Couch to 5K Progress: Week 3

One of my favorite parts about this journey has been proving to myself that I can do things I never imagined were possible when I was 352lbs. If you have followed my blog for awhile, you'll know that running has always been one of those things that seemed impossible for me- as if it was just completely out of the question. 

To give you some background, running wasn't just something that seemed out of the question to me when I weighed 352lbs, it even seemed out of the question to me a month ago. I guess I've just always had that image of a "runner" in my mind and thought that I could never be that- it seemed pointless to even dream about it. I remember when I first started this journey, I challenged myself to run 30 seconds on the treadmill and I thought I was going to die! Well, now that I've lost about 187lbs I figured that it was high time to prove to myself yet again that NOTHING is impossible through Christ who gives me strength (Phillipians 4:13) so 3 weeks ago I began the illustrious C25k (Couch to 5K) training plan. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically a 3 times a week running program that uses intervals of walking/running to eventually take you from being able to run only 1 min to being able to run for 30 minutes straight. I use an app on my iphone and it works amazingly! There are plenty of them out there and they will sync with your music and will tell you exactly when to walk and when to run- easy peazy! Here's me getting a run in at our hotel last week (I was in DC for work): 

Well, I'm officially finished with the 3rd week of the program and I've got to say, I am quite impressed with how my endurance has improved. I started out huffing and puffing from running 1.5 minutes and yesterday ran for 3 minutes. Now, I know to some running 3 minutes straight may not seem like a big deal but for ME...it was a major moment of victory. I remember as I was getting ready to run yesterday thinking that I wasn't ready to move to the next level of running for 3 minutes but I put myself out there & took a chance and ran those 3 freaking minutes twice! 

Now, I'd be lying to you if I said that I'm totally confident I can do tomorrow's run, or the next days or the next days because honestly, I've never ran that far before and by no means have the runs I've been doing been easy but you know what, I'm willing to TRY and give it my all and each time I've done that, I've never been disappointed. 

One thing that has been a little disappointing is that my left ankle pretty much started giving me problems after just a week into the program. I went out and got some really good running shoes (thank you Brooks!), socks & an ankle brace that I believe has definitely helped although I still definitely can feel some pain. Here's my fancy shoes & not so fancy brace: 

 I've heard some mixed reviews when it comes to pain & running- some say that if you feel absolutely any pain that you should stop right away & see a doctor. Others say that pain in some form just comes along with running and as long as it's not debilitating or getting increasingly worse, to just keep keeping on. Honestly, that's the approach I'm going with. 

I want to run a 5k. Ahemmm...I'm going to run a 5k. Later this month I will be signing up for this baby: 

And although I'm still downright terrified & in disbelief at the thought that I could actually run for 30 minutes consecutively, I'm going to give everything I have to find out. I don't plan on training to run any farther distances than a 5k as I quite honestly enjoy other physical activity more than I do running but running a 5k has been a goal of mine for quite some time and this is the year and the time for me to reach it! 

Questions: 
- Are any of you working towards/training for something you once thought was impossible? 
- Anyone have any advice/thoughts on encountering pain while running? 

My Revelation: Moral Eating & Food Shame.

In my last post I mentioned I've been having some revelations about this weight loss journey lately and today I'm going to share what I mean by that. 

Often times we like to have revelation moments when they just kind of come to us from out of nowhere and we are able to pat ourselves on the back for being smart enough to finally figure something out- that is not the kind of revelation I have had. Mine has come from doing something the WRONG way, seeing the negative effects it was having & then finally God opening my eyes to the truth & showing me how far I had wandered from it. 

About 3 months ago (aka: Holiday prime time) I began realizing that I was living in a constant fog of shame and guilt in regards to what I was eating. Now, if I was stuffing my face with pizza, baking sleeves of cookie dough, eating McDonalds weekly or not ever eating anything green, then I could understand feeling ashamed of my eating because those decisions would not be me doing my best, they would not be a reflection of the freedom & joy I have, they would be indications that food was in control & not me. However, I wasn't doing any of those things- I was eating pretty close to how I've been eating for the last 3 years that I've been on this weight loss journey but things had become quite different for me- I began to feel like no decision I made (concerning what to eat) was good or healthy enough. 

