Weight LOSS

BEFORE

My birthday 2010

AFTER
My birthday 2011

So some of you have inquired about my weight loss. Yes, I have done it and I'm loving it! My baby is about to turn 3, so I have no excuse of keeping all that baby weight.

My quest began last year in March. I wanted to know how many my calories my body needed each day to maintain itself. I subscribe to the school of thought that if a person is continually overeating, even with exercise, the weight will not come off because they are eating more calories than their body burns. So with that said, how many calories did I need to sustain myself? At this time I had been studying in the scriptures, the Word of Wisdom found in the Doctrine and Covenants. This code of health contains things that we should not take into our bodies to be healthy, but also things we should be partaking to be in optimal health. My mission became just that. To be in optimal health so I could serve my family and others and have energy and vitality. I started with a 10 day cleanse, the lemonade cleanse. The one where you drink Smooth Move tea at night, Celtic sea salt water in the morning and then fresh lemonade with grade B maple syrup and ceyanne pepper. Wow, it was hard and I only made it to day 6 because I got the worst headache in America. I couldn't finish it out, but I felt really good afterwards. I lost 7 pounds at that time.

In April of 2010, I started thinking again about my personal calorie intake and really wanted to know how much I really needed in a day. My good friend Lolly told me about the Weight Watchers points and how the system counted calories for you. It sounded like a game to me. So since she was going to the Weight Watchers meetings she bought some points books for me and points slider scale and I was ready to begin. The first two weeks were so hard. It made me realize just how much I was overeating. I never thought I was an overeater until I started points. My experience has been amazing. I was loosing 1-3 pounds a week. Steadily. I've now lost a total of 35 pounds and I love how the points have taught me portions. It's actually really easy to do points. I really treat it like a game for myself. A challenge.

During the summer, my husband and I also started eating less meat. Especailly red meat. We have meat every other night now for dinner. But my meat portions are cut way back. About 3 oz is all my body really needs. We have tried many vegetarian recipes and we love this way of eating. Our son has autism so he is on the gluten-free, casein-free diet. Because of this, all of our family dinners are GFCF, which has also helped change the way we eat. No more cream of chicken soup. No casseroles. Really simple food and yummy food, fresh veggies! I have some GFCF Recipes here. I love the not-so-heavy feeling after a dinner. So awesome.

Here are some links to get you started with the points. Have fun with it. Write down everything you eat! Everything that goes into your mouth. It doesn't take a lot of time to have a food journal. Think all the hours of your day. You are only spending a fraction of that time writing down your foods and calculating points.

1. First, figure out how many points per day you get.

Points Calculator

2. You get 35 extra points in the week called Flex points. So if you eat over your points in that day, they count as flex points. (I don't use all mine in the week) Keep track of these daily.

3. You can get activity points for working out etc. You can choose to use these points to get extra points in the day. Calculate them here. Also, on the same website is a points calculator. Just type in calories, fat and fiber content on any food label and it will calculate the point value for you.

4. When I started I didn't have the points values books so I found it all here.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions. I have lost my weight without going to a meeting or paying for the website etc. Just the initial $25 for the books and a digital kitchen scale from Walmart is all I have put into this. I'm sure it would be helpful to go to the meetings, but I just decided to do it on my own. And it worked. Really. Good.