“First the denial that you’re gaining weight wears off, then comes the feeling of helplessness. Then comes the panic that propels you to frantically spiral down the endless google searches on how to lose weight fast.”

After the photo that started it all, enough was enough. I needed to do something fast to fix this. So… the first thing I did was get on google and search how to lose 10 pounds in a month. The regular tips on how to lose weight popped up and of course I ignored them. I had tried those tips before. Whenever I would notice I was gaining weight I would go on a weight loss mission that would last all of a week. 

I would jump on the scale and set an unrealistic goal for myself on how much weight I was going to lose. I would go grocery shopping or I would look through my pantry for low calorie foods. Then I would create meals that seemed healthy because they were “low in calories.”

Looking back on it now, I was unintentionally starving myself. I would download a calorie intake app to help me lose weight  because that’s what I saw on these viral threads on how someone lost weight fast. When I constructed my meals I was barely making my 1200 calorie goals. It was nearly impossible to figure out what to eat and exhausting to track every food item.

I would hop on the scale everyday hoping to see progress and I would see some results! But then I would get tired of oatmeal with berries for breakfast, pita wraps and carrot sticks for lunch and broccoli, brown rice and chicken for dinner. While all these things are fine and dandy, I wanted variety, and the meals I was creating were for me were not sustainable at all. 

The first suggestion I have for you, before you get started on losing weight is, find something that is Sustainable for you! 

If you don’t like to eat broccoli and quinoa with chicken breast then do not eat those things. Eat things that you enjoy! Do not! I repeat  do not starve yourself to lose weight. If this is in any weight loss plan that you have you need to get rid of it.

Above is an example of some of my meals on the plan that I am on now. Full of variety and full of things that I love and enjoy to eat.

*Disclaimer*

Now its important to note that I am just a regular couch potato who is not a professional dietitian. I can only speak from my experience. But what I do know is starving yourself is not a sustainable lifestyle for anyone. So please do not do that. 

Cutting out all snacks and processed food cold turkey was not going to be sustainable for me. I would be miserable, and I would end up binge eating later on because it was too restrictive for me. You know you better than anyone, and because I know me I still choose to snack and to eat some processed foods. What I did was find healthier alternatives to my favorite foods and fit it into my lifestyle. But I didn’t get this idea by myself. I got some inspiration.

Here is where tip #2 and #3 on what you should consider before getting started on losing weight are sort of combined into one.

Tip # 2 is to have someone or something to reference, whether it be a person or a guide.

One of the biggest tools to my weight loss success so far is by finding Felicia Keathley or FeliciaFitnessHealth on instagram and youtube. After going down my internet spiral of google searches on how to lose weight fast. I happened to stumble across Felicia  Keathleys weight loss youtube video. I watched several of her videos and followed her instagram where she had everything that she ate, her workouts and weight loss progress. On her page I didn’t see the typical weight loss meals that I would normally see and try that I would eventually stop eating. It looked sustainable for me. So I decided to give it a try and it worked for me.(I will make a post about my WW journey a little later)

Having someone or something to reference gave me inspiration and it gave me a blueprint. The blueprint that was laid out to me was one person’s personal story, everything was not going to apply to me or work for me. But I took from it what I could to get myself started. Find something to stick to that you think fits your current lifestyle the best.

Before, uneducated me, would make brown rice and chicken breast with so much butter, oil and salt to make it taste better that it stopped being healthy altogether. I cut out all sugar and snacks which I loved and were prevalent in my previous lifestyle and eventually I would crash and go on a sugar binge. After my sugar binge I would just brush it off and justify it by saying “I was good today or I deserve.” Both those things were true and having one or two sweet treats would have been fine. But I also needed to hold myself accountable.

Tip #3 on what to consider before you get started on losing weight, is to start tracking or to have some type of accountability with your system. 

Whether you are on ww, keto, paleo or are strictly tracking your calories you have to have some accountability. Without accountability we are reckless! Also one of my favorite quotes says…

“We don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan.”

