Set S.M.A.R.T. goals

It's that time of year again. The time when most people set their New Year's Resolutions. Goals are great. We all have goals. Some goals may be easier to imagine reaching than others. New Year's Resolutions can be controversial. Statistically, most people don't end up doing whatever they set out to do in their New Year's Resolution. That's likely because it's not taken seriously. New Year's Resolutions have become a joke. Comedians talk about them, television shows joke about them, internet memes go viral about them. I suggest skipping the alcohol induced resolutions altogether. Instead, set S.M.A.R.T. goals, and set a new one each time you reach your previous goal.

What is a S.M.A.R.T. goal?
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Attainable
R: Realistic
T: Time-based

For instance, "I want to lose weight" doesn't fit into the criteria of a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Instead, make a goal like "I want to lose 10 pounds within the next 3 months." That's specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time based. Then, once you reach that goal, set a new goal that follows the same criteria. Goals don't have to be based on the scale. You can set a goal to do a certain number of push-ups in a row, or to be able to do a pull-up, or to run a certain distance without stopping for a walk break, etc. Think about something related to health and fitness that you want to achieve, set the goal in a S.M.A.R.T. way and get to work.

Of course, I set goals to lose weight, but I set them 10 or 20 pounds at a time, knowing that I eventually wanted to lose at least 100 pounds. But, if you think about the large amount you want to lose instead of the smaller steps to get there, it can get overwhelming and discouraging.

Once you decide what your goal is, tell other people. It's much easier to give up if you're the only one who knows you set the goal in the first place. Share your goals with family and friends. Share it on Facebook or Twitter. Ask your friends to help keep you accountable. Most people will be happy to encourage you along the way, and you might end up inspiring others too.

I also suggest rewarding yourself each time you hit a goal. But, don't reward yourself with food. You're not a dog, and you're worth more than that. I rewarded myself with things like getting my nails done, getting my hair done, buying new clothes, etc. When I hit 100 pounds lost, my reward was a Dooney & Bourke purse. It was a big goal for me, and it deserved a big reward.

What are your goals? I'd love to see your comments with the goals you have.

What if I fell short on last year's goal?

The ever-popular New Year's Resolution time is upon us. So, you set your goal last year and now it's time to evaluate your progress, or lack thereof. How did you do? Did you lose the weight you wanted? Did you save the money you hoped? Did you log the miles you planned or run that race you've dreamed of running? If not, don't let it discourage you.

Take a hard look at your past year and see what you learned and what you didn't. If you fell short on your goal, figure out why. Did you give up by February? Or was there an extenuating circumstance that made completing your goal difficult (sudden illness or injury, surgery, etc)?  Figure out what happened and figure out how to improve in this next year. And, if you accomplished your goal, congratulations to you!! Now set your sights on new and improved goals and get to work.

My goals for 2014 were to run my first half marathon and to log 500 miles on foot (run, hike, walk). I ran my first half marathon in October, and I've got another scheduled in a little over a month. So, that goal was accomplished this year. As far as my miles go, I covered 477.15 miles in 2014. When I totaled up my miles this morning, I was a little disappointed in myself. If I look back at my year, I know that I pulled my left calf muscle  2 or 3 times, and sprained my ankle once.  I know that recovering from those injuries and resting instead of logging miles could have contributed to falling short by just over 22 miles in my goal. But, if I'm brutally honest with myself, I'd admit that there were a few times, and even a week around Christmas where I just snuggled up on the couch with a blanket instead of going for a run. And, if I would have gotten up and gone out running, I would have hit my mileage goal and even surpassed it.

So, are we honest with ourselves when we set goals and fall short? Or, do we find excuses and place blame on others? One of the biggest parts of weight loss is accountability and responsibility. You have to be accountable for your own actions and responsible for your own choices and your own successes. Nobody is going to MAKE you exercise. Nobody is going to MAKE you eat healthy. You have to want it. You have to commit to it. And, you have to decide to do it. But, at the same time, YOU get the benefits. You get to feel better. You get to add years to your life. And, you get to have that feeling of empowerment and strength that comes with not only reaching a goal, but crushing it.

