It’s the last day of July and I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of goals I want to set for myself for August.
When I first started this weight loss journey in April, I just had one big goal of getting down to my goal weight.
Then, I realized how beneficial it would be to set monthly goals, so August is the first month I’ll be trying it out.
These will be smaller and not like the workout challenges I’ve tortured myself with in the past!
We used to buy a lot of foods in bulk, but I have to watch that now that I’m not eating as much because I’ve noticed that expiration dates are coming before I’ve gotten a chance to eat the food.
My serving sizes are so much smaller than they used to be that food is lasting twice as long.
Not only is that good for the grocery bill, but it’s good for my waistline too!
I just wanted to take a moment to thank my hubby for being so incredibly supportive of me.
Every day I’m amazed by how kind and generous he is and I’m the luckiest girl in the universe to be able to call him mine.
It helps so much to constantly have him in my corner and to be loved by him seven days a week, 365 days a year.
👩🏻❤️👨🏼
For the longest time I’ve been having a sliced banana with my oatmeal and it’s one of my favorite breakfasts.
Well, hold onto your hat, I’ve changed things up and discovered that I can warm up a diced apple in the microwave and sprinkle cinnamon on top and it’s like a decadent treat for someone like me who hasn’t had much in the way of dessert for over 3 months.
Sometimes it pays off to try something new…
We had these beautiful soft tacos for lunch and they were under 500 calories!
In the past, we would have had the burrito sized tortillas, halved a can of refried beans between the two of us, put three times as much cheese, and added rice to “bulk them up”.
I’m so proud of the food choices we’ve been making and I’m so proud of myself for going strong with this weight loss journey going into my 4th month!
🌮🌮
Losing weight forces you to get real comfortable with yourself. During those times when you don't have any calories left for the day, you're left to simply be with yourself without the distraction of food.
When you aren't able to eat your feelings because you're moving into a healthier lifestyle for yourself, you're left to actually process those feelings.
Junk food isn't your friend anymore. Yeah, it can be scary, but hiding at the bottom of a bag of cookies isn't who you really are.
Making friends with yourself is the only choice you have left. Start treating yourself the way you'd treat your best friend. Stop punishing yourself with bad choices. Take care of yourself. Because, at the end of the day, you are the one you spend the most time with.
My relationship with food has changed so much during these last few months of my weight loss journey!
I don’t eat simply because I’m bored/depressed/whatever anymore.
Now I eat to give my body the vitamins and nutrients it needs to function.
How freeing it is to take control!
I feel like I’m in a really good place in my weight loss journey today.
This roller coaster of perimenopause these last 6 years has been so difficult on every aspect of my life and after losing over 30 pounds and not giving up, I think I’m beginning to see a glimmer of light at the end of this long, gloomy tunnel.
Tomorrow might be a different story if my hormones decide not to cooperate, but in this moment right now I’m cherishing the peace.
I almost didn’t post today because I didn’t really feel the need to. It’s not like I’m having a tough day and decided to binge on crappy food and was too embarrassed to post about it. Quite the opposite.
I started this account to hold myself accountable and I’ve been doing really well with sticking with my goals and keeping under my calories.
I don’t know if my mindset is just different this time around or I’m simply a stronger person, mentally and physically, but I’m not struggling as much with my relationship with food.
My willpower has been amazing and I want to get into my skinny jeans so badly that it’s going to take a lot more than the hell of perimenopause to make me falter.
Here’s to feeling like you’ve outgrown the training wheels…
I’m bloated af, but I’m still working toward my goal!
This is my favorite arm workout from a @rebeccalouisefitness video for @watchxhit’s YouTube channel years ago…
I’m not a big water drinker. Hubby calls me a camel because I can sip on a small glass of water all day and be fine with it.
I’m rarely thirsty and drinking excess water seemed unnecessary to me.
BUT everywhere you look, everyone is telling you to drink more water. Getting enough H2O is supposed to help you lose weight along with a whole list of other things.
So, I decided to accept the challenge and drink at least 64 ounces of water everyday.
I was skeptical, but hey, this has been the year for completing challenges and doing health experiments on myself, so I gave it a try.
How did the week go? Well, drinking water now feels like a full time job and I spend most of my day running back and forth from the bathroom. Luckily I work from home or else there’s no way I’d be able to keep this up.
Other than that, I haven’t noticed any difference in the way I feel.
And then I GOT ON THE SCALE. In 7 days, without making any other changes to my diet or exercise, I lost 2 pounds. That is huge for me! I was so surprised and couldn’t believe my eyes.
