On becoming a Fit Girl - The Triumphs and the Struggles

Blogging about my journey to a healthier me helped me a lot - it kept me honest; it made me accountable, and it allowed me to keep track of my progress in a tangible manner. But somehow I stopped doing it and right now it has been well over a year since I last wrote an entry! A lot has happened since then, both good and bad, although I want to think that everything that has happened has been good in a way or another. I believe that there is good even in the most difficult situations. So today, a day that has been especially difficult for me (what the hell, it has been a very difficult couple of weeks, let's be honest!) for reasons which I will explain in due time, I decided to go back to blogging as a way to regain that accountability, but mostly to do something nice for myself.

I have a tendency to be really hard on myself; often times I put my needs aside to take care of those of others...and as you may very well know, there is always something else that needs to be done, something that takes precedence over your own needs. For example, this was my struggle today regarding writing this blog; here were the options I was considering: 1) work on my business work plan, in which I have been slaving over the past couple of days; 2) work on some of the documents I need to create for an organization with which I am volunteering; 3) read a book and go to sleep, and 4) write this blog. I had a hard time deciding on 3 and 4; my instinct was to do either 1 or 2. But I pushed myself to go ahead and start writing again. I love writing, always have, and I felt deep inside that doing so was going to be therapeutic for me. So here I am.

Let me see where I start cause a lot has happened in a year! Let me go back to my initiation as a Fit Girl, which goes back to February, 2015, close to my 47th birthday, when I discovered the Fit Girls Guide 28 Day Jumpstart Challenge. I liked what I read; no, actually, I loved it! It seemed to be something I could definitely do, and one of the things that I loved the most was that it actually had food...and I love food! That is why I have never even tried diets or shakes or any of those other methods because I could not sustain not eating, seriously. But as it turned out, I found out about the Fit Girls program just a couple of days before I was to leave on vacation to New York to see my BFF and celebrate my birthday.

It is an ebook, but I printed mine for faster access. This
program got me into clean eating.  

No way was I going to start a new plan while on vacation! I knew my BFF and I would be catching up in between meals and drinks. And I knew that coming back home my hubby would have arranged a dinner date to celebrate my birthday with our girls, as he always does. But I was determined to do it. I purchased the ebook and downloaded it immediately; while I couldn't start following the plan, I could certainly read about it and get ready for when I came back. I enlisted my daughter Amanda to do it with me, I figured I could use some support.

Well, let me tell you about that. The very first day I started, I wanted to quit. My husband decided to join me, and all of a sudden, we were prepping meals for 5 of us instead of 1 person. Ahhhhh! I am not good at math, so the thought of having to add up all the ingredients for 5 persons gave me the creeps and made me want to drop out even before starting. We were making the Sweet Potatoes Street Tacos, and all through the process I wanted to cry! Next, I had prepared the Fridge Oats, and liked them, but was not thrilled with them…I could not possibly think of eating this for a whole week; it was too dry for my taste. The lunch for the first week, the Roasted Veggie Power Bowl, now, that was delicious! I enjoyed it, even the kale, which I had never eaten before, but immediately liked. But one out of 3 was not enough to convince me, until I had my chocolate treat that night. Yummy, that was a truly sweet treat. I thought to myself: "a plan that encourages you to eat a piece of chocolate every night has to be good, so let me give it a good try." And how about the rewards after completing each week? Yes, I wanted to get them all!

Results started to show fast after I started the
FitGirlsGuide Program.  

The Guide has recipes, shopping lists, and a routine of exercises which makes it so easy to follow. I literally did not have to think a lot (except to adjust the recipes for 5 people!). I knew what to do every day, and grocery shopping got easier because I knew exactly what we needed for that particular week. I have to be totally honest: there were some recipes that I just did not like...like the one that has polenta, or the pumpkin rolls. But the rest of the recipes were delicious, so we were ok repeating some of them, like the "growed up girl cheese" which is still a favorite with everyone. And I resolved the issue of the fridge oats by making it in the morning instead of overnight. It really doesn't take a lot of time and now this is one of my favorite breakfasts.

To make a long story a bit shorter (because after all, I have to try to compress one whole year in a post or two!) we all jumped into the Fit Girl wagon and became a Fit Family! We all lost weight, we felt great, and by the time Andrew and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary we were feeling FREAKING FANTASTIC and it showed, as you can see in the pictures below.

This was on my 4th anniversary, 7/17/15. I felt
fantastic! I would have never dared to wear
a dress like that a couple months before.

My Bear had also lost weight. We both felt terrific
and encouraged each other along the way.

Excited by the results I was seeing, I wanted to keep on going. I bought the FitGirls Cookbook and the Fitkini Challenge, and kept on adding new recipes to our menu. I have to say that clean eating never tasted so delicious. We were by far eating more vegetables and fruits than ever. And everybody tried new things that were not part of our menu selection, like cauliflower, mushrooms, and kale. These are now permanent staples in the house.

Grateful for pictures that show you how far you've come!

Another thing that I liked from this program (in addition to the fact that you only had to buy the books...no special foods, or products, or anything else, just the book, pretty much as you would buy a recipe book), was the support you get from others doing the program. It all happens through Instagram, for which I created a private account solely for this purpose. Boy, have I gotten a lot of support from the FitSisters! They cheer you on through your ups and downs, give you feedback on different issues, share tips, and basically are there when you need them, no judgment. That helped me a lot, as it did seeing their personal results; it is inspiring to see their progress but also their struggles as it reassured me that falling off the wagon is a normal part of the process.

Even at my heaviest, I never felt not pretty. I have always
liked myself and have taken care of my appearance. It was
the weight that I could not control because I did not have
good eating habits. 

And then depression hit. If you had read my previous posts, you know that I suffer from depression. I have battled it for a number of year, have been in different medication, and have tried other ways to deal with it. This time around, however, it hit hard, harder than ever. I remember it started in late October, after a trip to Puerto Rico to look for a house for a business (more about that later), and it slowly took over to the point that I had to struggle on a daily basis to get up from bed and keep on going.  I remember one particular day when it took me three hours to get ready to go to work; that had never happened before. Needless to say, I did not care much about anything. Soon we were dipping into old habits, ordering out, and eating not so healthy. We mixed in recipes from the guide, but did not follow it as we had before. And the weight piled on quickly.

This all lasted until I went to see my doctor in January of this year. I told her about the depression (again) and told her I wanted to get back on meds (again), but not on the previous one, which was Paxil, and had some unpleasant side effects. She recommended Bupropion, an anti-depressant commonly used for depression and seasonal affective disorder. I was started at 150mg and there was some improvement but not enough to make me feel "normal" again, so the dose was upped to 300mg and that worked out fine. For the first time in months I started to feel better. And a trip to Puerto Rico with my husband was a great way to start anew.

Little did we know how true that new beginning was going to be...

(To be continued).