There’s No Goal Without a Plan

June 7, 2019.Reading time 13 minutes.

Wow, its been a hot minute since we’ve last talked, huh? Its just been crazy over here in the world of Mia Bella Lotta, speaking to my personal life. We finally made the big move that Kevin and I had aways talked about doing. We sold our place in the Dogpatch, San Francisco and headed as far west as we could. We are officially residents of Half Moon Bay, CA. I’ve gotta say, its quite lovely. Words like “lovely” are words I use now that I am part of the “Coast People.” I traded walks dodging needles and homeless people for views of the ocean! Movin’ on up!

I want to apologize for leaving you hanging the last month or so, but now you know what I’ve been up to. As much as I’d rather have been sitting around eating cupcakes and losing weight from using my TV remote hand too much, that was not the case. If you still require a visual for a clear picture of me from the last month or so, and I don’t want to leave anyone behind, I’ve been behind a mountain of boxes trying to figure out which one has all my sports bras. Literally just running around in circles building forts out of boxes.

So where did we leave off? Oh yeah, I was pretty much a Stage 7 Vegetarian, meaning I could not and would not eat anything that casts a shadow. OK, maybe that was dramatic, but its how I felt inside and feelings are important to recognize. In reality, I was coming down from the world’s worst food hangover after having completed my first round of the Whole30 followed by a long weekend in NOLA. No, you don’t have to re-read that sentence. I did say first which implies that I completed multiple rounds of the Whole30. I did. I completed the Whole30 TWICE. The first time I lost about 10LBs. The second time, after NOLA and a little bit of a relapse, I lost about 4LBs. This brought my grand total down just under 12LBs. Don’t worry about my math, and lets not focus on what I did in between. Nothing to see there.

That is what has lead me to today, because as the ol’ saying goes, “a goal without a plan is just a wish.” I can say, with all honesty, that the Whole30 was a huge success and a great foundation laid for me, but I still have a little under 6 months until the big day. Now its time to figure out how to live a life as close to the Whole30 without burning out. Lets get real… its not a sustainable lifestyle, and remember I am looking for a LIFESTYLE and not a DIET. So how can I turn what I’ve learned from the Whole30 into something sustainable? This is where trial and error comes in.

First, I want to point out a few thing I liked about the Whole30. I guess we can so say the most important thing is that I actually saw and felt weight loss. That was the big win. Another big win, and most people may not know this, but I have had eczema since I was a baby. Its something that plagues my family. Through the years I have learned that a cause of my eczema may be a side effect of the foods I eat (like dairy). I always brushed that fact aside because “mine is hereditary” (real quote from me to anyone who mentioned my diet being a cause). As a result, I have been using a steroid cream where my eczema was the worst, around my eyes. Yep, I’ve put a steroid around my eyes every day since I was in 6th grade. I worshipped this cream like it was my Windex. It could fix anything. Random rash? Try my cream. Burn? Try my cream. Blemish? Try my cream. Broken tail pipe? Try my cream. You get the picture. You know what a steroid in the eye can cause? Glaucoma. Yep. So while its healing that rash, its slowly *maybe* causing me to go blind or, if not blind, make me look like my 15 year old dog, Audrey, with cloudy eyes. As you may have guessed I am a little vain, so that is not a choice I’m willing to make. I also realized that as I grow up my eczema traveled to different places on my body, never actually finding a permanent home. So there was a good chance that my body’s need for the cream around my eyes could be because of an addiction to the steroid on the skin around my eyes. Steroids can do a number on your body, including making mine a good candidate to hang out in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. I knew if I had any chance of getting my skin to kick this steroid habit it would be when my body was running at its cleanest. I can happily say that I am now FOUR WEEKS sans steroid cream. In the past, I’ve never been able to make it a week without it. Amen.

Last, and I will deny it if you tell people this at public functions, I liked not waking up hungover. Not that I drank that much before, but even taking that one more day a week off of the table made me feel like a million bucks. I walked into work on Monday with less of the Monday Blues. It felt dang good. Of course, as I said in the past, I missed a good dirty martini so this feeling was short lived, but at least I can sustain from over-drinking easier.

Now lets talk about the things I didn’t like about the diet. First and foremost, how strict it is. There are no small “cheats” and it turned me into the person I hate to be at restaurants, “excuse me but what ingredients are in this steak tartar?” or “do you add sugar to your mayonnaise?” It took us what seemed like hours to order a simple salad with all my questions. I hate being that person. I make fun of those people. Besides that there wasn’t really anything else I didn’t like about it- besides not being able to eat ice cream cake, or ice cream, or cake.

So that leads me to my plan, or my “working” plan. How can I use the elements I liked and fix the ones I hate in order to get me through at least the next 6 months?

Rule #1: On School Nights, Paleo. What is Paleo? Its Whole30 without being so strict. So no alcohol, sugar, dairy, carbs, or legumes on school nights. If I happen to have a bunless burger with ketchup with added sugar, so be it. If thats the worst thing on my plate I’d say I’m winning.

Rule #2: Weekends 80/20. This is where my trial and error comes in. I need to figure out what 80/20 looks like to me. I can’t count past 10 with my shoes on, so making me do actual math between meals and ratios would be a pure disaster. For now, I am walking the fine line between the right amount of carbs and balls deep in carbs like a tightrope artist. I’ll let you know when I come to a solution.

Rule #3: Workouts *at least* 4 days a week. This rule will not be hard for me to follow. I am addicted to getting a workout in. Our new community has a pool, and I can’t wait to jump in and start swimming laps again!

Rule #4: Lots of water! My body has come to the point that if I don’t have at least 60Oz of water by 3pm my lips get dry. Chalk this up to another rule I’ll ace.

Rule #5: Intermittent Fasting. Before, one week I would fast for 12 hours between my dinner and next meal, then the next week I would make it 14 hours. This is another aspect of my plan I need to experiment with. It was a successful cycle during the Whole30, but that may have been because of the clean eating. Since being off, it seems my best weeks for weight loss are the ones where I stick to 14 hours. I may just stick to 14 hours for a couple weeks and see how it goes, so stay tuned. This may seem easy to some of you, but remember that coffee is considered a meal if you don’t take it black.

Goal: My goal moving forward is to lose at least 2 LBs each month starting in June. This may seem easy, but for May I started at 151.6 and ended at 150.2. Thats -1.4. Note that I ended my second round of the Whole30 on 5/10, so that is a couple weeks of me with my trial and error experiment. So at the end of June I want to be at 148.2. Just as I had a hard time with breaking through the 160 into the 150s, I know that its going to be just as hard breaking out of the 150s into the 140s, but man do I have the motivation.

Here are my stats for June. I am going to keep my stats to monthly moving forward to see if I hit my goal.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 150.2, Chest 36, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32, Below Hips 37, Largest Part of Butt 40.5.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “What I cannot change” by LeAnn Rimes

I know what makes me comfortable
And I know what makes me tick
And I when I need to get my way
I know how to pour it on thick

Cream and sugar in my coffee
Right away when I wake
I face a day, and pray to God
I won’t make the same mistakes

All the rest is out of my hands
I will learn to let go what I cannot change
I will learn to forgive what I cannot change
I will learn to love what I cannot change
But I will change, yeah I will change
Whatever I, whatever I can

On the Road Again

March 22, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

Initially I started writing this blog last week, but it got sidelined because things got nutty in my personal life. This is just a little caveat because this week’s post may feel a little disjointed since I have been living this for the last 2 weeks. So, in the spirit of lent, please forgive me.

Good news! I have been given the green light. I am locked and loaded. I take off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. BLAST OFF. Diet time.

As I I have discussed at length, since Thanksgiving I have been working with my doctor to fix some internal hormone issue with various natural supplements. Just after the new year my doctor suggested that we test again to see how my body is reacting to all the new supplements. She explained that this test will give us a good indication as to whether we are on the right track or if we need to adjust anything.

