Back to Reality

I have lost a total of 17 pounds so far. It is awesome having baggy pants and being able to wear most of my clothes again. I went on vacation last week and had to go off of my candida diet. I now know that the candida diet works and helps my symptoms. I had told my mom before we on vacation that I had not taken any headache medication for two weeks. I even was being complimented on how I looked more happy and relaxed. The diet is really bland and boring. When I was sick. The thought of meat and a salad was so gross to me. I cannot tell you how much I missed eating sugar. Now I know it is my enemy. I still want it though. Why do we eat things when we know it will make us feel rotten. While on vacation I ate sugar, breads, pizza, pasta... every thing I am not supposed to. I gained 5 pound back of my 17 I lost. I felt sick with a headache every day. I was bloated and moody. I got back on the diet a day after I got back. I lost the 5 pounds instantly. The headaches are still here. But I'm sure it will take a few days to get all the crap out of my system. Yes, it was nice being on vacation and not having to worry about what i was going to eat at each meal and if I would have to make a separate meal for myself. But now back to reality and meat and salads.

I lost 5 pounds

Well I have survived this diet for two weeks. It has been tough finding foods that are diary free, soy free, sugar free and gluten free. I spend a lot of time reading labels. It has also been tough coming up with creative ways to make these foods taste good and not seem like I am eating the same thing every single day. I think trying to cut out caffeine is my only weakness. Having three kids and working can be exhausting. Especially when most of the kids end up in my bed at night.

My headaches have so far still been pretty frequent. Seems like they are worse when I am at work. The stomach aches have decreased and my allergies and sensitivity to smells seems to be about the same. I did not expect instant results. I am just glad to be trying to figure out the root of the problem and not be giving a prescription.

A few things that we have discovered as I go in for my weekly acupuncture treatments is that my body cannot digest raw foods and that sensitivity to smells can be caused by to many toxins in the liver. I also took a questionaire to see if I might have a candida infection. A few years ago it was discovered while I was doing an endoscopy that I had a yeast infection in my esophagus. They were concerned that I might have HIV or AIDS because usually this shows up in patients with those diseases. What I do have is a severely weakened immune system so I get sick easily and my body cannot fight of the infection.  It was interesting because the symptoms are:

• Frequent stomach pains and digestion problems
• Skin problems (skin infections, eczema, psoriasis, acne)
• Foggy brain / Trouble concentrating
• Constant tiredness and exhaustion
• Anxiety
• Mood swings
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Anger outbursts
• Irritability
• Headaches
• Intense cravings for sugars, sweets, and breads
• Itchy skin

I can say yes to pretty much each thing on the list. So in a few weeks I will be on a stricter diet to kill off the candida and see if that helps. I am willing to try anything that will help my suffering and help me have a happier family life.

Oh and on a positive not I have lost five pounds in the past two weeks.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE ALTERNATIVES

Does anybody really care?

So I have been to three doctors about my constant headaches and stomach pains. Each of them just rights me a prescription. It really gets frustrating when they do not try to find the root of the problem. All they want to do is give me a prescription and send me on my way. By the way every prescription pretty much causes difficulty concentrating,  tiredness, dizziness, and nauseousness. I am a mom of three. My husband and I work opposite schedules so we can take care of them. So when I get home from work I am on mommy duty. I cannot be tired and dizzy.

So someone mentioned seeing an acupuncturist I figured, why not? When I went in then did a case history and asked a whole bunch of questions about my lifestyle, medications, pregnancies and so forth. More than the doctors and specialists asked. The two acupuncturist's there reviewed my case and said that I am the worst case they have ever seen. Lots of my symptoms could be toxic overload. So I am on a new diet. I feel hungry all the time because I have not figured out exactly what I can eat and how to be creative with these foods. Mainly I cannot have gluten, dairy or sugar. And everything I eat has to be organic. I went to the few stores I have here where I live and there organic, gluten, dairy and sugar free products are so expensive. I spent nearly $90 for a few items. I got rice crackers, beans, lettuce, carrots, rice milk, almond milk, waffles and bread. My first night I had lettuce and beans for dinner. Ewe! If anyone has any tips they can offer I am open. I just do not know what to by or how to cook these kinds of things. I wasn't much of a cook before. I just hope this all helps. Maybe now I will lose some weight. One of the symptoms of toxic overload is the inability to lose weight. I had my baby 9 months ago and I am still at the weight I weighed 9 months ago after giving birth. I have had stomach problems and I barely eat. Sometimes I get sick after eating, so I never understood why I wasn't losing weight. So fingers crossed this new diet helps me with headaches, stomach aches and weight loss.