You have to have some sort of system in place that works as accountability for you. The plan that Felicia was on was WW(Weight Watchers). With this plan I learned how to portion out my food. This helped keep me accountable. I knew it was not sustainable for me to cut out snacks and chocolate and to eat quinoa for the rest of my life. So if I wanted a donut and ice cream I planned for it. This helped me feel as if I was not on a diet and instead I was making a lifestyle change.

Which brings me to my final tip on what to consider before you get started on losing weight. 

What is your end goal? And do you want your weight loss journey to be a lifestyle change? 

If you just want to lose 10lbs to fit into your bikini for the summer then you can still follow all of these tips and lose weight. But if you want to keep it off you are going to need a lifestyle change.

A lifestyle change will last a lifetime. Regardless of whether or not you gain weight or lose weight if your lifestyle changes your life will too. And that is the journey towards self love. Changing your lifestyles in small ways that makes you a better person.

Beads, Beads and more beads!!! This blog post is going to be dedicated to waist beads and all of their versatility. I will also be conducted a giveaway with waist beads made by Cherokeeamour ( her insta handle), If you don’t make it to the end of the blog to get the giveaway details make sure to follow her on instagram to see all of her beautiful work and to purchase your own! Now let us get into the blog.

 I’m not even sure how I came across the idea to use waist beads to track progress but I am so glad that I did. It was probably me going through endless youtube videos on weight loss secrets where I found a video documenting waist bead progress. After seeing the progress I was hooked. 

Being on the WW (Weight Watchers) program online there is a community that you can interact with. Being that I don’t go to the meetings this community helps to provide me with a lot of support. Sometimes the community will speak about NSV or non scale victories. Non scale victories are victories that are not tied to are shown on the scale. It’s important to have and to focus on NSV’s when you don’t see the progress on the scale.

Waist beads are absolutely my favorite NSV! Seeing the beads fall over time lets me know that I was on track even if I had gained a pound or two. It also helped me regulate which foods made me more bloated than others. Because of the waist beads I was able to see that fried foods always made my beads rise and drinking enough water helped bring them back down. If I knew I had been on track with my eating, the waist beads moving up was a great indicator that monthly changes were on their way. 

 I told myself that once I could lift the beads up and the fall past my stomach to my waist that I would purchase new beads and start over. Well, I can now proudly say that I now need a whole set of waist beads because these ones are too big! 

I was lucky enough to come across @Cherokeeamours instagram page (name is her insta handle) it was from there that I contacted her. On her page you will find multiple beads of various colors with different charms.

What I loved about waist beads besides it being able to track weight fluctuations are the beauty. Cherokeeamour does an amazing job at providing so much variety and an opportunity to personalize. Even if you don’t happen to be chosen for the giveaway please give her page a look and a follow to purchase your own for you or a loved one.

Giveaway Details

I will be selecting one winner  to receive some personalized waist beads from cherokeeamour.

Winner will be chosen Saturday December 21 at 5pm PST

In order to be chosen you must 

1. Follow my weight loss instagram page @becomingfrenchfry_ https://www.instagram.com/becoming_frenchfry/
2.  Follow @cherokeeamour instagram page,  https://www.instagram.com/cherokeeamour/
3. Like the giveaway photo and tag a friend who you think would be interested on instagram

*Bonus*

For an extra entry Follow my blog!

Once the winner is selected you will be in correspondence with @cherokeeamour to choose and personalize your waist beads. Good luck! 

On December 6, 2018 I started my weight loss journey. I weighed in at 231lbs which was my highest weight recorded. Today  December 6, 2019 means that it has been exactly one year. And you know what that means?

Its my anniversary….. Anniversary! * two steps all the way down the hallway* I am overwhelmed with a sea of emotions. On one hand I cant believe its actually been a year. On the other hand im a little sad because I feel as if I haven’t made as much progress as I would have wanted. Initially I wanted  to have lost 60lbs by a year. I had lost 30lbs after about 5 months. Then I stopped tracking and fell off for a bit trying to get to 30lbs again. (I weighed myself this morning and I am 1.7lbs away from losing 30lbs.)