Here's what I mean: After not being around the healthy eating/weight loss blogosphere for awhile, I began to get back into it & instead of reading blogs that had to do with weight loss specifically as I used to, I began to read more blogs written by super healthy gals who are whiz's in the kitchen for inspiration, since I'm really not a very knowledgable cook, was looking for more healthy recipe ideas & just kind of thought that I had moved passed needing to read blogs that were specifically about weight loss since I no longer had hundreds of pounds to lose. And let me tell you, I read those blogs and tried to model my life in a similar way for multiple weeks until I hit the breaking point after feeling like a failure after eating a bag of Lay's baked potato chips with my salad from Panera. At that moment, I knew something was very wrong. 

I had gotten to the point where NO food decision I made was good enough. If I ate: 
- Salad, then I thought about how I should have used less dressing & that cheese really was unnecessary. 
- Chili, then I shouldn't have used canned beans because well...they are canned and have too much sodium. 
- Smoothies, then I shouldn't have used any juice and not too much fruit either, carbs and sugar are bad for you, you know. 
- Chicken breast & whole wheat pasta, then I shouldn't have because those documentaries I watched told me we really shouldn't be eating meat every day and then pasta shouldn't even be in my vocabulary if I'm a seriously healthy person. 

In every food decision I made, I always left that meal thinking I could have made a choice that was: 
- "Cleaner" because anything preserved is just "trash." 
- Had less sodium. 
- Had less calories and carbs. 
And the list goes on and on.

It had gotten to the point where I felt like unless I was literally eating pure vegetables with no oil & no seasoning that I just wasn't good enough which I'm sure you can imagine just made me leave every meal feeling defeated & like I could never do good enough. 

I'm not playing the blame game & I accept FULL responsibility for my thoughts & what goes in my mouth but truthfully, I'M DONE READING BLOGS THAT OBSESS ABOUT FOOD. Ahhemmm...let me say put that another way in case it wasn't clear: FOOD IS NOT MEAN TO BE OBSESSED OVER whether it's UNHEALTHY food or HEALTHY FOOD. 

Food is just food. And after finally being set free from this flat out destructive way of thinking I feel SO very bad for the thin girls who are blogging their brains out about food 24/7; they are constantly thinking of desserts and peanut butter and anything else they have deemed "untouchable"- trying to find ways to still have it and I really don't care whose feathers I ruffle when I say this but FOOD IS NOT MEANT TO BE OBSESSED OVER. Food is meant to nourish us so we can live our lives, not become our lives. 

Don't get me wrong, I am all for sharing healthy recipes & tips that we come up with- that's part of what this community is for but there is SO much more to being healthy than just eating foods that have as little calories/sodium/wheat/carbs etc. For many of us who had or have weight to lose, we used to focus and have our lives revolve too much around food but I have to say that I don't think it's any better when we are obsessed and our lives still revolve around food even when it's healthy. Food is just food and there is SO much more to life than what our next meal will be. 

I've vented quite a bit here but I can't help but be SO glad to finally be free from constantly feeling like every food decision I made wasn't good enough just because it's main ingredient wasn't chia seeds, coconut oil or protein powder. I have worked 3 years to stop being controlled by food and having my life revolve around food & I'm not about to go back to that place but just with a different healthier type of food!?

Here's the TRUTH: 

You and I are not better people when we make healthy food decisions. 
You and I are not worse people when we make unhealthy food decisions. 
Food should NEVER cause you or I to feel guilty or ashamed unless we are letting it control us. 
There is SO much more to life than your next or last meal. 

