TIPS!

Recently I have had a few friends ask for some information by email or Facebook.  I decided to copy/paste it to my blog for future reference.  Hope it's helpful!  

I really am not crazy about expensive fad diets. From what I've observed, they typically are WAY over priced and they do not last. Who can really live their entire life drinking shakes or taking supplements. That's just not how God created us to live. It's not natural!

Okay, you may already know most of these, but here are a few things that work for me:

1)PRAY.
Don't rely solely on yourself, others, or self-help books. All these can be VERY helpful, but I think you know WHO we should ultimately depend on!

2)ACCOUNTABILITY.
Find a few friends that you feel you can completely trust and share EVERYTHING (I would be happy to be one of those!). True accountability is really difficult at first, but you will find that it will ultimately make things so much better for you. Share your struggles, temptations, likes, dislikes, weight (this is the toughest!), exercise, EVERYTHING. I promise it WILL make a difference! I have a close friend who shares the same struggles I do and in the past, we have texted each other our weight weekly. I'm at 177 (was down to 159, then back up to 186), and HAVE to get back on track before I am right back where I started. I have even gone so far as texting her everything I ate as I ate it. Whatever it takes, right?!

3)MEASURE YOUR FOOD.
This is easy, but also easy to forget to do! Get some measuring cups/spoons that are simple and easy to use. I have a set that actually look like spoons. I LOVE them! They are 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 cups. Get whatever works for you though. I like the spoon shape of mine b/c I can easily serve my food with them.
It helps to SEE how much food you are putting on your plate. Don't starve yourself. Look at the serving size, and get that amount. If when you finish, you still feel hungy, go back and MEASURE your second helping.
Once I got used to doing this, I actually started measuring out 1/2 of the serving size of the one thing on my plate that was the most unhealthy (I usually did what had the most carbs). That way when I got seconds, it was only one complete serving and I wasn't going overboard on it!
Another easy measuring tool is to imagine a divided styrofoam plate. The biggest section should be your green veggie, the two smallest your meat and carb. You can do that when you don't have a way of measuring.

4)MEASURE YOURSELF.
Get a friend to measure an area of your body that you struggle with. You can look up measuring charts online if you want to measure what is recommended by the experts. Sometimes you may not shrink in weight, but you are losing inches (especially if you're working out). I would honestly rather lose inches than pounds!
Cut a ribbon or string the length of your beginning measurements and each time you measure (I like to do once monthly), cut a new one. It's kind of fun to see if/how it changes!

5)REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!
No matter what we look like, we are beautiful! I tell my precious nine year old daughter all the time that "God doesn't make ugly people." to remind her that we are all "precious in His sight". Find a few inspiring scriptures and memorize them as a reminder of this!!!

6) Always use a smaller plate and smaller utensils. 
We tend to want to fill our plate with food and you can fill a small plate and it actually ends up being enough food. Plus if you want to go back for seconds, it's not quite as bad as if you had a normal dinner plate.  Don't forget to measure those second helpings!

7) Read some inspiring books. Here are a few of my favorites.
-First Place For Health
-Made to Crave (I also have this audiobook in my car.)
-The Weigh Down Diet (I don't totally agree with everything this author says, but the book is full of helpful tips.)
-Thin Within

You can probably find some of these in your local or church library.
 
8) Find some graphs or charts where you can see your loss (pounds or inches). 
It motivates you to keep trying and not give up. I found one that was a line graph and it was cool to see the line going down as I was losing. It did it in very small increments so it went down every time I would lose .5 of a pound.
 
9) I did Weight Watchers, so I try to remember what my zero points foods are and eat them as often as possible. If you aren't familiar with this I would be happy to share. There are lots of websites that you can use to find this stuff out too.


http://www.laaloosh.com/ 
This site has lots of resources, charts, and information that is great!

http://www.dwlz.com/
This has mostly WW info, but has restaurant info too. 

10)TAKE YOUR TIME!!!  

This didn't happen overnight. It's not going to come off overnight... and that is OKAY! Don't listen to advertisements and others who say "lose 50 pounds by..." some crazy, unrealistic date. If you lose slowly, you're teaching your body to keep it off. I did gain weight after losing, but it wasn't all of it and I refused to let myself get frustrated. I know that I can just do what I know I need to do and get it off again. This is a lifelong struggle for me and I know it is probably something I will always deal with. I just have to be sure to be aware of that. It's okay. I'm not sad about it. I will just take my time and make changes to stay on the right path. Slow loss over a long period of time is better than crash dieting and being on a never-ending weight loss roller coaster. 