Man, was I nervous. On one hand I wanted to be ready to move to the weight loss portion of my program, but on the other hand I knew that once the excuse of my internal body was taken away from me, I had no other excuse to lean on as to why I had been failing so miserably at dieting. At that point, it would just be me and my efforts. Talk about pressure. I sulked into my doctor’s office. I felt like a kid that was called into their principal’s office not knowing if they did something horribly wrong or if I was there to win “Best Student in the History of the School” award. Who doesn’t want to have the west wing of their grade school named after them?

Results are in. It’s go time. At first I was excited, but then I realized that this meant that at that very moment my worst nightmare was coming true and the only reason I wasn’t losing any weight was because I had taken my “status quo/ laizzez-faire” attitude to just plain laziness. I used the excuse of traveling and wedding planning as why I had regressed in my daily routine In reality, I was having a hard time reprograming myself back to healthy Laura, instead of the “Eataly A Day” dream.

So here we are, hitchhiking to get back Dieting Drive. I know I said that I wasn’t looking into dieting, but rather a healthy lifestyle, but maybe it takes something like a diet to reprogram the ol’ computer that is my body in order to get to the healthy lifestyle destination. Whenever something in my office breaks, my partner, to my complete annoyance, always asks me if I turned “it off and back on again?” Although I will never admit it to his face, he may be right this time around. I needed to turn my body off of dieting and monitoring what I was eating, then turn it back on again to work more efficiently and effectively.

At the direction of my doctor and her nutritionist I started the Whole30 AND intermittent fasting diet that week. Here I thought walking into my appointment with the idea of giving up dairy for lent was going to impress the socks off of my doctor. Talk about amateur hour! Like I said, full reset was needed.

A little background on the Whole30 for those of you that haven’t had a friend ask you to join them in the Whole30 Challenge (misery does love company)…. The Whole30 Diet consists of NO dairy, NO grains, NO sugar, NO legumes, NO alcohol, basically NO fun for 30 days. I am not exaggerating. Any form of fun is strictly prohibited. Smiling? Nope, you’ll gain weight from the muscle movement. Watching TV? Don’t work out those thumbs! OK, kidding, but thats what it feels like.

Now a little background on Intermittent Fast, for those of you that constantly see if promoted on some sort of social media application. There are many different types of Intermittent Fasting. The program I am following is not eating for X hours between dinner and your next meal, including coffee if you take it any other way but black. I like my coffee like I like my men- creamy? Sure, thats a word I’d use when describing Kevin. He’s creamy. At first I was told to not eat for 16 hours between meals. For someone that doesn’t actually get to eat dinner until anywhere between 6:30-8pm, the mornings are rough. This week we changed that to anywhere between 12-14 hours. This is a little more realistic.

In a nut shell, my life has become so restricted when it comes to my food and meals. I am restricted as to what I eat and what time I can eat. Prison for a foodie! As a result of the Whole30 program, I have turned to putting mustard on everything. Its pretty much the only condiment I can eat. Last night I made dinner for Kevin and my Dad, chicken “tortilla” soup. Really, I had a bowl of tortilla-less soup with chicken and avocado while they had a pile of tortilla chips and cheese with a soup bottom. I wanted to cave so bad. Tonight we are going out to dinner to one of our favorite steakhouses by my parents’ house. Its going to take every ounce of my body to not order a dirty martini with any type of cheese stuffed olives. EVERY. SINGLE. OUNCE.

I am about 1 day away from being 2 weeks in. The 1stt week, the LBs literally fell off. This 2nd week I’ve been stuck, slowly creeping up .1 of a LB at a time. I am hoping that this is just a part of the process. I am working my best to not become discouraged because its become a challenge for me to make it through the entire 30 days Again, I will not give up. This has become quite a theme here. This fight has no idea what kind of challenger it has in its opposing corner.

MIA BELLA LOTTA’S CALL TO ACTION: Did you give up or add anything into your life this Lent(al) Season? Last year was the first year I added something instead. In the spirit of positivity when I wasn’t feeling very great about myself, I challenged myself to reach out to a new friend every week that I had lost touch with or had not talked to in awhile. Just wanted them to know I was thinking of them and was still there for them. So don’t think you need to deprive yourself of something, because I believe the spirit is to do something in order to better you life. So go out there and better your life.

MEASUREMENTS; In the spirit of this process I will not be disclosing my weekly measurements and weight, but rather waiting until the last day to post my beginning and ending results- no matter the actual numbers.

SONG OF THE DAY: “Hard” by Rihanna

They can say whatever, I’ma do whatever
No pain is forever, yup, you know this
Tougher than a lion, ain’t no need in tryin’
I live where the sky ends, yup, you know this

Beauty Sleep

March 1, 2019.Reading time 6 minutes.

For many, many years I have had a lot of trouble falling asleep. Not sleeping, just falling asleep. Once I’m asleep, its all good. Even if I get up in the middle of the night to visit the “Little Lawyer’s Room” or to help my elderly pup use the “Little Weenie’s Room” I have no trouble falling back asleep. Its that first hour or two that I will toss and turn. My brain runs at a million miles per minute, which can be expected with my day-to-day routine and career. The hamster in my head, as I picture, is running on her wheel, doing her taxes, redesigning her kitchen, and planning her quinceanera all at the same time. I need help.

I’ve tried everything under the sun to get myself to fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time excluding any prescriptions. I come from a long line of addicts who have struggled with various addictions so I have made a life commitment to try and stay away from any controlled substance that was not medically necessary. What methods have I tried, you ask? Let me count the ways…

I started with keeping the room dark for the last hour before I went to bed so my body could go through the cycle of producing melatonin to help me fall asleep. Fail.

I started taking melatonin supplements. At first it helped a little, but then it started to wear off no matter how much I upped the dosage.

Alcoholism wasn’t an option.

Then I turned to turning off all “blue screened” electronics about 30 minutes to 1 hr before going to sleep. Nope.

The one thing that did help was Sleepy Time Weed, as it was known around my house. Don’t worry I only started this when medical marijuana was legalized in California, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. Also, my Grandpa knew about it, so it can’t be that bad, right? I’d meet my “dealer” (AKA the very nice guys from a delivery service) outside and exchange my cash money for something in a brown paper bag. No, I wasn’t rolling joints or doing anything cool like the kids did when I was in high school. Instead I vaped it. No pomp and circumstance here. This seemed to be a good method for getting sleep, but here’s the tricky part- although it worked for me when I was home or in the bounds of California, we also travel a lot. This put the lawyer into a very legal predicament. Do I take the chance and travel with it breaking all sorts of federal laws? I am too cute for prison. So instead when I traveled, and I know this is breaking one of my rules I stated above, I’d pop a Xanax. This was a solution, although not a good and viable solution. As you can see, I hit rock bottom and needed something healthier than smoking and dropping Xanies.

Thats when my weight loss doctor introduced me to NeuroScience Kavinace Ultra PM, a dietary supplement. Ready for some copied and pasted nerd talk? I’ve tried to explain as well as I can without a PHd. Here goes nothing… This magical supplement includes the GABA derivative, 4 amino-3-phenylbutyric acid, which easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and acts as a GABAb agonist (a substance which initiates a physiological response when combined with a receptor). GABA is the body’s main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, meaning it slows down the brain or a reaction. It also contains 5-HTP to support serotonin production, a precursor to melatonin. Serotonin is one of the most important brain chemicals for regulating the sleep/wake cycles. Last, it also contains good ol’ melatonin to help regulate the sleep-wake cycle and promoting restful sleep. So, in a nutshell, this is like your grocery store bought melatonin supplement on steroids, which also takes care of what your body needs to do and produce before it can even effectively get to the melatonin stage.

I guess you can already guess what I am obsessing over this week- Neuroscience Kavinace Ultra PM. I have slept better than I have in a long, long time. I’ve been weed free since Thanksgiving 2018 and sleeping soundly. I take the supplement about an hour before I go to bed and wake up in the morning with no residue effect. It doesn’t “knock me out” so I am still able to hear when Audrey, my senior citizen dog, needs to powder her nose.