In closing, I was reading my Bible the other day and came across this verse & couldn't believe how much it described how I was becoming: 

⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ- Phillipians 3:19-20

It is so easy for our God to become our stomachs- for us to make a top priority in our lives the things we crave, the things we think will make us appear uber healthy to others & for our minds to be set on what is so very temporal. The other day I felt the Holy Spirit remind me that when I stand before God, He isn't going to ask me why I ate that half a bagel with cream cheese the other morning when I know it had "gasp! simple carbs in it!" but He'll be interested in things that matter, like what did I do with the time He gave me here on Earth? Was I obsessed with myself & the things that stroked my ego or was I able to invest my time into things & people that mattered. 

Make every effort toward freedom from unhealthy habits in your life- just don't allow yourself to become a slave all over again to trying to eat or live according to someone else's definition of perfect. 

Checking In :)

Greetings long lost friends! 

Wow, it's amazing how quickly honeymooning + the Holidays + traveling + adjusting to newly married life can really make time fly by! I really had no intentions of letting 3 months go by without checking in but alas, it's Valentines Day and the last time I checked in it was Halloween...my bad. 

Life Updates: 

Life is good. God is great. My husband is the biggest blessing I've ever known- want proof? Check out his Valentine's gift to me today: 

How stinking cute/creative/amazing is he??? Ah, thank you Jesus for a man that loves You and me more than anything else in this world. 

The past 3 months have been pretty great. We traveled to my hometown of Arizona for Christmas where I discovered how much I love hiking! It's unfortunate that I didn't know that or take advantage of the thousands of trails in AZ when I still lived there. Here's a shot of me in one of my favorite places in all the world: Sedona, Arizona: 

Enough about life in general...

Weight Loss Updates: 

I am currently weighing in at 165lbs (meaning I'm down 7 since my last post) and have lost a grand total of 187lbs. My final goal is to weigh 150lbs so I've only got 15lbs to go! 

I only have time for a quick check in today but I am really really really excited to share with you all some of the aspects of my weight loss journey as of late. Basically my little weight loss world has been turned upside down for the last two months (and no, I don't mean I've been on a two month long pizza binge) but it's changing my way of thinking about food, about weight loss & about myself and I'm excited to share it with you all as I've got to believe there has got to be some others out there who have struggled with the same thoughts and patterns as I have. 

Hope all is well with everyone & that you're living your free~est! 

- Tiffany 

What Losing 180lbs Looks Like (New Progress Pictures!)

I'm excited to being sharing the next installment of progress pictures with ya'll today!  

They are actually a bit overdue as I try to post every time I lose 20lbs, but this time there is 32lbs in between today's pics and the previous ones. So without further adieu...

Photo on the Left: 204lbs & Photo on the Right: 172lbs

If you are interested in checking out every progress picture I've taken since the beginning of my weight loss journey (in 20lb increments), you can do so at my "My Progress" page. 

I always do like to compare the first pictures I ever took (which still were of me after I had already lost about 20lbs) with my current ones. So, here's what losing 180lbs looks like: 

When I look at these pictures I still have a hard time believing I actually ever looked like that. I mean, I was so big my body wouldn't even fit into the frame of the photo! However, I don't look at the girl in  my before photos and hate her- she was loved by many (most importantly by God) and had many people in her life that she loved. She was doing her best with what she had and the situations that life had handed her. More than anything I just feel sad when I look at her. Sad that she had allowed herself to become a victim of her circumstances, sad that she wasn't living in the freedom and victory that were available to her, and sad that she didn't seem to know what she was really capable of and deserved. 

But I know now.

 3 years later, I know that there is nothing I can't do through Christ's strength and grace. I know that nothing can dictate my present and future other than my own choices and God's sovereignty. I know that I am worth fighting for and that nothing is out of my reach. I know that I have nothing to fear in this journey except the power I have to chose to settle for less than my best, which means I have nothing to fear because I am hell-bent on finishing this race even stronger than I began. 

Question #1: What have you proven to yourself during your weight loss journey that you didn't know before you began? 

