In black and white

Well Hello there. I may not be updating as frequently but I still want to keep you guys in the loop. I have a couple of things to update on, and one of them is very exciting...well for me at least. I have been wanting to have blood work done now that I have lost weight for a while. The last time I had blood drawn, I had some numbers that were on the very high side of normal. On Tuesday I went and had a full blood workup, and I am SO pleased with the results! Last time my cholesterol was 186. The highest they want you at is 200, so for a 24 (at the time) year old woman, this number was bad. My current cholesterol is 138, so that is a decrease of 48 points! My LDL cholesterol, which is the bad cholesterol was 91. For this they want you at 130 or less, and this time my LDL was at 71 so that dropped 20 points. This next one is the one that amazes me so much. Your triglycerides level detects the levels of fat, when this number is high you are much more at risk for diabetes. The highest number they want to see for your triglycerides is 150, and last time I was at 144 so I was scaring that number to death. This time I tested at 62! You read that right, 62! That means my triglycerides level dropped 82 points! I have known that my body is much healthier for a while now because I can feel it, but to see it in black and white is an undescribable feeling. You do not realize just how much food can harm your body until you see something like that. Also a couple of years ago, I had been having stomach trouble so I went in for an ultrasound of my stomach. When they were doing this ultrasound, they found that I had fatty liver disease. I was under the impression that this could never correct itself. That you could stop further damage, but not correct past damage. So on Tuesday when my doctor said I bet your liver looks as good as new, my heart skipped a beat. She told me that your liver can absolutely heal as you lose weight. I didn't go as far as having another ultrasound to confirm this, but all of the bloodwork that had anything to do with my liver came back really low. This is jibberish to me but they test your ALK PHOS to check on your liver, and my number went from 107 to 76 so that is a drop of 31 points. I am now a firm believer that most diseases can be traced back to nutrition. The proof is in the pudding, so to say.

 

The other update that I have is that I have started P90X! I have been doing strength training for about a month now, and I do best when I am following a strict regimine. I liked the T25 program but I just felt like there wasn't enough strength training involved. I have also been doing some kettlebell exercises, which I love! I am only 3 days into P90X, but I love it so far. I finish each workout with ZERO doubt that I have gotten a good workout. I have the sore muscles to prove it! I have actually gained two pounds since I have been doing so much strength training, so I am now at 150 lbs. You would think that a gain would upset me, but I am not upset about this gain at all. I know that I have gained muscle, and that my inches are continuing to go down. I know that the more muscle I add, the more fat I will burn. So I am officially reporting my first gain, but I am happy about it! Let's tone it up!