In addition to taking Kavinace Ultra PM, I also try to stay away from all electronics an hour before I go to bed. I have found that reading a good book helps to get my “sleepy process” started. Right now I am almost finished with “The Witch Elm” by Tanya French. Nothing like a good murder mystery to lullaby you into a great nights sleep, but it works for me!

A Week in My Life

January 11, 2019.Reading time 14 minutes.

Before the holidays I touched base in some things going on in my life that have precluded me from being able to hit my goals and, instead, stay stagnant. The main reason being stress, and not just emotional stress, but also physical stress and environmental stress. All 3 of these together, I have come to learn, are a dealbreaker in weight loss.

With all of that in mind, I wanted to give you some insight into what my typical week looks like by taking a look at the last week of my life. Just in case you are sitting at home reading week after week and thinking “Self, this girl isn’t working hard enough. Cleary she is eating pie and Taco Bell every week while sitting on the couch with her 2 adorable dachshunds and her handsome as hell fiancé.” Rest assure, I am not. I wish I was, but I am not. But you are right, he is super handsome and my pups are freakin’ adorable.

This last week has been a pretty typical food and workout week. I worked out a ton (despite two days in a row forgetting to bring my shoes or sports bra to the gym) and I ate pretty standard. What you will notice is that I am not a HUGE snacker (::she says while she is snacking on Bubba’s Fine Foods Grand Garlic Parm ‘Nana Chips::). Key word is HUGE. I normally don’t, but as we all know there is an exception to every rule. Or is that just an attorney saying? Anyways, I will let you be the judge.

Please not that everyday I drink AT LEAST 90OZ of water. I always start my day with AT LEAST 16OZ of water before I put anything else in my body. OK, lets get to it…

Friday, January 4th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: RX Bar (honestly I can’t remember which one because I have a variety pack).
Lunch around 12PM: Poke Bowl with half sushi rice and half mixed greens. Bowl included salmon, jalapeno, seaweed salad, avocado, cucumber, ponzu sauce, and some fried garlic sprinkles.
Dinner around 7PM: Chicken breast w/ a pesto sauce and roasted potatoes and tomatoes w/ parm cheese sprinkles. This was homemade, B-T-Dubbs.
Exercise: 60MIN OrangeTheory Class

Saturday, January 5th:

Breakfast around 11:45AM: I tried to skip since I had a late morning workout and tend to cramp easily, but after my workout I was famished. So I had a small breakfast sandwich from Starbucks w/ an unsweetened ice team. I was still hungry after, which reminds me of why I don’t eat that crap. Empty calories.
Lunch around 2:30PM: Now you see why I ate the breakfast sando. I had appointments all day and knew I wasn’t going to get a homemade lunch until late. For lunch I made (overnight) chicken tortilla soup. I added about 1/2 a cup of rice, 2 tablespoons of grated cheddar cheese, and about 7 tortilla chips.
Dinner around 7PM: Old school taco night. It was a rainy day and wanted some comfort food. Got some ground beef and some crunchy shells and made dinner in record time! My tacos included, besides the above, lettuce, cheddar cheese, and TB taco sauce (that was as close as I was going to get to actual Taco Bell). I also made a side of black beans and some fresh guacamole. For my guac, I have the world’s best recipe that is mostly just avocado, jalapeno, and lime- and my secret seasoning combo.
Exercise: 60MIN OrangeTheory Class

Sunday, January 6th:

Breakfast around 8AM: RX Bar, again.
Lunch around 1PM: Stopped at Sam’s Chowder House while we were on the coast. I had a Lobster Roll (“naked”) and a salad on the side. They are famous for their Lobster Rolls, even having a dedicated food truck that goes around the Bay Area, and I live by the motto that I want to be able to live a life that doesn’t deprive me of all that is good. So every now and then I throw myself a treat- in moderation, of course.
Dinner around 7PM: Steak salad w/ shishito peppers and a cilantro lime dressing (homemade). I was clearly in a Mexican mood this weekend. Haha.
Exercise: As God did on the 7th day of the week, I rest.

Monday, January 7th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: RX Bar.
Lunch around 12PM: Brought back the delicious chicken tortilla soup. I added about 1/2 a cup of brown rice, 2 tablespoons of grated cheddar. cheese, and about 7 tortilla chips/crumbs (soup is a good way to get rid of the bottom of tortilla chip bags). I also stole an egg roll from my Dad.
Dinner around 7PM: Chicken Thighs with an apple-dijon sauce, roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and spinach (homemade).
Exercise: 60MIN OrangeTheory Class

Tuesday, January 8th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: Breakfast burrito… psyche! Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. Clearly it was an RX Bar.
Lunch around 12PM: Last serving of my delicious chicken tortilla soup. I added about 1/2 a cup of brown rice, 2 tablespoons of grated cheddar, a couple last crumbs of tortilla chips.
Dinner around 7PM: Chickpea pasta (Brand Banza) w/ a homemade beef and pork ragu. If you haven’t tried the chickpea pasta, run, don’t walk, and buy some. They are at almost every store in the Bay Area. They don’t only taste delicious BUT they also are packed with 25G of protein and 13G of fiber. SAY WHAT!?!? Heck ya.
Exercise: 60MIN OrangeTheory Class

Wednesday, January 9th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: Tried out a new protein shake that has over 40G of protein. It was okay. I read that someone with stress issues should have at least 35G of protein in their AM, so I am searching for a great protein shake. Please send suggestions.
Lunch around 12PM: Chicken pita w/ tomatoes, feta cheese, onion, and (my fave) tzatziki sauce and squeeze of lemon (homemade).
Dinner around 6:30PM: Trout w/ a salsa and potatoes. Light, with a kick!
Snack: Cherry Chocolate Protein Bar (I was in the mood for sweets).
Exercise: 50Min Run/Walk- almost 4 miles.
Weigh In: 159.6LBs. I have a golden rule to not weigh myself after a long trip for at least a week. This was my first weigh in for 2019.

Thursday, January 10th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: RX Bar (getting sick of this yet? Well until I find a good protein shake you are stuck with this!).
Lunch around 12PM: Spicy Chicken salad with tomato, corn, black beans, avocado and herb vinaigrette. The chicken is breaded, but there is not much. This was because of a board meeting that I actually ate out. I also had two pickles. They are delicious. Here is where I blow it, a piece of cheesecake for a work birthday BUUUUUT it was MAYBE the size of a business card. I did not completely indulge.
Dinner around 7PM: Lemon and Herb Butter Chicken w/ potatoes and swiss chard (homemade).
Exercise: 60MIN OrangeTheory Class
Weigh In: 158.8LBs

Friday, January 11th:

Breakfast around 8:30AM: You guessed it- RX BAR!
Snack: about 1/2 cup of Bubba’s Fine Foods Grand Garlic Parm ‘Nana Chip (I believe the ‘Nana is a cute way to say Banana)
Lunch (planned): Chicken pita w/ tomatoes, feta cheese, onion, and (my fave) tzatziki sauce and a squeeze of lemon (homemade). Round 2.
Dinner… I do not know. TBD. Its dinner with the girls, but we are all aware of each and every one of our own fitness and health goals.
Exercise: 60MIN Training session with the very talented, Jaime McFaden (you can follow her on instagram at @wheybj ).
Weigh in: 159LBs (I blame it on the cheesecake)

I can read your mind right now, “Self, this girl didn’t have ONE alcoholic drink in this week? She sits on a throne of lies!” You are wrong. I did not have a single adult beverage this week. After the holidays, like 90% of the world, I swore off alcohol for a bit, but unlike 75% of that 90% I have actually been able to hold true to it. No alcohol since Tuesday, January 1st, and its kind of fun so I want to see how long I can do this. Prediction: Until tomorrow when I got to try on wedding dresses and they hand me a glass of champagne. Does that even count?

