FIT > Skinny

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Every time I talk about how skinny I used to be people think that I miss that body. I actually do not. I had it and made the conscious effort to gain weight in a way to have womanly curves, now I am trying to mold the curves to look Fit and be Healthy.

Well now the summer is fast approaching I prefer hanging with minimal clothing if you catch my drift.

Moving right along, in my quest to fitness I found Simple Green Smoothies April 30Day Challenge, now I am a believer!!!

Let me rewind a bit… A couple of months ago I watched “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” it was a very inspirational documentary so I decided to try the juicing fad. But, I felt that all that fiber lost from juicing was too essential for the trash. I was not okay with spending all that money on produce just to get a few cups of nutrients. Luckily though I did not invest in one of those juicers that cost as much as some car notes.

So when my girl T introduced me to the Green Smoothies, I’m thinking ordinarily I do not usually buy smoothies but I was more willing to try it since

1.     Everything I blended would go down my esophagus and

2.     The professional Ninja Blender I bought last thanksgiving was on their recommendation list.

So Week 1: I was going in hard. I was ready. I went shopping. Since there were a total of five smoothies each week, I planned to replace my lunch each day with a smoothie. So I blended all 5 smoothies on that Sunday night. Finally Spinach and Kale finally started tasting awesome or shall I say Rawsome!

Come Monday… Boy was I dead wrong! First of all blending all the smoothies in one night was mistake #1 as they don’t stay nor taste fresh after like 12 hours.

Secondly, my coworkers thought I was sick or something because right after lunchtime the bubbly person they knew was dragging herself like a zombie. So I went back to drawing board, the Simple Green Smoothies website, and read a little bit more and found out that the smoothies are NOT meal replacements. They are specifically for snacking. Ohhh… so that’s the reason I felt so fatigued in the afternoons??? #ShakeMyHead.

I kept on reading some more so that I could follow every single piece of advice they had. My feeling was: GREAT! I got it… lets do this correctly in Week 2, well but I didn’t stop reading there you all know how “related articles” surface … this one article said “Smoothie Mistakes That Cause Weight Gain” OMG!!! OK!!! What am I doing??? What have I gotten myself into??? I am about to become unhealthy from healthy foods.

My new quest became finding the perfect balance of fruits and vegetables without any chunks. And I think I did! I learned that I could replace meals with smoothies if I added proteins. Lack of proteins was the reason for my fatigue. And that is how I created several tables of 300 – 400 calorie great tasting chunk-less smoothies!!!

Below are the tables of smoothies recipes I want to share with you all. None of the smoothies are my original idea. I scoured the Internet and whatever I found I tried and if I liked it I added it to the table as one easy location to make my life easier.

Enjoy, Share and Comment. Thanks for Reading!

X.O.X.O.

The Fit Me

• April 30 Days Smoothie Challenge
• Meal Replacement Smoothies

Bread Alone???

Matthew 4:4

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

Somewhere in February/March 2014 I got on the raw food bandwagon. Nobody told me that I would have hunger headaches everyday. Well maybe I was warned. Giving up warm temperature food is one of the hardest things to do and I missed pepper as well as the flavors of cooked foods.

It started off with the Healthy Wage Challenge that my employer offers. For every 4 lbs. lost in a month you earned $40. In the first week of doing this with only vegetables & no fruit. I lost 4 pounds I was very surprised I only lost 4 pounds grateful, but surprised I did not loose more; because I know had lost way more in the past by counting points on Weight Watchers. That should have been my first clue.

But somehow I was sure that raw foods were my new way of life. I started shooting for 4 lbs. per week. I still shudder thinking about the salads with no dressings. My rationale was that loosing weight without hitting the gym was fine by me. I had no plan for working out ever again. I guess the good part of it was that I drank lots and lots of water which in turn did wonders for my skin.

The downside was that I was too scared to eat regular food. To make matters worse I was going on spring break the following week. I tried so hard to be very strict, I did not gain any weight because I kept avoiding food. Which in hindsight does not make that much sense since I was on vacation. Slowly but surely I stopped following my new lifestyle strictly. I started to modify it but I was stuck at that minimal weight loss. I started wavering and daydreaming about real food and bad food.

Losing any more weight became a struggle at that point I realized that exercise is so very important. I know I have heard it many times before but I guess I had to experience it. Fitness is definitely a combination of nutrition and activity. However being that I was eating only raw vegetables I did not have the energy to even make it through my workday let alone go to the gym.

In addition I was not motivated enough to workout during the cold months. My joints and muscles hurt me during the “winter”. Yet I still could not complete another 7 full days of the raw foods. In the back of my mind I really had to reach my goal weight but I did not have the discipline to be strict. Every morning I’d make plans to eat right by the end of the day I was binging on unbalanced meals.

In an attempt not to gross anyone out, the upside was that I had a regular morning “release” which felt like all the bad things from the previous day was going down the toilet. I know that was TMI. This lifestyle has its advantages but I found that personally it did not work for me. It just isn’t a sustainable way of life. It made food the enemy.

