Made it to the 2 Week Mark

Phew, I made it!  Finished the two week shakedown. Final result:  9 pound weight loss.  Sure I would've lost more if I was more disciplined and followed the diet to a T.  But 9 pounds in two weeks is fantastic.  The best part is that I've adopted better eating habits that have become a lifestyle.  I don't plan to go back to my old diet.  I feel great, I look great.  I should find a before photo and take one today as a milestone.

Day 13 One More Day!

I haven't weight myself and will wait until tomorrow to step on the scale.  I'm at a point where I don't even think about the diet anymore, it's just part of regular life.   I do love what I'm seeing in the mirror.  My skin looks better, I'm slimmer, my clothes fit better.  Health wise I feel great, I'm sure when I go in for my annual checkup my bloodwork will show great results.  This is an awesome diet!

Day 11 In the Home Stretch!

I took a couple days off from weighing myself.  I started my period there will be some swelling and water retention.  But I stepped on the scale this morning and came in at 138.6.  So that's a total weight loss of 9.4 pounds.

I'm at a point now where this diet is not a struggle, I don't really even think about it much. What really helps is the flaxseed crackers.  If I start to feel hungry I just have a little bit with water and it fills me up, must be all the fiber.

My real test will be tomorrow when we go to Cox Farms for their opening weekend.  My boys love the slides and all the kiddie activities.  There will be temptation everywhere for kettle corn, pizza, burgers, you name it.  I plan to pack my lunch, hope I don't fall off the wagon!  I'm so close to finishing this diet, I wasn't sure if I could do it.  But I'm so happy I made it this far, I wish I took a photo of myself so I could have some good before and after photos.  When I look in the mirror I see myself slimming all over, from my face to my waist to my thighs.  Love love love this diet, it's awesome!

Day 8 Woo Hoo I'm on a roll again!

139.8 this morning.  Phew! The weight I gain the past couple days has come off.  I had complained about it on the Ann Louise forum and a few people including Ann Louise told me to avoid the scale.  So I think for the next few days I will try to do that, though it' so tempting....

Day 7 Ugh weight gain .4 pounds :(

I'm not sure why but the trend is reversing. Another weight gain of .4 pounds putting me at 141.2. I was good most of the day with 2 smoothies. But then dinner came along and things went downhill. I made chicken Marsala with mashed potatoes. In place of the potatoes I had steamed broccoli and cauliflower. I did cheat and have some mashed potatoes. But I've cheated all the other days with no ill effects. What gives? I want so badly to go below 140. I want to fit into my old clothes again. I wonder if it's the exercise? I took my son for a walk, then later when the kids were in bed I bounced on the trampoline. I'm only supposed to do light exercise and I am doing just that. Who knows? I'm now halfway through the shakedown, I hope the other half gets better!

Day 6 Uh Oh Weight Gain .8 pounds!

I was hoping to find myself lose more weight and be under 140 pounds. But to my dismay I gained .8. What happened?  I know I didn't have very many veggies. Then I made the flaxseed crackers, did I eat too much of it? I know they're high fiber and I'm constipated, so I may had too much.  I'm hoping that's it. But my guess is that I ate too much of it, I wasn't as hungry as I normally am. I just chalked it up to the fiber.  But it was really satiation from extra calories. Ugh, have to be careful.

Day 5 - minus 1.6 pounds

Yesterday was a scary day.  My husband wanted to go for a hike so I ate a bowl of mac and cheese so I could have the energy for the walk.  Can I say it tasted so good?  It was amazing. Then in place of the 2nd smoothie I made burgers.  Of course it was with lettuce in place of a bread bun, no cheese.  I snuck in mustard and low fat mayo.  And onions and salt-free spices in the meat for more flavor.  I was so hungry I had two of them.  And a handful of Pop Chips on the side. So I was afraid to step on the scale this morning.  But to my surprise I weighed in at 140, a loss of 1.6 pounds!  Phew!  Even with all that cheating I still lost weight.  I guess the key is to avoid the grains, sugar and processed foods.

So to sum I've lost a total of eight pounds in five days.  Super awesome!  It's encouraging, especially since I still have nine more days to go and this diet is hard for me.  I need to plan some sort of celebration for the end and treat myself.