I've got kids....how can I find time to work out?

Everyone is busy, but if you have young kids, busy seems to be an understatement. I hear people all the time saying "How am I supposed to workout when I have little kids?" I completely understand being exhausted from caring for your family. I completely understand that when you have kids your life is hectic and you're constantly running from soccer practice to art classes to play dates and field trips, etc. But, I also know that you have to MAKE time to do anything you want to do, exercise included. I have three young kids (ages 9,5,2) and a one year old 70 pound boxer puppy. Trust me, I get it.

You have to schedule your workout like you would schedule any doctor's appointment or activity for your child. Make it a priority. For me, I made up a weekly family calendar with a template I found in Microsoft Word. I put in our family meal times first, since those are always consistent. Then, I put in the kids bedtime (yes, I firmly believe in a scheduled bedtime EVERY night....ours is 7:15pm). Then, I put in any appointments we had and my husband's work schedule. The time that wasn't accounted for with appointments was the time I scheduled to work out. Even if you can only find 30 minutes here or 30 minutes there, it really does add up.

Schedule family walks after dinner or during the day time. It's a great family activity and you get to get moving and burn some calories too. If you have a dog, walk the dog as a family. This is a family favorite in my house. We take 3-5 mile walks daily, weather permitting, with our dog. That's in addition to any other exercise I do.

Work out with your kids. Kids love exercise. My oldest likes to go hiking with me. My younger two love doing push ups, squats, and jumping jacks. My littlest likes to roll out the yoga mat and do her "workout." Getting the kids involved in your workout not only helps you manage your time, but it also helps you reinforce healthy habits with your children.

Sometimes, I go for a run at 5 in the morning when my husband and the kids are still asleep. Sometimes, I put in an exercise DVD at 9pm and workout in my living room. The point is that no matter what your situation is, you need to MAKE the time to workout and make it a priority in your life. Any time you spend watching TV, you can be working out. I encourage you to do jumping jacks, push ups, squats, burpees, chair dips, lunges, etc during commercial breaks while you watch TV. Keep a set of weights next to the couch and do bicep curls as you sit on the couch watching your favorite show. These little things might not seem like much, but they can add up to a huge loss over time. And, more importantly doing small things like this can help you change the way you think about exercise, which will motivate you even
more.

Find your "Why?"

All the professional fitness trainers on those hit television weight loss shows talk about your emotions and getting to the bottom of your feelings before you try to lose weight. It always sounds like a bunch of baloney. But is it? I think it's important to find your "why?" Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to get healthy? Why is it important for you to exercise? Why eat clean?

A lot of popular answers to these questions include things like: "I want to fit into a dress for a party next month," or "Everybody wants to lose weight," or "It's that time of year. I've been bad all year but it's my New Year's Resolution to get fit." I'm going to be very honest right now, and it might not be easy to hear, but if those are  your reasons, you're kidding yourself. Those aren't the REAL reasons. You have to find your "Why?" And it's going to be different for everyone.

For me, I wanted to stop feeling ashamed of my body. I wanted to be able to take family photos and not hide behind every object or person I could find. I wanted to feel better, because when you're fat, you don't feel good. I wanted to get control of my body because I felt like I'd lost so much control after being diagnosed with thyroid disease. I wanted my daughter (and my sons) to be proud of me and not ashamed to be seen with me. I wanted to give my husband back the wife he married. I wasn't fat when we got married, and he deserved to have his sexy skinny wife back. I've never had high cholesterol or diabetes (even when I was fat), but I knew that with a family history of those and other health issues, I had to get my weight in check for my health. I wanted to challenge myself and do crazy things like one armed push-ups and run a half marathon, and do all the things that "fit people" do. I wanted to eat healthy real foods, not processed chemical food-like substances.

Those are some of my reasons why I started this journey. I encourage you to think long and hard about what your reasons why would be. If you take your health and fitness journey seriously, you only increase your chances of succeeding. If you treat this as a quick fix, or a New Year's Resolution, or just something you think you "should do," you're only dooming yourself to fail. You are worth more than that.

