January 22, 2022

I went out to eat twice today but I made sure to stay in my calorie range. For breakfast I had corned beef hash and eggs, lunch I had a small homemade chocolate strawberry banana smoothie, and for dinner we had Chinese. I had a quarter cup of mushrooms half a cup of green beans, a quarter cup of chicken and broccoli, a half cup of low melon, and a half a cup of fried rice.

My fiancé about died this morning. I was weighing myself just like I do every morning. I stood on the scale and it read 240.8. I was pissed. So I moved the scale thinking there is absolutely no way in hell I gained 10 pounds over night. So I moved the scale. Thinking that it was the wonky flooring or something. I stepped on the scale again and it still said 240.8. I began freaking out when my wonderful fiancé started laughing hysterically. He had been STEPPING ON THE SCALE!! I could have beat him.

After most of the day was over, I found an amazing app called finch. It’s a mental health app that uses a pet widget to encourage you to do daily goals and I’m in love. It made me excited to do the tasks I dread. So I have a clean house and I actually accomplished medial tasks that I hate.

Overall I feel much better and I’m finding this journey isn’t just making me physically healthier but mentally too. I’m excited for this journey and am taking it one day at a time.

“Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it the more it eludes you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and sits softly on your shoulder. “ ~Henry David Thoreau

January 21 2022

T.G.I.F. Thank goodness it’s Friday! It was kinda hard to stay on track today. It’s late and I am finding it difficult to reach my water goal. I missed my weigh in this morning so I went after work and came in at 230.2! Which is exactly 1lb less than last week! I think that’s great progress.

Since I missed my weigh in I was able to go to the store and get a few things for work for the day. So I got some breakfast wraps that were actually really yummy! For lunch I even had another wrap. And dinner was some yummy sliders with left over garlic mashed potatoes. Which, by the way, my future husband HATES mashed potatoes but LOVES these garlic mashed potatoes I made. Yay me!

So it’s Friday. Time to check in with how I’m feeling. My muscles are definitely sore from working out. I did pretty good and met my goal of working out 3 days out of 5 for the week. And other than today I had no problem meeting my water goal! My new scale will be here by Sunday so Monday I will start recording with that for the purposes of the blog. I feel better if I’m being honest I didn’t think I would. But I’ve been in a better mood overall and much more up beat.

I’m getting tired of the frozen meal lunches though and I think I’m gonna have to come up with a better solution. We bought a mini magic bullet today so I can have smoothies for breakfast! I can’t wait! I love smoothies I bought some tropical fruit and some strawberry banana and I add some protein powder too!

It’s 9:00pm, and I’m signing off.

“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” ~Author Unknown

January 20,2022

I was super sleepy this morning, so I skipped my workout. I decided to go for a half hour walk on the treadmill after dinner. It was super busy today so I grabbed a couple of cold pieces of pizza once I got to work and had a bowl of healthy choice beef carne asada and I finally got to cook that chicken I was meant to eat! With the yummiest garlic mashed potatoes and peas. I also smacked on some roasted garlic cloves as dinner was cooking , chicken takes forever!

It’s crazy how much changes when you record everything. Honestly I mean. I’ve done a lot of recording of food but there were always some fudges and once I started fudging it always got worse. Till eventually I’d forget to record at all. But this last week has really opened my eyes. I’ve finally started to make the hard decisions and say no. I’m pretty proud of myself! And it shows in the results I’m seeing! I weigh in tomorrow for the challenge so I’ll have an official weight in tomorrow nights report!

With my wedding right around the corner, and my progress on the scale and with how my body feels, I’m excited for my new lifestyle more than I ever was. Now I’m not doing it for my family or to see a difference on the scale, but to be happier and healthier and seeing results makes the scale just a bonus! Seeing all the notifications from you guys has also helped tremendously! I never expected for my blog to actually be read but thank you all so much!

And at 6:39 pm this is A.B. Signing off.

“We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything.” ~Author Unknown

January 19, 2022

It’s hump day!! The day for stopping at my favorite local coffee shop and getting my favorite flavored coffee. The bird and the bear is some true locally owned goodness. (no I’m not sponsored!) I love getting a cup of hot black coffee here and saying hi to everyone. I also decided to sleep in a bit this morning so my workout will be after I get home from work.

It was such a busy day today I didn’t get to eat breakfast and ended up having a late lunch! Healthy choice makes a spicy teriyaki beef bowl and for being only a level two in the box it sure packed a punch! Tonight’s dinner my grandmas want to take us out to dinner which of course is Mexican! I love Mexican but sometimes it can be on the heavier side of the calorie scale.

As hard as it was at dinner I did avoid dessert and I was within my calorie count for the day! I stepped on the scale this morning and it read 229.8! I breached the 230 mark! I ordered a new scale as a reward for myself that interacts with my app similar to the Fitbit aria and Fitbit app. I also ordered myself a brand new purse! It’s my first semi expensive purse! My next mini goal is 225.

My husband is a firefighter/emt and we have been doing a weight loss challenge for the last couple weeks and Friday will be an official weight in for that! I haven’t met my 30 minutes of activity a day goal but I’ve done better than I have in a long time!

