60 Day Results!

Hello world!

I can’t believe it’s already been another 30 days but here we are! At the time of my last posting (30 day results) I had only lost about 4lbs. At this point I’m struggling between 8 and 9 lbs loss. My body is the QUEEN of procrastination lol BUT..that being said, I’m fairly happy with today’s results photos. I can DEFINITELY see physical changes happening in  my body even tho the scale is moving like molasses. I think that is why it’s important NOT to put all your eggs in the weight loss basket and it’s extremely important to take photos of yourself along the way! During the past few years there are very few photos of my entire body because of the fact I wasn’t happy with how I looked. Now that I’m working to improve I regret not having something to compare it to.

Can I just go off on a tangent for a moment? Let’s talk about the weight loss industry. I REALLY am annoyed by it. They prey on people’s insecurities with their self body image. Take this pill and you’ll lose this! Drink this shake and you’ll lose weight! Lose fat with these simple steps! Low Fat! Fat Free!  It’s all b.s. and bandaids. There is no simple way to get healthy and stay healthy. It takes hard work, determination and healthy eating choices. That is the ‘simple’ truth of it. But we all are looking for that solution…that one answer that will help us get where we want to be without too much of a struggle. The weight loss industry just swoops on in and takes total advantage of that desire. It’s just so insulting to me from the perspective of one of those trying to improve their self image. But… I digress…

So during this last 30 days some things have changed about my eating/exercise regimen. My fiancee, Brian, has become more motivated to get himself in shape so he has really helped to keep me motivated when I don’t feel like doing it. We go to the gym around 3-4x per week, mainly for cardio but we will sometimes do a couple of machines. Our cardio consists of walking on the treadmill anywhere from 30-45 minutes with an incline and around 3.5 speed. Eventually I may try to add some jogging in there but as of right now the incline walk and swift pace have been enough to keep my heart rate up and the sweat a-pouring 🙂 I still want to be a DDPYoga success story.. we include the yoga 3x/week.  Currently we are on the fatburner workout. We don’t really follow the DDPYoga workout schedule or eating plan. If we were we’d probably see a lot faster results but this is about finding a lifestyle that works for us.

I’ve cut back a bit on my carbs when possible and our eating out has gone from 4x/week to around 2. My soda intake is around 1/week as opposed to when I started at 1/day. McDonalds hasn’t seen me for breakfast in a loooong time 🙂 Speaking of breakfast, I found a great meal replacement shake. It doesn’t promise any get fit, get skinny results. I am purely using it for the fact it is all natural, vegan, chocked full of vitamins and minerals and a complete meal that I can whip up in a matter of seconds in the mornings. Both Brian and I have fallen in love with it. If you’re interested in the shake you can find it on Amazon or at Whole Foods. Phood Meal Replacement Shake.

Sounds like my man is wanting to head off to a park this afternoon (beautiful day out) so without further ado here are the results pictures and we’ll see ya again in 30 days! And as always, don’t forget to follow me on Facebook! www.facebook.com/MGHTake2

Day 30 Results!

We have hit Day #30 of the Mindy Gets Healthy adventure!

This month has been a month of trial and error that is for sure! I am still trying to get my food choices under control and struggling to get 3 workouts/week in let alone 5… BUT… I can sense a change in myself mentally at the very least. I’ve been much more conscious of what I am eating most days and find myself truly making an effort to get some sort of activity in, even if it isn’t my DDPYoga. I can definitely tell my strength and flexibility is improving with each Yoga workout I do!

I do notice a couple of changes in the photos that are probably incredibly minute to other people. But I can see where my flexibility has improved and my plank is certainly lower to the ground than it was before.

For the next 30 days I’m going to continue with what I’ve been doing (watching my carb intake and doing my best to make good food choices), stop drinking McDonalds half/half tea altogether (eep, thats a killer lol) and continue to try to get more workouts in. I’m going to attempt to start getting up a half hour earlier to get my yoga in the morning instead of waiting until after I get home at night. My other half sounds like he’s on board to start making some changes within himself so it sounds as if we’re giving the gym one more 30-day shot.  The treadmill may become my friend again…or I may wonder why we’re wasting our time at the gym when DDPYoga is all we really need 🙂

I’m liking the direction this is taking me in, and I’m just going to continue to trust in the process 🙂 I WILL be one of those ‪#‎ddpyoga‬ success stories.. I guarantee it! 🙂

Follow my journey on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MGHTake2

If you’re gonna to do it, “Do it with Flair”

It’s a new week! A new opportunity for self improvement! I’m coming off of a fabulous weekend myself, and hope you guys are the same!

