Who am I?
What a question! I am someone who usually knows what she wants and goes and gets it! However, my weight has been an area of my life that has really been ignored for some time, and as a result was rarely a priority. I began to gain weight in my mid 20s when I "went away" to college. I can't tell you how or why-- and believe me, I know this sounds CRAZY but-- somehow, I didn't notice the pounds pack on. My figure is rather curvy, so I think it might have been the way the weight had evenly distributed itself, and because it had slowly accumulated. Still- no excuse! I had gone from a size 6 to a size 16 in about 3 years. I was probably about 25 by this time. When I was about 27, I decided to get a personal trainer. He was AMAZING, and literally "worked my butt off" for 3 months. I don't remember what my weight got down to, but I was in a bikini that summer. Eventually, life snuck in and the pounds came back and then I moved to Italy (aka- carb country) and well - I had reached my all time highest weight (220) and biggest size (20+)!
Check this blog for pics (http://me-on-dukan.blogspot.com/2012/01/confessions.html)
This year I decided- NO MORE!!! I DESERVE SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT I HAVE!!! I realized that my weight (and unhealthy ways) were affecting almost all the other areas of my life. I had decided to take a year off to travel the world- and I did travel a lot mostly through Europe, Mexico, Iceland and Cuba. This year was a great time for me to leave the comforts of all that I knew. A chance to reacquaint myself with...ME! When I returned to the States, the vacation was definitely over! It was time to get settled back into the real world. I was accepted to the Masters program of my choice, and in the meantime was looking for work. One day I had a job interview and came to find that I had NOTHING to wear because I had been in stretchy yoga pants for far too long and NONE of my professional clothes fit me! This was a really hard reality to swallow. I had the resume, the motivation, the interview-- and the only thing keeping me from getting the job was not having something to wear? I should rather say-- it was my weight!
That day I made a decision, and ever since I have been on my Journey. Check my Weigh-in page for my current stats and progress. http://me-on-dukan.blogspot.com/p/weigh-in.html
What's Dukan?
I decided to go the Dukan route because I had a close friend who had also put on the pounds, and had successfully lost almost 40 lbs on the Dukan diet (in about 3 months). She looked AMAZING and had been telling me about Dukan, but it wasn't till that day that I started listening. -I liked that the Dukan diet had a structured plan.
-I liked that it had a plan for after the weight was lost.
-I liked that the results were immediate.
-AND most of all I liked that it included the food I already enjoyed eating.
I think this is a VERY important fact when choosing a diet (nutrition plan). I will confess that I hadn't read the book when I started the diet. I received most of my information from my friend, youtube videos and, of course, google. About a week or so in, I finally downloaded the book from Amazon, and I regret not having read the book before I started. If you are thinking of doing Dukan- or are on the plan and haven't already done so-- READ THE BOOK! There is just too much information out there and you'll find that one person says "yes you can eat X" and another will tell you "never have X" and it's not always easy to know who's right. As you can see-- I try to stay away from dictating what the Dukan diet is- The book does that so I feel I don't need to. The reason I recommend reading the book rather than just googling the plan is that EVERY PERSON IS DIFFERENT! You need to understand HOW the diet works, so you can understand how the diet will (or will not) work for YOU. If you understand the principles of the plan, you can try to alter certain things to fit into your lifestyle and make it a more workable Dukan. Just because the diet says "you can't have ---" if you understand WHY, maybe you can make it work for you. You can start to make food choices that will retrain you to eat healthy, and YOU will be making the choices and taking responsibility for the consequences of those choices. There are many ways to do Dukan-- why not do it as flexible and as healthy as possible? I know that some people will disagree with me on this, but I think that the Dukan alone does not guarantee health, so I stand by this!
Why do I blog?
At first I decided to blog kind of like a food journal. If you look at my early posts, they are completely different from the recent ones. I initially wanted to blog my stats-- what I ate, what foods worked for me or did not, and how much weight I was lossing, but as my journey continued my intentions evolved. I began to see that I wasn't interested in a "diet" I was interested in a "transformation". I didn't just want to loose the pounds, I wanted to transform my body and mind. I didn't want to just follow a plan, I wanted to make active choices about eating healthy. I didn't want to just drop the pounds, I wanted to better my health, and I wanted to be more active. It really has been a journey. Everyday a lightbulb goes off, and I discover something new. This is the reason I blog (now)! I want to share this journey with others. I want to inspire, and continue to be inspired by, others on the same path. I stopped putting my daily food diary because I feel that what I eat isn't as important as what compels me . Of course, I still try to include recipes because I love to experiment in the kitchen, but I know that for some people it's important to see an actual "food diary". I'm still working on building an audience- so if that's something that people want- I might add it back in--dunno. I also have a "My Fitness Pal" account- and my diary is viewable to my MFP friends, so send me a message, and tell me if and why you'd like that. I LOVE comments, so I'm always interested in hearing what people enjoy (or don't) about my blog. I just want to end by saying "THANK YOU" to all of you who read, follow, or are members to my blog. Your support means a lot!
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