The point I am trying to make is that I don’t sit at home drinking a bottle or two of wine, while eating Taco Bell and lounging with the adorable pups and my hot man. I actually eat pretty well, not perfect, drink a lot of water (nature’s beauty secret), and workout a ton (6 days of the 7, but who is counting?). So I am trying. Right now I am working this hard to keep status quo while I work through the witch potion my doctor has me on. Like I said before, the last time I saw her I had expressed concern that there had been no progress in my weight loss and was surprised when she responded that she didn’t expect me too yet. So I loosened the reigns on myself and cut myself some slack. I don’t want to take this time as an opportunity to lose the progress I have made, but I do want to take this time to not take life so seriously.

MIA BELLA LOTTA’S CALL TO ACTION: Take this next week to write down everything you do every day to make yourself feel better both inside and out. It does’t have to be a food log or a workout log like I did above. It can be just about what little changes you have made. Do you take the stairs instead of the elevator? Do you say hello to your mailman daily? Do you smile more? Do you floss more? What is the little change you can make or have made? Perhaps we should all try to adapt a new healthy habit a month? This month I have started with taking pressure off myself. What will you do?

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 159 LBS, Chest 36.5 (there was a typo from my last measurement), Under Boob 30, Belly Button 31.75, Below Hips 38, Largest Part of Butt 41.5.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Looking For a Place to Shine” by Clare Bowen

I jumped in, looking to make a wave,
I was working what the good Lord gave,
Baby, here I go, you’ll be praying for land
While I’m rocking the boat!
And I’m moving, come on and join in my parade,
I’ve been waiting for the rhythm to change,
Now the time has come,
So turn on the flames and turn up the sun!

No Legacy is Built on a Single Moment

January 4, 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

Come on in, 2019. Welcome. Here, let me get your jacket. Can I get you something to drink?

I am majorly welcoming 2019 into my life. Not only because its the year that I get to marry my favorite person in this entire universe, but I am also welcoming this year because I feel really good about it and myself in general. I took some time the last couple of weeks of 2018 to really look into both the past and my potential future. I wanted to better understand where I had been in order for me to move forward. I am very proud of myself for finally taking the first step in making myself healthy and talking to a doctor about my fight with weight loss. As we all know, the first step in making a change is admitting you have a problem. I also feel my timing was perfect, to take the last half of 2018 to better understand my fight so that I could jump into 2019 kicking and screaming.

Right before the holiday I had another appointment with my doctor. It was a catch up to see how things were going before we got into the thick of holiday nonsense. I went in there with a major bad attitude because I hadn’t seen any progress in terms of weight loss. When I mentioned this to my doctor, she quickly replayed that she didn’t expect that to happen because that would be putting the “cart before the horse” (so to speak). I guess what I didn’t realize was that the first step was a hormone cleanse, and once we are able to see a shift in my test results, then we could work on the weight loss portion of our program.

I took this as a sign. It was a sign to take a step back, stop putting so much pressure on myself and let the process work. This was a big reason for my “break” over the holidays, which also came at a good time since I woke up the day after Christmas with the stomach flu. I guess we are all just one stomach flu away from our ideal weight, right? I did weight myself the day after I started to feel better, for no reason at all, but I didn’t gain any weight over the holiday (wahoo!), but then we went away to Canada and I came down with “all this food is delicious-itis” and I am pretty sure that weight loss went right out the window. I am only human.

After my meeting with my doctor and my time off I came up with one big resolution. In 2019 I am going to take the pressure off of myself. I have the fundamentals to win this fight, but first I need to be able to get my inners to match my goals.

Over the last 2years I have been stressed out in a huge way. My job became a lot more stressful with many of our projects shifted and began to not go the way we had expected them too and in the timeframe set out. With most jobs, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but I work with my family and there is a lot of added pressure there. Just as a spoiled child does, I didn’t handle things not going my way very well, and it stressed me the f-out. That was the beginning of the end. I started to take things professionally very personally. I internalized a lot of my stress not wanting to bring my stresses home with me because I didn’t want to add more stress to Kevin’s professional stress.

I was also stressed about my personal relationship. I am someone that needs forward momentum to know that they are doing a great job. There was no forward momentum in both my professional and personal life, and I felt stuck. So the stress built up, not knowing which way I needed to go to make myself feel better. This all resulted in me feeling pretty crappy about myself. Talk about a self-esteem bomb.

Then September 27th, 2018 I got the relationship promotion that I always wanted with Kevin. He proposed, and something about our relationship changed. He had been putting on this role to throw me off the engagement scent which made me think that getting married wasn’t on his radar. Think Chandler and Monica from Friends. Every time I brought up getting married he’d make a face or make a grunt noise that was not very becoming of him or our relationship. Man, did it chap my hide. Then after we got engaged I got to see what was really going on behind that scenes. That he had made a resolution last year that he would propose. Now, I see how truly in love and excited he is about our future. This lifted a huge weight of sadness and anxiety about our relationship off of my shoulders. It also made me fall more in love with Kevin knowing how excited he was/is about this next step for us. I didn’t think this was possible. Now the stress of my personal relationship has been replaced with the stress of planning a circus of a wedding, and I can’t wait to celebrate.

Knowing that I won’t be able to rid myself of all these moving pieces, I need to figure out how to handle my day-to-day stresses better. So this is where taking the pressure off of myself is going to take a front seat in this bus called 2019. I am going to have fun with the process of planning a wedding. I am going to try and not sweat the small stuff. I am going to learn better ways to handle the stresses of my professional life. I am going to take things one step at a time. I am going to not take things so personally that don’t need to be. I am going to speak up when I don’t believe in an action, instead of holding it inside. I am going to take a leading role in my professional life and not let others walk all over me because I am a female in a male driven world. I am going to believe in myself and remember my motto- A smart person surrounds herself with even smarter people. I know what my abilities are and I know my limitations. Knowing that, I will ask for help.

MIA BELLA LOTTA’S CALL FOR ACTION: I think its only appropriate to plead to my reader’s that they also ask for help and recognize their own limitations. Especially if you are a woman. 2018 was a big year for us bad ass females in taking a leadership role and grabbing the world by its metaphorical balls and saying “no more!”, but that can lead many of us to take on too much and get in over our heads because we don’t want to be looked down upon for not having the abilities. That only makes this fight worse. Being able to recognize our limitations means we are smart enough to ask for help and strong enough to admit our limitations. So here it is, what are your limitations and how do you overcome them?

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten

I might only have one match
But I can make an explosionAnd all those things I didn’t say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now I’ll be strong
I’ll play my fight song
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

Cheers to 2018

December 14, 2018.Reading time 13 minutes.

In light of last weeks post about stress, I made the adult decision to take a couple weeks off from everything… so, sadly, this will be my last, official post for 2018 filled with witty commentary and clever puns. I will make sure to have a “Monthly Check In” next week, but expect only one little chuckle, not the usual belly laugh you get week to week.

With this being my last, I wanted to look back on the fight thus far. Even though its only been a couple months I do think that we have a come long way together. I also want to take a little time to talk about what my “Mia Bella Lotta Resolutions” are for 2019. No, this won’t be my personal goals or resolutions as I want to take the next 2 weeks to really figure out what I want for me and this fight. These “Mia Bella Lotta Resolutions” are for the “professional” portion of this fight. Haha, I realized I just used the word “professional” for a space where I figuratively get naked in front of you all each week.

So join me on a journey to the past, as we take a look back…

MIA BELLA LOTTA WAS BORN!

I guess a good place to start while I look back at 2018 is that Mia Bella Lotta was created this year. I made lemonade out of lemons. I stood on that scale this past August and my stomach did back flips and sank to the ground. I had hit rock bottom. Besides cry, and cry a lot, I had the sensation that all I wanted to do was run up to the roof of my building and scream for the world to hear. Seeing as the HOA strongly disagrees with my methods for stress relief, the next best thing was to write about it. I had a thought “who else feels like this?”

