My Nutrisystem Journey

"We have to keep evolving as people  and  keep it fresh. Life has its twists  and  turns, and being comfortable in  your  skin and loving yourself is the  best  way  to get through life."                        ~Jesse Garza~ Being 13 months into Nutrisystem, I was thinking about ways to keep it fresh, hence the quote. My biggest fear is getting bored and slipping back into old habits. I'm not bored yet. Despite last night's awful dinner I still enjoy the Nutrisystem foods. I completely love all of the breakfast choices because I've taken the time to try a lot of different things and then settled on my favorites. Right now my favorites are the cinnamon rolls, cherry cheese rolls, waffles, pancakes and the baked banana & chocolate oatmeal. I throw in a bagel or a breakfast sandwich here and there but they're not really my favorites. My favorite l...

"Sometimes really, really bad things  happen to people, and there is no  explanation and no reason  whatsoever." ~Sarah Dessen~ I was thinking about the Kobe Bryant tragedy this morning and I couldn't really wrap my "everything happens for a reason" philosophy around this event. There can't possibly be a reason for the lives of 5 families to change so drastically in an instant. There can't possibly be a reason for 9 people to suddenly be gone. Same goes for all of the other tragedies that occur every single day all over the world. I can't even accept that it was "their time to go". What are the odds of 9 people being together in one place on that day ? So this quote about bad things happening with no explanation and no reason made sense. I think we retrofit what happens in our life so that it fits into the "everything happens for a reason" or "God's will" mold. Maybe that's just a way o...

"It's not about how fast or how far you  have to go. It's about digging deep and  pushing yourself to keep moving  forward." When this journey first started I had many days where I had to dig really, really deep to keep going. A lifetime of bad habits don't disappear overnight and it's a daily struggle to make the changes required to get the weight off, keep the weight off and continue to lose more weight. Same goes for fitness. Until I lost a good bit of weight I was still tired every day after work and on weekends I just wanted to sit on the couch. Some days I didn't get on the treadmill at all and I had 100 excuses why and I justified it every which way in my mind. But in the end a lot of it was just laziness and not putting in the effort needed to change that habit. Exercise didn't have the priority it needed to have. I'm not perfect today and I don't think I will ever be able to claim perfection, but I'm getting be...

"Shout out to everyone who's trying to get their life together ! Working on yourself is the hardest part of life. Keep going. It gets easier !" I know I'm not the only person spending their time changing their life right now so it felt appropriate to acknowledge that. I'm about 80% through my journey to my goal weight and the last 20% might be the hardest, so I have to motivate myself every day to keep the momentum going. This is a dangerous time for me because I'm feeling a little too comfortable with where I am. I didn't document it at the time but over the past couple of weeks I've found myself having a second Nutrisystem snack in the evening. This only happened 2 or 3 times and it's not the end of the world, but it reminded me just how easily this journey could start going in the wrong direction. A one ounce bag of Nutrisystem popcorn won't impact my weight but the thought process behind having that 2nd snack could if I all...

"The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find." How do you know when you've discovered who you are ? Do you ever stop discovering yourself ? Is there ever an "aha" moment ? If you never make that discovery how can you ever be happy ? Exactly how do you describe who you are ? Honestly, I don't know. Famous people describe themselves based on what they're famous for. I'm an actor, I'm an athlete. Professionals describe themselves based on their profession. I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor. What about the rest of us ? I don't think of myself as anything special, yet I'm happy with that. So maybe the answer is I've discovered I'm nobody and I'm happy anyway. I never wanted to "be somebody". All I ever wanted was the basics: a job, a husband, a family, a home. My job has lasted nearly 35 years and I have a home. The husband part didn...

"Depression is feeling like you've lost something but having no clue when or where you last had it. Then one day you realize what you lost is yourself." Depression is something I've experienced so this quote struck me today. I wandered through life feeling a deep sense of loss for so many years and I never knew what was missing. Turns out it was me. I was what was missing from my life. Depression hit me in 1996 and it got worse as my life got worse. Did it contribute to the poor decisions I made ? Maybe. I can look at it from 10 different angles, and they all point back to me, but I think the depression made it impossible for me to make the hard decisions I should have made. The good news for me is the depression finally started to lift in late 2017 and today there is no trace of it. I write about it now because depression is a big problem and unfortunately we do not do a good job with mental health care in this country. I had counseling and took anti-...

"One day it just clicks. You realize what's important and what isn't. You learn to care less about what other people think of you and more about what you think of yourself. You realize how far you've come and you remember when you thought things were such a mess that you would never recover. And you smile. You smile because you are truly proud of yourself and the person you've fought to become." This is where I am today. I feel like I can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. I made a bad decision in 1997 and the cascade of chaos and more bad decisions that followed has finally faded away. I've always said I believe things happen for a reason and this is no different. Some good things came out of it so I choose to believe I had to walk through the fire to get to them. I think it makes me appreciate what I have more than I might have if they came easily. I can see what's important in life and what's not worth my time. I...

"Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart." ~Roy T. Bennett~ I spent years being pushed around in more ways than I care to remember and fear, both real and imagined, was part of my daily life. When life changed and things started to get better that fear didn't just magically go away. The smallest bump in the road would send me right back to those awful days. I finally turned a corner in 2019 and can pretty much face anything that comes my way now, so I don't live with fear anymore. There are still things that can trigger a reaction but they're typically short lived. I think spending the past year focusing on losing weight and getting fit has made the most impact. It's given me something important to focus on: ME ! The progress I've made with my financial fitness has also helped, since my job still feels tenuous. Today I'm working on fulfilling the dreams in my heart and that is so satisfyin...

"Start over, my darling. Be brave enough to find the life you want and courageous enough to chase it. Then start over and love yourself the way you were always meant to. ~Madalyn Beck~ I don't know if I've found the life I want, but I do know I'm finally on the right track. When I made the decision to give the Nutrisystem program a try I had so many things still wrong in my life. I never accomplished anything because of my "all or nothing" way of doing things, which I've talked about before, so taking that leap of faith meant overcoming that mentality. I really wasn't sure I could focus 100% on that one thing but I had to try. Once I had made it through a full month with Nutrisystem I was able to incorporate exercise. Getting exercise into a "routine" took a lot more work than I expected but I did it and proved to myself you don't have to fix everything all at once. You really can take one step at a time and build on each ...

"The problem isn't with your body. The problem is what you think of it. And what you think of yourself." I spent so many years hating the way I looked yet I never really did anything about it. When I look back I can't really blame it all on "circumstances" because I've been heavy my entire adult life. Yes, my weight ballooned out of control while I was in a chaotic marriage but once I was on my own again things didn't really change. In the end I got even bigger - the biggest I think I've ever been (and ever will be!) in my life. So I have come to accept most of the responsibility for that. No matter what, I controlled what I was eating and I controlled my level of activity. You can be thin, active and unhappy just as easily as you can be fat, inactive and unhappy. All fat people aren't unhappy and all thin people aren't happy. So although one can impact the other, in the end it's all about the choices we make. It's al...

"Don't ever give up. Don't let frustration knock you down. Don't let fear stand in your way. Don't let time get in your head. Who cares how long it takes or how many times you try ? Your only competition is yourself. And when you finally succeed, the struggle will all be worth it." Woke up feeling like my old self this morning but it was only 1 degree so I didn't really want to get out of that nice warm bed ! This quote was perfect for the day because in the past I'd have been a lot more upset about anything that interfered with my path towards weight loss and fitness. It made sense to take the time I needed to feel better. Instead of getting down on myself for not feeling well I accepted it and put a plan in place to ease back in to exercise. If I hadn't felt better I would have moved everything out another day. I'm seeing more and more how an authentic positive attitude can impact your life. I've projected a positive attitude mo...

"Challenges make you more responsible. Always remember that life without struggle is a life without success. Don't give up and learn not to quit." I went to bed early last night and was wide awake before 3 am ! I did finally go back to sleep hours later and I felt better when I got up. I took a nice shower, fed the cats, heated my breakfast and settled in my office to work. Then my morning went downhill. I took one bite and a wave of cold sweat, nausea and weakness came over me before I could even swallow. I knew I had to lie down and my legs felt like spaghetti just walking from my office to the living room. The feeling passed after a few minutes and I was able to finish my breakfast and get to work. I'm thinking it was low blood sugar because I was fine the rest of the day. My muscle aches were gone today so I'm planning to get back to my exercise routine tomorrow, provided I am still feeling better. I decided not to even try exercising today. I look a...

"Remember that your pain in the gym is driving your growth. Embrace it." Sleep did not come easily last night as my lazy muscles were complaining loudly about having to work for a change.  Getting out of bed this morning was also not easy but hunger won out over the pain. Once I was up and had a cup of coffee and my breakfast I felt better. I chose to look at the pain (more discomfort really) as an indication that I woke up some muscles on the Total Gym yesterday. All the areas I worked yesterday were singing today so I guess I did something right ! I'm not complaining. No pain, no gain came to mind but I still need to take this slow and easy. I've seen the progress I've made over time on the treadmill so I know I will progress with the strength training over time too. First goal is to be pain free and it's clear to me it's going to take some time to be able to do strength training on a regular basis. Quite honestly yesterday's activity (2 tr...

"Keep your health, weight loss, and fitness dreams alive. Understand to lose weight and get in shape requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all your dreams of reaching and maintaining your ideal body weight are possible when you believe." ~Felicity Luckey~ Dreams. I can't really say I ever "dreamed" about not being fat. Yes, I wanted to be thin but I don't think I ever believed it would happen. In 1996 I quit smoking, got treatment for depression and started using a treadmill and eating better. I lost about 50 pounds and was down to 180 by 1997. From 1997 to 2014 a series of poor choices devastated my life in so many different ways and I stopped caring about myself. Food became my only friend and my weight ballooned. From 2014 to 2017 I stayed stuck in that pit of hopelessness. It took the fire to wake me up. I started the climb out of that pit and thought I'd never look back, yet I sl...