Time to change things up!

Hi there! Sorry it's been so long since my last post, my kids have been sick a bunch and I've been dedicating all my "free" time to working out, which I will now get into detail about. :)

In my weight loss journey over the last several years, I've hit several roadblocks where it seemed like I was no longer making progress. I guess you could call these times plateaus. Each time I've learned that what my body needs is a new change because for whatever the reason might be, my body has adapted to what I was doing and it was time to kick into higher gear. Sometimes it was easily fixed by adding exercise, changing the frequency of my workouts, maybe trying different food combinations or even eliminating foods that I feel might be slowing my progress down. Some of these stalls have been easy to figure out, like when the new frozen yogurt place opened nearby and I was visiting it far more often than I should have. What I know for sure was these times of treading water weren't failures: they were helpful in me figuring out what works and what doesn't. My goal of achieving an athletic body composition still stands and I will reach it. There is no failure, only results. The results I receive sometimes, whether it be gaining back a few pounds or just standing still show me that I'm a bit off course. I try my best not to get upset because I know and trust that the effort I'm putting into my health is such a great investment. Yes, it is completely frustrating sometimes to think that I'm not getting anywhere but those are the times I need to really analyze what I'm doing or not doing to help me progress.

The last several months have been a big standstill for me, or so it feels. I'm a stubborn gal. I set these weird goals in my mind sometimes like, "I want to lose all of this weight completely on my own just to say *I* did it!" The fact that I lost 120lbs without pills, surgery, weight watchers or anything like that was a really empowering thing for me and I really wanted to stay the course and get the athletic look I desired without  "help" from anyone. Then the giant several-month standstill hit me and it took me a long time to come to the realization that if I want an athlete's look, then I really should be training like one. Makes sense right? In the beginning of this journey, I looked at gyms as my secret weapon. I thought to myself, "I'll get as far as I can on my own and THEN I'll join a gym." Funny thing is the closer I've gotten to my goal, the more I've resisted the idea of joining a gym, simply due to stubbornness! So silly.

Two weeks ago, I decided to end the silly stubbornness and try out a sports club about 15 minutes from my house. I was drawn to this particular club because they have a few different pools and one of my fitness goals is to complete a sprint triathlon (1/2 mile Swim, 12 miles biking & 3.1 miles running) which I need to start swimming some serious laps in preparation for. Knowing the triathlon I have in mind is 4 months away, I figured I'd have plenty of time to prepare myself if I joined this gym. I am SO glad I did! Have I seen any big changes in my appearance yet? No, but I feel REALLY strong and love my experience there so far. Just like with anything else in this journey, I have to be patient, do my research and put in the effort. I'm confident with all the changes I've made recently, especially adding serious strength training to my efforts, that I will see positive results. I'll keep you posted!




The moral of the story is: Keep things new & interesting and never give up! You will reach your goals if failure isn't an option. We will do this! :)

Make Your Health A Daily Priority

These are busy days for all of us. Sometimes it's really hard to focus on ourselves when we have such busy lives, but we really must make our well-being a priority. I want each and every one of you to stay focused daily on something you can do for your health. Even little things like taking the stairs rather than the elevator can be conscious choices towards a healthier lifestyle. Move more! Keep active. Surround yourself with people who motivate you to reach your goal. Think of every bite you take as fuel and make choices you feel good about. Educate yourself as much as possible about nutrition and healthy eating. Make each meal with love for your body in mind, take that love into your body and feel good about the choices you are making. You are making profound changes that will affect generations to come, be proud of you. <3

Let's Do This!

Many of us who really struggle with weight issues have a tendency to get stuck in that helpless spot where we desire change yet don’t know how to make it happen. Whether you need to lose 10lbs or 100lbs it’s really helpful to have your goals established and lots of motivation along the way to stay on track.