I think we live in a world of extremes. You see a great example every day in politics. Its the two sides, the far right and the far left, that are constantly in the media, fighting to control politics, but you have those of us in the middle, the moderates, just running around in circles trying to be heard. I feel the same is found in the weight loss and health community. You have the fitness models and trainers who’s health is on point. Then, on the other hand, you have those that strongly put themselves out there with a long journey ahead of them. I want to be PC about this because I don’t want to look like I am making fun or bullying anyone. I respect both sides because they are doing something to better themselves and not being lazy about their health and wellness. There was a whole world of people that aren’t really represented here and its where I tried to fit in- the middle, the moderate health and weight loss seekers. I have dubbed thee the “Everyday Girl” when it comes to health and weight loss. I am not obese, but I am still not happy with where I am. I am not lazy, but I am also not a crazy, health fanatic. I am just your average, everyday girl that has some issues she needs to work out…. and I think I am massaging out the rough edges and will continue to build on this concept in 2019.

GOODBYE {SOME} WEIGHT AND INCHES.

Isn’t that what we are here for? I can’t lose sight of the fact that, even with so much fight against me, I have been able to lose SOME weight. As of my last Monthly Check-In I was surrounded by the number 5. Thats 5LBs and 5 inches I’ve lost. Thats about 10LBs and a handful of inches away from where I wanted to be, but its still something. I can’t let that go. I have to focus on the positive. I have a couple factors working against me right now, as I discussed last week with stress being the most prevalent, but I have still been able to (literally) inch away less of me. So… Yay! Celebrations! But don’t worry, I will stay grounded and won’t let my head get too big.

FIGURED OUT A ROOT ISSUE.

I always wondered why it was so hard for me to lose weight, no matter what I tried. I would put my heart and soul into something, and, yes, sometimes I would get cocky and lose sight of the goal, but many times I also just felt like maybe my efforts weren’t good enough. I knew that I had it in me to lose 10-20LBs because I had some success in the past, but why not now? What changed? Me, thats what.

This year I took the necessary steps forward to figure out what might be going on inside me. Sometimes we have to look under the hood to see if all the engine parts are running smoothly. What we found is that some of the inputs and outputs are out of wack which is causing stress on my body and that results in my body setting itself to “fight or flight” instead of normal. Was it a relief to know that my efforts weren’t done in vain? Absolutely. Was there a clear and fast solution? Nope. This I will discuss in a later post about my 2019 Personal Resolutions. Just know that I am trying to learn as much as possible about how someone in my situation functions AND how I PERSONALLY function and handle everyday stresses from work, wedding, social demands, etc. I have the rest of my life to figure this out, with no deadlines needed, so I might as well learn everything I possibly can, right?

Now lets take a PROFESSIONAL Look Forward to 2019…

MIA BELLA LOTTA’S HOME

I will not just be taking these 2 weeks off to spend time with my family and friends for the holiday, but I also want to work on upgrading this entire thing. I am a true novice when it comes to technology, websites, and such. Ask my old business partner. He says that when I am in a room with an electronic, the electronic breaks. So I started off very beginner with the “look and feel” of Mia Bella Lotta. My plan is, when Kevin and I go on our NYE adventure in a couple weeks, while he is skiing the slopes in Canada I am going to cozy up in front of the fireplace with my laptop and get to work on Mia Bella Lotta 2.0, Mia Bella Lotta Alpha. I have no idea what any of this means, but we will see what happens in 2019!

MIA BELLA LOTTA ON SOCIAL MEDIA

I made a goal for the end of 2018 to have 500 followers on Instagram. That may not sound like a lot to you, but I haven’t been very active on it. I need to step up Mia Bella Lotta’s social media game. If I make Mia Bella Lotta a priority, then I am also making my health and wellness fight a priority. See how that works out? So I will post more. I will let you all in more on my daily life and struggles in this fight. Its not enough to just give you a weekly glimpse with the written word, but I want to visually show you the punches and falls I make and take. Come on in. Take a look around. Open some personal drawers. The water is warm(ish).

In conclusion of 2018…

This year I talked about my fight, and you joined me. We talked about my feeling of solitude, and you lifted me up and joined my Girl Gang. We talked about the importance of not playing the game of social media and let your friends in on your everyday life, and you did! We discussed travel and its pitfalls, and I made some baby steps to improve that! We asked family to stop hiding our failures and let us know about them in a gentle way, and my Mom is STILL working on the gentle part. We discussed taking some responsibilities off our dance card and you should see my open January! I have not thrown away that little black dress, but I did burn those fat sweats… so, baby steps. I fell down and got back up. I hugged my friends and did an inventory of who is supporting me. But most importantly I felt love. So thank you.

MIA BELLA LOTTA’S CALL TO ACTION: Cheers my friends. Cheers to you and all you’ve accomplished this year. I, for one, am darn proud of you. So have fun with your family and friends, and make smart choices this holiday season. Hug your family. Tell your friends how much they mean to you. Tell the person you love that you love them everyday… then sit back and cheers.

I’ll see you next year.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 157.8 LBS, Chest 31.75, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32, Below Hips 38, Largest Part of Butt 41.5.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Spell” by Marie Digby

A spotlight’s shining brightly
On my face
And I can’t see a thing
And yet I feel you, looking my way

An empty stage
With nothing but this girl
Who’s singing this simple melody
And wearing her heart on her sleeve

*Photo by Katie Mick Photography

https://www.katiemickphotography.com/

Jesus Take the Wheel

December 7, 2018.Reading time 14 minutes.

I don’t even know how or where to begin this post because its just so damn complicated. Crazy that I don’t have a clever opener here, right? Thats how confused I am. Let me give you a visual- I am like a puppy running in a circle around it’s self chasing its own tail. Its funny because that is also exactly how I felt right after we got engaged. I was so excited but I didn’t know where to start. This time I also don’t know where to start but I am not necessarily excited.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been eluding to some test I had done and some results I was trying to make sense of. I consider myself a pretty smart person. I’ve overcome some of my own personal odds to do some pretty remarkable things (at least to myself). Yet here I am just not getting it. I was initially hoping the doctor would give me the easy answer like, “Yep its your thyroid” while she throws a bunch of magical pills at me. Then the following week I’d be steadily starting to shed unwanted weight. Nope, not that easy.

Yes, my thyroid test did come back a little erotic when looked at over the last 3 years, but that is something that we are going to continue to monitor over the next couple months. So for our sakes, lets just put a pin in it for now. The biggie of the blood and “dry urine test”(there’s a visual) were my cortisone and my cortisol levels. They were off the charts. No, I am not using that as a turn of phrase, but 0 literally there was a chart and I was not on it for 1 -2 of my 4 check ins throughout one day. So in a nut shell, my body is in a constant state of “fight or flight” holding on to every calorie it can because it thinks I am about to go to battle with no food to consume. Silly body.

This may seem like a really dumb statement, but I never really equated that how I felt emotionally could actually be related to how my body felt and reacted inside, resulting in producing some sort of chemical reaction and throwing my body’s normal course of business into Black Friday mode. The 2 didn’t connect in my head. I had separated emotional reactions and body reactions. Let me explain this a little further. If I was sad it was because of an emotion. If my stomach hurt after eating it was because I overate. I didn’t realize that because of the emotional sadness I could put stress on my body and when I ate a certain food my body may not be equipped to handle it because my body was too busy taking care of the emotional stress part. Again, you may be saying “DUH LAURA!” but this didn’t occur to me until these last couple weeks. Its like a light bulb went off. I am still not sure what I need to do with the light at the moment, but I am trying to figure that out.