A blast from the past

I for sure I can’t imagine going back to where I was before. After being off track for 4 months I had gained give or take 8-9lbs back. Which honestly to me was great. Because that means that even with me eating like crazy for 4 months I didn’t automatically revert back to my starting weight. I saw this situation two ways, it means that it would take much much more for me to gain all the weight back, and two it was going to take time for the weight to come off.

Current Day

Now let’s talk about the unrealistic expectations social media sets for us. I started my journey after googling how to lose weight fast. (Already wrote that blog and it will post next week) One of the posts I came across was a woman by the name of Felicia Keathley (Feliciafitness insta handle). I related to her because she was younger like me and lost so much weight on meals that didn’t look like the typical “diet foods.” Her page honestly changed my life for the better. I got so much inspiration and ideas. 

BUT and there is a big but. 

It caused me to compare my journey and my progress to her own as well. Which I don’t think is healthy at all. As an advocate for self care and mental health it’s important to talk about how these comparisons can negatively impact our mental health. I believe in taking social media fasts if we feel that the pressures of social media are too much. I also believe in being careful of which pages that you follow to help avoid some of these pressures. 

I know it might sound strange to talk about possibly staying away from social media and comparing yourself when i’m promoting my own page lol. But the difference is, we all need accountability and support. For me it felt amazing to see other people with the same struggles as me doing what I wanted to do with so much success. It helped me know it was possible. Now I know that we have different bodies, dietary restrictions and lifestyles. But you can start too, your process may look much different but it is possible. 

In my next blog post I will give my 4 suggestions on what to do before getting started on losing weight. Make sure to tune in for that.

It is thanksgiving!!! *Breaks out into Thanksgiving twerk* Why don’t we have any thanksgiving songs? I feel like there needs to be some. But anyway if you’re reading this blog it means that its a couple days after thanksgiving. But it has officially been a year since the photo that started it all. So lets rewind a bit.

I flew to Huntsville AL from california to be with my family. This was the first time my siblings have been to my parents house since they moved to Alabama so its extremely special.

Being that I am on my weight loss journey I did a couple of things to prepare for this trip. First things first, airplane snacks. I have no idea why the airplane snacks and food cost the same as a small car.

But I was determined to pre-plan and pack my snacks. So I went for a walmart run to get some healthier snacks. In addition to finding healthier snacks. I made sure to prepackage them into the appropriate serving sizes so I won’t go ham. I also researched fast food restaurants that had healthier options.  (If you’re interested in me compiling a list let me know. )

While I stuck to the prepacked snacks I did cave and get a chick– fila breakfast biscuit. After that I had a publix sub… and some chips… and then some carrot cake.

Because this a journey to self love and not just weight loss. I want to have a healthier balance when it comes to feeling guilt about not being on track. I told myself I would be way more lax during my one week vacation but I felt like I over did it.  I didnt feel bad about it really until later that night. Where I then decided that I was going to make sure that I stayed on track for the two days leading up to thanksgiving. So I went back to foods that I knew and did a mini grocery haul.

I decided that thanksgiving day I was going to enjoy all of the foods guilt free and not skimp out on my macaroni and cheese this year. I have now reached the point where I am making the only mac and cheese for thanksgiving so you know that means that I can cook cook just in case ya’ll were wondering

I know everyone makes their mac and cheese differently, but heres a few things to send your macaroni and cheese over the edge. 

1. Boil your macaroni noodles in chicken broth or add chicken bouillon cubes to your water
2. Use evaporated milk instead of regular milk. If evaporated milk is too much on its own use equal parts evaporated milk and half and half.
3. If you like your mac and cheese creamy add some cream cheese. 

Last year I made the macaroni and cheese for the first time and I was so nervous. I decided that I at least needed to look good. Looking good helps you feel good. However last year I felt like I couldn’t get any good pictures because of how round my face now looked. I had settled on a loose dress for obvious reasons. This thanksgiving I wore something more form fitting that I felt confident in.

