Kelly: “Final week of Reset and Rarin to go!” – Metabolism Reset

by EM2WL | Jul 21, 2012 | Metabolism Reset, Testimonials, The Journey

Kelly – taking her life back w/a vengeance!

My name is Kelly, and I have been overweight my entire life. As a child, I can remember my grandmother offering me a dollar for every pound I lost. My mother offering me contact lenses instead of glasses to lose the weight. I can even remember in grade 7, a very cruel man at a horse stable, watching me struggle to get on a horse during a class trip, who decided to yell out for all to hear, “Jesus, how much do you weight? 200 pounds?? You might kill my horse!” It was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and unfortunately something still ingrained in my head.

I have never ridden a horse since.

I spent the better part of my young life overweight, unhealthy, unhappy and miserable. I had my wake up call when I was 24 years old. I woke up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations, sweating and short of breath. I knew this was my sign to change my life and get healthy, once and for all. It was shortly after, a Weight Watchers At Work program began in my office, and I immediately signed up. Over the next 5 years, I slowly lost the weight. By the time my wedding hit in the spring of 2007, I had lost 102 pounds, going from a size 24 to a size 14. I was very much the beautiful bride, something I am very proud to look back on and know how hard I worked for it. True, I was not yet at goal, but I was something I had never been before.. Average size. I still had about 30 pounds left to lose according to the scale, and I was hoping to get a bit more of it off before we took the plunge and had kids.

5 months later, I was pregnant with our first child. It was like a light switch went off in my head and I turned off the weight loss capabilities and just slacked on the eating. Now granted, I was not eating poorly overall, but I was eating more than I had been allowed on Weight Watchers. During the course of my pregnancy I had gained 70 pounds back – Something that shamed me, made me feel horrible and ugly once more and made me hate the last few weeks of my pregnancy. After the birth of my first, I hit that 6 week mark and immediately went back to the WW program. I spent the next 18 months trying desperately to lose the baby weight. I managed to get to about 25 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight before I was pregnant again. This time I paid more attention to my eating, continued working out at the gym and watching everything. I had managed to make it almost half way through the pregnancy, before I had to stop going to the gym. Over the last 20 weeks of my pregnancy, I still somehow managed to gain about 45 pounds. It just seemed to be even eating a little bit more than I was used to, was causing me huge gains.

Needless to say, It wouldn’t be until almost 18 months after my second child’s birth, that I finally understood WHY I struggled so much to keep the weight off during pregnancy, and why it has been so hard to get it off a second and third time.

In January of 2012, I decided to try the C25K program as a way to hopefully boost my fledgling weight loss efforts. I was once again back at Weight Watchers and still could not get anywhere on the weight loss front. In 8 weeks I went from running barely 30 seconds, to running a full 5k (40 mins for me:)) It was probably one of the few things as an adult I was proud I had done for myself. I never wanted to be a runner, but I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. And now I do enjoy it. During my training, I was barely eating my weekly flex points, let alone the 54 activity points I was earning in a week. I could always hear my leader in the back of my head saying I needed to eat more, but for some reason, I could never connect it in my brain. It was during this time that I realized I had an account on MFP, and decided to give it another try, as another way of tracking my food, get a different outlook on things.

In my first week looking through the forums, I came across the Eat More to Weigh Less Group. I was curious how they could eat so much and still lose the weight, so I decided to read the posts they had listed, ask questions and get a different look on weight loss. I think it took me a few days to convince myself I needed to eat more, even though I knew on WW, I was not eating enough. I began by taking my WW tracker and plugged a week into MFP and see what the calories were like. I was SHOCKED to see I was barely eating about 1400 calories a day. I found the online calculators and was even more shocked to see that my body needed at least 1800 calories, just to pump blood in my body. I immediately started eating at my BMR level and saw the scale drop. Over the course of the next few weeks, I read and re-read and re-read the stickies, asked questions and started to trust the process. I jumped up to my 15% cut value and once again saw the scale change for me. It was here that my body decided it wasn’t quite ready to forgive me for my past eating issues. I spent about 6 weeks trying to understand why I was stalling out and nothing was happening. Then I read about the Metabolism Reset.

The metabolism reset meant taking a break from losing weight, allowing myself to eat and gain strength, and then start making a cut down the road. It terrified me! I have been in weight loss mode for almost 10 years. I knew nothing about stopping that process. Even while pregnant, all I could think about was how the heck was I going to lose the weight? Then it hit me.