I saw a very good example just this week about how a body can react under stress. Here is a real life situation comin’ at you… Part of my daily diet process is that I weigh myself every morning when I first wake up. I’v been doing since we met. When I started, I was doing this because it gives you a good read on how the foods you ate yesterday reacted with your body. So Thursday AM I wake up and weigh myself. I clock in at 157.6LBs. I think “This is great news! I am on track for my weekly weigh in tomorrow!” Celebrations and confetti get ready! Thursday goes like this: Weekly status meeting at work that I run. They can be stressful especially when you work with your family. At the conclusion of the weekly status meeting, I then quickly tried to get myself together for next week knowing that I won’t be in the office on Friday since we are leaving town for the weekend. I tie up some loose ends and write some nasty emails that really get my blood boiling, but its all apart of the job, right? After work I workout. Then I ran around the City trying to get some last minute errands done to get the house ready for the Dogsitter. Get home, take care of the dogs, make dinner, eat dinner, take shower, clean up house, sit down and read a little, then go to bed. My food for yesterday was my usual protein shake in the AM, homemade chili for lunch (which I have been eating all week) and a fish “taco salad” for dinner. Yes, I ate dinner a little bit later than I like to , but I needed some fuel after my workout. I also drank a hell of a lot of water yesterday, around 120oz. Wake up Friday AM bright and early to start my day with a good weigh in and measurements. Step on the scale excited to see some movement. I am sure you all know where I am going with this… 158.2LBs. Yep, I didn’t overeat and when I did eat I ate pretty clean, drank water, worked out, and still gained .6LBs.

As I reflect on my day what was so different? Well, its the meetings, the rushing to get things wrapped up for the week and ready for next week, the constant list of things that need to be done before we leave and never once did I sit down and take a deep breath. The only relaxing part of my Thursday was that at 10PM I sat down to read a little more of my book. 10PM!

I used to joke that I lost more weight when I was eating Taco Bell every weekend and going out drinking with my friends. But maybe it wasn’t what I was putting into my body, but more how my body felt. That was during a time when I had a lot less stresses in my life. Also, when I was studying for the California State Bar I really thought it would be a good 12 week period of weight loss since I was working out about 5-6 days a week and not drinking. Nope. I can’t remember how much weight I gained, but I remember being very disappointed at the end of the 12 week period. At the time I blamed emotional eating, but I guess now we know the culprit.

I am not going into too much detail behind the science of how stress and weight loss interact because I still have a lot of information to manage through and a lot of conversations to be had. I more wanted to introduce the concept to you guys as I think this may become a major theme in upcoming posts.

My doctor did caution me that that I should not make any major lifestyle changes when it comes to my diet and exercise at this time. Especially seeing as the holidays are coming up and any drastic change may just cause more stress. I did do some “extra credit” by grabbing a book to help explain the relationship between stress and our bodies. Its a good read and does a pretty good job of explaining something very technical and medical to us “laymen”, but I am still confused as all hell. Maybe that is why my doctor told me to sit back for a little and just take a daily regimen of holistic, witchcraft vitamins through the holidays while also trying to find daily tweaks to my routine to calm the fuck down. Huh! Good luck telling that to a woman with a self proclaimed PhD in planning and filling up the social calendar.

Now that I have seen this happen in real time with the .6LBs weight gain in a 24 hour period of solid work, I will admit that there are some little tweaks that need to be made to my daily routine. So far, at the request of my doctor, I have hired a wedding planner, at least an hour before I go to bed at night I take away all technology and screens so that my body can start to make its way into sleep mode, and I am currently trying to get myself to take 5 minutes before I start my work day to meditate. This one has been quite difficult because I am someone who just wants to get started on things once she walks through the office doors. Also, its really funny to explain to your old school, Italian uncles that you need 5 minutes to meditate then she will get on that phone call. This is just something that needs to be done, and maybe its not meditating but something else that I can find to do daily that will help me to relax a little more.

Mia Bella Lotta’s Call to Action: What is that small, yet significant change that you can make in your life to slow down and relax? I always said I would do anything to get some weight loss going. I even “joked” that if I couldn’t get a leg up I was going to turn to some more extreme medical intervention. So if I was going to spend a butt ton of money on medical intervention why not actually do something free, daily that helps? I get it, we are the generation of instant gratification, but this is a little ridiculous. So lets all slow down and find what brings us a little inner peace so that maybe we can just make it on to the chart next time.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 158.2 LBS, Chest 36.5, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32, Below Hips 38, Largest Part of Butt 41.5.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “That’s the Way” by Jo Dee Messina

Well I know from experience
Nothin’s ever gonna make perfect sense
Oh, one day you get what you want
But it’s not what you think
Then you get what you needWell, oh, that’s the way it is
You gotta roll with the punches
That’s the way it goes
You gotta bend when the wind blows
You live you learn
You crash and burn
It’s hit or miss
And that’s the way it isYeah they say your soul is growin’
But sometimes I feel like throwin’ somethin’

Dearest Second Digit

November 16, 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

Muscle weighs more than fat. That’s something that skinny people say. Period.

Every morning, I step on the scale and it yells back at me with three digits. I am usually only unhappy with the second of these three digits. The first digit? Cool, it ain’t gonna change. The third digit? Eh, whatever. It changes daily. The second digit? Holy hell, why?!?!

I’m sure most of you have seen the photos where they compare 5LBs of fat versus 5LBs of muscle? Spoiler alert, 5LBs of muscle takes up a lot less real estate than 5LBs of fat- and if you live in California, real estate is expensive- and the muscle is a lot more dense. At least from my non-professional opinion. Check it out….

I have read in multiple articles on the intrawebs, and if its on the internet it must be true, that when you are looking to lose weight you should trust the measuring tape more than you should trust the scale. In a war of BFFs, the pink measuring tape is your true BFF, and the scale is your jealous “Single White Female” sort of friend. Who. To. Trust. I am partial to my pets…

With the scale, you may not see a decrease in that second digit, but have you checked out what line you are hitting between 33 and 34 inches around our waist? Has that moved? That all seems well and good, except that it still doesn’t take into account that I am still at a weight on the scale that is much higher than I have been in the past. This would also be great advice if I was just starting out and getting into a hard workout regime. I am not. I have been working my ass off at the gym for years. With that, I don’t think its unreasonable to see, want, and expect a decrease in that second digit on the scale. I know I have it in me. I’ve seen it before. Its also my favorite number that I want there in that second position, the number 4. Yet I ping pong in the same 5LBs for 2 months now and keep seeing the 6 or the 5 trying to move in as a permanent resident on that second digit arena.

Have you ever in your life drank 100 ounces of water daily, ate responsibly, worked out burning over 500 calories during said workout, and slept the recommended 8 hours for 3 days in a row to NOT lose an ounce? Not even a smidge. Not even a .01. Well, I have. It’s those periods that I want to scream my head off and throw plates. This has happened the last two weeks in a row.

And since I am on a great rant right here… With the amount of time I have spent working out the last decade of my life you’d think my legs and thighs would start to resemble cottage cheese less and less. Nope. Let me tell you, whoever finds a cure for cellulite is a god. We can put a man on a moon but we can’t figure out a way to tighten the skin fibers so the damn fat doesn’t poke through. Who’d a thunk? I actually think its gotten worse the last 2 years, which is when I’ve really taken the workouts and “dieting” to the next level. Why is that? If there is anyone reading this blog post right now that has that answer, please feel free to message me and give me a good download of information. I am all ears… or all thighs.

Do I give up, throw in the white towel, and get the white flag flapping in the wind? Nope. I brush myself off and get my big, cottage cheese booty off the ground and get back to it. Wow, what a visual. I refuse to let that second digit get me down. If I let it get me down then I will no longer yo-yo between these 5LBs but I will be back to where I started in August. I refuse to be that Laura again. I was able to make a little headway this week and get myself out of that 158.8LBs rut I’ve been stuck in. If you’ve been a devoted follower who reads each and every post to the bitter end every week, and also takes the time to compare my weekly stats then of course you know. Everyone is doing that, right? Right?!?! Papa can you hear me……oh man, another musical break. Sorry. It does feel good to get past the little hiccup, but I hope to not get overconfident like I have in the past and blow it. I have limited my social calendar and I thank my friends that have accepted this as the new, and improved, Laura.

My call to action this week: Measuring, weighing, it doesn’t matter. Maybe you even prefer to use your favorite jeans as a way to measure your weight loss on this fight… Just make sure you read my “Little Black Dress” post from October to make sure these jeans aren’t from the disco era (link below). Throw those out. What I am trying to say is, different strokes for different folks. Whatever your method is, use it and keep using it consistently so you don’t get a false sense of accomplishment from a “new method” because thats how you fall back on bad habits. So make the decision, which one have you been using and which one works for you and only you. Don’t let Dr. Skinny McBonehips tell you whats right for you to measure your own success.

