Weight Loss & Self Love

I’ve struggled with pulling together this post over the last few days. In a world where we are surrounded by messages of self-love and authenticity (which are both very important to me), talking about the 10-15 pounds I want to loose felt a bit shallow. In fact, ever since I wrote thisĀ post about my struggle with gaining weight over the last few years, I’ve tried really hard to just accept my new body. Everyone around me tells me that I look great, and I haven’t put on ‘that much weight’, but I can’t see it that way.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to accept and love myself enough to share pictures of my outfits (and myself) on the internet. Sadly, this year is the first that I haven’t felt comfortable sharing my pictures. When you feel heavy, it doesn’t matter how many people tell you, you look great – you can’t accept it.

I’veĀ tried unsuccessfully for months now to change my diet and I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that food is my crutch. I eat when I’m bored, when I’m angry, and mostly when I’m sad. And worst of all, most of my comfort foods cause my Hashimoto’s and arthritis to flare up. There is no self-love in over-eating and causing myself long-term pain and discomfort.

Now that we’ve got the ugly confessions out of the way, let me tell you the part I’m excited about. One of my digital media clients, The Medicine Shoppe in Fleetwood, offers a coaching based weight loss program called Ideal Protein. For the next 30 days, their in-house coach is going to guide me on portion control, healthy eating, and help me with weekly weigh-ins. During phase 1 of the program, I will also be eating food from the Ideal Protein product line twice a day.

ideal protein 1

[Weighing food and eating controlled portions is so different from my usual method of eating all day long]

ideal protein 2

Initially I was having serious hesitations about eating the food provided by them. I love food, and I love cooking food, but then I went for my consultation. The coach asked me how many pounds I wanted to loose, and I had no idea. My goal is just to feel better when I look in the mirror, and maybe fit into some of the pants I wore last summer. She asked me to guess how much I weighed – when I got on the scale I was a whole 15 pounds more than I thought I was. They also did a body fat and hydration analysis that told me some pretty scary numbers. That was the moment I realized how I’d been using my job as an excuse to over-indulge and my joints, general health, and self-esteem were paying the price.

[wc_box color=”secondary” text_align=”left” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=””] [wc_fa icon=”heart-o” margin_left=”” margin_right=”” class=””][/wc_fa] Self-Love Note: I’m not going to share my weight and body fat percentage numbers today. I don’t want this process to be about a number on the scale, but rather about feeling good. Whenever I feel great about looking in the mirror, I’ll be at my ideal weight. But, for those of you interested in the program, I promise I will share my results at the mid-way point, and end of the 30 days.

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My goal from the Ideal Protein Program is to get to a place where I am happy with my weight in 30-60 days (because my goal is to lose 12-18 pounds, my coach feels this is a reasonable goal), and then get into a maintenance mindset. My body has shown me this year that it no longer has a killer metabolism, and what I eat will stick to my hips. At the end of the program I’d like to have more portion control, a regular eating schedule, and be happy with my body – fingers crossed!

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This series is sponsored by The Medicine Shoppe Fleetwood. They have amazing in-house coaches that are trained on the Ideal Protein program. If you have any questions about the program or weight-loss, I highly recommend them. My coach put me at ease the very first time I went to visit her and was incredibly helpful and patient with my many, many questions.

You can follow them on Facebook here.

 

 

 

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