So now I guess I’ve got to keep with it and provide my body with the water it needs to function, something I should have been doing all along…
Day 1
Water: 64 oz.
Tea: 32 oz.
Day 2
Water: 64 oz.
Tea: 16 oz.
Day 3
Water: 64 oz.
Tea: 16 oz.
Day 4
Water: 80 oz.
Tea: 32 oz.
Day 5
Water: 80 oz.
Day 6
Water: 80 oz.
Tea: 16 oz.
Day 7
Water: 80 oz.
Another HIIT workout completed!
Considering I’ve done about 50 of these over the last few months you’d think I’d be seeing more results 😕
Oh well, I’m still not giving up on this mission to lose weight!
After all these months of my weight loss journey, I just realized something I've forgotten to do. Set goals.
Sure, I set the general goal of losing weight when I started this whole thing, but I'm talking about smaller, baby step-type goals that you set for yourself each month.
Little goals like drinking more water, or trying a specific workout challenge are totally doable and would feel really good to be able to cross off each month.
How nice will it be to have a sense of accomplishment about something other than the numbers on the scale or the size of your clothes?
Rachelle Vaughn
Sometimes, when you are so focused on the big picture, it’s easy to overlook the little things.
I’m definitely going to start setting some smaller goals for myself each month from here on out!
So, I’m on day 5 of trying to drink more water—as in, at least 64oz a day—and I hope it ends up helping me feel better in a few different ways.
If anything, I think the more I drink the more thirsty I become! I’ve never drank (drunk?) this much water before and it’s been a fun little experiment.
I’ll report back when the full week is up…
Looking on the bright side of the pandemic, I guess there have been a few things that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.
It’s been 16 months since I’ve eaten fast food and 2 years since I’ve eaten at a restaurant. I haven’t had soda or any other kind of carbonated beverage in all that time either.
So much has been cut out of my life—the traveling, the birding, the hiking—that I’ve been forced to look toward myself and focus on ways I can improve.
This has definitely been a time of experimenting on myself. What would happen if I rode the stationary bike every day for a month straight? What if I get really into yoga and do it every day for 2 months? Why don’t I do this challenge or try that workout?
While making all of these life changes, I lost 15 pounds before I even started this “official” journey in April. That’s quite a big loss from just changing a few of my eating habits.
I love that I’ve been doing all this work on my weight and will eventually emerge a lighter, healthier me when I finally feel safe to leave my house again someday.
I lost 3 pounds this month!
Yeah, it’s nowhere close to my 2 pounds a week goal, but considering that I’ve been having my period every other week (thanks perimenopause, however can I repay you? 😒), I’ll take whatever I can get!
I picked up one of my 3 pound weights and it’s actually a significant amount of weight when you’re holding it in your hand.
This last month I have eased off working out so much, but I’ve been sticking to my 1500 calorie plan and haven’t gone over.
Trying to lose weight during perimenopause is one of the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do, but I’m not giving up and I’m going to keep making progress no matter how long it takes me to get to my goal weight.
I just have a few pounds to go until I’m in the 180’s and I can’t wait!
A half of a workout is better than not doing one at all!
3 months ago, I would have sat on the couch and done nothing when I didn’t feel good, but now I’m still doing what I can to get this weight off, even if I don’t make it all the way through the video…
When I started this weight loss journey, the first thing I did was take "before" photos.
Looking back, I really wish I would have taken measurements as well because not all of my results are reflecting on the scale.
In three months, I have gone down almost three sizes and it would be nice to be able to report how many inches I've lost as well as pounds.
No matter how I've chosen to document my progress, I know that those "after" photos are going to feel awesome to post...
Rachelle Vaughn
Tomorrow is my big monthly weigh-in and I’m more excited about taking progress pics than finding out what the scale says.
I can’t believe we’re already at the three month mark! So glad I’ve stuck with this weight loss plan!
There’s no turning back now…
Wow, now that’s what I call a challenge!
I thought I was ready to do a pilates challenge, so I tried a Total Body Pilates Workout 5-day Challenge video from @trifectapilates on YouTube and it was waaay out of my league.
I only made it 25 into the 35 minute video (and this is after 3 months of doing HIIT workouts 3-4 times a week!)
I don’t consider this a fail because I WILL try again and eventually I know I’ll get stronger and be able to do it all the way through.
In a way, it’s nice to know that there are still things out there that we can challenge ourselves with, still things to strive for, things to work toward.
