Just Keep Swimming

Hey America,

I am back today with a very important message to all of those in the thick of a longterm weight-loss goal. So if you know me personally you may have seen me recently post that I have hit a wall with my weight-loss. If you do NOT know me personally let me fill you in. I recently have hit a plateau with my weight-loss. For 2 whole weeks I have been sitting impatiently at the exact same weight. I am used to once a month having my weight fluctuate because of "womanly" reasons, but TWO weeks? Seriously? It is already hard enough to make drastic lifestyle changes when you are seeing success but it is excruciating when you are seeing ZERO progress. Don't worry, I haven't quit my program and have still stayed on the path towards healthy living its just really hard. Today I met with my nutritionist and told her all about my woes of no progress. She first told me that I was stressing about nothing because I have lost 13 pounds since seeing her four weeks ago. She also told me that it is normal to hit a plateau and that my weight-loss was going to slow down eventually. Apparently sometimes just being a woman can be enough to cause a plateau. When you are in the process of losing a lot of weight your hormones sometimes struggle to adjust. So essentially your body can freak out and have extra PMS like symptoms causing a weight-loss halt because it can't deal with your rockstar pound shreddage. She also told me that plateau's don't last forever and to just keep doing what I am doing. A plateau can last up to a month, but eventually things will change. She also told me that my weight-loss has been better than most people who come to see her regularly so my ego was significantly boosted.

So I wish I could now tell you that magically I have dropped 20 pounds in the last few hours since seeing my nutritionist but I cannot. What I can tell you is that this sucks but it is not a reason to stop. For the last two weeks of my progressless journey I have been reflecting a lot on the true goal of this journey. This journey isn't really about weight-loss as much as it is about becoming the best and most healthy version of myself. Don't get it twisted, I would love nothing more than to be bikini ready by next summer but that's not what this is all about. This journey is about being living longer and hopefully having a long future with my girls. This journey is about having the energy to be apart of my own life and being able to enjoy every second of it. This journey is about being able to do things like one day ride roller coasters again and fit into tiny go carts. This journey is about feeling good about the choices I made today to better my body. So instead of quitting and feeling sorry for myself I did the only thing I could think to do. I took the advice from Dory (Yea, the one from finding Nemo) I just kept swimming.

Swimming has been my exercise of choice this time around in my weight-loss journey. Swimming has proven to be a very productive and calming workout for me. While swimming I seem to find the time to reflect and dream about my weight-loss completion and the excitement I have towards my future. Swimming is also a incredible way to burn calories. It can serve as a  great exercise to work your way back into an active lifestyle if you have been out of commission for a while. So when I am standing on the scale and seeing no progress at all I "Just keep swimming." When I see everyone on Facebook posting videos of all the satanic food they plan to make and devour that will never fit into my current diet plan I "Just keep swimming." When my body is completely exhausted and all I want to do is live in a quiet hole filled with wall to wall makeup I "Just keep swimming." When my adorable children clock out and the beautiful button pushers clock in and wear every inch of me thin I "Just keep swimming." When those really cute clothes that are collecting dust in my closet STILL don't fit yet I "Just keep swimming."

Everyone hits a wall once in a while. Most people end up quitting during this time because they have worked so hard and still feel like they have failed. I am that same person. I have quit more diets than I could ever count because when things got hard I gave up. A weight-loss plateau can be one of the most challenging yet character building times while on the path to healthy living. If you are currently in a plateau or just coming out of one, you are not alone. You will not stay there forever and use it as a time to reflect on the true goal of your weight-loss journey. Life is full of valleys and mountaintop experiences and a plateau is the valley of weight-loss. You are not a failure. I repeat YOU are NOT a failure. You may be in this very dark moment but light eventually will shine through. You can do this, even when the odds are completely against you. Stop worrying about when the next great pound shred is coming and think about what you can learn from this. Learn more about yourself and maybe switch up your diet a little bit while changing up your exercise a little too. This moment won't last forever even though it may feel that way. So take a step back and a deep breath and while you wait...

Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging me during my weight-loss journey especially during the last two weeks. The love and support of my friends and family have kept me going.


In the meantime,

Stay sexy America.

Be true to you.

With love,

Drew

Current Weight-loss
69 incredibly meaningful pounds

How to lose weight... and KEEP it off

Hey America,

I have some exciting news! Today I weighed myself and saw that I have lost a total of 68 pounds since July 2015. I have had a lot of people ask me what I am doing to lose this weight. Over the next few blog posts I will share 1 of my weight-loss secrets in each blog and give some additional insight about the process of losing weight in general. Before you even ask I will tell you why I will only share one secret per post. First, obviously I want to give you guys a reason to keep reading my exceptionally sarcastic but factual blog. Secondly, one thing I have discovered along this weight-loss journey is the importance of making lifestyle changes slowly. When most people start a diet they go HAM in the beginning with an extreme diet and exercise program. As we all know that when it comes to life eventually things happen or come up that cause us to fall off the weight-loss wagon. I cannot stress it enough that when choosing to become a healthier human it requires that you change your entire lifestyle. You have to make this more than a priority and decide that these choices and cuts in your diet are not just a temporary thing until you lose that 10 pounds. You have to decide that you will live your life this way, forever. So for today I think I will share with you my first weight-loss secret. This is actually what I started doing back at the end of July when I knew I needed to start making changes. I waited until I could master this one thing before I started trying to move onto the next thing. Alright,  so here is my first BIG SECRET which helped me create the groundwork for a change of my entire eating lifestyle.

