My Diet Success Story - The Dukan Diet!
Once upon a time, a long, long, loooooooooong time ago, I was not fat.
And then LIFE happened. It happens to the best of us.
Which is so much better than death happening when you're in your early 40's with 3 kids - 2 of whom have special needs!
Truth be told, death came after me just last May. My big, bad wolf came after in the form of a cardiac arrest, and just to add a tang of irony, he showed up during Mother's Day dinner.
Luckily, I didn't die. More than anything, I wanted to... no... NEEDED to live!
To my credit, I had tried a number of other diets in the past. I was careful and I didn't cheat, but as much as I would huff and puff at the local gym, all too often I ended up hitting a wall - a plateau - and I just couldn't get my weight down.
It's hard when you're a mom. It's hard when there are lots of stresses in your life (see: having 2 special needs children - LOL). It's hard when you spend 2 entire pregnancies in bed and it's hard when your husband brings home Krispy Kreme doughnuts on a regular basis when you're starving! And it's so ridiculously easy to gain weight! (I've always joked that I can look at a picture of a cake and gain 10 lbs!)
While I am quite notorious for annoying the heck out of family and friends by taking hundreds of pictures, I avoided getting on the "business end" of the camera like the plague. I was not comfortable with my weight or my looks. I wouldn't wear a bathing suit in front of anyone who was not immediate family... and only wore one if I absolutely had to. Of course now 20/20 hindsight would suggest that having a few decent "Before" shots might have been nice, but going through the motions of planning out such a shot somehow felt like a set-up for letting myself down once again. Luckily for me, my son snapped a few lovely pictures of my on my sister's horse last August.
Then in late September, 2011, one of my friends shared a picture of herself on a social networking site. It was agood picture. It was a picture that made me want to scratch out her eyeballs and then crawl under a rock (like I could have found one *big* enough to hide my fat butt)! Instead of scratching her eyeballs out, I asked her what she had been doing. She told me she had been on the Dukan diet and had gotten down to her goal weight.
I'll have what she's having!
I started on the Dukan Diet on October 3, 2011. Over the next few months I did my best to get regular exercise by walking for 30 minutes a day, but LIFE kept popping up and throwing hurdles in my way. Stress hurdles. Hurdles that could have easily turned into another 10 lbs of fat on my butt if I had been on any other diet.
Instead, I stayed on the Dukan diet and ate lean turkey and ham, and sugar-free jello and Dukan cheese cake when ever I felt the urge to eat. I was not starving all the time. And even though my youngest daughter was in the hospital for 9 days with a severe case of viral pneumonia... and even though that daughter came home with enough medical equipment to fill most of her room... and even though that daughter needed round-the-clock care for a few more weeks...
I lost weight!
Around the holidays my weight loss slowed a bit, but I was already more than 20 lbs down and I felt better each day. I pumped up my workouts - not because I had to, but because I wanted to! (How weird is that?) I was *in* to working out and I was seeing a person in the mirror that I hadn't seen in far too long.
I'm now down nearly 40 lbs, and I'm still losing! I'm not missing other foods and I'm not starving all the time. I evenasked for someone to take my picture so I could share so much less of myself. So I could share my own little fairy tale!
Before - Size 16 pants! After - Size 4 jeans!
Updated Photos: (04/20/2012)
Am I keeping the weight off? You be the judge:
That's my story (and my diet), and I'm sticking to it!
And then LIFE happened. It happens to the best of us.
Which is so much better than death happening when you're in your early 40's with 3 kids - 2 of whom have special needs!
Truth be told, death came after me just last May. My big, bad wolf came after in the form of a cardiac arrest, and just to add a tang of irony, he showed up during Mother's Day dinner.
Luckily, I didn't die. More than anything, I wanted to... no... NEEDED to live!
To my credit, I had tried a number of other diets in the past. I was careful and I didn't cheat, but as much as I would huff and puff at the local gym, all too often I ended up hitting a wall - a plateau - and I just couldn't get my weight down.
It's hard when you're a mom. It's hard when there are lots of stresses in your life (see: having 2 special needs children - LOL). It's hard when you spend 2 entire pregnancies in bed and it's hard when your husband brings home Krispy Kreme doughnuts on a regular basis when you're starving! And it's so ridiculously easy to gain weight! (I've always joked that I can look at a picture of a cake and gain 10 lbs!)
While I am quite notorious for annoying the heck out of family and friends by taking hundreds of pictures, I avoided getting on the "business end" of the camera like the plague. I was not comfortable with my weight or my looks. I wouldn't wear a bathing suit in front of anyone who was not immediate family... and only wore one if I absolutely had to. Of course now 20/20 hindsight would suggest that having a few decent "Before" shots might have been nice, but going through the motions of planning out such a shot somehow felt like a set-up for letting myself down once again. Luckily for me, my son snapped a few lovely pictures of my on my sister's horse last August.
Then in late September, 2011, one of my friends shared a picture of herself on a social networking site. It was agood picture. It was a picture that made me want to scratch out her eyeballs and then crawl under a rock (like I could have found one *big* enough to hide my fat butt)! Instead of scratching her eyeballs out, I asked her what she had been doing. She told me she had been on the Dukan diet and had gotten down to her goal weight.
I'll have what she's having!
I started on the Dukan Diet on October 3, 2011. Over the next few months I did my best to get regular exercise by walking for 30 minutes a day, but LIFE kept popping up and throwing hurdles in my way. Stress hurdles. Hurdles that could have easily turned into another 10 lbs of fat on my butt if I had been on any other diet.
Instead, I stayed on the Dukan diet and ate lean turkey and ham, and sugar-free jello and Dukan cheese cake when ever I felt the urge to eat. I was not starving all the time. And even though my youngest daughter was in the hospital for 9 days with a severe case of viral pneumonia... and even though that daughter came home with enough medical equipment to fill most of her room... and even though that daughter needed round-the-clock care for a few more weeks...
I lost weight!
Around the holidays my weight loss slowed a bit, but I was already more than 20 lbs down and I felt better each day. I pumped up my workouts - not because I had to, but because I wanted to! (How weird is that?) I was *in* to working out and I was seeing a person in the mirror that I hadn't seen in far too long.
I'm now down nearly 40 lbs, and I'm still losing! I'm not missing other foods and I'm not starving all the time. I evenasked for someone to take my picture so I could share so much less of myself. So I could share my own little fairy tale!
Updated Photos: (04/20/2012)
Am I keeping the weight off? You be the judge:
That's my story (and my diet), and I'm sticking to it!
Amazing!❤️ thank you for the motivation and I hope you have continued to have good heart health! As I just hit 40 and have family history and high cholesterol, this is my biggest fear.
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