Question #2: This is a little random, but has anyone tried PB2? I read about it on a blog recently but wanted to get some more opinions- has anyone else tried this? 

Our Healthy Halloween Fun!

So, remember how it was just last week that D and I had the honest & frank conversation about how I needed him to support me in regards to healthy eating? 

Well, apparently old dogs can learn new tricks because when I got home from work last Wednesday, I arrived to find that he had planned & prepared a mini-Halloween party for the two of us that was composed of all HEALTHY Halloween treats! 

I mean, besides the fact that he's also Captain America, I'm pretty sure I have the greatest husband ever :) 

He started off our healthy Halloween dinner with these: 

Monster mouth caramel apples! (The teeth are made from sliced almonds!) 

Followed by the main course: 

Mummified Flatbread Pizza & Brussel Sprouts (btw- it's official, brussel sprouts are not for me and I promise it's not how they were prepared- I didn't hate them but the fact is they just have too much of a vegetable taste for me- bleck!)

And finally, dessert!

Frozen "carved" clementine shell filled with frozen greek yogurt and reduced sugar/fat chocolate sauce! 

I've gotta say, for not knowing all that much about healthy eating (except for what I've taught him) and not really caring about what he eats for himself at all, I was super duper impressed with his take on a healthy Halloween dinner but more importantly that he obviously had taken to heart our conversation the week before. I'm a blessed girl. 

Weigh In: 

• Previous Weigh In: 176lbs
• This Weeks Weigh In: 172lbs 
• Result: Loss of 4lbs! 

My goal this week is to continue to lose another 2lbs per week and I'll be glad to take more than that a week as I know I have some tough weeks ahead (the Holidays but we are also traveling to Spain in two weeks) but nothing is going to stop me from reaching my goal of 160lbs by Christmas! 

Question: Anyone have any good Holiday eating survival strategies to share? 

Losing Weight & Not Your Significant Other

Losing weight is hard- period. And for me, losing weight became harder when I moved from singledom to having a boyfriend (my now hubby!). Why you ask? Because D loves him some food. Like... a lot. Don't believe me? 

I have proof: 

 I told you. 

Earlier today a bloggy friend wrote me expressing that she was now having trouble continuing to lose weight now that she is in a relationship and as I wrote her back from my experience and with some advice I thought that surely this could be helpful to others because the truth is that it's a lot easier to deny yourself and go into 100% hardcore weight loss mode when you are single and your choices are directly effecting someone else. 

Let me preface this by saying that I've done nothing but lose weight since D & I started dating 11 months ago but it has not been without struggle. I found that when we would go on dates that I felt like turning down the opportunity to feed each other ice cream and bake cookies together just didn't seem fair- I felt like I was missing out on some essential dating right of passage or something. And because I was far from my heaviest at the time, it was easy to slack a little here and there. For a few months during our dating relationship, I found myself quite comfortable in maintenance mode. The problem with that is that I wasn't at a weight I wanted to maintain- I still had more to lose and I needed to stop living, thinking & eating as if I had already reached my goal. 

It's hard to tell the person you love who just wants to do nice things for you and have fun adventures (that include food) that you just can't or that they are going to have to rethink their plans in order to accommodate your healthy living choices. It's hard, but not impossible. 

For example, the other night D lovingly texted me that he was going to pick up dinner for us on his way home from work (so sweet!); however, although I made sure to ask that he get me something healthy (which was hard enough) he decided to come home with BBQ ribs, pulled pork, mashed potatoes & garlic bread...REALLY!!?!?! 

After dinner he could tell that I was kind of quiet and when he asked what was up we had a very honest conversation where I explained that when I eat something that is unhealthy, it's not the same as it is for him where he just thinks, "Yea, that wasn't very healthy or nutritious, oh well, it was delicious and so worth it!" I explained that for me, when I eat things like that it's more than just a feeling of guilt that I feel, it's a feeling of defeat. I feel defeated because I know that I'm not making decisions that are going to lead me where I want to go. I think that helped everything click for him because, I believe, that if someone truly loves you, they aren't going to want to contribute to you living in defeat, but victory. And he followed up  by asking what he could do to help me reach my goal; see if you're like me you'd think..."uh, not wouldn't not bringing home BBQ be an obvious answer?" but to the mind of the person who has never been overweight or had 100+lbs to lose, they don't realize that it's not just a cheat meal, it can lead to a cheat meal marathon month. 