EAT really REALLY SLOWLY:
Ok, so I want you to close your eyes and imagine you are a turtle...ok just kidding, like how can you read this with your eyes closed? Ok, so the first lifestyle change that I made back in July was eating slowly. This means that every time I sit down to eat an actual meal I try to make it take 20 minutes or more to eat. This may sound like a piece of cake (which cannot take more than 2 minutes to eat if we are being real) but it's actually one of the hardest things to master. SO here is a little more insight into making meals take 20 minutes to eat. First off this doesn't mean you grab a plate of food, inhale it, grab seconds, inhale it, and then continue down this rabbit hole until 20 minutes pass. This means you grab an honest and small serving of food and make THAT take 20 minutes to finish. This is actually a pain to do. Our entire culture is about eating quickly and on the go. Think for a second about how often you sit down and take your time to really enjoy your meal? Even when eating as a family it is rare that a meal takes longer than 10-15 minutes to consume. We often live our lives on the go so we end up eating on the go. So I will now do what I do best and assume some questions you have about this concept and answer them.

Why 20 minutes?
Because I said so.
The End.
Ok, fine, here is a more in-depth answer. 20 minutes is the amount of time it takes for food to settle in your stomach. When you eat slowly you give your stomach time to acknowledge the food in your super sexy belly before you overeat. This doesn't mean you can never eat more than one portion of food it just means you need to wait and see if you are actually still hungry after your first HONEST portion has settled. If you are still hungry after 20 minutes go and grab another SMALL portion and eat that slowly as well.

How do you take 20 minutes to eat a small portion of food?
You can't.
It's Impossible
Accept failure and disregard this entire blog.
JUST KIDDING.
The best way to start out eating slowly is the art of DISTRACTION. You literally have to distract yourself while you eat so that you don't focus directly on the fact that you are eating. So one of the easiest ways to distract yourself while eating is to not eat alone. If you eat with another person try engaging in a real conversation and it will serve as a good distraction from you pounding hunger. Also it is just a good human practice to actually converse with another human instead of staring at your cellphone the entire time.

What if I don't have any friends?
You may want to figure out what makes you so unlikeable and work on that.
Ok, fine, try doing something else while you eat. Multi-task while you eat. This may sound weird and backwards from everything you have ever been taught about good food etiquette but this is what I have found to work the best. If I am eating a meal alone I will do something along with eating so that I am distracted from devouring my plate in ten seconds. When I started this method I would read my bible and take notes and tried applying the bible to my habits of eating. Sometimes I will stalk Facebook, play a game on my phone, write, or even watch television so that I don't focus on my food.

What if I am really busy and never have time to take 20 minutes to eat?
Then you really will fail. When you are making lifestyle changes they have to become an actual part of your life, permanently. Yes, there are times when I really don't have to ability to spend 20 minutes eating but those times are so much more rare now that I have made myself a priority. Look, this isn't an easy fix but it is a way to lay groundwork for a stronger and healthier future. You have to decide that you are important enough to make some serious lifestyle changes.

Additional tips for eating slower:

Set a timer:
Literally, pull out your phone and set a 20 minute timer. EVERY single time you eat set the timer. I do this all the time. It is rare that I do not do it. I don't care if I am out with friends or family or alone or whatever I am doing I set a freaking timer. I also check it frequently while I eat so that I can gage my eating habits. You want to eat your meals in a balanced way. So when you eat mentally break down your food into 4 portions and eat one portion per 5 minutes. If you eat 90% of the food within the first 5 minutes it is pure agony to wait to eat those last 3 bites of magical sustenance. If you only eat 30 % up front and then pile drive food with your last two minutes you will end up still hungry and have basically waisted your time and mine (because I wrote this incredibly insightful blog). Trust me, I've gone about this method so many different ways that I have perfected this method. Over time you will see that you start getting fuller faster and eating less overall.

Eat like a baby:
What this means is when you eat you eat really small baby bites of food. Sometimes I even precut my food so that I have small bites ready to eat. When you eat smaller bites and FULLY chew them (whole notha blog) you will stretch that 20 minutes further than you thought.

In a nutshell, start small when you start any changes to your lifestyle. Start by timing how long it takes you to eat a meal in general and then start extending that time little by little until you make it to 20 minutes. When I mastered eating my food in 20 minutes I have noticed that I usually end up taking 30 minutes or more to eat. Sometimes I even take close to an hour to eat because I have successfully distracted myself so well. Yes, I am a server's worst nightmare at a restaurant because I will be there all night eating my 3 pieces of chicken. This is hard work but I know you can do this. If I can do this you absolutely can too. I have faith in you.

Stay Sexy America.

Be True to you.

With love,

- Drew

Currently down 68 unicorn pounds.

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