I learned a lot this weekend… some very interesting things. 1. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, just starting out and squishy (like me) or the epitome of fitness.. there will always be naysayers. 2. Having a partner to push you is an amazing experience!

My fiance and I are big professional wrestling fans. We are fortunate enough to live locally to WWE NXT’s home base and get to attend multiple shows (sometimes more than once a week lol). My fiance takes a lot of photos at the shows and we will often get them printed for the wrestlers to autograph or to give them. We ordered a photo of Charlotte Flair this weekend. She is in immaculate shape and works incredibly hard to have the body that she does. We went to pick up the order and the woman who processed the order said “Oh, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at in this photo.” We were a little confused and told her “She’s a professional wrestler.” The woman responded “Oh, is that what it is?”. My fiance then said “Yea, she has about 0% body fat.” The woman kind of rolled her eyes and said “I would say so.”  As we walked away with our photo of the lovely Ms. Charlotte I was becoming increasingly annoyed. This woman had completely judged someone purely based on their appearance, totally forsaking that she not only did not know this person but also how hard this person must have worked on their physique. It was certainly unprofessional to share those opinions with us. Even more disheartening to me however was how this woman was trying to tear down someone’s hard work. Often these kinds of reactions come from a place of insecurity in one’s own physical appearance/well-being.

Charlotte is incredibly inspirational to me. Just a day before this experience I had spoken on twitter with her and asked her for fitness tips. One of her responses was to “never compare your fitness goals to someone else’s.” I am definitely heeding her words and I only hope that one day I’m at a point where someone might roll their eyes at me… but decide not to.

The photo that had this woman so ‘confused’ is on the right:

Secondly, having a partner to push you is amazing! Whether it is your partner in life, your best friend or a fur buddy… having someone/thing to push you can push you to new heights!

My favorite vacation spot growing up has always been Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. The waterfalls there are like no other and there are so many hiking trails that you could spend days and still not do them all. One of the hiking trails that used to be my favorites is the Cable Trail. The Cable Trail is an incredibly steep incline that leads to the base of one of the more secluded beautiful waterfalls. There typically are not many people at the base of this falls because it is so difficult to navigate to. Due to the incline of the trail there is a large metal cable that leads from top to bottom…it is recommended that you use the cable to navigate the trail safely.

Last year my Brian and I had the opportunity to go to Fall Creek. It had been probably close to 10 years since I had been and since I had gone on the cable trail. It was a huge reminder that I was no longer in my mid 20s!  I made it only about a third of the way down before I got ‘stuck’. I didn’t have the confidence to make the 4ft drop from one boulder to the next even with the guide of the cable and my fiance to steady me when I came down. I basically became paralyzed with panic. It was incredibly embarrassing and heartbreaking to me. I felt so ashamed of myself and who I had become. I vowed that the next time we make it to Tennessee I would be going down that Cable Trail.

This past weekend we went hiking. We went to a park that has some “Florida Mountains” aka glorified dirt mounds 🙂 The park that we went to is often used by cyclists for off-road adventures. Typically when we have gone to this park we will venture off the trails and go up on top of these ‘mountains’ but I’ve always struggled getting down them and I’d only go up as far as I felt comfortable. This weekend was different. I’ve been feeling a little more confident in my strength and flexibility since starting DDPYOGA and I was in the mood to challenge myself. There were times when I got scared and felt I was going to fall but my fiance was there to cheer me on. I don’t know that I would have been able to conquer my fear of falling if it were for him being there.  I felt amazing after climbing up and down those bad boys and I felt strong. I can’t wait to challenge myself some more as I know my confidence will grow with each stride.

My 30 day results photos are coming up at the end of this week. I won’t lie, I don’t expect to see much in physical changes in the photos. This month has been a month full of trial and error, falling off the horse and climbing back on. I still struggle to get in 3 workouts/week let alone 5 and my diet isn’t 100% on point. BUT… I keep pushing forward and I can feel in my strength, flexibility and just overall feeling that things are changing inside of me. Mentally, however, I feel the biggest changes of all. I’m finally starting to get that motivation bug back. I’m finally starting to want to challenge myself and improve. That is a great feeling! We will see what the result photos hold but as far as I’m concerned..I’m totally on the right track!

If you’d like to follow my journey on facebook, please like my page! www.facebook.com/MGHtake2

Meal Prep Mania!

Every week is a struggle for me to plan out meals. As I’ve mentioned before, Mickey D’s was my ‘go to’ for breakfast. For lunches I typically would run into what is quick and convenient… as of late it’s been a toasted bagel with a slice of cheese, tomato and onion on top. It’s absolutely delish but it’s also pretty fattening and loaded with carbs.

