Good News Bad News

Hi. So like the title says, good news bad news. The good news is that hubby just got a new job and we’re very excited, and also I tried a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class over the weekend and loved it! Though my body still aches (but that’s part of why I loved it). The bad news is that I am having a much harder time than expected getting back on Schmilk. Especially since hubby has decided it’s not for him… I was already struggling because while it tastes really good, I’m a savory lover, not sweet. I could eat pasta and bread and steak and whatever all day every day and be happy (with a little chocolate thrown in here and there for balance). So having a chocolate shake for every meal is not quite as satisfying as one would think. However, like I have said before when I actually stick to it and get my shakes in on time, the cravings are almost nonexistent.

That being said. I’m going to take the next week off blogging again to really take time to think about why I keep sabotaging myself in these diets. They work, then a take a cheat day, then it’s train wreck city with no going back. I don’t understand why this happens or why my stubbornness and mad self control don’t kick in when it comes to eating the way I should when it’s so apparent in every other part of my life. Gotta get this figured out if I am ever to see results *sigh* Have a wonderful week!

Schmilk Day 6

I have maintained at 232 today, but lord help me! I got a deal in my email about a sale on sub sandwiches down the road…And after Hubby decided he will no longer be Schmilking with me, I am sad, hungry, and would love nothing more than to shovel some sammich in my face. But now it comes to weighing whether instant gratification will rule, or the thought of finally being under 200lbs for the first time in years will. I did have an encouraging dream the other night about realizing out of nowhere that I was actually fit and just stared at myself in the mirror….when hubster shook me awake to walk the dog. I wasn’t happy.

I will say, I did take a photo of bloated belly me and combined it next to a photo of what it would be nice to look like with the words “this is why” for times like this. I’ll go stare at that a while before I make my decision. That and start looking at halloween costumes! But dang, the weekend really threw me off… However, if I can keep up and consistently lose just 1lb a day (which is doable for my body when I don’t eat inflammatory foods), I’ll be 180 by halloween. It was slowed a bit this week by food choices, as well as the fact that we’re watching a foster dog so it’s been difficult to get out of the house, meaning no gym this week. Boo.

Grrr… I’ll see you all Monday.

Schmilk Day 5, Take 2

Yesterday did not go quite as planned. Turns out, we were out of milk after I made my first shake. And what was a girl to do? Go to the store? Pshhh, nope. Not this girl…apparently. Totally had Chinese food last night. Yeah… about that. Not my greatest choice. We were actually headed to a legit ramen place, which I can kind of write off as okay because they use actual bone broth as the base which is REALLY good for your gut. However, ten minutes into the drive, hubby tells me he hasn’t eaten in 12 hours and is obviously getting grumpier by the second, so we compromise and pull off at a nearby Chinese place saying we’ll get ramen another time.

Today has been on track, though. I scrounged up some almond milk that was hiding from the move (in cartons, and still good), added a little cream to it, and came out slightly under calories. Or probably right at calories since I also had a bit of coffee today. Not too shabby. Was 234 this morning, but dedicated to getting back on it. And I even have milk now! Here’s to being under 230 by Monday, yeah? Have a great day!

Schmilk Day…5?

We got home Sunday night and I was neapolitan-Burned, white, and tan. This is what happens when you put sun screen on everything but your chest when camping. For whatever reason, I totally forgot. As for what I ate while camping, I thought I was doing ok. We had a few hot dogs when we got there (and a sandwich on the way…I was really hungry), the next morning I had a double Schmilk with coffee, a small thin crust pizza (and I mean THIN crust…and burned. Not worth), and for dinner fish and chips-minus most ‘chips’ as they burned them as well. Sunday morning was a small turkey wrap and some chips, then we went to a Mongolian grill for dinner. Oh god…I ate just what I normally do and it felt like I was dying.

You see, apparently I have also been shrinking my stomach in the process (go figure), so eating a bowl of stir fry and a salad was way too much for me. I went to bed with terrible pressure in my upper stomach and woke up with just slightly less. It was only alleviated when I…uh…’made room’ later. But Monday I was all ready to get back to it! After experiencing the discomfort I planned on mainly just drinking water whit a Schmilk or two to keep me ok, but that plan was quickly derailed as it was a holiday and friends wanted to do things. I managed to go most the day on just water without feeling hungry (since I was still digesting the feast from Sunday night), but got a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich at the mall. I wasn’t super hungry, to be honest, but everyone else was eating and I haven’t had one in forever.