Calories: To Count or Not to Count, that is the question

I get asked a lot "Do you count calories? How many calories do you eat each day?" The short answer is that I don't count calories anymore, but it's not as simple as that.

When I first started working out, I counted calories like crazy. I very methodically and very carefully measured out all of my food and counted every single calorie that went in my body. I used a BodyMedia armband to accurately measure my calorie expenditure and I input my food each and every day as I ate it into the armband's software. That way, I knew how my calories in compared to my calories out. I like this armband because it's accurate. Some of the activity trackers out there simply give you a best guess of your calorie expenditure, but this one actually has sensors attached to your body and takes readings every couple seconds to give you real and accurate info. The more info you have, the better off you'll be.

I used to sync my armband in the evenings around 9pm or so and analyze my data. My goal was always to have a 500-1000 calorie deficit each and every day. That would give  you a 1-2 pound per week weight loss, which is the healthy way to lose weight. If my numbers weren't where they needed to be, I'd use the time between when I got that info and bedtime to make up the calories I needed to burn. So, I'd do jumping jacks, or burpees, run in place in my living room, put in a quick exercise video, do push ups, etc. Anything I could do to burn those extra calories at the last minute, I was going to do it. After all, I was determined. I had a goal. I'd armed myself with the knowledge and tools I needed to succeed, and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way. And it didn't.

I meticulously counted my calories for about a year or so. After that, I found I had learned enough about how my body worked that I could guesstimate pretty accurately what my calorie burn was on any given day, and I knew I wasn't eating junk or overeating, so I stopped counting. For me, it was just one less thing to have to worry about in my day. Every now and then, if I feel like I need a recheck, I'll count my calories for a few days just to make sure I'm staying on track. But I no longer obsess about it anymore.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different personalities and dietary needs. For me, I found myself becoming too obsessive and controlling about my calorie intake and expenditure and it drove me bananas at one point. That's not a healthy way, for me at least, to operate. So, I stopped doing it. That's not to say that you shouldn't count calories. Just, for me, I got the info I needed and took it as far as I could for my sanity.

I do think you need to log your meals and snacks and count calories at least in the beginning. Most people think they know how many calories they consume, but most people are wrong. It's shocking how many calories we actually eat in a day. If you are a person who eats a lot of processed food, I think it's a safe bet to say you have no clue how many calories you are really consuming. Those types of things add up quicker than you could even imagine. So, educate yourself. Log your meals, track your portions, learn what you're eating and what's in the foods you're eating. Learn how your body deals with certain foods. Learn how many calories you are burning (each individual body is different, don't believe the random number the treadmill at the gym tells you). And, make your decisions about calorie counting from there.

My Before and After pics

As much as I HATE the before pic, I'm super proud of my after. I started my weight loss journey a couple months after the before pic because I had to wait to get the "all clear" from my doctor. Weight doesn't just magically disappear overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment and an investment of your time and energy. But, don't get discouraged if you don't see immediate results. Even if you don't see the small changes, others will. There were times when I didn't see any change on the scale, but I'd run into someone at the store and get the "Oh my gosh! You look amazing!" comment. Sometimes that's all the motivation you need to keep going. 

That moment when it just clicked.....

After my thyroid disease diagnosis, I remember having that feeling of losing control. A part of me gave up in that moment. I remember thinking "Well, that's just it. I guess I'm going to be fat forever." I remember being told by my doctor that it was going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to lose weight. "You'll have to work at least twice as hard as the normal person and you still might not lose," he told me. Work twice as hard? Still not see results? What kind of death sentence did this diagnosis give me?

For a while I just decided that this was my new reality. It still sucked. I still hated it. But what was I supposed to do? There was no miracle pill. The thought of some crazy weight loss surgery scared me to death. Hell, even the doctor said the odds were stacked against me. Giving up seemed like the only viable option. And so that's how I went about my life for a couple of years. Slowly gaining more and more weight.

