. The cookies in the morning were impulsive because I had just baked them the night before and they were sitting next to the coffee maker. I promptly bagged them up and put them in the pantry to get them out of my sight, and I haven't had any since.

Looking back at this list of food, I realize it's actually not all that bad, but something went terribly, terribly wrong leading me to wake up with horrible stomach pain and the oh-so-familiar feeling of needing to throw up. Right after I did I felt much better, but my stomach has still been really off all day.

I've been racking my brain to figure out where I went wrong, because six months ago I was throwing up from a combination of GERD and an unrealized gluten allergy on a weekly basis and it was HORRIBLE. I literally had to leave class while teaching a couple of times to throw up in the bathroom, and since I have stopped eating gluten I haven't thrown up once.

Flashback to last night, and I know I didn't eat gluten, but I did eat late at night because we grabbed some drinks with friends and I needed to eat a bit in order to be able to drive later.

This is all I can think of and it's frustrating because my body is just so damn sensitive. Just when I think I'm doing right by my stomach, something like this happens and I'm back to feeling like I'm screwed no matter what I eat.

All I have had today is oatmeal, hot green tea, a few GF crackers, and corn pasta w/ daiya (dairy and soy free) cheese because I don't think I can stomach anything else. Hopefully I'm back to normal tomorrow, and we'll see what I end up eating next Wednesday.

i'm back and for good

Let's cut to the chase: I haven't been blogging because I convinced myself that it was yet another pointless project that no one wants to read and I was doing fine (health-wise) without it.

Yes, I have been doing okay health-wise, and am officially ten pounds lighter than when I first started this journey in the spring, but this isn't a pointless project.

Case in point: I had been contemplating baking cookies tonight when I started reading some of my favorite fitness blogs. After ten minutes of looking at some before and after pictures, I made the firm decision to not bake cookies because I would have ended up eating most of them anyway, let's be honest. I have lost ten pounds and am feeling better than I have in a couple of years, so why would I need to eat an entire batch of (gluten-free of course) cookies?!

The point is, I am doing okay health-wise, but I still can be doing better. Reading fitness blogs motivates me, as does tracking my own obstacles/progress/journey. It shouldn't matter if people read this or judge me because this is about doing all that I can in order to be my healthiest self.

Where I am currently:

I'm ten pounds lighter than at my heaviest, but I feel like I've lost almost double that. There are two reasons for this:
1. Eating gluten made me constantly bloated and feeling heavy.
2. I have been working out more and have gained some muscle back. There is nothing that makes me feel fitter than seeing muscles, even if there is still some fat around them :)

Because I'm on summer break, I haven't had a consistent schedule. This has been both good and bad. Good because I am eating less in each sitting since I don't have to rush my meals (mainly lunch). Bad because I haven't been forced to plan meals in advance and I tend to gravitate toward snacking (or baking cookies, like mentioned above) when I'm bored.

Eating gluten-free is second nature to me now. I have found some amazing GF substitutes which I will share later. Even when I crave a regular pizza, or fresh baked bread (my cryptonite) my brain immediately goes to the pain that I would feel if I indulged in that craving, and then the craving goes away.

I am struggling with eating later than I should, mostly because I do have more free time and my brain has somehow equated free time with eating. Tonight I bypassed baking cookies and instead had some pineapple and a glass of wine (hey, it's fruit). Ideally I will only have fruit (or wine--again FRUIT) after 8 pm, mostly because eating late isn't good for my GERD.

So that's my story, real or imagined readers, and I WILL be updating regularly, if only to keep myself on track. 

back from the dead

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last wrote. Yes, I've been a little lazy, but my lack of writing is due to moving at the end of April. Ready for a fun fact? I have lived in TEN different houses in SIX years. And that's not counting leaving the state twice for a few months at a time.

By now you'd think I have few possessions in order to expedite all of my moves. Wrong. I have a lot. of. stuff. (Mostly in the form of books and abandoned craft projects). This time I moved 25 minutes away, so the moving process took even longer.

Anyway, my entire schedule has been thrown off. I have to wake up earlier in order to leave earlier so that I can avoid rush-hour traffic. I also have to leave work earlier than I used to (to avoid traffic) which has lead to me having more work to do at home. Just before moving I had established a good routine of finishing all of my work at work, then coming home and just being able to relax.

Over the last few months, I have really learned the importance of meal planning at the beginning of the week. Sadly my move has thrown this off as well. The first week after moving, we ate out almost every night because we were still un-packing. Then suddenly we found ourselves broke from having to buy a bunch of stuff for the house. We've been trying to spend as little as possible, so we have been mostly snacking around dinner time.

The only exception to this is my new favorite food: rice pasta. I LOVE pasta, so when I realized that I can't eat gluten I mourned the loss of a favorite food. I had heard of gluten-free alternatives, but figured they weren't good for some reasons. Luckily, I tried rice pasta and I honestly can't taste a difference.

Eating gluten-free has been very challenging because it's incredibly hard to eat out. It's hard to even find a snack when I'm out around because quickly made foods tend to have gluten (or dairy, which I also can't eat). This had led me to eating less than I should on some days, which inevitably leads to over-eating later.

The other challenge is making cooking interesting because I am quite limited in what I can cook. Not only can I not eat gluten, I also can't eat dairy (goat milk is okay though) or soy. I also don't know how to cook meat or fish with the exception of meatballs (I clearly love my pasta). Basically, I'm limited to fruits and vegetables. I love them, but it gets old eating salads and fruit.

One recipe that I have been making on an almost-weekly basis is the quinoa burger. I make a bunch at once and eat the rest for leftovers during the week. I like them plain, or with some avocado or Greek yogurt on top. Sadly, I can't eat Greek yogurt even with after taking a Lactaid pill, so I have been dipping the patties in...ranch dressing. Not very healthy, I know, but a girl's gotta have some food vices since most of mine have been robbed from me.

My health focus right now is exercise. I have been exercising more lately, because I have a weekly softball and I now have a dog that I like to walk, but it's not enough. Last week I actually stepped foot in my gym for the first time in months, and it felt so good that I found myself wondering why I haven't been going in the first place. Then I get home from work and feel so exhausted that I remember why getting myself to go to the gym is a challenge.

What is going to help this is that school ends in two weeks. I thought having the same schedule everyday would help me get in an exercise pattern, but I underestimated how tired my job would make me. Now I'm excited to have some time off to get back into the habit so that when school starts again working out will be second nature again.