Come Tuesday morning. Hubby wouldn’t let me weigh after the weekend due to beer and lack of water, so I jumped on Tuesday morning in order to clock my progress on the blog. DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT (insert string of profanities). What I feared would happen over the weekend, indeed was the case. Yesterday morning I was back to 235.8. To make it worse, having enjoyed solid food over the long weekend, I had a really hard time getting back to Schmilking. One was had for breakfast, then some M&Ms for the depression, Tuna with mayo because I wanted meat like no one’s business, and a slice of sourdough with butter, followed by half a Schmilk (and half is being generous). Lots of water, a little kombucha, and this morning 233. Not terrible, and my mom tried to comfort me by saying it’s probably all inflammation weight since alcohol and I don’t really get along well.

So the plan for today is probably two Schmilks and some tuna. I really want to get back to it, but I feel like weening back on may be my best option for happiness. However, we will see what today brings! I may find some will power hidden in those too small clothes hiding in my closet. See you tomorrow! Words of encouragement very welcome.

Schmilk Day 4

I find myself, the past few days, watching youtube videos of Buzfeed’s “people trying food from other countries” videos. Granted, I loved them before, but I found it funny that while I’m on nothing but Schmilk, I’m watching people eat all these exotic snacks. I passed on the gym last night as I was not in the mood to do non-flow body flow with the instructor that teaches Thursday nights, but I probably should have done something. It’s easier to say the next day, right?

Day 3 was actually harder than day two for the opposite reason… I couldn’t finish my last shake. Like I felt bloated and just way too full, so I left it for a few hours and tried to come back to it, but still, no go. So yesterday was 3 and a half(ish) shakes and one beef stick. The only thing that really changed was that I started back up on my food grade diatomaceous earth yesterday morning. If you’re looking at that word and wondering what the heck I’m talking about, it’s something I learned about during my blogging hiatus.

I honestly don’t remember where I first heard about it, though it was probably a recommended precursor to a liver flush. The first week I started taking it…oh my god. They say that something like 80% of the population has some kind of parasite (gross), and when I read that it was really hard for me to believe that that could be true. Then I started the DE. I am 99% sure I passed parasites in my first week cleansing. You can be sure I googled the things coming out of me, and it was not okay. After the first sighting I called my mom and she started grossing out yelling “I AM EATING!”…my bad. But I gave her a few pounds of my food grade DE and I eagerly await her weird results on it as well. If you want to learn more about it, you can click here for a full article of the benefits and how to use it by my favorite youtube doctor, Dr Axe.

So results on the morning of Schmilk day 4? Weighed in at 230 this morning, making it 5.5 pounds down in 3 days of (almost) pure Schmilk. I’m two shakes in today, but will be participating in the grilling tonight, and have everything I need for two shakes tomorrow and a restaurant tomorrow night. To compensate for the restaurant, I bought a small thing of 2% milk to cut down on calories, as I have no idea where we’re going. Oh the joys of group decisions! So until Monday, have a wonderful weekend (and a 3 day weekend at that!)

 

 

Schmilk Day 3

Pro tip: Two double shakes only works when you have the ability to sleep in. I woke up around 7:30 yesterday and decided to make my double around 8:30 because I was famished. That’s all well and good, but come 2pm and I’m thinking about every other piece of non-schmilk food in the house. I ended up ‘snacking’ on come turkey lunch meat and a couple beef sticks, before finally just making a shake. My dinner shake also included an extra scoop of protein powder since we ended up going to the gym last night.

I feel so lost at the gym now. I’m been just going to the yoga classes, so when there are no classes in session I have no idea what to do with myself. I spent a while stretching, then got back on the bench press, which was nice. Then I just rode a stationary bike for a bit, but after about ten minutes of that I declared “Yeah, no, don’t put me down for cardio” and just went off to log my food for the day until hubby was done.

However, the scale weighed in this morning at 231.2, making it a 4.3lb loss in the last few days, which is awesome! I am a little on edge, though, as we’re camping with friends this weekend and they’ve already declared that we’re grilling tomorrow night, and going out for dinner Saturday night. I am so happy with my progress, and it’s been hard fought getting to this point that part of me wants to just stay home and keep on keeping on, but you can’t pass up life for a diet. Ugh, I’ll let you know how it goes on Monday.