Thanks for reading,

Sarah

Goodbye 2013 - Hello 2014

I think that it is safe to say that 2013 has been one of the best years for me so far. I have accomplished more in 2013 than I have in the last 5 years combined. I completely changed my life this past year, and I want to talk a bit about what I've done, and some about what I would have done differently. I also want to talk about my new plans and goals for 2014. First let's start with what I've done so far. I started my weight loss journey on March 22, 2013 after feeling I had hit rock bottom. I had found out that I was not ovulating and would be unable to get pregnant unless I lost weight, I was close to being put on blood pressure medication, and I was having terrible stomach issues. When I first started I decided that I was going to stick to a low calorie diet and an intense work out regimen. I limited myself to 1200 calories per day, and I was working out 6 days a week doing heavy cardio. When I first started working out, I couldn't run for more than 30 seconds at a time. At that time I was too heavy for my body to be able to handle the amount of exercise that I was throwing at it, and I developed what is called runner's knee. I was forced to take my workouts to the elliptical for a couple of months to allow my knees to heal and to get some more weight off to lessen the impact on my knees. After a couple of months I felt like I was ready to take my workouts up a notch, so with the help of compression sleeves for my calves I began running again. I started doing couch to 5k, and I eventually added in Insanity as well. I was consistently dropping weight and I began seeing health benefits as well. I finished the full 60 days of Insanity and then put my full focus into couch to 5K. I prepared and I finally ran my first 5k on September 29 and finished with a time of 37:24. I continued focusing mostly on Cardio and in October decided to add in some strength training as well to tone up.   I had a couple of issues with illness in the month of November and lost a lot of my motivation. I was still working out and sticking to my diet but I let the strength training fall by the wayside. The scale was still going down, but my progress slowed to an almost complete halt. Towards the end of December I found a new burst of motivation and started T25 and began doing a lot more strength training. Since doing this, I have seen more results in the past two weeks than I have in the past two months. My weight hasn't really changed in the last two weeks but in that time alone I have lost another half inch on my stomach and another half inch on each arm. I have lost a total of 72 pounds, and I am currently weighing in at 148.4 lbs. I am ovulating again, my blood pressure is back in the healthy range, and my stomach issues are completely gone. So that is the rundown for 2013. Overall I am happy with a lot of things, but in hindsight there are a couple of changes that I would make. I follow a youtube channel called TheLeanMachines, and about a week ago they did a video about why low calorie diets are bad for you. I will link that video down below so that you can get a more in depth idea of what I am talking about. The basics of it are that when you do a low calorie diet consisting of nothing but cardio you lose more than just fat, you lose muscle as well. This is something that I can attest to personally, I have lost a lot of weight quickly, but in the mean time I have lost a LOT of muscle as well. When you lose muscle you actually slow your metabolism which in turn zaps a lot of your energy. I have noticed this more and more the last couple of months, and I feel this is a big reason that I went into a "slump". I had no energy or motivation to work out. I still did workout, but I by no means put my all into it. Looking back, I would have not cut my calories so low and I would have introduced strength training from the beginning. If I had done that from the beginning I likely would not be facing the issue that I am now and that issue is, loose skin. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have hanging skin like you see in pictures of people that have lost hundreds of pounds. I do however have a wrinkling in my skin in certain places on my body. This is something that I am not 100% comfortable talking about, but I want to give you a true look into this journey. I have some wrinkled skin on my stomach and at the top of my arms just under my armpits. I am confident that I will not have this forever. It will go away as I tone up, I just wish I had done strength training from the start so that I wasn't having to compensate for that now. So here are the changes that I am making going into 2014. I am upping my calories to 1550 per day, I am adding a lot of strength training, and I am cutting back on my cardio. I will break each one of these down for you quickly because this is becoming a lengthy post. I am upping my calories to compensate for the strength training that I am adding. I need more calories to build my metabolism back up as I rebuild my muscles. I am adding a lot of strength training obviously to rebuild the muscle that I have lost plus some. In rebuilding my muscle I am hoping to give a boost to my metabolism as well. I am cutting back on the cardio because the muscle that I am going to be adding will be burning the fat that I have left, and I need conserve that energy to repair my muscles as I build them up. I had a short conversation with Leon from TheLeanMachines on twitter today, and he recommended that I put the majority of my focus on strength training. I still have a pocket of fat on my belly so I am hoping that adding this strength training will help me get rid of that once and for all. I have exciting plans for 2014 and I look forward to sharing those with you as they come to fruition. I hope that you all set goals for the upcoming year. Challenge yourself and you can see incredible change. I was going through old pictures trying to find the picture I wanted to use for my "before" pic for this post. I came across a picture that I had taken in a Target dressing room last February. The reason that this particular picture stood out to me was because the shirt I was trying on was almost identical to a shirt that I bought last month at Target. I had taken a very similar picture in the dressing room not remembering at all that I had taken the first picture earlier in the year. I didn't buy the shirt the first time because I couldn't button the XL. I bought it the second time in a Medium, and as you can see in the picture I have a little room to spare in this one. This picture is a true testament to what you can accomplish in a year if you put your mind to it. Let's smash it in 2014!!

Thanks for reading,
Sarah

Link to TheLeanMachines video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBLUCbLtCkw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUs_DvR0g9o7wDgmY3fzbhMw