I had been in a very low calorie diet for the better part of ten years. No wonder my body wasn’t convinced I was feeding it enough. No wonder my body wasn’t allowing the weight to come off when I breastfed my children, and beyond. No wonder I couldn’t get the scale to cooperate in my favor at all. Once I finally allowed myself to let go, and trust the process, I was finally able to start to heal myself.

The metabolism reset itself has been filled with many ups and downs. I started off very skeptical. How was eating even more supposed to help me lose the weight?? But that first week I jumped to my TDEE value, I lost 3 pounds. Over the course of the next few weeks, those pounds did come back and stabilized, but I realized, it didn’t bother me. I knew now that I could eat literally DOUBLE the amount of food I was eating almost 4 months ago, and basically stay the same weight. I originally planned to only go to 4 weeks on the reset, but after hitting the wall at this point, I knew I needed to give it a full 8 in order to heal my mind more than my body.

Here I am. Currently on my final week of my Metabolism Reset and rarin’ to go. In the last 4 months of fueling my body I have had significant changes in my life and appearance for the better. My hair stopped falling out. I sleep better. I am not as grumpy or angry with others. I started lifting weights and can lift things I never thought I could do. I can do REAL pushups!!! I smile more. I am happier. I feel better about my life. I can’t say the cutting process will be easy, but I am looking forward to the changes coming my way. But no matter what, I now know I will never eat so little calories again. I deserve to feel this good. I deserve to be happy, and I deserve to never have to utter the word “Diet” again.

I hope the next few months will show some wonderful results!

Ann: “Being strong is better than being skinny!” – a Body Image story

by EM2WL | Jul 19, 2012 | Testimonials, The Journey

I don’t really think my story is much different from anyone else’s…especially someone of my age that lived through the “you must be a waif to be sexy” style of the 1980’s. I have never been that petite-type girl. I have broad shoulders and muscular legs…features that took me quite a while to appreciate. I also came into my female form long before my other girlfriends. All of this added up to a great deal of negative attention toward my body…too curvy…too big…and I never felt comfortable in my own skin.

When I was a pre-teen I asked my parents if they thought I should lose weight. Their answer was great, but not one that I understood at the time. They said, “If you are uncomfortable then you should do something about it”. Only thing was I didn’t know what that meant, so I interpreted it as that I should. The only advice given to me was to eat less and move more. I didn’t change that mantra until this year.

Eating was easy and difficult for me. While a teenager, my typical day was as follows: wake up in order to be at school by 7:15AM for first period, school, marching practice for two hours, home. Here’s the thing; I can’t eat right when I wake up, so I would skip breakfast. My lunch period was so crowded that getting food was a challenge, so I usually had a small snack. Then I would attend marching band practice for two hours before going home. Once home, I would eat everything in sight, and then feel guilty about the amount of food I ate. Vicious cycle.

As I grew older, my body image grew worse; mostly due to the fact that I was always having rounds of deep depression. I was also always tired and cold. I didn’t understand how I could keep eating less, and not lose any weight. I didn’t look like the “image of the sexy woman”, and the clothes that were popular always looked awful on me. But, I had to stick to what worked for everyone else.

This way of thinking stayed with me until I was 41 years old…this year. I met Lucia at the Y and we were talking about our calorie intake and she told me about her regimen and a new group she was forming called Eat More 2 Weigh Less. I certainly liked the sound of this, but it scared me to death! I took her advice and upped my calories. Sure enough, my weight went up at first and I became very nervous. But soon, other things began to happen. I found I didn’t need another cup of coffee during the day, I wasn’t wearing my sweater all the time, and my depression has all but vanished. I had no idea that my lack of eating affected my life in more ways than just my pant size. Since upping my calories and changing up my workout routine to include free weights, my weight has begun to even out, my clothes are beginning to fit better, and I am getting stronger.

I have come to realize that food and I can have a healthy relationship and that in order to lose clothing sizes it will take time and that it’s a process and life change…a healthy one. Oh…and to that waif-like body image…no thanks…being strong is better than being skinny!

EM2WL Gear – Win a FREE T-shirt!

by EM2WL | Jul 18, 2012 | Giveaways

Soooo….you guys have all been harrassing asking SO nicely about how to score some cool new EM2WL gear, that you’ve seen us sporting in the newest vids. We did a test run on some tanks, and based on the feedback from y’all so far, things are looking good. So now, as usual, we are coming to to the fam for assistance.

