Feeling it

It has been a really long time since I've been in any sort of groove with working out and eating healthy. Since I trained for Ragnar two years ago it has been a struggle to want to work out and an even bigger struggle to want to eat healthy. I just wanted to eat all the "good" things, I was tired of dieting and depriving  myself, so I didn't do it anymore. Add in the stress of buying house, having John's grandmother move in with us, moving and starting a new job and my waistline and weight reached new highs that I am ashamed to think about, let alone talk about.
But right now I am in such a good place! Almost two months ago I knew I needed to to do something and even though I know a lot about dieting and macros and counting calories, I knew I couldn't do it alone. I enlisted the help of an online personal trainer I've worked with in the past but this time I wanted to make small changes that I could sustain instead of jumping in and getting overwhelmed. So I signed up for macro tracking, basically Lindsey tells me how many grams of carbs, fat and protein I get each day and I try to stay within five grams up or down of that goal. Before I could start doing that though she had me track my calories for four days to get a baseline. Talk about a wake-up call. One of the days I ate over 3,000 calories and too me it wasn't even a day that I "pigged out." It wasn't hard to see why I had gotten so fat. The first week was a struggle, keeping my fat content in my goal range was hard!! Why do things have so much fat in them?! Getting enough protein was even harder. But Lindsey promised me I was doing great and that it would get easier over time.
A week later, I found a 12-week online workout challenge. The IdealShape Shape Up Challenge has been sooooo good for me! It was exactly the type of program I needed to get back into the groove of working out. Every week I get six workouts emailed to me, I pull them up via Youtube on my TV and follow along. The workouts are short (15 to 20 minutes) but effective and all I need to do them is some dumbbells and an exercise ball (which I already had). I'm halfway through the challenge and loving it! The combination of the workout challenge and macro tracking is perfect for me. I don't feel deprived because if I want to eat mac and cheese for dinner I can, I just have to "budget" my macros accordingly for the rest of the day. But I've also rediscovered that healthy food doesn't have to be boring and bland! I had three pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for breakfast that were made with egg whites and oatmeal and were delicious. For dinner I'm having chicken enchiladas in a whole wheat tortilla. I don't feel deprived and that makes me want to keep going!
 Because I can do all the workouts at home I don't have to try and motivate myself to go to the gym and they are short so it doesn't take an hour and a half to get a good workout in. So far I've lost 10 pounds and a total of 9 inches, mostly from my waist and hips. So many times in the past I've started working out and not seen instant results and have given up. I'm so glad I've stuck it out for six weeks because now that I am seeing changes I even more motivated to keep going because I'm so excited to see what else will happen. And even though I know the holidays will be hard I am happy that my 12-week challenge won't end until the week before Christmas because I want to stay motivated and keep working hard and maybe even lose weight this holiday season instead of gaining it like I have always done in the past.
I'm feeling good and can't wait to keep going!!