So here's the advice that I gave my bloggy friend & that I'm currently living out myself. When it comes to enjoying your relationship/marriage and still reaching your weight loss goals, I suggest: 

• Having a frank and honest conversation with your significant other; share your story of how you became overweight, what your goals are & how they can help you reach them. 
• Find ways to incorporate and enjoy food with them- it doesn't have to be all carrot sticks and protein shakes; make a healthy dessert together or research a new restaurant to go to and check the menu before you go for the healthiest option. 
• At the end of the day, we all have to come to the realization that the only person who is going to make the tough decisions of saying no to food temptation and yes to the gym is us- it's not our significant others. If we are waiting on them to suddenly change their eating patterns or plan our meals for us, we're gonna find ourselves 5 years older, 25lbs heavier and regretting letting ourselves go. 

Losing weight and being married/in a relationship is  possible. It will take sacrifice, planning & hard work, but hey, doesn't anything that's worth something? 

I'm BAAAAAAAAACK as a Mrs!

Why, hello there :)

After taking a post-wedding blogging haiatus, I am so glad to be getting back into the groove of things.

While we've only been married for almost 2 months, it already kinda feels like a lifetime away- did anyone else experience that?

Here are the quick wedding details:

• I married the love of my life early last month- he is the most kind, loving, integrit person I have ever met and I am blessed to be able to live life with him. We met almost 3 years ago, began dating 11 months ago & have been loving every moment of our almost 2 month old marriage! 

(This is the only professional picture we've received back thus far, I'll be sure to post a few more once we get them!)  And yes, I know you can see my bra... :/

• D (that's the hubby fyi), being the amazing man that he is, planned our entire honeymoon on his own and didn't tell me where we were going until the day of the wedding! While I'm still kind of surprised my anal-retentive control freak self let him plan the whole thing without even telling me one detail, I'm glad I did because he did an incredible job. Where'd we go? BOSTON!

Because we are going to be doing a lot of traveling in November (Spain) and December (Arizona to see my fam) we wanted to do a more low key honeymoon so Boston was perfect! I found it to have quite a few similarities architecturally to the 'Burgh but with a way cooler feel. It was laid back yet outdoorsy which is totally us without being crunchy (my word for hippie meets yuppy). The picture above was while we did Boston's Freedom Trail and we spent the rest of our time exploring the various neat little neighborhoods and Boston. All in all, it was a delightful time :)

Weight Loss Journey Progress:

As of Monday I am weighing in at 176lbs, which means a couple things:

1. I have surpassed my original long term goal of weighing 180lbs!!!
2. I have officially lost as much weight as I currently weigh!!! I've lost a whole me- that's craziness, folks. So for those not good at math (tee hee), I've lost a grand total of 176lbs!!!
3. It is past-time for my next round of progress pics (I'll post them next week).
4. Finally, this means that I am 16lbs away from my new final goal of 160lbs.

I  have been on this journey for almost 3 years and while it has been one of the most rewarding and challenging of my life, I am reading for this chapter to come to a close and the chapter of maintenance to begin. In an ideal world I'd like to lose these 16lbs by the time I fly home for Christmas and begin 2013 at my goal weight of 160lbs (this would average a 2lb loss per week) and while I can't guarantee I'll meet that goal (because of factors beyond my control (read: whether my body decides to give up the weight or not), not because of factors I can control (read: inhaling Christmas cookies), I'm going to give everything I have to finish this journey as strong as I deserve to- which is pretty darn strong.

Signing off for this week~I hope all is well with all my old and new bloggy friends out there. It's good to be back :)