This week I’ve made sure to have a plan for breakfast and my lunches. For breakfast I’m eating 2 eggs (fried) on a plain whole wheat bagel with a slice of colby jack (I might eat too much cheese, and eggs lol But I’m focused on eating a lower amount of carbs currently).

For lunches, I bought these cute little Rubbermaid Lunch Blox to make sure that I had perfect proportions of each of my foods. This week’s lunch consists of cucumber sliders (cucumber slices with a little deli turkey and ultra thin sliced colby jack cheese), a hard boiled egg, some baby carrots and an apple. Yesterday I had peanut butter on my apple but I wasn’t really feeling that so it’ll be a plain apple today.

I’m snacking on almonds between breakfast and lunch and a few grapes between lunch and dinner.

Anybody have any other quick, easy, clean lunch ideas? I’m typically in a major time crunch when it comes to meal prep or fixing things in the morning 🙂

Holy Deliciousness, Batman!

Last night I decided to try my hand at making my very first Black Bean Burger. I’ve always heard that they were a delish healthy alternative to a greasy hamburger but have always been afraid to try making them. I love black beans, but I also love a good hamburger. I had tried black bean burgers by MorningStar and Boca in the past and neither of those seemed a good alternative to me.

I’m so glad that I tried the below recipe (recipe posted originally by The Pioneer Woman). I followed the recipe to a tee, except for that I halved everything. Next time I will probably add a little more hot sauce  (I like things spicy!). I had the burger on a leaf of iceberg (since I’m watching carbs) with an ultra thin slice of colby jack, ketchup and jalapenos, served with a huge side of steamed broccoli. Yum-o!

Give it a shot! Y’never know, you may just be a surprised as I was! 🙂

Black Bean Burgers

Prep Time:

10 Minutes

Cook Time:

10 Minutes

Difficulty:

Easy

Servings:

4

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cans (14.5 Each) Seasoned Black Beans
• 1 cup Seasoned Breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup Grated White Onion
• 1 whole Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Chili Powder
• Salt And Pepper
• Hot Sauce (I Used Choloula)
• 8 slices Swiss Cheese
• Olive Oil, For Frying
• Butter, For Frying And Grilling
• 4 whole Kaiser Rolls Or Good Hamburger Buns
• Mayonnaise
• Lettuce Or Other Greens
• Sliced Tomato

Preparation Instructions

Drain, but do not rinse, the black beans. Place them in a bowl and use a fork to mash them. Keep mashing until they’re mostly broken up, but still have some whole beans visible. Add the breadcrumbs, onion, egg, chili powder, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Stir until everything is combined, then let the mixture sit for 5 minutes.

Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil with an equal amount of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Form the bean mixture into patties slightly larger than the buns you’re using (the patties will not shrink when they cook.) Place the patties in the skillet and cook them about 5 minutes on the first side. Flip them to the other side, place 2 slices of cheese onto each patty, and continue cooking them for another 5 minutes, or until the burgers are heated through. (Place a lid on the skillet to help the cheese melt if needed.)

Grill the buns on a griddle with a little butter until golden. Spread the buns with mayonnaise and hot sauce, then place the patties on the buns. Top with lettuce and tomato, then pop on the lids!

Yum.

A HEALTH of knowledge at your fingertips

Getting support on your lifestyle change journey is easier today than it ever has been. Now that you can share all of your details with blogs, social media, pinterest, etc. there is no shortage of people that you can relate to on ANY topic. (And many that you’d rather not relate to as well, but I digress 🙂

A few sources I’ve found that are going to help me on my journey are http://lauradfit.com/about/, this Dance Workout, and starting this week these lunch meal plans: http://darlingbedaring.com/healthy-girl-on-the-go/. The dance workout is about an hour long and just kicked my butt! I LOVE Zumba and have been looking for a way to get it back into my life and for now this may be a good alternative!

I’ve also rejoined Sparkpeople.com to track my carb intake. A friend recommended that I look at doing a diabetic diet (consider I am pre-disposed to diabetes and my doctors have asked me to do a diabetic diet as well). She has been on a diabetic diet which mostly consists of eating less than 30 carbs per meal…along with a few other staples (clean eating, wheat instead of white, more veggies, lean proteins, etc.).

Hopefully with these sources (along with my DDP yoga of course) I’ll be on the right track to a healthier new me!

Day 1. PHOTOS… No, I’m not pregnant..

That is just what a year of fast food, eating out and general laziness will do to ya!

This is my Day 1 photo series. Every 30 days I’ll post a new set in the same clothes, doing the same moves and hopefully see improvements! (If you saw my page before you know how it works!) I’ll also be adding some of my stats (measurements and blood pressure…because currently at 35 years old, the machine tells me my BP is not good. If I don’t see it go down in the next 30 days it is possible I’ll be headed to the doctor to get on medication for it. I am one of those people who does not like to take medicine unless it is absolutely necessary. I’d much prefer to do things naturally.)

