OMG look at her BUTT!! Oh wait, that’s me…

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Okay, it’s time to face reality, my butt has got WAY too big, I need to take action!

I know I’m not the only one, so I thought that I would share my journey with all of you and maybe we could work together to encourage each other!   I knew that I had gained a few pounds the last few years and I have said several times that I was going to lose weight and start a diet but nothing ever really seemed to work out.   This past summer when I went on vacation I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable with how I felt in shorts and my bathing suit even with a cover up and I MUST do something about this before summer hits again!

As many of us do, I started looking at diet and exercise options before the end of the year, planning to start the new year off right.    Through the years I have pretty much tried every type of diet out there, some have worked well and others not so much.   I rarely eat TV dinners and many of the “commercial” diets involve meal replacement bars, frozen dinners or some kind of shake.    I personally am extremely sensitive to artificial sweeteners and I have found that most of these programs require some type of food or drink that has artificial sweeteners as an ingredient.   I just can’t do that.  It makes me feel gross, and just the thought of putting all of these unnecessary chemicals or unnatural things in my system doesn’t seem like it would be the best option long term.

This past year I have heard so much about “Clean Eating”, “Gluten Free Eating”, “The Paleo Diet” or other programs that promote eating natural foods and eliminating over processed junk that is so popular in our diets.   This really caught my interest, but it was kind of hard for me to wrap my head around exactly how I could transition to this type of eating and where to start.

For me, the biggest issue is that I don’t usually eat breakfast, I can go all day working hard and finally at about 2pm or 3pm I get hungry and eat something then eat again after I am done working at night.   I am pretty sure that my biggest problem through the years has been eating too late and making REALLY bad choices on what I choose to eat.  Can anyone else relate to that??  Since I am starving at that point, I usually choose something that is really quick and easy to prepare which involves lots of pasta, bread, rice or other carbs.   I am not a sweets eater by nature, but I LOVE my breads and rice.  Logically I know this isn’t the best thing to do, but that pretty much sums up the reality of my eating habits.

Sooo.. while searching for options that were close to “clean eating” or at least “healthy eating” I found a TON of programs, some super strict, some not so bad but the basic idea with all of them was that you have to plan your meals, have those items on hand and set a schedule for eating.   In theory that sounds great, but with someone with a busy schedule like mine, the odds of success are pretty slim with a program that requires me to prepare and cook three healthy meals per day plus healthy snacks.  I know myself and I know that I will do good for a few days and then I will be super swamped and will grab something fast on the run and blow my program out of the water.   Call me a loser (and not the weight loss type) if you must.. but I have to be REAL with myself at this point.

My husband (who by the way eats snacks and junk all day and doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him) said that I could probably lose weight quickly like some of these stars you see on TV if I had a chef come and cook me the meals that I am supposed to have three times per day and show me what it is I should be eating for weight loss.   He said that way I would always have what I am supposed to eat right in front of me and won’t have to give it any thought.  Great idea, thank you Captain Obvious for your support!   I am pretty sure that hiring a personal chef is NOT even remotely an option considering my tight budget.

Even though the suggestion by Captain Obvious wasn’t realistic, it did make me start thinking!

With all of these different programs out there, I starting looking to see if any of them offered a program with REAL FOOD already prepared sent right to your house at a reasonable price.  I didn’t want any type of TV dinner meal or meal replacement or energy shakes included, nothing processed.  Just real food ready to go to keep me on track AND teach me how I should be eating.  I like the idea of clean eating and would LOVE to learn how to do it so that I can not only lose weight but become healthier in the process!

I stumbled upon a company called Personal Trainer Food because they were offering a Groupon on one of their programs.  Basically their program is based on removing all processed junk from your diet.   They send you REAL meats and veggies and snacks (not processed tv dinners) ready to heat up and eat.  The food and options on their website looked REALLY REALLY good too!  They teach you how to eat right and make it super simple.   I saw this on the last day of their groupon offer and I bought in on it thinking that it would be a good thing to try.    While I was researching the entire thing out I made contact with one of their “diet coaches” who offered for me to try out the program for 28 days (free of charge, YIPPEY!) and share my HONEST experiences with everyone on my website.  They said if I stuck to it I could lose weight and I would feel 100% better and they were confident that I could succeed if i stuck to it.  Of course this was a no-brainer for me and I jumped right on board!  I am REALLY GLAD that I did too!  I am on DAY FIVE and I am SUPER EXCITED ABOUT IT!    I will say, their food is really good.  You could TOTALLY do the same thing at home and make the exact same meals really easily, but what I like about it is that I don’t have to think about it, I pull out my food, heat it up (microwave, oven or saute it depending on what I feel like doing) and eat it.    The biggest thing for me is that I feel that I am LEARNING how to eat right which is the one thing that I really need to learn.

I realize that it isn’t feasible for everyone to be able to pay for a diet program like this.  One of the best things about this program is that you CAN do the same thing at home if you wanted to.  Nothing in their program is a “unique food” or something that you couldn’t make yourself.   Basically it is something like a seasoned chicken breast and veggies, the whole idea behind the Personal Trainer Food Program is the convenience of it all, that you don’t have to think about it, the food is already prepared, you heat and eat.  That works for me.   The other thing is that they are not focusing on DIET as much as proper eating habits and routine, eating when you are supposed to, doing some form of exercise EVERY DAY (they recommend 10 minutes of walking) and stay with it.   With this program you do not eat ANY processed carbs, no pasta, no rice, no bread, no sugar, but you CAN have Meat, Veggies, Eggs, Cheese and some nuts like almonds and pistachios.  There is a science behind eliminating processed carbs but I won’t get into that right now.  For me, it is PRETTY DARN CLOSE to clean eating and I am very happy so far!   I will go into more details on future posts about how things are working for me, but here are a couple of photos to give you an idea on what I am eating.

This is what my food looks like:

This was my DAY ONE lunch.  It was heated in the microwave and ready in 3 1/2 minutes and VERY GOOD.

I decided to switch it up a bit for dinner and instead of microwaving my stir fry veggies and meat I put it in a pan in the kitchen to brown it up a bit and season with a little bit of soy sauce and it was AMAZING!

So far in 5 days I have lost 2.3 lbs and I have eaten more than I normally would!

Yes, I admit,  2.3 pounds is not THAT much, but it has only been five days (four on food since the first day I fasted before starting) and I feel FANTASTIC!  I feel like I am eating WAY more than I normally would, the food is good and since I am not eating any carbs at all I am not having the sugar highs and lows through the day.  It has been an easy transition for me thank goodness!!

In my upcoming posts I will share my actual meal plan with Personal Trainer Food, what I am eating each day and how things are working.    I would LOVE for you to do that same!  What plan are you on?   How is it working?  What meals are you preparing?  Let’s get healthy together!!

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