Let me start with the progress on losing the baby weight. When I started my journey in Aug 2011, I weighed 190.5lbs. As of my last weigh in, I weighed in at 168.8lbs. According to my journals, when I found out I was pregnant I weighed 167.8lbs. I’m 1lb away from being back to my pre-baby weight (goal #1) but my body doesn’t look like it but I will get there eventually. Once I get there, I will progress to goal #2, which is 160lbs. I know it’s only 8lbs but I’m hoping to get there by my 39th birthday in Oct. I hope it doesn’t take that long but I know the last 10lbs are the hardest to lose. After that, I will spend the next year focusing on toning my body and losing body fat. My goal is to have 20% body fat (according to the test on the cruise I’m 28% now). I would like to lose an additional 10lbs (150lbs) during that year but that will be a bonus and not a focus. Once I reach my 40th birthday, I will start to maintain what I have accomplished. I really don’t want to be trying to reach a number on the scale that is just unrealistic for me.

Next my progress on the Gluten, Dairy, Egg Free diet, it went really well for about 2 ½ weeks. Then I started snacking on things that I was supposed to be avoiding. I didn’t flat out have an egg with cheese on a bagel but I did have a bite of cake or left over pancakes or a spoonful of ice cream. Unfortunately, I started to do it more and more and I kept telling myself that I have to stop.
I finally met with the dietitian this week. She looked at that I’ve been eating and sent me a Metabolic Nutrition Plan that was Adapted from Cracking the Metabolic Code by Dr. Jim Lavalle & Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman and the Paleolithic Diet. I love the first guideline - Do NOT focus on calorie intake- instead go back to basics- eating real food and read INGREDIENTS if the food has a list. Other than counting calories, I have been focusing on eating real foods and started to read the ingredient list. I’m looking for of course, gluten, dairy, eggs and onions mostly as well as HFCS, sugars and a few other things. She did loosing some on the restrictions mainly on the category 1 & 2 foods. Previously she said if Sugar was one of the top 5 ingredients that I couldn’t eat it. Now it’s just the top 3 and if there are only 4-5 ingredients and sugar is one of them, then it’s ok to eat. I can also have butter (YIPEE). I’ve been eating bland things so at least I can add butter to my veggies. So also wants to me have a net carb of 130g (at first she said 100g). So I have to take my carbs and minus the fiber and that will be my net carbs. I told her that I was cutting back on my bean intake because they had a lot of carbs in them. She said that yes it has a lot of carbs but they also have a lot of fiber and she would never tell someone to limit their bean intake.

So now I sit here with new resolve. My plan also included a very long shopping list with brands included. I purchased salad dressing that is approved. I’ve been just using EVOO as salad dressing and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. So one to the next stage of doing better. I really need to stick with it so I can start to reintroduce the food back in in 3 months time.

Before I go, I’ve reworked my workout schedule. Frankly, I cut back a lot and I’m actually losing weight. One of my struggles have been finding a balance how much I work out very how much I should eat. Don’t get me wrong, I still do something everyday but instead of doing a 60 minute dvd at home and then 60 minutes at the gym, I’ll just do one. I also went back to lifting heavy weights at the gym. So I don’t spend just 60 minutes on cardio. I work weights in and that will help with losing inches. I love Jillian Michaels but I've also started to use some of my other workout dvds. I did the BOSU total body workout. WOW, that was hard and I have to work on my balance.

This is where I started 8-31-11

Me now