WORK FROM HOME  

Seriously Losing It

Summer is pretty much here and can I say dieting has pretty much gone down the drain. I am not going to wallow in self-pity. Ok maybe just a little. I finally got in to see the neurologist. He feels the same as the Gastroenterologist. I had to quit breastfeeding. I need to take care of my body. I'm not happy about all the meds. I started the topamax. It has not produced the same results as the first time I started them. The first time I started them I lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks without even trying. These past 2 and half weeks have been pure hell. I have been so sick. I have had body aches from head to toe. I have been extremely exhausted. I have been dizzy. My head has hurt so badly and I have had the worst stomachaches. I have been throwing up. I have been unable to eat and have been living on a diet of pepto bismal and pepsi. And can you believe it throw all this torture I was hoping for the benefit of weight loss. No my stomach looks like I am pregnant and I have gained a pound. WTF. I have to be a mom too. I have three kids to take care of, work to go to and a job. At least I was able to get out of jury duty. It was going to be a 6-8 weeks criminal case. So to sum it up, breastfeeding did not help me lose weight, dieting did not help me lose weight, meds did not help me lose weight, and being sick is not helping me lose weight. I’M LOSEING IT!!!

Warm Weather Sunshine

Warm weather makes me happy and sad at the same time.

I love being able to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. I love the birds chirping. I love being able to send the kids out without having to bundle them up and then have to dry everything when they come in. I love  not being cold. What I do not love are the allergies from the spring pollens that make me feel completely crappy and non functional.  I do not love is the being fat and not being comfortable in warm weather clothes. Feeling completely pale with alot of white skin blinding everybody else. My goal now that it is nice weather is to become more active. Hopefully the feeling fat and pale will kick my butt into motivation and help me to lose more weight. I plan to get out more and play with the kids, get out more and go for walks, get out more and play hide in seek. Maybe hide some fat for GOOD! Happy Spring.

The Big Decision

So I am trying to make the decision to quit breast feeding or not. My reasons are completely selfish. I WANT TO LOSE WEIGT. Breast feeding this time has not been a weight loss benefit. After this pregnancy I am really struggling losing weight. Sometimes I lose and then gain it back. I have been sick with stomach issues which you would think would help me lose weight, but NOPE. I know breast feeding is super good for the baby. She has yet to get sick and is growing and developing great. Breast Feeding is free and I have ZERO money. I just feeel like a fat blob of yuckiness all the time. I have been debating if when I stop feeding if I will try diet pills. I have been looking at two LIPO 6 and  HGH Energizer. The HGH Energizer interests me because it has other benefits besides weight loss. It advertises get more energy, better muscle tone, healthy immune system, cognitive function support and much more. Sounds all things I need. LIPO 6 says it is a highly effective fat burner and makes you muscles more tone.  Besides igniting a strong thermogenic effect that leads to a rapid loss of overall body fat, LIPO-6 also assists in controlling your appetite. During a diet LIPO-6 gives women the extra energy they need to stay highly active and productive. I will have to research more and decide on what I want to do. The health of my baby is of course the most important thing to me. Meanwhile I will continue to live a healthy lifestyle and do what I can to lose weight.

Blah Blah Blah!

A group of my Facebook friends and I have formed a group on Facebook called friends helping friends lose weight. I am really excited and hopeful that this will help me stay motivated. I have a hard time staying motivated and always making healthy choices. My husband works 6 nights a week and I fix dinner for just the kids and me. It is tough for me to think of dinner ideas for just the three of us. Which is really more like just two or less people because they hardly eat anything. I often find myself not eating and then snacking all night long. I used to be really good at will power and staying on track, exercising daily and so forth. After three kids I just am not motivated to do much anymore. My body looks like a woman who has had three kids. Flabby stretch marked tummy, well I guess flabby all over. YUCK!!! I do not feel attractive, I would hope that, that would be motivation enough but it is actually depressing and makes me want to wallow in self-pity. Why can’t I be my youthful motivating self? I feel tired all the time. I hope I’m not alone. I need to get my family on board with me. I think the depressing weather adds to the un-motivation. Hopefully once the weather gets sunny again we will start doing our daily walks again.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

Ain't no Sunshine!!

I have been doing pretty good with the exercise program. I try to do it daily but some days it just doesn't happen. I have been watching what I eat. I have only lost 2 pounds but I feel pretty good about that. I am still breastfeeding so I have to be careful still about starving my self. I had a few days where I was having troubles producing milk.  I wish the weather would get better again so I can get out there and walk more with the kids. I am a wimp and hate being cold and getting muddy so if it is wet  and cold outside I do not like dragging everybody outside. I am hoping for Spring to come soo. Most of my snow in the front yard is already melting. It is so much easier to get motivated whenthe weather is nice. But I need to lose weight especially since I will be in a wedding this summer. Sunshine please come.