6pm. Today was a much easier day, thanks to the fact that I had the meal at lunch and the smoothie for dinner.  I made the flaxseed crackers recipe from the Smoothie Shakedown website.  Topped with tuna salad it was pretty delicious.  The fiber in the crackers made it really filling and carried me through the afternoon.

Day 4 - minus 1.4 pounds

Another 1.4 pound loss, that brings me to a total of 6.4 pounds.  Yesterday was a really difficult day for me and I cheated quite a bit.  Some steamed rice, a couple spoons of mac and cheese, a couple pop chips.  The mac and cheese was a battle, I wanted to eat an entire bowl.  But somehow I managed to gather the self control and resist the urge.  And it was an urge I fought all evening. I did go for a 30 minute walk so I'm sure it helped offset the extra calories I ingested.

Sheesh, I still have 10 days to go.  I love how this diet makes me feel, eating so healthy helps me feel so much better.  And I'm looking better. But it's so hard!  Have to press on....

Day 3 - Down .4 pounds

I'm now at 143, a loss of .4 pounds.  I forgot to take the 3rd set of supplements last night, and I'm also constipated.  Must be the chia seeds I added to my smoothies.  I also noticed I wasn't drinking as much water.  I did cheat by having a spoon of pasta with my dinner, and a couple pop chips. But not enough to derail the diet.

I found a fabulous recipe that's great for this diet, stuffed peppers.  I don't normally like ground turkey but it went really well in this dish, here's a link to the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/stuffed-peppers-with-turkey-and-vegetables/

Of course to make it Shakedown friendly leave out the salt and black pepper.  I add cayenne to mine.
So all in all we're looking at a 5 pound weight loss in three days.  I'm also finding that I sleep better at night, I'm not sure what the science is behind all this but this diet helps with that too!

Day 2 -1.4 weight loss

So I stepped on the scale and I'm now at 143.4.  So 1.4 pound loss which is good, but less than the previous day.  I don't know what happened with Day 2 but I was hungry throughout the day.  Maybe my body was missing the usual calories but I found myself reaching for snacks throughout the day.  I made a couple veggie egg mugs and that helped stave off the hunger.  I know Anne Louise Gittleman isn't a big supporter of microwaves, but it was easy to just pop an egg and veggies into a mug then microwave for a minute.

Part of the challenge with this diet is that I also have to feed a family, I have little ones and a hubbie. I wasn't looking forward to making two separate meals for dinner.  So last night I ended up making a pasta primavera for the family.  I ate the same thing except replaced the pasta with chopped zucchini and mushrooms.  It was actually pretty filling, I didn't find myself hungry afterwards.  My kids on the other hand weren't wild about the sauce.  I used canned tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs.  No salt added so they didn't care for the taste.  Oh well I tried!  I guess I'm stuck making two separate meals.

The weight is budging!

I got through Day 1 fairly easily.  The smoothies kept me full and I didn't find myself hungry throughout the day.  I decided to make salmon burgers with lettuce in place of a bun.  Somehow that brought on the hunger.  I had two burgers and was still hungry.  So I added a few pieces of pineapple.  I have no idea if this is allowed but it helped.  Then I finished with some warm herbal tea.  I felt a little hunger pang going to bed but was able to fall asleep.

So I stepped onto the scale this morning and weighed in at 144.8. That's a weight loss of 3.2 pounds! While I know it's water weight, and I can tell from looking in the mirror, it's exciting to see the weight budge so quickly. I can see from looking at myself I'm looking less bloated.  So I'm looking forward to the next few days.  So far I've planned to make a veggie lasagna and stuffed peppers for the meals, both made with ground turkey.  Hoping it'll turn out decent tasting.

Day One

Today marks the start of  my weight loss journey.  I've gotten a lot of false starts but I'm at at point where I really want to look and feel my best.  I never had much of a problem until I got married and started having babies.  Little by little my weight crept up, several years later I am 25 pounds heavier.  I went from 123 pounds to 148 and I never imagined I would be this heavy.  I want to reverse this trend!

When I was younger I tried a diet called the Fat Flush Plan.  They now have a program called the Smoothie Shakedown.  Two smoothies for breakfast and lunch, then a healthy meal for dinner.  Fat burning supplements to boost my metabolism (and hopefully my energy level). I'm hoping this will jump start the weight loss!  Here's to Day One....