Schmilk Day 2

Day one was interesting. I’m really glad I’ve given myself the time to adjust to schmilk, by doing two out of three meals most days before going full on, because after the last shake yesterday I wanted something to munch on so bad. I wasn’t hungry at all, but my body just wanted crunchies! So instead, I made myself a small cup of decaf coffee and noted that I may need to start drinking herbal tea before bed to get a little something warm and different to end my day with. Roasted barley is probably my favorite for that since it kind of tastes like a cup of warm lucky charms without the marshmallows. That and it’s pretty darn good for you, which you can read more about here.

But how am I doing after the first day you ask? Well, I’m down to 234 this morning, meaning a pound and a half down in one day (granted, a lot of my current weight is inflammation, so it will come off pretty fast in the beginning), and something I’ve noticed is that when I Schmilk, my cravings are pretty much gone. While I *did* want something crunchy last night, that was more of a habit being broken rather than a full on craving. So, that leads me to think that there’s something in Schmilk that I’m not getting in my every day eating…. Need to figure out what that is, for woman cannot live on Schmilk alone. Except for roughly the next 59 days.

We also went to Body Flow last night which was great. Unfortunately during the very first Tai Chi pose, I pinched a nerve between my neck and shoulder and had a dull ache there the rest of the class, but in the end, it was still lovely. I also had to stare at myself in the mirror for an hour, so that’s helping the “gotta stick to this” attitude. Hubby seemed to enjoy it, though his comment of “Well, it’s not the worst workout I’ve done. I could probably do it twice a day” made me roll my eyes and wonder if he understands that it’s not supposed to be a “kill you fit” class. But he agreed it would be nice to continue once a week, so I continue to have a buddy for at least one day a week.

See you tomorrow!

Schmilk Day 1

So here we go guys! For the next 60 days (give or take a few cheat days because hey! My birthday is coming up!) I’m going full Schmilk. We’re already two out of four today, and I’ve learned leading up to this count down that I am really bad about having 4 meals a day. Heck, I’m really bad about having 3 meals a day, so I make a double in the morning and a double at night. I weighed this morning and was back up to 235.5 *boooo*, but all the more room for Schmilk to shine, right? On top of the weight loss aspect, I was unable to really find a run down of anyone else who did this consistently, so here you go!

Also, hubby agreed to go to one Body Flow class with me a week, so tonight’s the night he tries that out! I went by myself last week for the first time in a while, and oh my god… I hurt for a solid 4 days after that. It wasn’t the best Body Flow I’ve been to, as the instructor kept pausing in between segments to talk about what we were going to do, which ruins the flow aspect. That and a friend invited to me out to sushi right before, so that was extremely unpleasant experience during mountain climbers….

Anyway, keep checking back for updates on the progress!

Apologies to Orenda, and Hello Schmilk

I’ve been gone a while, but not for lack of trying. For some reason up until now, I have been unable to post for whatever reason. But here I am. And the first thing I would like to do is send out an apology for one of the systems I tried. In the past few months of posting hiatus, I learned a lot. Specifically about liver health and leaky gut, and one thing I learned is that when your liver is toxic and you begin to detox it, you are flooded with emotions (usually sadness and anger). So because of this I want to give a big apology to the Clean, Burn, Shape system. It was working so well for me, but I had no idea how bad of shape my liver was in at the time and the detox the CBS put me through was too much too fast for me without having the mental preparation to know what I was going to go through. I’m sure you remember how scary it was for me! Random crying, couldn’t sleep at all, and just so so emotional.

Now that we know that, I’ve been babying my liver and even, dare I say, tried an at home water enima… That was something. Note to anyone trying that, keep some bananas handy as I was really low on potassium when I finished. So what else have I been up to you may wonder? Well, I spent about a month researching leaky gut with resources from Dr Axe along with learning about toxic liver. I learned a lot, I tried some diets that worked for a while, then we hit some financial difficulty and the good food had to go on the back burner. It’s terrible when money prevents good health choices, but that’s life I suppose. So while I was doing wonderful on Dr  Axe’s candida leaky gut protocol, we just couldn’t keep up with the grocery budget.

