The First Step is the Hardest

I'm not a medical doctor.  I'm not a registered dietitian.  In the end, what I do know a lot about is myself/my body and my family.  I want to start by saying that what worked for me, may not produce the exact same results for everyone.  You, yourself, know your body the best.  My main goal is to inspire all the mamas out there to be the best they can be for themselves and their families.  By telling my story, I hope to inspire you to make your own goals--whatever they may be.  I want us all to get to the same place...a happy, healthy frame of mind and body.  How we all get there will be different depending on your body or where you are in life.  But hopefully, by telling my story, I can inspire you to take that first step on your own path to your own goals.

Once my husband and I decided our family would move forward in eating a healthy diet, I felt a bit overwhelmed.  I had no clue where to start or HOW to start for that matter.  I knew we needed to eat more veggies.  I knew we had to eat in moderation with proper portions.  But I needed some kind of guide.  During that time, I turned to Dr. Oz and The Doctors; both are talk shows all about health.  I recorded all the episodes and watched every single one!  There was this particular book called 'The 17 Day Diet' by Dr. Mike Moreno that was featured on The Doctors.  It is a step by step meal plan to eating clean, eating in moderation while losing weight.

What intrigued me was the fact that this book had a ton of useful research (that was cited!).  From understanding how lack of sleep can interfere with weight loss to how high fructose corn syrup affects the body to the latest research on caloric cycling (eating more food one day and less food the next) to breaking through weight loss plateaus and how to keep your metabolism fired up and guessing.  Also, there are a number of great tips on how to eat out, how to adapt the diet to your cultural eating preference, and even how to make you PMS symptoms less intense through healthy, natural lifestyle changes.

Keep in mind, some of these things may be common knowledge to many.  But I literally had to start at step one (which was really discouraging at times!).  Waiting around for something to magically fall into my lap to make me lose weight was a complete fantasy.  I finally knew I had to make it happen for myself.

So I watched these shows and read this book and kept learning something new every day.  Initially, the weight came off drastically!  We went from eating white rice, fried eggs plus some kind of red meat in the mornings to 2 egg whites, a piece of whole grain toast, and a cup of fruit for breakfast.  We ate every 2-3 hours which we were not used, but it helped to keep us fueled and always content, yet never disgustingly full and sick.  I read somewhere that nutrition is 70% of your weight loss while the other 30% is working out.

typical food prep for a few days

There are four stages to this book but we only completed the first stage.  My husband and I lost 10-15 lbs each just by changing what we ate for 17 days without completing any exercise.  We eliminated a lot of our bad eating habits during this time.  As we moved forward, having the knowledge base from '17 days' helped me build meal and snack ideas I can offer my family.  Mainly, the book helped me change my outlook and helped me learne new ways to help support our plan to eat healthier.  For example, we started grilling and baking instead of frying our food.  We haven't made white rice in our home since this time; the only time we have white rice is when we visit friends/family.  These were significant changes to me because remember, I had to start at step one.