You're doing great, don't give up!!!

Do you know of any other helpful tips or resources?  Please share if you do!

New YUMMY Breakfast!

Okay, well it probably is not really anything new.  It is new to me though! 

I could tell I am living a little healthier when I was in Kroger scanning the cream cheese spreads and thought "Hey!  You have strawberries in your cart!  Just get the plain Weight Watchers spread."

Today's breakfast: (5 pts)
1 slice of double fiber bread (The brand I got was 3 pts a slice.  Oops!)
Butter spray
Toast in oven.
After toasted, add 1 serving of Weight Watcher's cream cheese spread (2 pts)
Sliced strawberries on top of that. (ZERO pts)

I will have to say it is SO good!  There was also a time when I would have turned my nose up at this.  Hooray for progress!

Speaking of progress...
I weighed last week on the Wii and I am back down to 175.  I was at 187.  Twelve pounds!  God is good! 

My newest goal (which I set along with a precious friend) is to lose 15 pounds by December 9th.  This is her 50th bday and we are going to accomplish our goal with HIS help!  It can be done!

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."  -Lamentations 3:24

I would love to hear all about your journey!  Do you have any good breakfast ideas to share?  Have you reached a goal recently?  Have you set any goals lately?  What scripture(s) has the Lord used to help push you through temptation?  

Weight Watchers Week One = Success!!!!!!

Mike and I weighed in tonight.  We were not able to stay for the actual meeting, but we did make a point to go and weigh in.  I was NERVOUS.  Yesterday was my birthday.  I had pizza for dinner and also some cake that my sweet Mom made for me.  

The cake actually was not too bad on the points scale.  It was made especially for me and was Weight Watchers friendly.  I will share the recipe with you in a later post.

I know you are just DYING to find out how we did...

Wait....

Ready for it???

First I will tell you we lost a total of 7 1/2 lbs. combined!

Mike lost 2.5... good job, baby!

I lost 5 POUNDS!

In ONE WEEK!!!!! 

SWEET!  I am thrilled.  I know not to expect it to be this way every week.  It actually does not NEED to be this way every week.  This sure will help keep me motivated though!  I am only 4 pounds away from reaching my 5% goal and I know my 10% will be here before you know it.  I would REALLY like to reach that by the time the holidays get here.  We will see!

It's Official!

Well, it is official.  Mike and I joined Weight Watchers. It will definitely help that my sweet husband is doing this with me. In the past I have tried to do this on my own. That was tough! I would cook healthier foods, but he would not be counting and it just made it easier for me to slack. Thanks for joining me on this new (old) endeavor, Mike! I LOVE YOU!!!!


I am not even going to tell you what my weight was.  YUCK.  Let me just say that going all summer without getting on the scales was NOT a good thing for Beth.  I will tell you that I am allowed to have 29 points a day.  Mike gets 50!  Everyone said there would be a big difference in the amount we each get.  Men always get lots more is what I was told.  Guess they were right!  This should be interesting.

After all that reluctance, I found that the people at the meeting were VERY friendly and helpful.  I look forward to getting to know them a little better!  I do not know why I even hesitated to go.  It was great and will continue to be great.  Especially after I begin to shed the pounds!

I think that once I get used to the new PointsPlus program I will like it.  It is not really that different except for the amount of points you get each week and the points values of foods.  I noticed that lots of the things that they point out as different are things I already knew.  The little start up packet they give new members is very helpful.  I am just happy to have all the new information now so we can get started!

My goal is to very strictly stick to Weight Watchers for a full year. I know it can be done. It will be nice to see what happens! I already have several items in my closet that I have been keeping as "when I lose weight" clothes.  Does every woman do that???  Maybe in the next few weeks I will break them out and show them to you.

Do not be too surprised if I mention Weight Watchers pretty frequently.  I do not intend to turn this into a Weight Watchers blog.  There are PLENTY of those out there.  They are all good and very helpful!  I have a few that I follow and know I will follow a little more closely in the weeks to come.  I will be sure to share any interesting information that I discover.

With my crazy full time wife/mommy/student schedule, I need all the help I can get.  If you know of EASY recipes (preferably ones I can cook in a slow cooker) I would greatly appreciate you sharing them!  PLEASE TRY TO INCLUDE PointsPlus VALUES IF YOU KNOW THEM!  Who knows, if I get enough I may just force myself to become a little more computer savy and create a separate page on my blog for recipes. 
 
 
I LOVE tips! I want to hear about helpful WEBSITES, BLOGS, and most of all EASY RECIPES. Do you have any that work well for you? Please feel free to leave a comment and share with me.