Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 70 | Minor Setbacks Are Minor

Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 70 | Minor Setbacks Are Minor

This week, I am reminding myself that minor setbacks are minor. I gained a couple of pounds after losing for a few weeks in a row. It is going to happen, and that is a fact of life. Fluids are going to be retained, no matter what plan you are on.

I am writing today to let you all know that I am still on the right path, even if I slipped a little. Some junk food made it into the house, and I am certain it is what caused this minor setback. It is okay, as long as I make a recovery plan.

It is summer. Ice cream.

I am human, and I will sometimes go for the ice cream. The trick is to make it a treat, and not an everyday event. I got bagels and cream cheese. I do like bagels and cream cheese and want them from time to time. It is better for the budget to buy them at the grocery store than at a cafe. I will do this from time to time. It is okay.

What isn’t okay is throwing my hands up into the air in a sign of defeat.

We all have those moments. The days when everything is going wrong and all you want to do is go get some fast food to make one thing easier on ourselves. Guess what? It isn’t true. If you give in, you are giving up on yourself when it becomes a pattern. If you get fast food every time things are not going well, it is going to become a bad habit, with some nasty side effects.

You will feel bloated, and you will retain fluid. Then you will get on the scale, and see it went up. What a nasty cycle of negativity.

One reason why I do not weigh myself every day is that I would become obsessed with my weight. It is not a healthy obsession, for me. It can cause a spiral of events that would have terrible side effects. Always wearing black clothes, and avoiding social events. When you don’t feel good about yourself, you want to hide. In case you haven’t learned this about me yet, hiding is not something I want to excel at.

While it is okay to have that treat once in a while, it is not okay to have treats every day, or more than once a day. Unless that treat is a salad. Fill up on healthy foods, and more than once a day is acceptable for healthy food choices.

What is working

I have been drinking a lot less pop, or for the south of the border readers, soda. I still have one every so often, but I am getting it less frequently than ever before. We are drinking more water, and of course, I am drinking coffee. I sometimes have a cold-brewed coffee or an iced coffee, and these beverages can be sugar-free. If I choose iced tea, it may or may not have sugar, depending on which one I choose.

I have cooked a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts today.

When I bake them in the oven, with greek and feta salad dressing, there are a variety of ways to make meals with chicken. I can then add it to a garden or pasta salad, casseroles( my favourite recipe is here) or make my own version of Buffalo chicken nachos. Not being a fan of anything super spicy, I add a smoky or hickory BBQ sauce and blue cheese dressing in place of the salsa and sour cream. Of course, I add chicken, tomato and green onion, but you can adapt nachos to include whatever options you prefer. It makes a nice change from ordinary nachos, and I haven’t made them often lately, but I do love my nachos. As long as they are mild.

When it comes to making casseroles, I stick to the Trim Healthy Mama recipes. They are found on their website, but if you search for them, many bloggers make their own THM recipes, and they are really great. I do need to focus more on cooking at home, and I have started.

What can you do?

It all goes back to doing what works for you. If you don’t know what that is yet, it might be time to try something new. I recommend checking with your doctor before making any serious dietary changes, to be on the safe side. Keto is really popular right now, but as a type 2 diabetic, I cannot eliminate carbs. That is exactly why THM is working for me, it is low carb, not no carb. I do not buy their products, except for the first book, I bought a while ago. I would buy all of their cookbooks before ordering their products. They do sell high-quality products, and I have no qualms about them. My reasons are that if I can find similar products locally, I will try to go that route first.

If you can make your meals at home, from scratch, it will make a difference in your health. I do enjoy cooking. The cleanup, not so much. Certain foods are optimal to batch cook to have leftovers, such as the chicken I cooked today. It will help me make better meal choices because it is ready to use. If I prepare food and have it ready to grab when I need it, I make healthier choices, and I do see results. If you aren’t a fan of buying chicken breasts in bulk, you can buy a whole chicken, and roast it in your oven or slow cooker with this recipe.

Start with one meal a day.