This wouldn’t be called a journey if I arrived at my destination in the first few days…
I’m getting really good at this not making excuses thing.
Even when I’m feeling like garbage, or it’s too hot or I don’t feel like it, or (insert excuse here), I workout anyway.
This is a @lucywyndhamread HIIT video from YouTube…
I love her workouts because the moves aren’t complicated and her accent is fabulous 🤩
Another workout completed ✔️
This is a standing abs video from @hanamilly on YouTube.
Bonus points for doing this while on my period and it’s 115 degrees outside…
It’s tough for me to drink enough water because I never seem to be thirsty, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to drink more throughout the day when it’s flavored.
My favorite is plain lemon, but I also love lime and mixed frozen fruit. We even tried watermelon once and it was really good too…
We combined all of our favorite HIIT moves from YouTube into two 28 minute workouts…
This is part 1 of 2 and it works the whole body and leaves you sweating by the end of it!
After two months of doing these workouts 4 times a week, I definitely notice improvements in my strength and endurance.
😅
Whatever your reasons are for wanting to lose weight, whether you are doing it for health reasons, you have a physical goal you want to achieve, or you simply want to fit into a specific size of clothes, use that to propel you forward and keep going throughout this difficult journey.
Whenever you start to falter and need an extra boost of motivation, remind yourself why you’ve decided to lose weight in the first place. Make a vision board on Pinterest and revisit it when you’re having a rough day. Get out those jeans you want to fit into. Scroll through photos of the marathon you want to run.
Keep working toward that goal and you will get there eventually!
Most of my reasons for losing weight are vanity-related…and that’s totally okay!
When I’m having a tough time, I’ll go into my closet, get my “skinny” jeans out and unfold them and look at how cute they are and how wonderful it will feel to be able to fit into them again.
Do whatever you need to do to not lose sight of your original motivation.
Someday I’ll fit into those jeans and I’ll get to post a photo of me rockin’ the hell out of them!
I’m thinking about doing another workout challenge.
So far, I’ve done a month straight on the stationary bike and my 30 days of standing yoga turned into 60.
Maybe I’ll do pilates this time. It’s been about 8 years since I’ve done pilates and I loved doing @blogilates on YouTube, so that would definitely be a challenge.
During this #weightlossjourney I’ve been easily keeping under my calories, it’s just the working out part that I need to step up and keep more consistent.
Here’s to making some changes and getting out of my rut!
There are 9 days until monthly weigh-in and I can’t even get myself to workout today.
I’m looking forward to cooler weather in the fall because this summer heat is making me feel blah and unmotivated.
At least I’m not turning to food to get me through like I used to. Maybe I’ll just take a nap…
Slow cooker for the win…
As long as I portion out my meals and stick to having a single serving, I can still eat all of my favorite foods and still lose weight.
Here are my favorite crockpot meals, all under 420 calories:
Chicken Enchiladas: 400
Mexican Cream Cheese Chicken: 365
Chicken Stroganoff: 355
Vegetarian Chili Mac: 420
I pair these with tortilla chips or bread to add 140-160 calories (even though I should probably have veggies instead!)
These meals are great for meal-prepping because they taste even better leftover.
We get 8 portions out of each of these, they are very inexpensive, and incredibly delicious too!
I went over on my calories yesterday by 165, but considering I’ve been hovering under 1000 a day for the last week while I wasn’t feeling well, I’m totally okay with that.
It’s not like I scarfed down a cheesecake or anything!
Glad to be feeling more like myself again and looking forward to getting a couple of workouts in this week and being able to eat without feeling nauseous…
Before and after photos are the glamorous side of weight loss. Yes, it’s nice to see progress and drastic transformations, but that’s only a teeny tiny part of it.
What you don’t hear much about is the actual journey itself. The being hungry, the mental toughness you have to develop while strengthening your willpower, the waiting for the pounds to drop.
The meat of the journey, the day in and day out of it, is the most important part because that’s when all the work happens. That’s when you have thoughts about giving in and giving up because it’s so damn hard.
Transformation doesn’t happen overnight. And that’s part of what keeps me going. Because I haven’t put in this much work to throw it all away now.
The journey itself is the part that should be glorified…
As with most things, it’s a long, hard road to get to the “after” part of the story.
No, I’m not doing a funky dance, this is me following along with an @ashleymfreeman Standing Yoga Vinyasa Flow video from YouTube…
And, as always, my cat coming in to ham it up for the camera!