Monday, February 27, 2023

There and back again, a fat girls journey

 Hey y'all I hope you are doing well, and happy Monday. I was talking to a friend this past Friday while we walked and ran 3 miles. I am so grateful for this relationship that came from the most unlikely of circumstances. She is just starting her journey, has the best attitude, and I am excited to watch her progress. In my last blog, I showed pictures of myself that are really outside my current comfort zone.  I have been wondering how I confidently went from posting my workouts 4 years ago to not wanting to be in any pictures at all. As I mentioned earlier that I used my job as an excuse all the time to not go anywhere or do anything partly because I wasn't confident about the way that I looked. 

Now I struggle with the fact that I now weigh 118.6 and have the mentality of a 150-pound woman and am discovering that mindset is just as hard to lose as the weight is. Why is it that no one ever really shares this this is what I want to highlight in this blog? Yes losing the weight has been amazing and overwhelming because this is what I weighed in my 30s and didn't think I would ever get back here.  Being overweight along with other life changes really took my confidence and I have slowly and I mean slowly getting it back. I like the fact that I am way more humble now and want to find my balance is weird when you go places and people don't really acknowledge your existence. Now more people smile at me and I am way more confident. I believe that my insecurities diminishing along with my weight and body fat. 

How do I receive positive feedback while remaining humble? This is very important to me because there are narcissistic tendencies in every generation of my family that have inflicted a lot of pain and damaged relationships. That is a main consideration for me because I have been that way in the past. Everything was about me and my needs, especially around my career.  I got a strong work ethic from my dad I guess because I excelled in the military, and college I wasn't the smartest kid but did make the dean's list a couple of times. My professors recognized my potential and gave me a teaching assistant position which was a leadership role. Even in my first job out of college I excelled and got promoted, and really accomplished a lot of good things for that company.

My work ethic has been with me since then and served me well until my position had been eliminated even though I was a stellar employee. If that doesn't shake your confidence then invest yourself in someone that you absolutely love and poured your life into then have them leave and turn on you. Couple that with weight gain and you will have a fractured and insecure soul. So I have learned that is not just a weight issue a lot of things have hit me and hit me hard over the past five years. I have been afraid to deal with them until now. My faith has brought me through and helped me realize that I can't just pray my problems away. I have to take action by improving my skills, physical, and mental self. I touched on relationships and am at a point where I choose quality over quantity now.  I surrounded myself with people that made me feel better about my current situation. There was an interesting response from those people when I decided to make positive changes in my life, and wish them the best. My journey will continue and I am excited to see where I go from here.


Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Then and now

 About a year ago my friend was in town and we met with other some other friends for lunch. I had not seen some of these ladies in a long time. Part of it was due to covid, but part of it was that I was ashamed of where I was with my weight and made every excuse not to see people. I was very comfortable staying home in my stretchy pants. I look pregnant in this picture and my issues had absolutely nothing to do with these awesome ladies and everything to do with myself. When you are not your best self you do not want to be around others that remind you of where you should be. I have allowed that to make me insecure and withdraw from many things.



I had to really face my insecurity demons at the gym where modesty has completely gone out the window. What's crazy is that I attend a pretty conservative gym but I have to say that some of the things these young ladies are wearing astound me. I know that I had issues with my body but really I would not let my daughters dress the way I am seeing these girls dress. Alright, back to my why in my weight loss journey. I decided that I was going to bring it to the gym, focus on my workouts, and not be concerned with anyone else but Craig. 





This was me about a month ago and I am 25 pounds less and counting. I have decided that I am going to continue on Keto/ Low Carb indefinitely. I am used to it now and feel great at age 49. I think I might even have abs for my 50th birthday in May. Now that I am on the other side of this weight loss journey I will say that I am glad I did it. I got inspired to intermittent fast in August and recommend that for women especially if you are premenopausal. I have had no more hot flashes or symptoms since I went on Keto. Fasting was hard but became easier with Keto. When I started my main focus was to cut out the carbs and sugar and eat 15 net carbs per day. Every morning I would have my water with electrolytes, coffee with Jordan's skinny syrup, and cream. I fast until 10:30 now but then I would fast until I was starving. If you are not exercising you really should be fasting longer, and eating fewer meals. I did and will when I go back to work. 

I am in the gym right after breakfast and try to burn 300 or more calories during my workouts. I can work out as long as I want for now so I am truly trying to make the best of my situation. I know that it won't last, but I will still work out when I go back to work. I will implement the fasted row and fast as long as I can and my lunch break will be working out. The other thing is that every meal I have is under 5 net carbs. In the beginning, I felt like a math magician trying to calculate net carbs so I made things very easy. I ate a lot of cream cheese, cheese, meat, olives, and chicharrones. As I got better at understanding this lifestyle I have been able to make more substitutes, especially in the sweets department. I had to understand the difference between all the sweeteners, and now that I am seeing "no sugar" products everywhere. Diet stuff existed but now I am seeing no sugar candy everywhere. If you have a sweet tooth Keto is for you. I didn't eat nearly as many sweets as I do now which is daily. I usually have a treat after dinner. My absolute favorites are the Russel Stover sugar-free caramel sweets variety and high-key products are amazing too. You really can convert anything into a low-carb, keto option, and the more you are in ketosis the more accustomed you become to the taste.

