Getting Started

Hey Everyone!!  Are yall ready to start this journey of losing weight together?!?! 

Some of you may not know exactly where to start.  I will share with you how I have achieved losing 35 lbs in 4 months.  But please know that everyone is different.   What has worked for me may not work just the same for you.  But hopefully it will help you and hopefully you can have success!!

Let me first start by saying that I believe the biggest key to succeeding in losing weight is to have the right mindset!  Do not tell yourself you are on a diet – you are setting yourself up to fail from the get-go.  The word diet brings to most people minds other words like restrictions, limitations, bland food, etc…  Tell yourself that you are making a lifestyle change.  I have changed the way that I am eating…it has not only helped me to lose the weight but it is going to help me keep it off.  A diet is temporary.  You go on the diet and lose the weight and then you end the diet.  But what happens most of the time when you end the diet?  The weight starts coming back on.  Who wants to yo-yo in their weight the rest of their lives?  I know I don’t!!  So I figured if I can eat healthy to get the weight off then I continue to eat healthy to keep the weight off!

Also you need to remove the word can’t from your vocabulary!  You will not exceed with an I can’t attitude!  Just remember Phillipians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”  Christ wants you to be healthy!  You can do it!

I personally follow the weight watchers point system.  Do you have to follow that diet to be part of this group? No, of course.  There are many healthy diets out there.  You do what is comfortable with you.  But if you are lost as to what to do to follow then I will share how I follow this system and by all means follow along.  The weight watchers system looks at calories, fat and fiber.  You want to have low calories and low fat, and fiber is a big plus!  You have a daily point value.  I have already written a post on how to determine that point value.  Click here to read the post.

Once you have determined your daily point value then you need to know how to calculate the point values for food items.  Click here to go to an online calculator tool.  I personally took the formula (Points = (Calories / 50) - (Fiber * 0.2) + (Fat * 0.083)) and put it in an Excel spreadsheet so that I could have it even when I am not online.

You will need a way of journaling what you eat every day.  You can use a journal where you write it down everyday…or have a file on your computer where you type it in.  This is extremely important, especially at the beginning, so that you can know how many points you have had that day, and most importantly, how many points you have left.

Now this formula goes with the flex plan…which allows an extra 35 points per week on top of your daily point allowance.  Some people like to spread that out throughout the week so if one day they go over their point limit they can just pull from their 35 flex point bank.  The way my hubby and I have done it is we strive to stay within our daily point values on the weekdays and if we do that then we can splurge on the weekends with the flex points :-).  The important thing is that you find what works for you.

Here is a website that has some awesome information on point values for different foods, point values for restaurants, recipes, menu plans and more.  Click here to access that website. 

Speaking of restaurants…what I did when I began is went to the website above and went through the restaurant list and for restaurants that are in my area that I eat at I got me a little notebook and wrote down some of the menu items that I would order and the point values.  I keep that notebook in my purse so that when I go to these restaurants I can refer to it to know what the best menu choice would be.

I will be posting menu plans on this blog (looking at doing that on Mondays).  I will also be making posts about low point snacks, restaurant deals I have found, etc.  I have another blog where I post recipes with point values.  I will continue to post all my recipes there but will have links to specific recipes on posts on this site.  Click here to check out that blog and see some of the recipes I have already posted.

I have already gotten a suggestion to post recipes that are easy enough for people who do not cook at all to be able to fix.  I will be striving to meet that request when I can.

Please feel free to let me know of any other requests that you have that you would like to see on this blog as well.

I hope this post helps you to get started in your diet journey.  Please feel free to let me know of any questions you may have at this point and I will do my best to answer them!

Look out for weekly theme posts on different days of the week.  I am still trying to get all that figured out…hopefully we will get it all figured out soon!

Please know that this post will be under the Getting Started category on the right hand column of the blog if you need to refer to it in the future.

So – are you ready to lose weight together?!?!

Kellie