You need a goal and a plan. Have you figured out the approximate healthy weight for your height yet? That’s a great place to start. If you don’t have hydrostatic body fat testing available to you, you can always get an idea of your healthy weight on the internet. It’s not an absolute goal, but shooting for the high-side of the “Healthy” BMI is a great place to start if you are in currently in the obese category. You can dial things in even further once you reach this “Healthy-range” goal if needed. Here is a link to a helpful Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator online: http://www.caloriescount.com/Mod_my_plan_assessment.aspx. There’s a lot of mixed feeling about the accuracy of using BMI measurements because they don’t take into account really muscular folks like myself. For the longest time, I thought I was shooting for a weight that I know now is completely unrealistic and unreasonable for my body. Hydrostatic testing revealed to me that I had so much more muscle than the average person my height; I would be dead if I tried to reach that magic number I thought I needed to weigh. I have 23lbs more lean body-mass than the average woman my height, imagine how happy I was to hear that! I don’t have to weigh as little as I thought to still get the athletic look I’m going for. So, don’t just pick some magic number out that you think you need to weigh, be flexible with yourself. Be healthy and reasonable with your goals. Just because you weighed a certain number in high school doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy for you now, especially if you are taller, building muscle or have had other major life changes. Remember your ultimate goal should be your health and longevity, so be good to yourself by setting a realistic goal. 

Have you figured out how many calories your body uses a day yet? That is SO critical in your plan to achieve healthy body composition. You can exercise for hours a day and get nowhere if you are fueling your body improperly. This is why so many of us get frustrated and give up when we don't see the results we think we should: we just don't have our calories under control yet. In addition to the fantastic calorie counting website/app My Fitness Pal that I love and have shared with you previously, I want to share another site I’ve used for motivation along the way. The Healthy Weight Forum website has a really neat tool that allows for you to input your current weight, height, activity level, desired weight loss and time frame you’d like to lose the weight in. Once you’ve entered your details, it calculates your results and lets you print out your weekly calorie target numbers in order to reach your goal. You’ll have to play around with it a little to find the calories or time frame that work best for you but it’s so nice to map your potential goal out and see how many weeks that you’ll reach that goal. Make sure you don’t drop those calories too much, a good rule of thumb is to stay above 1200 for ladies and 1500 for guys, especially if you will be reducing your calories for a long period of time. We want to keep your metabolism burning hot and fueling your body properly along with exercise is the best way to do that.



Remember the key to weight loss is: Calories in, calories out. Your body uses a certain amount of calories to function. If you take in more calories than your body uses, you gain weight. If you eat less calories than your body uses, you lose weight. It’s as simple as that. We can do this! :)

Are you ready?

Are you ready to get healthy in 2013? If the answer is yes and you don’t know where to begin, I’d truly love to help. I haven’t shared too much publicly about the journey I’ve been on the last 2.5 years because I’m still a work in progress but I got to thinking on New Years Eve about how I could be helping people learn what I have instead of worrying about the fact that I’m not quite at my ultimate goal yet. 

It’s such a personal thing to discuss and quite honestly I’m not that excited about the vulnerability of sharing, but I’m willing to do so because I’d love to help others who are struggling and feeling helpless with weight issues.  I have lost 120lbs without surgeries, pills, weight-loss clubs, or anything like that…I haven’t even set foot in a gym! What I can tell you is that it’s entirely possible to lose weight without being hungry or even exercising. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it isn't.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I do know what has worked well for me and it’s a combination of things: Eating the correct amount of food for my body and eating the right kinds of food. I have read a lot of books, blogs and whatnot and through years of trial and error have figured out what has worked best for me and I’d love to share the info with any of you that might be looking to make a change in the New Year.

If you do need to make a big change like I did, here’s what you gotta do. You need to make a decision. Are you tired of feeling horrible on a number of levels? I sure was. Every bit of food I ate made me feel guilty when I was so overweight and I didn’t really even realize it at the time. I had really low energy and a constant feeling that I needed to “Do something” about my weight which could have easily led to depression and a HUGE list of medical issues had I continued much longer.

Even though I haven’t achieved my ultimate goal yet of a more athletic Body Fat percentage, I have set and accomplished a bunch of mini-goals along the way:  #1 was eliminating obesity followed by reaching the “Average” weight for my height, plus LOTS of little time & distance challenges to myself running and riding my bike. Accomplishing these little goals has given me such a positive outlook on life and how far I’ve come. I enjoy a completely healthy relationship with food now and haven’t been plagued with that feeling of helplessness since I actually “did” something. You can do it too!

Please visit the pages I've created through the menu links on the right starting with: "Hi! I'm Alissa" followed by, "Please know this." I've also created a special menu at the very top of this website with the most critical steps I'd like to share with you: Step 1: Motivation, Step 2: Calories and Step 3: Eat Clean. I hope you find the posts helpful and informative.

I will update the blog posts from time to time and share other things I've learned along the way as well as occasional bits of motivation. Also, feel free to connect with me on my facebook page www.facebook.com/trulylovethyself.

Take care!
Alissa :)