Bye Felicia.

https://miabellalotta.com/2018/10/05/little-black-dress/

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 157.2 LBS, Chest 36.5, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32, Below Hips 38.25, Largest Part of Butt 41.75.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Machine” by Marie Digby

My body is here but somewhere along the way
I lost my mind
It’s never too late to be found
Waiting on someone to pick me up
But I got left behind
But it won’t bring me downCause I’m gonna cut these strings
Cut them and set me free
Nothing controlling meI’m not a machine, I’m not a machine
I’ve got the breath in me

Sovember

November 9, 2018.Reading time 21 minutes.

We’re well over 2 months into this relationship now, so we’re friends, right? Okay, awesome. Maybe this is a good time to give you a little more background on myself besides the very general fact that I have a long history with trouble losing weight. Let me tell you that I have tried almost every diet under the sun. Many times I was lucky enough to lose a pound or two. The one thing they all have in common is that I quickly lost focus like a dog with a tennis ball and gained all the weight back, plus some. So when I say I am an expert on “Fad Diets” I don’t mean that I am a successful dieter, but rather that I have tried them, put in some elbow grease, and still came up short… or heavier. Whichever way you want to look at it.

So with that, I present “Mia Bella Lotta’s Diet Reviews” based on a 5 Star rating scale, of course.

Weight Watchers: Weight Watchers, the OG, the first stop on most dieters train to Skinnytown. I first started the WW when I was in college. I distinctly remember going to meetings at a random location in Santa Monica not anywhere close to the water and certainly no view. I walked into that sad retail front, waited in line to weigh myself with all the other ladies, took off anything I thought would add any weight (including my giant watch), then went and sat in a circle while we talked about our highs and lows that month. Then I’d leave that sad parking lot and count points. That was my life. Just rinse and repeat.

I wasn’t successful with WW until my second, third or fourth time sometime after college. I had a friend that joined me and we became “accountability partners” wahoo! I lost about 10LBs that go around. Then the holidays came up on my calendar and, BAM, back to where I started. We tried to pick it back up again as our New Year’s Resolution, but it was a lost cause. I had lost focus and the PTSD from counting points breezed back into my life. You can develop every app in the world but if I have to try and search every single food item that was used to create my lunch at Panera Bread in order to figure out if its 1 point or 2, I will quickly lose focus.

Review: * * = 2 stars due to hassle of counting and searching point scale. What brand of olive oil is it, Betty? It matters!!!

Nutrisystem: Marie Osmond said it right, “if you’re going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.” Well, I should have then, and I will now, laugh about my attempt at Nurtisystem. How in the world is that still even a thing? Why would you want to get deep into a diet that doesn’t teach you how to go out into the real world and eat? Also, who wants to eat food that is the equivalent to what astronauts eat? Seriously, your food for the month gets shipped to you in a box. Before you start to comment that there are a lot of boxed meal programs out there today, this was before Blue Apron, Plated, Good Eggs, etc. This was in the early 2000s and there was no refrigeration inside the box to keep anything cold. Nutrisystem is a whole bunch of boxed foods that can sit in your pantry through the apocalypse and still be good. Just add water! Cray, right?

I can’t even begin to remember if it was successful even a tiny bit as a diet because the obscene premise is the one thing I get stuck on. I laugh that the Laura of Early 2000’s was so desperate to lose weight that she, a person who loves to cook and eat delicious food (maybe thats the problem?) would be OK just adding water to something and calling it a meal? I also wholeheartedly believe that you cannot call a diet a success if it doesn’t teach you how to live a life. Those on Nurtisystem would need to live off of “Just Add Water” Astronaut meals for the rest of their lives. I do not want to live in a world like that.

Review: * = 1 star. This is one of those “If I Could Give It Zero Stars I Would But Yelp Won’t Let Me” reviews. Oh wait, these are my reviews. Zero stars.

FastDiet: This one is interesting and little misleading at first. No, its not a fast diet in the sense that the weight loss happens quickly and just falls off. Quick weight loss usually only works with illness and heavy drug use, and I am not into things that go up my nose, make me hallucinate (I already have an active imagination), and I hate needles even though I have 5 tattoos. Instead, the FastDiet includes fasting. Two days a week (each for 24 hour periods) you stay under a certain amount of calories during that period, which varies based on if you are male or female. Then the rest of your week you eat like a reasonable person. Easy, right? Sure. The first time I started the FastDiet it actually worked. I think I took off about 10-15 LBs. Again, and like Nurtisystem, how is it sustainable for the rest of your life to not eat two days a week? It still didn’t teach me anything about living my life after the diet. I also got very claustrophobic at the end. So I moved on and left it in my past, never to be heard from again.

Review: *** = 3 stars. The book that I picked up to begin the diet helped to explain a lot about the diet, its concept, and answered about every question I could possibly have. For example, won’t my body hold on to all the calories, fat, etc. to preserve because its fasting? Per the authors of the book and science like facts, nope. If for some reason you can tolerate this type of diet and life, God bless your soul, click on the pic/link below for the book that got the ball rolling. No, I am not being paid or compensated at all for this.

Low Carb/Keto (Ketogenic) Diet: For the sake of your Friday, I am going to lump these two together, and not only because they are pretty similar but because I did them around the same time and I accidentally got myself into Keto thinking it was the same thing as Low Carb. Spoiler alert, they are not. To keep it simple, because as my Mom always says “keep it simple, stupid,” Low Carb is just want it sounds like, you just try to stay under a certain amount of carbs, in grams, per day. I personally tried to stay under 20g. Keto on the other hand is a low carb, high fat diet. While on the Keto Diet I spent a lot of time testing my blood throughout the day to see if my ketones level were high enough to start burning fat. Remember the needle thing, yeah…

Although the two are pretty close in fundamentals, the two diets have some similar cons but also have very different draw backs for me. One similar con is that I love to indulge in a carb here and there. I get that the key is moderation. You don’t know how many lunch meetings I looked around the table and everyone else was having pasta or a sandwich and I had a tuna salad. Not to mention the times we went out to lunch with clients and I had a hard stare on the bread or chip basket convincing myself to not even think about trying one. BUT ITS ONLY ONE! Its never only one, Laura. Never. A big con on the Keto side of the list was that if you aren’t being closely monitored by a professional and/or doctor, you could overdue it on the amount of fat you put into your body and take the fast track to Diabetes-ville. Thats a no bueno. Who would have thought that a diet that consisted of me eating endless amounts of cheese, bacon, avocados, salami, and more cheese was bad? Funny thing this world is.

Review: ** = 2 stars. I had to weight the diabetes versus the endless amount of bacon chips versus no pasta. Pasta always wins. Always.

Whole 30 Hybrid: My experience with the Whole 30 Hybrid is being called a “hybrid” because it not only came along with clean eating meal plans but workout plans too. It was a 30 day challenge I roped myself into because it was ran by a contestant from The Bachelorette. I’m such a sucker… Every Sunday for 30 days I was sent my menus and workouts for the week. Meal prep on Sunday, workout 6 days a week, and eat clean the entire 30 days. Every now and then there would be a “treat” meal thrown in. Mini yay! You know why I failed? My social calendar. It probably would have been really good if I didn’t partake in adult beverages one day a week. Also, I believe I started this diet around the time when I had a bachelorette party every weekend. So instead, I gained weight and got sad. End of story.

Review: ** = 2 stars. A constant cycle of working out, meal prepping, and my social calendar burned me out. Not for a social, busy person.

