I feel like I’ve told myself this every few weeks, but the truth is: that it true! You have to find something that works for you and make it work for you.
Trying to Achieve My Goals
For my New Year’s Resolutions – or goals – I decided I needed to lose a lot of weight. Funny, this has been my New Year’s Resolution for 5 years… BUT I finally found something that works for me!
I have been following Bikini Body Mommy’s 90 Day Challenge 7.0 since the beginning of the year and simultaneously majorly cutting back my carb intake.
Progress is Encouraging
Well now – Mid February – I find myself down a solid 10 pounds and legit down 5 inches around the fattest thickest part of my tummy. All the spots I measured – I am down 19+ inches! It’s been basically around 45 days!!! I get ahead of myself and do the math and try to think I can weigh 50 pounds less by my birthday at the end of July. I WISH! I will only get closer to that if I stick with this working for me.
Making this work for me
Well, first I have to really surrender this to the Lord. I’ve never ever been too disciplined when it came to eating and exercise. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE Desserts and I’ve always firmly believed you can never just have only 1 cookie.
The Exercise Part –
It took finding a time slot in my day to start small. By the grace of God, my 3 girls will all nap at the same time most days. I usually can have at least 30 mins to an hour of their naps overlapping. This is my “Me” time, so I really had to push myself to do something physical. All I really wanted to do was sit around and recover from my morning.
I started a new routine! And really new habits! We eat a late breakfast, and then when the kids play I try to fit in my time with the Lord and Bible Study time. It’s not “quiet” but nothing in this season is. Then while they eat their lunch, I will scramble around cleaning up after them. Getting them into bed for a nap is often hard, and when I finally get it done I feel like I was just in World War 3. (Thus the wanting to just sit and do nothing.)
BUT I NOW have decided to go straight to the TV and turn on YouTube and pull up Bikini Body Mommy’s FREE Challenge and start my exercise video.
Seriously, Bikini Body Mommy is GREAT! Rewind – I HATED EXERCISING! After having Magnolia in 2016, I did do a previous 90 Day Challenge, but I didn’t stick with it because I didn’t make a place for it in my daily schedule like I do now. Then I was pregnant again with Scarlett and I wasn’t adding in working out at that point. It took a New Year’s Goal to get me going.
The workouts are 6 days a week for under 20 minutes!!!!!! She starts with a warm up and ends with a cool down, and -for real- most videos are under 20 minutes total! She alternates Arm Days, Leg Days and Cardio Days. Every 15 days there is a “Fit Test” to see how you progressed in that 15 days… AND that replaces the exercise for that day – YAY when that lands on a cardio day. Her exercise program is so easy that by the time I get to the point of “AHHH I want to stop” it’s already over! And the only thing you need is a set of dumbbells, which she suggests increasing the weight every 30 days.
The BEST part is this has taken me to a place of building up my strength and my endurance. I now am on the brink of joining a gym and getting real serious about exercising! (Pray that I just do it!) Well, plus they will watch my kids for 2 hours!!!! Then the trade off is that I exercise! I bet there are a lot of women in there hiding from their kids for a break actually.
The Eating Part –
This is the harder part probably. No Sweets! No Sweets! A Rare Cheat Treat day! No Sweets! No Sweets!
Randall has eaten Paleo for like 5 years now, and I’ve been eating Paleo too I guess… But i’ve been eating Paleo PLUS anything additional I want! This led to me putting on an additional 20-30 pounds in the last 5 years while he slimmed down quite a bit. Paleo is high fat and high protein – while keeping carbs low. This is supposed to move your body to burn fat for energy instead of carbs… but when you eat high fat, high protein and high carbs you then have way too much to burn and that was me, and I wasn’t exercising at all either.
Well BOOM 2018 hit and I joked “This is the year of Kristi! I’m gonna find that old Kristi that I ate. She’s in there somewhere.” The beginning was hard, but we just got rid of everything I didn’t want to eat and we basically didn’t go out at all to eat. I started with what I liked to eat, and then from there tried to figure out my Macros to lose weight… which was an overall calorie reduction. I kinda leaned towards being “Keto” but by what I ate I was consuming too much protein. Overall most days my carbs are low around 30-50. I did have a week where I had headaches but now I’m totally great.
My days pretty much look like this: Eggs and Bacon for breakfast, but late like 10-11am, then a snack at like 2-3pm like nuts or string cheese, if I get hungry I’ll make a protein smoothie but I learned that that made me not hungry for dinner. When I feel like eating and munching on something I eat Spitz sunflower seeds. Then dinner, around 6pm is all over the place, but I would basically say we eat meat and veggies.
We don’t eat any bread or pasta. We do sometimes have rice and potatoes… but not as much of that since I’m trying to keep my carbs down. If it’s a night Randall is gone or I am rushing to bible study, then I will make a protein smoothie, but eat it around 5 and add in extra coconut oil so that I’m more satiated.
…But tonight I did eat a frozen Freshly meal actually – 36 Net Carbs… which is higher than I’d like to have eaten and it’s funny it left me feeling hungrier than if I had made a smoothie. That adds to the point of sticking to it, once you figure out what works – tonight I didn’t stick to it and I’m hungry.
Conclusion – Making it work for y-o-u!
You totally don’t have to eat like me! And maybe you aren’t drawn to Bikini Body Mommy. This is just what is “Working for Me”.
The only thing you will do, is the thing you actually do do.
Find something to do, find a diet of some sort and exercise routine to stick to. OR Even just set achievable goals for yourself like no more soda or fit in 3 walks around Target your neighborhood each week. Each day is an opportunity to take steps towards those goals. Start small if you have to.
I hope I soon make it to the gym… I thought I’d NEVER say this: But maybe, just maybe, I hope that I could run a half-marathon by the end of the year… Also I have a trip planned in the fall, and I really want to look much better in a swimsuit. The only way to achieve that goal, or any goals, big or small, is by taking continual steps in that direction. Meanwhile asking God to help you with each step.