Follow me on my new blog!

Hi everyone!  I've decided to start my own blog all about my discoveries in health and leave this one for my family (which I promise I'll be better at updating!)  So please come follow me at:

kimthehealthnut.blogspot.com

I'll see you there!

The details: Stats

Almost all of us like to know the nitty gritty details about people losing weight and so many of us don't talk about those details.  So I'm going to lay it on the line; you'll know my starting place and where I'm currently at.

This is me today:

(I've never had definition in my biceps like this before!!)

Nov 2010 weight: 170lbs / 77.1kgs
Nov 2011 weight: 140.5lbs / 63.7kgs
(in high school, a bit over 10yrs ago, I hovered around 150lbs / 68kgs...so this is quite exciting)

Nov 2010 BMI: 30
Nov 2011 BMI: 24
(for more information on BMI - Body Mass Index, click here)

Nov 2010 clothing size: a tight size 12
Nov 2011 clothing size: I can fit into a 4!  (and buy small or x-small in most things)

This is a lifelong journey.  The process is still ongoing.  I am still averaging about 1lb loss every 2 weeks.  In the beginning it dropped quickly, now it's slower but my body is much stronger and I have much more energy (which is a really nice feeling).

I don't eat processed sugar anymore (stick to organic blue agave when needed).  I don't eat refined flour or white bread of any kind.  Everything is brown in our home.  We consume a LOT of fresh veggies and fruit.  I'd say roughly 70% of our grocery bill consists of fresh fruit and veggies.  Mostly veggies.  I'm learning to really love them like I never thought possible.  I was a VERY picky eater as a child so this is especially surprising to me.  :)

Next up, I'll chat about overcoming the S.A.D. diet...

A New Way of Life: One Year Anniversary

I've had a lot of people ask me recently about making the switch to a whole food, plant based (vegan) diet and why I did it.  Next week will mark my one year anniversary of making the switch, so I thought I'd make a few posts about my journey...and why I'm not looking back.

This is me a little over a year ago.  Yikes right?!  You know that pink flowered picture could be something out of a horror film!

 

I was in a place where I wasn't feeling well, I hurt all the time, I was dead tired by the end of the day, and could not keep up with my kids, so I went to go and see a doctor with the suspicion of Fibromyalgia, (runs in the family).  Sure enough, he confirmed what I thought, gave me a prescription for a drug that sounded pretty scary, (side effect: feeling high most days.  Yeah right!  With 2 kids to look after?  I don't think so!) and said, "Most of fibromyalgia can be controlled by diet and exercise."  Right!  That's all I needed!  That was all I needed to hear!  This was NOT going to be something that controlled my life.  I was going to control it!  

I had a friend who had talked to me about a book called, The China Study and about losing a ton of weight by switching to a whole food, plant based (vegan) diet.  So I called her up and we sat down and she laid it all out for me.  She gave me tons of recipes, work out plans, books to read, and the best thing of all, all the encouragement I needed.  She was my rock!  So I went home and ordered The China Study.  When it arrived, I sat down and had a good read, loaded up my Netflix queue with all kinds of stuff to keep me motivated, and got to work.  I walked through my kitchen with a garbage bag and threw out all kinds of junk food.  And I wasn't looking back!  (Good thing I'm married to a really supportive guy!!)

It's not easy to make the switch, the first week is certainly the hardest, but as soon as you make it past that, if you've got the support you need, you can do anything!  You'll crave all kinds of stuff, you'll go hungry because you've got no idea what to eat, and you'll learn to love all kinds of vegetables that you never new existed!

So over the next few posts, I plan to lay out tips and tricks that helped me.  I will give you resources to check out, websites to peruse, videos to watch, and hopefully a little bit of motivation to get you going.  

Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned and tomorrow I'll show what I look like today!

Look what I made!!

Amelia is very much into girlie dresses these days. She actually has a dress that we bought from Costco a while back that she tries to wear EVERY SINGLE DAY!! So I decided it might be a good idea to make a few more pink dresses to try and sway her from that dress. Here's how it turned out:



Perfect for adventures. Looking for turtles...


Spotting a turtle!


And perfect for plenty of twirling and dancing!










If this looks like something you'd like to try making, you can follow the tutorial HERE. It's pretty easy and a lot of fun to make! And just think how lovely your little one will look wearing a lovely pink dress. :)

Rango Premier!

So, Brad has this awesome ability to get premiere passes. Like the proper red carpet premiere. It is LA after all. :) Usually they are R rated movies that we don't feel like getting a sitter to go and star gaze to not even stay ant watch the movie.

Anyway, this time the tickets were for RANGO! Little Joely was a little bit sick so I wasn't planning on staying but then decided to at the last minute. Because we brought the kids along we got the red carpet "stand by" treatment! Bleacher seats!!! So we got to sit in comfort and watch all the stars arrive. Brad gets a little to excited at these things, (yes, he's a total groupie) so when Johny Depp walked over to where we were seated (the crowd obviously went crazy) and Brad grabbed Amelia and ran up to him shoving Amelia into his arms. The security guard was understandably quite angry with Brad and sent him back to his seat. Amelia then jumped into my arms scared to death, crying, and yelling, "I don't like that man." (That man being Depp.) It was great!

Us waiting for the stars to arrive.


The photo that we took of Depp. Yes, he was that close to us.


Photo that the press took. We later found this on one of their websites. :) Don't believe those blurs are us? Well, just trust us. :)

Valentines Day

A little late, but worth sharing. So, for Valentine's day this year I had a fun idea to completely embarrass Brad. :) The kids and I made a fun little sugar cookie bouquet (which somehow I didn't get a photo of. DARN!!) then I got the kiddos all dressed up. They were both going to be cupid's but Amelia wanted to be a super hero which I think turned out much better. Joel was a little cupid complete with bow and arrow and all. (I think Amelia is holding it in the photo.) And then we went and marched into Brad's work to deliver the cookies. He was mortified!! It was fantastic! All his co-workers came over to snap a photo because they said no one would believe them otherwise. AWESOME!! That was our goal.

Catch up post!

Life has been crazy and yes, gotten away from me a little bit. I've thought about my blog on several occasions. I promise. But my children seem to sprout 8 arms all of the sudden whenever I attempt to use the computer. So, my blog has suffered. Right now my kiddos are distracted by the good ol' television so I'm just going to throw a huge barrage of photos at you, in no particular order as quickly as possible and let you figure it out for yourself. :) Enjoy!