Feeling Sick, Great Way to Lose Weight.

Last week I was feeling great at work. Then I came home all of a sudden I was sick. I felt so nauseated. I still had to take the two younger kids and pick up my oldest daughter. Every minute that went by the sicker I felt. I was feeling exhausted and weak. I thought it could be I was hungry so I ate an Eggo waffle and drank some Pepsi. Did not help.

My baby was sick at that time with diareah already for 3 days. I had not slept for a few nights. I thought that was why I was not feeling well.

I went and got my daughter from school. The whole time I was waiting for her I wanted to just crawl into a ball and go to sleep. I felt so weak holding my baby. As soon as we got home I just dropped everything on the floor and the baby and I laid down on the couch. I could not move for the rest of the evening and I was throwing up everything for hours. Even my vitamins I took that morning. Thank goodness for my two older kids, ages 6 and 4. They took such good care of me.

Well I was sick the whole weekend until now. My baby is still sick and I am changing up to 8 diapers a night. She acts like her normal playful self and has no fever. Just changing alot of dirty diapers. I have not slept in over a week and I still feel really sick and weak.

Needless to say. I am not getting much of my excercise done for my 21 day challenge. We did take the kids out for a walk and fresh air the past two days though. That was really nice. Most of the time I just want to be in bed but it is tough. I still have to go to work and school and be a mom.

At least I am losing weight.

21 Days to a New Me

My grandfather passed away last week, so my family took a 7 hour drive to the funeral. It was a nice funeral. My grandfather was a great man and will be missed.
While we were on this drive my dad mentioned a speaker from his last convention that he worked. This speaker talked about how it only takes 21 days to break a bad habit or create a good one. The concept is, if you do the same thing everyday for 21 days than you feel awkward not doing it. So if you start to run everyday for 21 days than by the 22nd day you will feel weird not running. If you want to quit smoking then you try for 21 days and by the 22nd day you should be smoke free. This is supposed to work with anything. If you want to cut out a certain food out of your diet by the 22nd day you will not want it anymore.

I am going to apply this to my life. I have a ton of things I would like to change but I am going to take it one step at  time. My main thing is exercise. I have the hardest time finding time to exercise. I have decided that I am going to do anything I can to squeeze it into my daily life for 21 days. Hopefully by day 22 I will be wanting to exercise and not forcing myself. I am already on day 3. There is a great article on Healthy Lifestyle that has tips for getting motivated to exercise.  I will keep posting my progress.

Fat Pants

I have been following the advice of  Healthy Lifestyle's advice and tips. I do good all day while I am at work. I take healthy snacks and drink plenty of water. When I am at home I have a bad urge to snack. Some days I am good at resisting the evil urge but sometimes it overcomes my will and I indulge in yummy goodness. Then I feel guilty and gross. I will also have to give myself the big two thumbs down on exercise. I have tried really hard to get the motivation to exercise but after my crazy days cuddling up on the couch with the kids and vegging out to a tv show is so much more appealing.

My eating could be emotional eating or stress eating. I have been really busy lately. I just started back to school, I work 36 hours a week, I am a mom of three, I have household duties and I had all kinds of goals to get a home business going. Well that is not happening as quick as I thought it would.

Meanwhile I will be on my way to battling my bulge and getting healthy. This summer while I was pregnant I got rid of so much stuff in my house. One being my fat clothes. I figured if I got rid of them it would urge me to lose the weight faster. But that was not so. I am definitely having problems losing it as quick as I lost it with my first to pregnancies.

So I need to lose this weight because I refuse to go shopping for pants I do not want to own.

Holidays Are Over - No More Messing Around

I was not a very good dieter during the holidays. I did not stick to my goals and lose weight. I gained back the few pounds I lost. So now I need to suck it up and get back on track to my healthy lifestyle changes. I was watching CNN the other day and a guy who won the "Biggest Loser" has now gained back all of his weight. They stressed that diets do no work. It is a lifestyle change that needs to be done. A healthy lifestyle change. So that is my goal. I am going to watch the food I eat but I am not going to diet. I will eat what I want but watch the portions. Drink plenty of water . I will try and get as many people on board with me that I can be accountable to. I plan to loose 1 pound a week and reach my goals by this summer. I am going to stay positive and not let my set backs effect my lifestyle changes.