With THM, they recommend you start with breakfast. I am currently eating a smoothie bowl breakfast almost every day. A small container of yogurt, a small container of unsweetened applesauce and a raisin, nuts and seeds mix all together. I have been adding 20 almonds as well since we had bought some on sale and I want to use them up. There are plenty of other options out there, I also like eggs and avocado for breakfast. When I have too many meals in a row without carbs, I do notice a difference. So, I mix them up, to make things balance better for me. I choose to eat Silver Hills sprouted wheat bread. It is not on the plan, but I still use it. I like it, and that is important, too.

What changes can you implement to start your path or add variety to your journey to become a healthier version of yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I am curious, and always looking for new ideas.

#TrustYourGut

Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 28

Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 28

 

Trust Your Gut is a series of stories about real people with weight issues, and complications arising from those issues.  It will explain what the person is facing, what their options are, what they have decided to do to take action, and why they chose the path they are on.  Each person’s story will be based on truth, so it won’t all be happy, but it will be real.  The goal of this series is to get people talking about options that are available for people who have weight issues, on either end of the scale.  If you would like to contribute to this series, there is a contact form linked on my Homepage for this blog.  I know there are people out there that want to help people like them; as I do.

 

The names here may or may not reflect the person’s real name.  If someone wants to remain unknown, we will choose a different name for that person’s story.  The goal is to help people, and anonymity is a valid personal choice for contributors.  I will use a person’s name only if they give permission to do so.

This week I am pleased to share another of my own stories.

Here is  Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 28

Somebody asked me a question the day that made me stop and think.  The question was, “Where do you get your energy?”  My quick response was, “Coffee and kickass multivitamins.”  But I thought about it some more and felt that the person that asked me the question deserved a better answer.  I met up with him a few minutes later, and I explained that it is from following my passion.  When I am being creative, it makes me push my limits and myself.  I am inspired all the time, even in my sleep.  If I let myself go when it comes to being creative, whether or not it is writing, there are no boundaries.  I can be struck by an idea for the blog by having a conversation with my husband or a friend.  It can even happen when I am working.  I can wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, and when that happens, I make myself go write it down.

I wish I could harness this energy, and direct some of it towards my metabolic rate.  The feelings of utter joy I have when I am making progress on one of my projects is unmatched anywhere else in my life.  It is all me, from my very core, and it radiates out.  It is contagious.  It is visible.  People can see the change in me when I am working on something that makes my heart sing!

Note: I realized after this was published, that I forgot a very important part of my answer to this question.  YOU!  Every time someone reads, likes, shares or comments on this blog, it adds fuel to my train of momentum.  So thank you, each and every one of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to include reading my words.  It means more than I can write here, in just one paragraph, and even if there was a longer place for this note, I don’t know if words can describe the feelings I have inside about every bit of growth it has from your continued support.  You all amaze me.

I am starting to prepare for my challenge. It starts tomorrow.  I have a long weekend.  With the work I have done in the last month with the other challenges, I want to keep the momentum going.  I am going to focus on making healthier choices.  I am going to use the same fire and determination in my journey to be a healthier version of myself.  Tonight, I am getting it out of my system.  This weekend, I am going to be setting up my new routine.  I will need to get organized and to do that I will need a plan.  That means food, specifically meals, and snacks, drinks, testing my sugars frequently, recording all of this and how much insulin I am taking.  If I am serious about this, I know I will see results.  I wrote in my challenges about why I want to be an entrepreneur.  Part of the answer was because I want to lead by example.  I am working hard on my dreams, and one of them is becoming a healthier version of myself.  I am going to start with planning the next week while I start this weekend.

I will be researching new recipes in my Trim Healthy Mama book.  There are other recipes online, and there are my favourites I can mix into the meal plan.  I have not made a lot of desserts because I was not certain of the sweetener ratio.  I am using swerve in the powdered and granular form.  THM uses their own sweeteners, and there are conversions for their blends of sweeteners.  I have the chart on the inside of a cabinet door in the kitchen.  I have most of the ingredients I need for making THM recipes, so I am going to expand my horizons with testing some new recipes and adding the ones I like to my rotation.  I think that might be why I have not been as inspired to stay on plan.  I know I need to do this.

#TrustYourGut