Sovember: November 2010. This was a bad, bad month. I remember it well….It was my second year of law school and the initial 15LBS I had lost my first year was coming back and it was coming back strong. So that November I dubbed “Sovember” because I would abstain from all adult beverages. Simple, no alcohol, lose weight. Sober November, or Sovember. Before you think to yourself, “Wow, she made it through a month of law school without any alcohol? They are right, not all superheros wear capes.” Nope I did not. Due to a tragic event in my life, after three weeks I raised a glass of whiskey in honor of a law school friend who had suddenly passed away. Seemed appropriate. BUUUUT before that happened I was tracking my weight weekly and I gained weight. Yep, not kidding. My good friend Santiago also couldn’t believe it and asked if every time he went to the bar to order another scotch did I order a piece of pie? Touche.

Review: * 1 star. Any month that starts with a pledge of no alcohol, that mid way through ends with a weight gain, then ends in a death is no friend of mine.

The Mediterranean Diet: The Mediterranean Diet would seemingly be made for this body. I mean a large majority of it is Mediterranean with a sprinkle of who knows what on top! Its a high protein, high veggie, low carb and low fat diet. Its like the hotter cousin of the Low Carb and Keto Diet- it also vacations in the South of France, but never indulges in a pastry while visiting. I don’t even like calling this a diet, but rather a lifestyle. This is more on par with what I can handle in life and grow old with. Although, I don’t know if it’s a good kick start to a diet but rather more for maintenance. To me, there is a fine line between the two. So, first I need to get a head start on some good weight loss. Then I’ll be adding this diet to my girl squad. Hot.

Review: ***** = 5 stars, but also TBD. Anything that lets you have a little of everything but concentrating on protein and veggies has to be attainable and sustainable.

2B Mindset: Currently I am attempting the 2B Mindset “lifestyle.” I won’t call it a diet. There are some key fundamentals to it: Lots of water, thinking of your plates for each meal split up between the food groups in different ways pending on the time of day (I won’t give away their secret sauce), tracking everything you eat, and a lot of discussion and helpful tools to help you overcome what your personal roadblocks are. Although I have stalled as of late due to all the engagement celebrations, once I am able to focus on the fundamentals of the diet I actually achieve results. After this whirlwind of a month I have made the decision, as promised, to slow down my social calendar and take a step back. This is especially important with the holidays coming up. We all need to get a leg up on this fight so that the holidays don’t drag us too far down.

Review: TBD.

So why did I just spill to you all my diet horror stories? Well, because we all shouldn’t be looking for a diet, but rather a lifestyle change. From what I’ve learned and experienced, anything that takes off weight fast, puts on more weight even faster. Also, and I think this is the most important lesson I’ve learned and can teach, most diets don’t work because they don’t teach you how to live an everyday life. We can’t all just shut ourselves out from the real world, because life is what happens when we are busy making plans. You could get engaged or a friend could suddenly pass away and your sober month rightfully ends with a cheers and many tears. Life derails our plans. Period. So if we think of this fight as just a “diet” that we are derailed from, then the effort to get back into the diet can seem tedious or overwhelming, but if it was a new lifestyle instead of a diet you can simply pick back up and start again on a new day. When I think “diet” it reminds me of a kid that doesn’t want to go to school that morning or do something their parents are making them do. So we drag our feet to pick back up again. When I think of my eating habits as a lifestyle, I see adventure and new experiences. Which would you rather be apart of?

Let us end this Friday with our weekly call to action- I hope that my fight so far has encouraged you to take on your own. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weight loss fight or something else you’ve struggled with. If you did, is your strategy one that is sustainable? Simply put, if this fight is one that will be with you for most of your life it has to be accomplished with a strategy that won’t burn you out. So is this a new lifestyle with new challenges and adventure, or is it a “diet” that will burn you out and frustrate you? Really think about it.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 158.4 LBS, Chest 36.5, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32.25, Below Hips 38.5, Largest Part of Butt 41.75.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “99 Times” by Kate Voegele

So, you see
You’ve got me back again for more
And it seems
Your song is in my head
This is war
Mystery, how I could feel you breathe me

I was sure you would keep
Every promise; you would keep
Every word

My Apology

October 19, 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

I had an entire blog post set up and ready to go, but I had to scrap it. I crinkled up that piece of paper and threw it into the trash of other scrapped rants. Not going to lie, but I am a little frustrated at the moment, with hints of despair. Right now I feel like I have not only let myself down, but let some of you down. The feeling of letting a friend down is so much worse than just having myself to live up to. This 2nd blogiversary did not end like I wanted it to end. Last week things were looking on track. I was dusting off the ol’ gold star stickers from elementary school, but I might have put the cart before the horse and got too cocky. Here I was all ready to post about fruit, vegetables, and eating in moderation, when just until recently I wasn’t doing anything in moderation. I guess its true….Those that can’t, teach, or blog.

This is a new feeling- the feeling of letting others down. I am trying to make myself an inspiration to others that feel the same way as I do, and I screwed it up. I don’t like to disappoint, but what I lack in self control I make up for in backbone. I will always be the first to admit when I did something wrong and apologize. So, here it is- My Apology.

I am sorry.

Plain and simple. Three short words that are packed with so much meaning. I also know you can’t just say “I am sorry” without knowing what you did that was wrong. In light of that…

I am sorry for getting cocky which resulted with me getting clumsy with my fight. As I’ve said before, I am a planner who plans to plan. So there was, and is, a plan to come out of this fight with a big “W” and all of the gold star stickers…

MY “KICK WEIGHT LOSS IN THE ASS” PLAN

Upon wake up weigh yourself to help reflect the events of the previous day;
Drink 16 oz of water before you put anything else in your body;
Drink at least 100 oz of water in one day;
Track anything and everything you put in your mouth for consumption;
Carbs are your Brunch Buddies, but avoid carbs like your friend who gets sloppy drunk around sunset;
Drink a glass of water when you find yourself hungry to make sure you really are in fact hungry;
Workout. Like a lot. And hard. Make it count; and
Drink alcohol only one night/time/event a week, but stay away from wine (too much sugar- makes me bloat).

And done. Easy peasy. As the time went on, I started to see a pound here and there each week shed off. Then, BAM. I got derailed from my perfectly put together plan. Little by little instead of the pounds, my plan started to shed. As of this last Monday I had gained 5 LBS from Friday, drank two days that weekend, didn’t track my food consumption from the weekend, ate carbs after lunch, and snacked without drinking my water. So there it is. My stumble. I Paula Abdul’d this diet and took three steps forward and two step back.

Another thing that is very discouraging is knowing how hard I worked physically this month and knowing that this may be how hard I’ll have to work for the rest of my life to NOT gain weight. And listen to me carefully here. I am not saying that’s how hard I’ll have to work to LOSE weight, but rather how hard I’ll probably have to work to NOT GAIN weight. Makes me want to beat up the spokesperson for Walk Shop who always says “walk 10,000 steps a day for the rest of your life and never gain a pound.” Lies! You sit on a throne of lies!

Right now I am at an important crossroad in this beautiful fight. I have two weekends away in a row starting today. This is going to be a big test for me and my commitment to myself. Do I drown further in this misery or do I pick myself up, dust myself off, grab my tracking book and 30 oz water bottle, and get this shit back on track? I don’t consider myself one to really just give up so easily……So “Shit Back on Track” option it is.

I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. There are going to be setbacks. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. We have to all recognize that. If it was easy, this wouldn’t be a fight and everyone would have the body of Khloe Kardashian post Lamar Odom break up. This isn’t for the weak, this is a fight for the strong. I will be strong even when I get punched. Will you?

I will end, as I always end my weekly posts, with a call to action, but this time this call to action is for me. Self, you will not give up on this fight. You are going to drink that 100 oz of water and get back into the ring and kick this weight loss’ butt. Now.

And thank God I see the thyroid doctor on Monday.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 158.4 LBS, Chest 36.75, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32.5, Below Hips 38.5, Largest Part of Butt 41.75.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “You’ll Be Okay” by Great Big World

You’ll be okay
You’ll be okay
The sun will rise
To better days

And change will come
It’s on it’s way
Just close your eyes
And let it rain

‘Cause you’re never alone
And I will always be there
You just carry on
You will understand

You’ll be okay
You’ll be okay
Just look inside
You know the way

Let it go
Fly away
And say goodbye
To yesterday