Then my husband and I found out we were pregnant again. And, this pregnancy was no picnic. I had many serious complications and about a half dozen trips to the ER for hemorrhaging. Plus, about a half dozen more trips to the hospital for pre-term labor. I was on complete bedrest for the first trimester and modified bedrest for the duration of my pregnancy. That gave me a lot of time to think (and watch lifetime movies). When we found out we were having a girl, that was my life changing moment.

We had two boys already, but there is just something different about having a girl. I remember thinking that I didn't want my daughter to feel the way I did. I wanted better for her. I didn't want her to grow up with body image issues. I didn't want her to feel any less than beautiful all the time. I didn't want her to look at me and be disgusted, embarrassed, or ashamed. I didn't want her to avoid introducing me to her friends because she was ashamed of her fat mom. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted her to think I'm beautiful. I wanted her to know that healthy habits are important. I wanted her to know that her mommy works hard. I didn't want her to see me as lazy and a quitter.

I remember telling my Ob/gyn towards the end of my pregnancy that I planned to lose at least 100 pounds. I remember him laughing. I remember him telling me "Don't get your hopes up. Start small." I remember thinking "You don't know how wrong you are to underestimate me." Maybe that was his strategy. Maybe he wanted to piss me off to motivate me. Maybe he was just a jerk. I don't know. All I know is that I was on a mission.

Because of my pregnancy complications, I didn't get to workout at that common 6 week postpartum mark that most people are allowed to. I had to wait until I had ultrasounds and testing and my doctor's permission, which took about an extra month or so. But when I got the all clear, it was like a fire had been lit in me. I was one determined woman, and nobody could stop me!

I want to lose weight, I NEED to lose weight. But where do I begin?

This is a question I'm asked so often. It's a question I asked myself and others too. The truth is that there's no one size fits all plan for everyone. You need to find an exercise routine that works for you. The most important thing is to do something you like, and something you can commit to doing without giving up. But just start somewhere.

For me, I wanted to do a particular workout video I'd seen on the infomercials. But I was so fat at the time, I knew I would probably pass out and die if I tried it. So, I knew I had to work my way up to the type of high intensity workout I wanted to eventually do.

Make sure you check with your doctor before you start any kind of exercise program.

I started with the basics. I kept a notepad on my mantle in the living room. On the notepad, I'd write at least 5 exercises to do that day. My goal at first was to do 100 of each exercise throughout the day between about 7 AM and 2 PM. I'd pick things like squats, lunges, jumping jacks, push ups (on my knees at first), chair dips, crunches, burpees, mountain climbers, etc. I'd do them 5 or 10 at a time and I kept tally marks on the notepad as I completed each set. If I got to the 100 reps of each exercise early, I'd do as many more as I could before 2 PM. All of this was done with my 3 kids underfoot. When you do exercises 5 or 10 at a time, it really doesn't take that long to do. But it can get you moving and get your heart rate up, burn calories, and get your mindset in the right place.

This was how I lost the first 47 pounds. I lost that weight without a gym, without any equipment, without spending any money, without a trainer, and without any free time. After all, I'm a busy mom, I don't have free time. But I can make time for a few minutes at a time to do 10 squats or 10 burpees, etc. Small changes add up quickly.

Basic Rules to Follow

Here are some very important things I've learned along the way:

1. Diets don't work. Diets make you fat. A diet implies that it's temporary and that the end of the diet you will go back to all the unhealthy eating you've been doing all along. Don't diet. Instead, make a commitment to make healthy choices and eliminate the word diet from your vocabulary, along with all the shakes, pills, crazy juice fasts, etc. None of it is good for you and none of it will teach you how to do anything except yo-yo.

2. Eat Clean, Train Dirty. This means you eat only healthy real foods and when you work out, you don't half ass it! Work your butt off and push yourself to the limits and beyond. That being said, if you eat a piece of cake or some chips, don't let that ruin your day or your week. We're all human, so if you eat something you shouldn't then get over it and get back on track immediately.

3. Processed foods have no place in your home or in your body. If the food you eat doesn't grow in the ground, on a tree or branch, or have a face, it doesn't belong in your body. If you have food that has ingredients you can't pronounce, don't eat it. It's not really food. It's chemicals and crap you don't need in your body.

