Fitness

Are you interested in improving you health and don’t know where to begin? Have you tried everything to lose weight only to gain back the weight you lost plus more?

Well, I know of a movie that you can watch right now for FREE that could be extremely eye-opening and maybe even change your life. It’s called Hungry For Change. My husband and I watched it last week, and it’s already making an impact on our food choices.

The movie is only free to watch for about 5 more days.

And all you have to do to watch it is to input your name and email address on the website, and you’ll get instant access to the movie. It’s 90 minutes long, and I recommend watching it in one sitting, if you can.

The movie is made by the same people who created the extremely popular movie, Food Matters – which also helped shape our view of food and the way we eat today.

So what are you waiting for? Watch Hungry For Change today!

*I didn’t receive anything for recommending this movie. I just think it’s a great movie (and waited with anticipation to finally be able to watch it myself), and I care about your health, so I thought I’d share it. 🙂

I had Ruben take my BEFORE picture last night, but the batteries in the camera were about to die and then the kids wanted “before” pictures taken so by the end of that….we had to charge the batteries and get this posted today instead.  It takes a lot of courage to do what I am about to do because anyone who knows me in real life knows that I lean on the shy side and posting a near full picture of my body is just a bit out of my comfort zone.

Well…deep breath…here you go…this is me…..

 
 
 
 

My current weight as of Monday is…..228.5 pounds.  Can you believe when I met my husband I was 100 pounds lighter?  Here’s an old picture of us.

I’m not planning on losing 100 pounds this year, although, it would be nice!  My goal is to lose 50 pounds over the next 12 months.  Anything more than that would be bonus!  And wonderful!  I’ve already made up a plan on how I’m (Lord willing) going to accomplish this.  And I’m happy to say that as of yesterday, I got off to a great start!

I had mentioned previously that another one of my goals was to try one raw foods recipe per week, and yesterday, I made two!  I made portobello stuffed mushrooms for dinner and vanilla crunch ice kream (misspelling this on purpose because there’s no real cream in it) for dessert.  The mushrooms were good, but because they were so big, they were a little much for us.  The pate’ that I made to go in the middle would be great simply with a salad, and I think that’s what I’ll use it for next time.

The ice kream was delicious!  I will say that I was a bit nervous on how this would turn out, but it was surprisingly close to real vanilla ice cream.  But healthy!  And I’m happy to say that I’ve begun to put my ice cream maker to use again.  From now on, the food processor, blender, and ice cream maker are going to be my best kitchen friends.

Do you want to know what was in the vanilla ice kream?  Cashews, vanilla extract, spring water, and agave nectar.  That’s it!  I did let the kids add a few m&m’s to theirs to make it a little more fun, but we all enjoyed it and I was half a pound lighter this morning.  Can’t do that with the regular stuff. 😉

Okay, back to the point of this post.  I want to lose 50 pounds this year, and in an effort to keep myself accountable and encourage others to join along, I’m going to be posting my progress here on The Sensible Mom every Monday.

Do you have any weight loss goals this year?

I mentioned in my list of goals for this year that I want to lose 50lbs.  I know it isn’t going to be easy, and I’ll need a plan to make it happen.  At first, I thought I’d simply count my calories since that is the only thing that has truly worked for me in the past, but I’m thinking of taking a different approach after watching a few films on food, companies that produce the food, the way our food is made and grown, and the health and soundness of it all.  I’m going to push myself to try a few new things I haven’t done in the past in an effort to be more healthy and get the weight off.  An added benefit is that my entire family will be healthier as a result, too.  Here’s what I’m aiming to do:

:: Start everyday with a bottle of water to help get the toxins out of my body

:: Eat more fruits and vegetables and buy organically as much as possible

:: Eat less red meat, and I’m hoping that sometime this year when we have more funds available, we can purchase one-half of a grass-fed cow (not sure yet when this will be) so that the red meat we do eat is healthier.

:: Try at least one recipe per week out of a Raw Foods cookbook (The raw foods lifestyle intrigues me, but our family is not yet ready to make the full leap.  Baby steps.)

:: Eat fish at least 2 times a week

:: Eat more raw nuts and seeds

:: Exercise 4 times per week (I’m doing one of The Biggest Loser workout videos, and I signed up for a few exercise classes at school.  This will put me in the fitness center for about 3 hours per week from the end of January til the beginning of May.)

:: Blog my weight loss journey for added accountability (nothing like putting your weight out there for the world to see!  that’ll make me think twice about that late night snack!) and hopefully give inspiration to others that it can be done!

I’ve been carrying around this extra weight since my first pregnancy, and I’m so tired of it!  By God’s grace and with His help and guidance, I’m hoping this will be the year that the weight finally comes off for good!