We wanna know:

What types of shirts would you like to see offered? Tanks? Tees? Fitted? Loose?

What colors? Obviously we are girly girls who love pink, but what about y’all?

Any guys out there that would want tees, too? What are your style preferences?

Is there any gear other than tees that you’d like made available?

What about “slogans (i.e. “take your life back…one meal at a time”)?

Our First Giveway!

We would love to hear your ideas! We are particularly anticipating some good slogan suggestions, which leads us to our VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY!! We are so excited (yes, we said first, as in there will be more!) So, here are the details:

From now, until Wednesday of next week, we will be taking ideas for new slogans for EM2WL gear.

The Prize:

A free shirt, of course! Be the first to get gear with YOUR slogan. You pick the color, style, and fit (we’ll have detailed info for the winner). You can also choose to have the just the logo, as we have on ours (if, for some odd reason you don’t want your own slogan on your shirt, lol)

To Enter:

Leave your slogan ideas via the comment section here, Facebook, Twitter, or on the Forums, but final voting will be tallied via the Poll on the forums. We will keep track of all ideas given, in the Contest section of the forum where everyone can vote on them. The slogan with the highest rating, WINS! (Poll will open after at least two ideas have been given, and will close at the designated end time)

;

The Rules:

Tell us a slogan that you think embodies the EM2WL fam who will be wearing the shirts
The slogan cannot be trademarked by another company.
Enter as many times as you like, as long as it’s a different slogan every time.
Only vote for yourself once per idea.
Be creative, but not profane, we wanna be able to rock these tees in front of our kids, grandma, pastor, etc.

Make sure you tell others to VOTE. It doesn’t matter how good your idea is, if no one votes for it!

Contest ends 11:59PM EST, July 25, 2012

Slogan entries have ended, but please head over to the forum and vote for your fave up until the deadline!

Nursing & Weight Loss – Eat More 2 Weigh Less

by EM2WL | Jul 16, 2012 | Nursing

I remember when I was pregnant with each of my beautiful children I would always go through the pregnancy telling myself that when I deliver I am going to drop the weight and drop it quick. I would be itching to get back to working out after the six week mark and boy I started restricting calories almost immediately after getting home with my little ray of sunshine. Oh how I wish I knew then, what I know now. It was so bad…my first pregnancy I opted to stop nursing after only six weeks because the weight wouldn’t come off. Thankfully, for the rest I nursed much longer, but just resigned myself to waiting until after nursing to see any losses.

Even when nursing we will dramatically cut calories in efforts to make the scale move. It is even more detrimental when nursing because not only will the body go into starvation mode, you risk lowering your milk supply as well. The funny thing is, women that tend not to “diet” while nursing, following a non-restrictive diet tend to lose weight during their nursing phase. A full-time nursing mom burns approximately 500 calories per day, so if she is consuming healthy foods, eating regularly and feeding on demand weight loss is usually inevitable. Just adding a minimal amount of exercise will increase weight loss, for example going on a walk for a mile or two while pushing your precious cargo a few times per week.

It is so important not to restrict calories the first two months after delivery. Your body needs time to heal and you also need to establish an adequate milk supply for your little bundle of joy. Now, once you are past that point, yes you can start to restrict calories a little, but it shouldn’t be substantial. Here are steps/guidelines for successfully losing weight while nursing:

Calculate your TDEE, BMR, using the appropriate activity level

Subtract no more than 15% from TDEE for your cut value

You have your cut value which includes your activity level, but it doesn’t take into account the numerous calories burned to produce the milk. If you nurse full time, then you need to add back in 500 calories and for part-time nursing mommies calculate the number of ounces you believe are being consumed and multiply it by 22. For example, if your cut value is 1800, then as a full time nursing mom you would consume a total of 2300 calories per day.

Try to shoot for 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fat

This is truly the time when you are “eating for two” and not the time for VLCD (very low calorie dieting). Relax in knowing that the benefits of breastfeeding extend well beyond just basic nutrition, but you are providing wonderful health benefits as well to your wee one. Oh, and let’s not forget about the priceless bonding that takes place. This is the most precious time, enjoy it, the weight will come off. Take it slow. Listen to your body, if you’re hungry then your body is telling you it needs fuel, so fuel it.