Erased

Last year, I blogged upon returning from Europe.

None of the pictures posted - just holes with a blue icon, showing that something should be there that wasn’t.  I recently replaced the arrows with the pictures, since I had rather helpfully captioned them.  The only issue?  The date of May 2023 was erased.

I haven’t blogged regularly in years, but that changes today. The Fitness Quest is back with a vengeance, and I’m already one week in.

You see, I have weight to erase.

Lots of weight. 🤩

Ohhhh I’m chunky.

SO, basically the last time I was in the 160’s was a brief encounter in May 2022, right before my Daddy died.

Ignore the other girls 🤪

Ideally, 153 is the goal, because that was the weight I wanted back in 2015, when I started the blog.  Daddy died, and that night I ate an entire bag of chips…not thinking grief would trigger a change.

It did.

I miss my Daddy terribly.

Lo and behold, I enter menopause two months later. Vicious hot flashes and incessant night sweats wrecked havoc with my body. Exercise did nothing to help me, and my weight slowly crept up.  I landed at 188, maintaining that weight despite bursts of extended exercise.

I walked over 100 miles in Europe and LOST NOT A POUND.

I returned home very discouraged and disappointed with my weight; the trip was intended to kickstart loosing weight. (Losing weight! Gotta start remembering that again. 🥳)

Menopause was still kicking my butt, and as I researched possible remedies I was bombarded with the same message: CANT LOSE WEIGHT DUE TO HORMONES?!? 

And I believed them, since mine were actively trying to incinerate me.

I’ve started to look my Nana.

It didn’t help that we had the hottest summer on record in Phoenix, and we had to sit tight as we were limited by summer heat.  It broke, as always, but I had a ton of work to do - we were behind, imho.

And I was very very consumed with how much work we had to do.

So my weight was the FURTHEST THING FROM MY MIND…and I maintained the same 188lbs.

And I was still seeing ads that the inability to lose weight wasn’t my fault (and if I just took their supplements🥸).

But then it happened:

The Commander got engaged on Christmas Eve!!!

So there’s a wedding in October 2024…just 10 months away!!

I still did nothing.

Well, I did do stuff. Like head back to NYC to see Rocky.

But I didn’t even consider losing weight.

I looked at Mother of the Bride dresses…and decided this was the one I wanted:

With those shoes.

And I convinced myself I’d be ok in a large Preen Finella dress (if I could find one, still looking) as let’s be honest. My weight is mostly in my thighs, and you can hide those in a big skirt.

Except.

I also had, for the first time except for pregnancy, belly fat.

And I hated how I felt.

I’m not certain I ever got used to feeling flabby-it bothered me all the time. But the stresses of building a fantastic business, which has now brought in $1.2 MILLION dollars in revenue, has been intense.

But last year’s photo is pretty happy. We are succeeding in building something amazing.

So the “plan” was to join the Buckeye in a diet study he was volunteering for. Two years in a dietitian lead clinical trial.  We agreed to tackle the vegetarian keto menu with gusto, and ate copious amounts of Little Debbie Nutty Buddy’s in the meantime. I often rewarded my hard work with my beloved chips, and I suspected my weight had entered the danger zone.

Still madly in love with this guy!  Seven years this month!

Unfortunately for us, he landed in the control group-meaning they hand him the plan and say see you in two years.

We are ollllllllllld.

So, we didn’t do anything😂😂😂

And continued to ask each other if we’d like a Nutty Buddy. (We always said yes and grinned with glee!)

As I looked at dresses, I also realized that in late June I may want to look thinner than I was, due to a potential work commitment.

And then I was rear ended, and got a concussion.

Yes folks, I hit my head, again.

Me at my warning weight.

And in the ER, when they asked my weight, I lied through my teeth and said 190lbs.  And at the doctor the following week when they asked me to get on the scale, I declined.

Eight days ago, I found the scale in our spare bathroom and nervously got on it.  

200.00

And that was it.

Weight that much was never something I wanted to do.

Sooooooooo

Fast 800.

I actually didn’t know I was doing it until last night; my panicked brain at seeing that number just quickly put together a plan that happened to be scientifically proven (which means I must have read about it at some point in the Daily Mail.😂)

I pulled out the calorie counting app and dialed in a goal weight of 153 by October for the wedding, and it said I could only consume 932 calories a day.

That honestly seemed reasonable…I’m a natural faster.  I figured I’d throw in a few 500 calorie days a la 5/2; unwittingly I am actually doing the fast 800.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HORMONES?!?

So here’s the deal….i know of several who are on semiglutide (Ozempic).  They range in age from 40-65.  All of them have lost significant weight.

So I did a little research and discovered these shots make you feel full very quickly, and you eat less.

THEY WORK BECAUSE YOU LIMIT YOUR CALORIE INTAKE.

I also clearly remembered a study in the Lancet that the best way for people to lose weight was simply to stick to 800 or less calories a day. That it was proven to reverse type two diabetes.

I don’t have diabetes.  I just love chips.

I decided that it all came down to willpower, and nothing else.  Being honest, I knew everytime I’ve recorded calories, I cheated on portion size.  And in all truth, I’ve never, ever, tried consistently to cut calories long term.  The shots trick your brain into thinking you’ve eaten more.  Why couldn’t I just tell my brain to stuff it?

And so it began, one week ago.  

And I’ve lost 5.6 pounds.

194.4.

Time to erase the unnecessary weight, get my health straightened out and get going. I’ve got a national company to found:)

Let’s go!