Taking pictures when you first start a healthy lifestyle journey is vitally important. As we are going through the day to day it is very easy to forget how far we have come. For me, taking these photos was a harsh reminder of how far I’ve gone.  You *know* where you’re at sometimes, but sometimes you don’t really fully accept it until you view it from the outside. Viewing these pictures of myself not only tells me that I need to work on fixing my plank/pushup positioning (I SWEAR my back wasn’t arched that way lol) but also lights a fire under me to improve. So hurrah!

This is me, this is where I’m starting and this is where I hope to not be again someday. It’s what I have to work with right now, so that is exactly what I’m going to do 🙂

For any of you who are seeing this who are not friends with me personally, feel free to follow me on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/MGHTake2 

Mindy 1 / Fatty McFatburger 0

This past weekend..the fiance and I had a talk about Conscious Living… basically the concept of thinking before doing in every aspect of life. Too often we go though life on auto pilot day in and day out. Most days I can’t even tell you about my drive to and from work.. I just miraculously end up at my destination 45 minutes later.

Today I practiced conscious living. During my morning walk I made the decision to go just a little further (about 3/4 mile further) which ended up adding about 10 minutes to my walk. I hadn’t prepared for this extra time to be spent before work so I was running a little late trying to get ready and such.

As I was watching the minutes quickly ticking away I started to stress about how I was going to find time to make myself breakfast. My mind immediately jumped to “Oh, I guess I will just have to go to Mickey D’s…shucks! Some breakfast is better than no breakfast, right?!” Wrong.

As soon as I uttered those words in my mind I was able to recognize what I was doing… making excuses to fall into habits that I’m desperately trying to break.

I started to remind myself that I had JUST gotten out of bed 30 minutes early so I could trek my booty around the neighborhood for exercise. I reminded myself that if I hadn’t gone to Mickey D’s so many times for breakfast in the past I may not be needing to be getting up so early to walk (of course, the walking is fabulous for me anyway..but I was trying to motivate myself lol)

I ended up going downstairs and making myself some oatmeal, grabbing a bottle of water and an apple for the road 🙂

Mindy 1 / Fatty McFatburgers 0

Day 1: Start Over Again

Today marks another Day 1 of many Day 1s in my lifetime.

After an extremely emotionally taxing weekend (see previous blog post) I decided to try and take back control of my life today. I started off this week on the right foot with a 1.3 mile walk this morning at 6:45 a.m. Normally I can’t pull myself out of bed at 6:45 let alone get up and walk..but thanks to Daylight Savings Time it is now daylight when I wake up. Also, extremely helpful, was my mom also took a walk at the same time with me. We became cyber walking buddies! Knowing that someone was doing the same thing as me was incredibly helpful.

After the walk I headed in to get ready for work and eat a healthy breakfast of pineapple slices and Weight Watchers Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal (this stuff is amazing if you haven’t tried it before. I don’t even care for oatmeal normally but this is like dessert! lol)

Last night I had prepared this week’s lunches (tuna fish lettuce wrap with a side of cucumber, onion and tomato salad [favorite]) and dinners have been planned for the rest of the week. Hopefully this will keep the fiance and I from having to eat out… saving money and calories.

So that’s how the week is starting, let’s see what it has in store for me! So far..feeling GREAT and IN CONTROL.

Current Measurements:
Waist: 37.75″
Hips: 44″
Bust: 43″

Some Thoughts

Why are women so horrible to each other?? I won’t sit here and play holier than thou and say I’ve never talked down or made a comment about another woman’s appearance…especially in the company of other females who shared my opinion. But why do we do that? My first guess is insecurity. We see something in that other person that we wish we had in ourselves…of course we may not want to see that or admit it..but I’m pretty certain deep down there is something about this other person that we wish we had. If it’s not the actual physical appearance..possibly it is the confidence that this person has with themselves.

I think we all need to make a point the next time we are judging, criticizing or mocking someone else’s physical appearance to take a look at ourselves and see WHY we are feeling the need to voice these ‘opinions’.

Especially for us women…getting in and staying in shape is extremely hard work. Whether we see a girl with a bangin’ body or a girl who is a little pudgy around the middle we need to understand that it is NOT an easy ride.

Most of us all want the same thing in life…to be happy, healthy and to feel attractive/sexy. We all are fighting the same battle one way or another… so why not treat each other with a little compassion instead of trying to tear each other apart? Can you imagine how much you could inspire, motivate or heal someone simply by a few kind words?