So one night I got into a conversation with an old friend about Soylent. You may have heard about it, and you may not have, but it’s a meal replacement drink. I looked into it and got really excited about the prospect of not having to spend my days making food, since that’s a big factor in my past departures from getting healthy. I just get so darn hungry and don’t want to spend the hour it takes prepping and baking and waiting because I didn’t have the foresight or time to make my meals ahead of time. But as I looked into it more, I found that it’s sweetened with Sucralose, which as most of you know I am extremely wary of. Any artificial sweetener really. I reached out to the company to see if they had any plans for creating a natural version, but they have nothing at this time.

After getting over being bummed out that once again I was choosing to skip out on what seemed like a nice health product due to their choice of sweeteners, we did a little digging and found Schmilk. It’s just like Soylent, only natural and it’s the first health food/lifestyle change I’ve found that hubby has said he would do with me. The semi down sides include that it has to be mixed with milk and since I haven’t gotten around to making my own almond milk and I don’t like the carrageenan added to store bought, we’ve just been using straight vit D. The other semi down side is that it is, indeed, a subscription service. However, it seems pretty simple to cancel, if that’s what you want, but best part? It costs about $1.25 per meal before choice of milk. So it’s something we’re able to budget and stick with.

I’ve been getting used to it over the past couple weeks, but haven’t made the jump to make it my every meal (4 shakes a day will give you everything you need within a 1200 calorie (1200 if mixed with 1 cup whole milk per shake) day). The taste is like drinkable oatmeal, and I’ve settled on the chocolate as my favorite flavor, as the cinnamon is along the lines of “Big Red gum” cinnamon, not “Cinnamon Toast Crunch” cinnamon (so spicy instead of the normal cooking stuff). Thus why I’m back.

I decided to kick my butt into staying on track this time, so I will be posting every day *fingers crossed* for the next 60 days…excluding weekends to document how it’s working, and let’s be honest, probably complaining about not being able to have “chew food”. Why 60 days you might be asking? Well, that’s halloween and I’m tired of not being happy about how I look in my costumes 😦 I’ll see you all tomorrow for Schmilk Day 1!

No Pity Parties

Well here we go. I started writing a post about two weeks ago when I thought “Hey! Why not do a comparison photo to see how I’m doing?”, which in theory sounds great since I feel awesome, I’ve cut out sugar and non-veggie carbs, and I’m lifting 2-3 times a week. Unfortunately, to my eye, I looked bigger than I did a few months ago! Granted your body morphs and changes as you’re losing weight, but man, I was pretty down on myself after that one. Like when you know in your head that you’re growing muscles and your bloating is way down, but that stupid scale won’t budge and you just feel…gross? Yeah, dem feelz…

So here I am, my pants are falling off me and I bought a pair of jeans that are another size down. Still a little too tight, but now I have them to work toward. I actually turned down a soda because of them. The other night, I cheated a little on this leaky gut cleanse during a game night we had. A little beer, a few crackers, and all of a sudden my brain is like “Well, if you’re going, go hard” and my eyes landed on a can of Dr Pepper sitting on our counter. But my husband’s words echoed in my mind saying “I may cheat on my diet, but at least I limit the damage I do so it’s not as hard to lose it again later”. And I know, as much as I love soda, it bloats me like nothing else could. Like months of working to get it gone bloat (when I go on a binge for a week or two, that is). So I made myself some lemon water with stevia, and I was fine. Which, by the way, is my new go-to drink.

I am glad that I was able to pass the soda up, though, because just the few crackers I had caused a massive insulin bump under my arm and it’s sooooo painful. Now it’s a waiting game for it to be gone, so in the meantime, just lots of water and protein to keep my blood sugar levels even. But again, I’m feeling good. Tired, very tired, but good. Our new puppy (4 year old puppy, but puppy) is getting me outside and walking 4-5 times a day, and I’m pushing to get myself in the habit of attending bodyflow classes twice a week…starting tonight. I will go this time, I swear! A good sign on the workout front too is that I’ve noticed I’ve started actually sweating during our morning lifting sessions. I almost never would sweat before, which is a super sign of thyroid problems. I’m on the road to recovery!

So that’s it for this post. I’m really trying to be more consistent, but I just can’t bring myself to post when I’m feeling down, because really, no one needs an invitation to my pity party. Just my party-parties. Because those are awesome. Have a wonderful day!