There are so many good products, and people putting out content everywhere because Keto and Low Carb work. If you don't believe me look at the pictures. The time difference between the two photos above is about 10 months apart. I was settling into the fact that I was just going to continue to get fatter as I got older. As I mentioned before I typically go against the grain and am a different thinker altogether. I knew that I could remain in the state I was insecure and isolated. I don't think that being isolated is as bad as I once did. In a lot of aspects, it helped me to see that I had a lot of unresolved issues even from my childhood that I had to work through. The truth is that the distance of certain people really gave me the opportunity to face my issues. I went from having so many friends to 2, one completely ghosted me,  but gained a friend that is more like gaining a brother.  To anyone in the past with if I did anything to hurt you I apologize and honestly do not have any bad feelings toward anyone. 

Losing this weight has been good but very painful. I am excited to drop the weight and reshape my body, but there really is something that I don't see out there and is part of my why. When you are insecure about yourself it is literally like a disease. At this time I know where it came from, started writing a book that I really think I am going to pick back up again. I believe through my own life experiences that not dealing with rejection is the root of insecurity. All of my rejection issues started coming to light when my position was eliminated with the company I had worked at for 12 years. The details are going to be in my book but I will share that all of it is painful on so many levels. I am grateful to my husband and youngest daughter who has really been there for me, and hope that all of this improves my relationships going forward. 












Sunday, February 5, 2023

"No more jeggings"

If you ever watched mommy dearest as a kid you'll remember the phrase"no more wire hangers." That is where I got the title of this blog, but instead of hangers, it will be jeggings or any other pants with elastic bands outside of workout clothes. At age 49, I can reflect on how my body has changed over time as a kid I was called "gordita" which means "fat little girl"  by family members. I realize now that it was only because they were comparing me to my sister. Yep, there are some negative family dynamics that are going to come out in this blog. I will do my best to cover the situation and how it impacted me only.

When you are a child and your family tells you stuff like that you actually believe it. I believed that I was fat and food became my comfort, especially after losing my mom. My sister and I lived in Utah with family and were healthy & active. To this day I have to give a shout-out to Utah peeps as a lot of them live a healthy lifestyle that I admire. That was the natural turning point for me and I took those habits and kept them. I just lived life and mostly ate whole foods that were prepared at home. We very seldom ate out, there were fewer fast food places, and the foods were not processed, & filled with sugar the way they are today. Those things are making us fat & sick. I recommend that you youtube the man who fasted for 55 days because that documentary is factual and lived out.

One of my best friends and I had a discussion about carbs that may give you more perspective. He was trying my salted caramel iced coffee with sugar alcohol and thought it was delicious. I asked if there was an aftertaste and he said it was minimal. He was wondering what would there be an aftertaste if someone tried natural sugar cane for the first time. I totally had a Ratatue moment and was transported to the time I had sugar cane as a kid. I remember liking it, but my best sweet memories as a kid were being at a cherry farm, eating crab apples, and eating fresh peas out of my aunt's garden. Then we started talking about how low carb is the normal eating that I grew up on for the most part.

I am grateful for growing up eating mainly scratch-made meals, but the military mess hall was the best thing on the planet. The meals were new and interesting, and combos I never had like chili mac. I ate whatever I wanted in Army because I was uber-active but my weight hung out at 125 which is what I weigh today. So let's get into the jeans shall we; the truth is that I love jeans. I would wear them all the time. In writing this blog the last time I remember wearing jeans. Let me clarify what jeans are: they are zip-up or button-up non-stretchy pants which I have been wearing for the past 13-plus years. 

So as I have gone through this journey currently unemployed, I do have time to hit the gym and really focus on my workouts. Bettering myself physically has increased my capacity mentally as well. I am constantly wanting to improve myself and know the job will come and the fat is disappearing. It is such a big deal to me to be 125 and this month I plan to take my work outs and my food to the next level. I am not going to weigh my self until March, but plan to move more, eat at home, drink more water, and less alcohol. Right now I fit into a size 2 dress, 4 jean, and converting into extra small work out wear. I am so asstounded to be back her and plan to main train a low carb life style. There are times when I do miss my fries but I am making a keto air fried fish and blooming onion tonight. I get to cook things differently, and there are more products available. Please still read your labels though because it can be tricky, but I have promised my self to stay with this lifestyle. And that I will hopefully never grow into jeggings again,

Until next time,

Carmen (Mindy) Lewis