The results are in!

The reason I started this blog was to show myself, and maybe some people in my life, that changing eating habits IS possible, and fixing your life IS possible. I will be updating this blog in real time, so that my life as it changes can be seen. This isn't a "here's where I used to be and now I'm here" success story blog. I've seen those and they give me absolutely NO motivation. 

My dear mother introduced me to Shred, a healthy lifestyle change that is supposed to retrain your body how to eat and what to crave. I am on week one, day six of a six week cycle. 

The first day I was skeptical. Me, change eating habits I've had for three years? Me, lose weight? Me? My head was full of doubts. Not me. Not me. I had trouble believing I could do it. But I'll be hungry. But I'll crave sweets and carbs. But I'll have to pee every 20 minutes from all this water I have to drink, that sure is inconvenient. But I have to write down and plan menus for all my meals, every day? That's hard! I'm not a planner!

Still, I have to give myself credit for trying, even though I whined throughout the first day. I stuck to the menu plan I had written down. Shred is all about eating every 1 1/2 hours, so you end up eating small meals and snacks all through the day. And your exercise is about 40 minutes long, whenever you find time to do it. I can watch two episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" on Netflix in 40 minutes. You drink a large glass (or in my case a 20 oz plastic cup) of water with every snack and every meal, too.

Day one finished. I cheated a little by eating a couple no bake cookies my brother had made and felt a little bad, but I told myself to start again tomorrow. Then day two started, and I whined a little less. I felt satisfied after every meal or snack I ate. I cheated that night with a small bag of Cheetos I found in my parents' storage room and I felt bad, so I resolved to do better the next day. Day three came, and I didn't complain at all. I was feeling less tired and I found myself looking forward to each meal or snack. But I cheated that night too, with a couple banana nut muffins my mom had made. Day four and five, I was really hitting my stride. In fact, yesterday was day five. And I cheated last night with two bags of chips, a bag of fruit snacks, and a whole clamshell of strawberries. That's it, you idiot, I thought, you've ruined your diet. Looks like you can't change your bad habits after all. And I went to bed thoroughly disappointed with myself. 

Well as I stated before, today is day six. I woke up, thinking about the bad food choices I had made last night, angry with myself for being unable to avoid temptation. I'm going to weigh myself, I thought. Let's see how badly I'm failing. I stepped on the scale, ready for a heavy blow to my self-esteem. 

247, the display blinked, before it turned off. 247?! My mind was blown. 

Now let me explain a couple things. Although I have cheated at the end of almost every day, I followed every menu during the day strictly, drank tons of water, and exercised when I was supposed to. Next, my official weigh day is on Saturday. That's the day I started, and that's the day I first weighed myself, with no clothing. You're supposed to weigh yourself the same way each time. When I stepped on the scale this morning, I had clothes on, and I was two days away from my official weighing day. I was expecting more weight gain, because of all the cheating I had done this past week. But six days ago, when I stepped on the scale to get my starting weight, the number I had seen was 252. 

In five days of Shred, I have lost at least five pounds, maybe six, since I was clothed when I weighed today. EVEN after cheating almost every day. EVEN though I felt like I was failing. I have lost FIVE POUNDS. Just imagine if I hadn't cheated all those nights! I probably could have lost more!!

After seeing that, I knew I had to blog about this process, firstly because IT WORKS. Secondly, because seeing this process on virtual paper, is going to do wonders for me on those days that I feel discouraged. And thirdly, because I know that maybe my story could be motivation for someone else needing to hear that YOU CAN CHANGE and YOU HAVE CONTROL. 

You aren't starving yourself on Shred. You aren't depriving yourself. What you are doing is, eating small, appropriate portions often, excercising 5/7 days a week for about 40 min/day, and drinking a ton of water in healthy, non-overwhelming amounts, and cutting out unhealthy food. 

I am very excited to share this process! And I am so excited to see it working, because my motivation is now in overdrive from seeing results I wouldn't have had doing anything else. :)