4. Veggies are your friends. Eat at least 6-10 cups of veggies each and every day. Fresh is best but frozen is ok too as long as it's not covered in cheese or full of added sodium. Craving a crunchy snack like chips? Slice up a whole cucumber and eat that instead.

5. Healthy fats are good. Avocado, olive oil, and coconut oil are awesome. Coconut oil is really really awesome. I use it in everything I cook.

6. Artificial ANYTHING is bad. It's called artificial for a reason, it's not natural. Absolutely NO artificial sugars or sweeteners. If you use butter, use REAL butter NOT margarine, just don't use a ton.

7. Don't drink your calories. Soda is poison, plain and simple. Diet soda is worse. The only things I ever drink are water, plain iced tea with no sugar or sweetener, or coffee (NO COFFEEMATE!)

8. Drink half your body weight in water each day. If you're 200 lbs, you need to drink 100 oz of water a day. Water helps speed up your metabolism, helps you feel full, and of course keeps you hydrated.

9. You should be working out 6 times a week if you want to see good change. Strive for 6 cardio workouts and 3 weight training workouts per week. Start slow. Don't try to do crazy workouts right out the gate but keep moving. I'm not perfect by any means, but 6 workouts a week is my minimum.

10. Change your workouts often. Your body gets used to whatever routine you're doing. Plus, you're more likely to just ease your way through it instead of really push yourself if you're always doing the same thing. And, it's good for a mental break to try something new every now and then.

A little about me......

I used to be fat. There, I said it. There was a time where I was beyond fat actually. Fat was something I wished for. I was technically classified as obese. It was the most depressing time of my life by far. Especially since I wasn't always fat. I wasn't the chubby kid who turned into the chubby teenager and stayed the chubby adult only to get seriously fat later in life. I was the super super skinny kid who could eat 6 huge meals a day and not gain an ounce. I was the teenager who had to try to gain weight to qualify to donate blood. I was the adult who still wore a size 4 at my wedding at age 23. I was the mom who had a baby and gained almost 100 pounds during my pregnancy and lost all but about 15 of those pounds by my baby's first birthday. And, even with those extra 15 pounds, I was still not overweight.

So, how did it happen? How did I get so fat? Honestly, it happened so fast. It wasn't my fault. I didn't eat a bunch of pies and fast food and sit on the couch all day. That wasn't MY story. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't eating super strict and I wasn't killing myself in the gym 24/7. But, I hadn't changed a single thing I was eating or changed my activity/exercise level, yet within a few months I had mysteriously gained 60+ pounds. Naturally I went to the doctor. I felt terrible. My hair was falling out in clumps, my eyebrows were thinning dramatically, I could literally fall asleep standing up. I was so exhausted all the time and no amount of coffee helped. My skin was super dry to the point that I had cracked and bleeding knuckles. Oh, and don't forget the sudden weight gain. 

I begged my doctor to test me for thyroid disease. I could google my symptoms. I used webmd. It had to be my thyroid right? Try telling that to a doctor who's unwilling to listen. It took months of back and forth with him to get him to listen. All the while, more pounds were showing up on the scale all the time with no explanation. When he finally checked my TSH level (thyroid stimulating hormone) it was so far beyond normal he told me I was lucky to be alive. Your thyroid controls basically every function in your body, and mine had stopped working. I could've had a heart attack. I could've died. All because a little butterfly shaped gland decided to quit working. 

It took over a year after that to get my thyroid medication properly regulated to get my levels back to normal. Most people think that once you're on medication to regulate your thyroid, the weight magically drops off. Ha! I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. If that were the case, they could simply sell thyroid medication as the new weight loss pill. All that little pill does is keep my thyroid in check. I'm responsible for working my butt off to lose the weight. And, that can be the most depressing part of a diagnosis like this. 

So, this blog is all about my journey and how I lost over 110 pounds and have kept it off. So many people have inspired me in my journey and now it's my turn to inspire others.