While thanksgiving is a great day to spend with family and reflect on all that you are thankful for. I know that holidays can cause a great deal of anxiety for some. It could be seeing family you haven’t seen in a long time and hearing comments about your weight or being asked certain questions about your life. Thankfully last thanksgiving my family didn’t make any comments. I feel if they did it would have taken me to a really dark place. If that is your experience I am definitely here for support.

Last thanksgiving even though my family didn’t say anything to me the family photo was my wake up call that I had gained weight and that I needed to do something about it. I don’t think there is anything wrong weight gain, it happens naturally as you get older. Even if you are considerably heavier than before and you feel comfortable with it then that is ideal. But I however felt extremely uncomfortable in my skin and wanted a change.

If you begin your weight loss journey it needs to be because you want to do it. While support from friends and family can be great and are necessary for many you have to want it for yourself. Next blog post I will talk more about that helpless feeling and what I did to change it. But for now its time for the good part.

The progress photos.

To be honest, I don’t feel as if I look dramatically different from last thanksgiving to this thanksgiving. But my mindset is so much better. I feel so much different and was excited to these photos. I wasn’t trying to direct every picture and I wasn’t worried about the angles. I was just happy to be around family and proud of myself. That feeling was priceless.

Lets just head straight into it right from where we dropped off.

Last week I spoke about the photo that started it all.

The photo that started it all was as shocking as it was because of just the year prior. It wasn’t as if I had been this size for a couple of years. It truly seemed to sneak up on me. Being that this was my second thanksgiving with my Husband I definitely wanted to post a special post with a year one vs. year two collage. But after seeing the difference I just couldn’t do it.

While I enjoyed the thanksgiving, everyone knows in this day and age we commemorate every special occasion with a picture on social media. This can be problematic in of itself but that’s for another blog post. Its weird (unhealthy) but for some reason I felt like by posting the pictures everyone would find out how big I had gotten. When in reality I am sure mostly everyone who knew me could see me climbing up in weight. My wonderful husband however never said a word and for that I am truly grateful. But despite his love and support…

In addition to “the photo that started it all.” I had just gotten back some vacation pictures that we had taken of us earlier in November. And when I say I was mortified it is truly an understatement. I was so incredibly happy in Haiti. I didn’t feel insecure in my bathing suit or my wedding outfit. But seeing the pictures back made me cringe. 

Being that this page is a self love weight loss journey I think it’s important to touch on this. I now realize why I had such a visceral reaction to seeing myself in the vacation pictures and the thanksgiving photo. I didn’t view myself in love. Despite the joy I experienced on vacation and being surrounded by family and friends, deep down inside I had some unhealthy deep rooted feelings for myself.  

Now I don’t have all the answers when it comes to self love, but I know that you have to treat yourself kindly in the process and I absolutely did not. What pushed me to change was a disgust for what I saw. My journey is my journey and i’m thankful for every piece of it and would love to say that I wouldn’t change a thing…

But that’s not true,

I do wish I could go back and start this journey because I loved myself so much that I wanted to be healthy. But that also wouldn’t be true either.  I wanted to love the way I looked on the outside. I wanted to be able to post viral worthy bikini pictures on the gram. I wanted a flat tummy and a big butt that you could sit cups on. I wanted all of that.

While I don’t think there is anything wrong with any of those things I now know its important to not hate and abuse yourself along the process. Its such a delicate balance to focus on losing the weight and loving who you were in both stages. I  have NOT mastered that balance. I’ve got to keep it real. I’m not sure how healthy it is or was for me to have such displeasure in looking at past photos. But I know i’m committing to be kinder to myself along the way. 

Now when I look back on all of those photos I will not focus on my size, but on the love I was surrounded with. Instead of focusing in on my flaws in the photo I will think back on the wonderful memories. I will think back on all the laughs and the joy I experienced. I will also look at the photos as a reminder of the importance of Self love.

So to the photo that started it all, I hated you, but i’m now more grateful to you than anything.

Its almost been a year since the photo that started it all. Soooo stay tuned for a special thanksgiving update with some progress pictures a thanksgiving beat and some family photos!