So here I was at another junction. What shall I do next? Where shall I go? Its funny how I had a formula in the past that worked for me but here I am chasing my tail trying to beat an imaginary clock looking for MAX results.

Watch out for my subsequent post to find out what next I’m willing to try.

Lots of Hugs & Kisses XOXO

 -The Fit Me

Strength & Sensitivity

Titus 2:12
It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age

            Let me move this story along so we can get to the good parts, as much as I would like to share the details of my tribulations, I feel that it will take away from the essence of the story I am telling and give more power to the enemy.

I’ll just put it like this when I thought I was the fitness Wonder Woman and my focus had shifted from all the things that I was looking for: career, companionship, marriage etc. In that season of adversity I met the man that would make me happy for the rest of my life. And because our God always makes plans for us when we are not even looking He sent me this man that will stand by me through the thick of my sorrow. Thankfully I made it through the thick since what does not break you only makes you stronger.

After all that was said and done I moved overseas for three years and while I was focusing on forgiving and forgetting, the scale started to creep up in an unfavorable direction. Leave it to my “knight in shinning amour” to come to rescue again. The love of my life, as I fondly call him, asked me to be his wife and I said Yes, Yes, Yes a million and one times over Yes!

Elated, excited, joyfully happy I hit the gym hard again, I cleaned out my kitchen and refrigerator because we all know that  “You do not alter a Vera Wang to fit your body. You alter your body to fit a Vera Wang”. LOL! I truly had to add that in there. Between the Weight Watchers Online, InsanityWorkout DVDs and hitting the gym three times a week I looked fabulous on my wedding day. Photoshop or not I was the flawless, pristine and impeccable bride that I needed to be for my pictures.

Right after the wedding I got lax about my fitness regimen AGAIN and dare I say it… this is where I am now…  reading this I sound like someone who is so obsessed with weight but honestly 200 lbs. on a 5 feet 4 inches body frame is just not healthy.

My story is not about weight it’s more about health and fitness. I want to talk about all the things that I have tried and still trying. What has worked and what hasn’t. I want to talk about the quick but dangerous fixes and the long lasting changes that are unbearable but necessary. I am 50 lbs. away from a healthy weight for my height, heart and life. So lets take this journey together and see how far we can go. If in the process you decide this will work for you then join me because as I preach all the time: there is power in numbers.

Lots of Hugs & Kisses XOXO
-The Fit Me

What Strength!?

Proverbs 24:10

If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength!

I guess it hit me when I looked up and realized that I was no longer the 130 lbs. bombshell I thought I was. The mind is truly a very dangerous thing. I have gone from wearing a size 0 to a fit confident size 6/8 to this thick apple shaped too comfortable to be true size 14/16 (well that’s depending on the designer). Don’t get me wrong I follow a lot of the curvy girl blogs out there in order to embrace my new size but id be lying if I said that was the best thing for me.

By the way I’m not attaching too much value to the fashion industry and their size charts because we all know that is a scam tied to money. But I digress…

The point I’m trying to make is that I was not exactly thrilled at the super skinny size 0 label when I was there. All I lived for was getting more curves and looking my age, instead of looking like a tomboy with DD bra size.  And the only way I knew this could happen was to indulge and that was the beginning of my food addiction. I’m talking Lays Potato Chips and Sprite for breakfast was my norm. Driving through fast food restaurants and Chinese food made me think I’d get where I was going to get that Banger Video Vixen Body.

All that bad habit did give me more curves the only problems were that I did not exercise to define the curves and I got that goal weight and kept on going.

Around 2007/2008 I had this epiphany that the only way for me to get all the things I was seeking in life that I had no control of, I had to focus on something I could control: My Weight. So I did.

I started by going to Houston’s Memorial Park because well there is strength in numbers. Watching drones of people take fitness so seriously motivated me. I’d see people go around the 3-mile trail 2 or 3 times and that gave me something to work towards. I went from power walking it to jogging one light pole and walking two and so on till I built my endurance to jogging 20 minutes straight and I started to see results, I was confident enough to take what I had fostered anywhere.

So I got in my car and measure the distance of 1.5 miles from my apartment complex and it was smack dab at the Beltway Highway. Everyday after work I’d suit up with music in my ear and walk 1 light pole and run two from my complex to the freeway and back. When summer came I bought a bicycle to alternate the running. Some days I’d run the 3 miles and on other days I’d bike 6 miles. I took a swimming class and threw in swimming in shallow pools after each daily exercise. I was wonder woman.

All that went down hill when I faced tribulation that knocked the wind right out of me.

Have you ever fainted in the face of adversity? Ever been so overwhelmed with trials and sufferings that you just wanted to quit? I think we all have. This is my weight loss journey from grass to grace to grass and now I’m on my way back to grace. Check out my next post to see how I continue my journey.

Lots of Hugs & Kisses XOXO
 -The Fit Me