Lvl 1 Rebel LFG

[Annabelle]

Well, after subscribing to the Nerd Fitness mailer and joining the rebellion several months ago - I decided that its finally time to take action and join the rebellion.

 

A little backstory here - all through high school and my teen years I wasn't ever overweight per say. I was never happy with my body though, despite being fairly tall on average for my gender (5'10-ish) and I usually weighed in around 155-160 pounds, depending on if I was in the height of volleyball season and running two-a-day practices through the summer. After high school, I was a waitress so I was constantly motoring around and managed to keep my weight at a respectable level. Then I wound up in the job I'm in now, nine years later. I work a desk job for a government agency and over the course of that nine years I've had one child and packed on an irresponsible 100 pounds. It makes me cringe even TYPING that. I tried pills like Hydroxycut and tried all sorts of fad diets "guaranteed to shed those pesky pounds!" - like dropping red meat out of the equation, a bastardized Atkins diet, and I even tried going vegetarian for a while. Nothing worked long term, despite managing to whittle my way back down around 190-ish at my smallest since the pregnancy. So now, my daughter is in first grade, I'm headed toward a new career path (I went back to school a few years ago, finished my Associates last fall and I started on my BA program this past spring!) and I know I need positive change in my health to go along with the changes I'm making in my professional life.

 

Now the fun stuff - my nerd cred! I was a pretty mild nerd growing up, I loved fantasy novels and my friends tried to get me to play stuff like Magic the Gathering, but I was always hesitant to let my nerd flag fly at home. Luckily, my brother and I both found Dagorhir and it changed everything. We really embraced the culture of fantasy mixed with history and I felt like I'd found a huge pool of kindred spirits. I married my husband (also an avid member of Dagorhir) and he really coaxed the nerd out. Now I'm rotating between WoW (been playing since Vanilla!), MtG, Skyrim, a D&D group on Wednesdays, and putting together my online World of Darkness freestyle rp board. I adore D&D, which is part of the reason I'm so excited to put together my personal character sheet. I'm majoring in English with a focus in Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Literature and minoring in Ancient European history. I'm hoping to teach one day, and can't WAIT to finish my BA (another 2-ish years to go!).

 

I've been brainstorming off and on at work the last two days while I've been reading up on the 6 week challenges. I've even convinced my husband to set some personal goals and work alongside me. He's usually my worst enemy when it comes to fitness and nutrition, because he's a major enabler. He would rather see me happy and content instead of frustrated or sore, which is nice in a "oh how sweet" way, but it's been really difficult to work against my partner's wishes instead of with them. Hopefully our stay here will help us fix that

 

TL;DR - I'm a fatty nerd who wants to change it xD Already failed on fad diets and I'm hoping a healthy mix of motivation and collaboration will help me make a permanent change.

 

Edited to add - here's a photo of me out fighting back in 2009-ish? I can't wear those pants anymore - so I'd at least like to slim back down into my old garb if nothing else! (In the event its not clear - I'm the one with the burgundy shield )

 

[Rexxar Txan]

Hello and welcome to NF!!!

 

For weight loss I'd suggest the paleo diet. A bit hard at first, but once you start it gets easier and easier. It's great you managed to get your husband on board too. Makes the transformation more fun!

 

It's great that you've finally dived into the forums! You won't find a better group of helpful, supportful and knowledgeable nerds anywhere!

 

I'd also suggest doing the next 6wc as a way to start!

 

Good luck!

[Annabelle]

I tried Paleo starting at the end of December, which lasted for about 3 weeks or so. My husband absolutely, flat out, refused to get on board with eating Paleo. He just couldn't do away with his precious rice/potatoes/etc. He doesn't really eat vegetables aside from corn, so it gets kinda difficult for us to agree on meals. It's part of why my previous 'diets' failed. I was just way too lazy to go through the effort of cooking two meals a night. It's even more of a contentious issue now that he's unemployed and he does all the cooking in the evening. He just simply doesn't know how to cook proper food. I'm just impressed he's figured out how to do something other than bake chicken.

 

I've been easing my way back into it, and trying to go with weaning myself off of some of the key 'bad' foods by not replacing them once we're out (so no more pasta after we finish whats in the pantry, etc). It's a lot easier to do for breakfast and lunch since I only have to worry about myself then.

 

Thank you! I'm working on getting a concrete set of goals outlined for the next 6 week challenge. I'll be pestering my husband into doing it too, once our D&D session has ended tonight of course. Unless I can get the whole group in on it

[Rexxar Txan]

That would be awesome! Especially if you can get your whole D&D team in on it!

 

Try taking one things at a time out in the Paleo. Not many people can go cold turkey. And it's easier if you stop buying things too. As for meals it's amazing what you can do with just a few ingredients. Mix and match is all there is to it!

 

BTW technically corn is not a veggie. Try googling it there are a lot of resources out there you can learn from. I personally recommend Mark Sisson and Robb Wolf. They are two of the top gurus on this subject.

 

And, if you want I can help you look over your goals. I'm no expert (yet), but I love to read A LOT before doing anything.

[Annabelle]

I've argued the 'corn is not a vegetable' lecture to him until I'm blue in the face. He's a stubborn mule His family is from Iowa though, so they're about as protective of corn as I am of potatoes.

 

I did buy myself a little mini crockpot to make my own meals in for a while, which worked until I ran out of creative ideas. I need to break that back out though, especially on days when my husband plans on making chicken coated in breadcrumbs and cheese and mashed potatoes to go along with it. A few chicken breasts, some dijon mustard, and some carrots in the crock pot would be much healthier. I should pick up the ingredients to make a huge batch of gazpacho this weekend though, I could LIVE off of that in the summer. So delicious.

 

It's so sad, I'm not a nutritional idiot but I'm so farking lazy ;_; I need to quit on that, because once the summer is over and school starts again I'll be in serious trouble if I haven't managed to get myself into a positive meal routine.

[Nivek]

Sweet picture.  Looks like a lot of fun. 

[Rexxar Txan]

Could you share your gazpacho recipe with us? I always love new recipes! My fav so far is the paleo version of a Philly Cheese Steak, the cheese sauce is optional but sooooo good!

 

I made a 30 day calendar to keep me eating paleo and set up a reward system to keep me motivated. I use that system for any new habit I want to form. I also use post-its a lot.

[Annabelle]

Hey! I was at work yesterday when I saw your post but my recipe was at home (Noooo!) so I grabbed it on the way out the door this morning so I could post it

 

2 1/2 cups tomato or vegetable juice

1 cup peeled, seeded, finely chopped fresh tomatoes

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber

1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped green onion

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 large clove of garlic, minced

2 tsp finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp Worchestershire sauce 

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

 

Combine all into a glass or stainless steel bowl, cover & refrigerate overnight so the flavors can combine, then serve cold  

 

It's supposed to make 5 servings but no lie I tend to go big on the servings, but they're so good. I tend to use less salt since most of the commercially available tomato/veggie juices are loaded with sodium on their own, but if you juiced your own veggies/tomatoes then you might want to go ahead with adding the salt.

 

Also, for anyone wanting the nutritional facts on it - the recipe I have actually does list it but I don't know if this factors in using canned juices versus juicing or anything like that so I'm a little wary of posting numbers. If anyone wants the info though I'll be happy to post it.

[Rexxar Txan]

Thanks for the recipe! I usually cook with no salt at all, so problems there! Sound delicious! I am going to take advantage of the famer's market tonight!