Continuing Weight Loss

In the last 2 months (well, it'll be 2 months in a few days) I have lost 15lbs doing Atkins! BMI has gone from 30.5 to 28. Healthy BMI is around 20-24 range. Hubby has lost 25 lbs. I'd say the diet is going well. Despite the rapid weight loss, it feels slow. I want desperately to be at a healthy weight and to have more control over my body. I'm 10lbs up from my wedding weight, which was borderline okay weight, and 10-15lbs more than I'd have liked to weigh. So, I'm 20-25lbs away from ideal. Having a goal that I can measure has been really good for me.

Starting to LIVE

So, my hubby and I are doing the Atkin's Diet. We've been doing this for 5 full days. My hubby's lost 10 lbs (!!!), which is approximately 3% of his body weight and I've lost 3 1/2 lbs or 2% of my body weight. FIVE days. We are hoping this trend continues, because this is awesome.

The diet consists of high (good) fats/high protein and low carbs. I eat LOTS of veggies, just the lower carb ones (ie. green leafy veggies, no carrots or potatoes) & eggs, fish, meat, poultry, etc.  The first 2 days were HELL (sugar/caffeine crash) where we felt: greasy, had headaches, slightly nauseous, achy, etc. But since 2 days ago I have had TONS of energy, I keep going, going, going...

I spent most of yesterday just cleaning, making up for months of slacking off. I still have a lot to go. However, I made so much progress and I know that probably by the end of today (or tomorrow) my house will be zen-like in peace and cleanliness. We cleaned our room yesterday and now it's a place I like to be in. At the end of the day yesterday I even had time to exercise on the elliptical and I burned 400 calories! I never knew how much carbs were getting me down. I'm prediabetic (I believe I have been since my early 20s even when I was thin) and I get sugar crashes where I get weak, lightheaded, dizzy, and nauseous if I don't eat every 3 hours. Since we started Atkins I've been able to go for 5 hours w.o eating before I start to feel uncomfortable and that's only a little bit.

What started this all? Well, since my husband lost his job I've been depressed and felt trapped. I've plopped myself on the couch and watched hours of tv series at night. I'd do this from about 9pm to usually 2am, sometimes later. First it was The Office. I watched the entire series on Netflix streaming. Then it was Heroes. I watched all four seasons of that as well. I was obssessed. I'd just sit there and after 10pm (almost on the button) I'd feel RAVENOUSLY hungry. This was even if I'd had a protein/carb snack. So I'd binge; I just couldn't stop. I kept eating and eating. The culprits were icecream, cheesy hotdogs, and occasionally beer. I was trying to feed my emotions to "feel better" and nothing helped. I felt extremely helpless and out of control.

When my hubby decided to do Atkins I found hope. It had been a hardship in our marriage that my husband is largely overweight and not able to do activities together that he and I would enjoy.Atkins has been great for our marriage. I have respect for my husband that he is taking his life into his own hands and making a change. We can now be healthy and DO things! I want to be able to ride on an airplane with him without him feeling uncomfortable, to go kayaking, to exercise together, etc. All these things are very important to me. He has SO much to lose, but I believe he can do it. And it's great for our marriage because we are working on a goal together and that brings us closer. We are finally started to LIVE and I want to make this life count. I'm sick of dying, I want to LIVE!

Update

So here's an update on my life. Matt's unemployed, however he has some promising web developer contract gigs coming up (possibly). We are both actively looking for work. We are on day 3 of the Atkin's diet. Matt's lost 8 1/2 lbs (holy cow!) and I've lost about 2. So far, it seems to be working. We're going to try it for 2 weeks and then go for there. I've really felt like I'm in hell without all the sugar and carbs until today when it wasn't as big as a deal. But we've been realizing how much sugar/carbs the kids eat and we're going to try to figure out how to change that so they grow up knowing how to eat healthy and aren't faced with the same problems we have today (obesity, emotional eating, sugar crashes, etc). So far this has done fantastic things for our marriage since we are working as a team. It has created A LOT more dishes as we cook at every meal. I'm trying to keep up, but it's hard with the kids.

The Internet Monk

 Michael Spencer recently died. I didn't know who he was, but now I do: he called himself "the internet monk" and he blogged. This particular article is fantastic: http://www.internetmonk.com/articles/B/broken.html

To Be Told

I've joined a small women's group who is studying To Be Told by Dan Allendar about how God co-authors your life. I've read this book before, it is amazing. I'm looking forward to going through this book with other women to see the themes of what God is doing in our lives and what sort of tale I've fallen into (paraphrase from Sam, character in LOTR).