This one is a late post it’s 6:30 am Thursday morning but I’m signing off to go to work! Have a great day everyone and remember: “Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.” ~Author Unknown

January 18, 2022

I had yesterday off of work because of Martin Luther king jr day. Today has been a slight struggle waking up. I got out of bed just after 6:30 am and did an 11 minute yoga session. I weighed in this morning just for funsies and saw that I was at 230.8! Yay for small wins!

For my menu today breakfast is going to be a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and a cup of coffee, lunch will comprise of Benihana vegetable rice for an easy 300 calories. And dinner was going to be chicken and peas, but I ended up having tons of running around the state (almost literally) to do so I ended up eating a bacon double stack from Wendy’s. I tried guys I really did. I went to arbys and ordered a salad and waited 15 minutes for a wilted slimy salad. I took it back and asked them to remake it and I got transparent lettuce. I had resigned myself to just wait till I got home but my fiancé convinced me to just eat anything. I did make sure the burger was within my calorie limit at least and I ended the day with 5 calories left! That’s a win to me.

Speaking of my future husband, he brought up a fantastic point yesterday. We were talking about meals and he asked “Why do we have the heaviest meal of the day just before bed?” So that’s the question of the day! My answer is this, I think it’s preparing our bodies for fasting, because between dinner and breakfast is the most amount of time your body goes without food. What do you think?

Yet another late night here at the Bentley residence! It’s 11:35pm and I’m signing off.

“The greatest wealth is health” ~author unknown

January 17, 2022

This morning I opted for a smoothie breakfast with protien powder and frozen tropical fruit. It’s good but the coconut didn’t blend well so it’s pretty chunky. I need a nutribullet it’s officially on my list. An unprompted trip downstate has set my workout back to tonight but that will be ok too!

Lunch time hit us with some unexpected family drama. I won’t go into it but we decided to take a crappy day and turn it into a date day so we went to the city and had lunch! This put me over my calories by 500 calories, but the portion was big enough that it will also be my dinner so I’m not entirely mad about it.

My work out is going to be a little longer and I want to try to jog a mile and see how long it takes me to Linda give me a base starting point. After that I am gonna sign into the oculus app I mentioned last night and see how that goes!

After about a half hour I finally made the entire mile! That was pretty good in my book but then I tried to do some yoga that just about killed me. Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to do an entire yoga work out! (The one I have planned is about 28 minutes.) but I feel really good after my jog.

One of the reasons I decided to get healthier is the vanity of my wedding just 5 months away. I know I won’t reach my goal weight by that time but if I can get to what I was when I met my future husband that would be swell. But I’ll take what I can get!

It’s 9:12pm and this was my first day, not a giant success but it’s better than yesterday and that’s all that matters. A few simple tips for life: feet on the ground, head to the skies, heart open…quiet mind.

January 16, 2022

It’s 10:56 pm and I find that I’m incapable of trying to sleep for so many reasons. To start I am at the least healthiest point in my life than I ever have been in the past, and while I love my job it is so far from being the active work I’ve always done. While that’s a recent development I realize in advance how that is going to effect the already. Downward spiral that is my health.

I’d say around 8 years ago I gained myself a hernia. I can’t remember how I did it, but I did. For the last 8 years I pretended that it didn’t exist. If I just kept pushing it in I’d be fine and there would be nothing to worry about. That was a joke.

I was at work, and when it popped out it hurt so badly I crippled over in pain and my coworker forced me to leave him by himself and go home. I laid there for two days in the most excruciating pain I’d been in in a long time. Probably since I had injured it to begin with. This prompted my wonderfully supportive fiancé to encourage me to finally get it taken care of.

I started whining instantly, I knew this was going to mean surgery. But I knew it needed to be done. So I went and I got the surgery. At which point the surgeon proceeded to tell my future husband that if I didn’t lose weight I was going to re injure either that hernia or sprout a new one on the other side. No one ever really has the guts to tell you to lose weight to your face anymore.

I didn’t take it seriously at first. As I healed from my surgery I continued my destructive behavior and even after my recovery. The fear of the change too daunting to actually make me want to attempt. But there are so many things that I want to experience! From traveling and hiking all the way to having children!

These things require me to change.

So here’s my tale and this is how we are going to do it, the videos and podcasts and blogs may be short but I want to record daily and post weekly so maybe they will be a bit longer. The blogs will be updated daily to make sure I’m accountable. This post with serve as my parameters that I need to meet daily.

First and foremost my terrible relationship with food. I will be in a 1600 calorie diet and using the lose it app to track everything I eat and drink. I will be using normal macronutrients and will not be using any “fad” diets. If it fits in my macros and caloric intake then I can have it. I will also save a portion of the calories for the drinks I intake as I am completely incapable of purely drinking water.

My activity goals will be going up every month. For the rest of this month my activity goal is 15 minutes but I’m aiming for 30 minutes at least. I will cap my workouts at 2 hours in length to not over exert myself. that may look like a game in the oculus. They have this really cool fitness game that I loved and I may just suck up the cost for it.

I do have a water intake goal based on an app I purchased. It calculates the water intake my body receives with everything I drink not just water and adjusts it accordingly. This app works with lose it to track my water automatically in the lose it app.

It’s 11:10pm. And A.B. Is signing off for her first night. I hope to inspire even one person through my journey. My first official weigh in is 231.2lbs I don’t have a particular goal in mind. I just want to feel happy and healthy.