My before picture and stats:

Weight: 290

Height: 5 ft. 6 in.

Waist: 53 inches.

I’ll be measuring and weighing in weekly. I have a long way to go. If I want a job, sadly this may be my only hope. There is a lot of discrimination against people who are overweight. People think they are lazy…not true in my case,you can ask most anyone who knows me. I always have more on my plate than most people care to have. But that is irrelevant. Perception is everything.

Monday was my first day. I stayed on the diet although it was very difficult. Especially keeping away from too many sugar grams. I wanted to have some fruit, but I just couldn’t and still be able to have some bread to make a sandwich. Staying under 120 grams of carbohydrates is not as hard as staying at 15 grams of sugar or less.

My husband and I got up, did our bike ride, so I had more than my share of exercise. I also had to do a lot of walking on campus today. My knees are killing me and I won’t be able to ride tomorrow as a result.

Breakfast on the Belly Fat Cure

My breakfast consisted of 3 eggs, about an ounce of shredded cheese, a sausage patty and a slice of home made bread, made without enough sugar to measure….just enough  to make the yeast activate. I used whole wheat flour and some white flour. It was very dense, tasty and satisfying.

I felt the pull to have something sweet all day; not candy or something like that, I just wanted a piece of fruit. I have plums sitting on the table as well as apples. An apple has 14 grams of sugar, though it is only two carbs and not many calories. But I’m not counting calories, I’m counting carbs and sugar. I am allowed 15 grams of sugar and 6 carbs.

I used 1 carb for my slice of bread, no sugars.

I had a large glass of Crystal Light pure fitness, that uses stevia for most of its sweetening. This has 4 sugar grams because they use sugar as a way to deliver the powerful stevia sweetener. I will be switching to using pure lemon juice with some stevia, that has no sugar in it, for a drink once a day after this box is gone.

For lunch I had a turkey pastrami sandwich and a salad with cottage cheese with ranch dressing. The bread was 8 grams of sugar and 3 carbs. The salad had two grams of sugar, no carbs.

I had a snack of 1/4 cup of nuts twice during the day. 2 sugars for a half cup, not carbs.

I had classes late on Monday night (I am finishing up my last two required classes this year for my Masters Degree.) so i didn’t get home until almost 9 p.m. I was starving and wanted so bad to stop by toco bell, but I waited until I got home and cooked a pork chop and had a half cup of mashed potatoes and gravy…leftovers. That was one carb and no sugars. whew! I went over by 1 gram of sugar, but I felt pretty successful for the day. It was hard. I am told that it will become easier after I get (detoxed) from sugar addiction. I am sure that is the case, but in the mean time….

I intend to be open and honest. I’ll report my defeats as well as my victories. This is a journey I’m serious about. It began when my husband and I started bikeriding in early June. We started out at 2.5 miles a day and soon got up to riding 4.2 miles a day. I can already feel the difference. I have more energy and sleep better. My skin isn’t as dry because my circulation is better. We miss getting out once in a while, but for the most part we ususally get out there and ride at least 5 days a week.

This success has helped me feel more confident about getting serious about weight loss through a better diet. I’ve dieted many many times. My weight gane started when I got Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It is like putting your body on steroids for years. My face has mooned, I am insulin resistant, I had to have a hysterectomy and they found cancer in my uterous. I was lucky they found it so early because I didn’t have to have Chemo or Radiation.

This illness affects your body in a bad way and weight gain is one of the main results because it messes with your hormones so bad. I may be in an uphill battle, but I refuse to get up. I actually was told by a doctor that “You won’t be able to lose weight.” That was just one doctor though, others have encouraged me.

I was turned on to Jorge Cruises book, the belly fat cure. Well most of my fat is belly fat. It also said it was for people too tired to diet or exercise.  Well I’ve felt that way. It’s like a vicious circle, you feel bad, you don’t feel like exercising, everything hurts, but only exercise and diet control will work.

I am doing the exercise. Riding a bike is the only thing I can do that doesn’t kill my knees. I saw on Dr. Oz that increasing muscle around your knee joints will actually pull the bones away from each other and cure the knee problem. Cool!

The belly fat cure is especially good for people who are insulin resistant. My body does not recognize or react to the insulin I am pumping out. So what this method of eating does is drastically cut out sugars and limits carbs. This last week I didn’t stay on it well but I did start really looking at my sugars and carbs and started reading labels, not for calories, but for how many grams of sugar and carbohydrates are in it.  I was astounded at how much sugar we eat. The buns that McDonalds uses have 15 grams of sugar in them. That is all I am supposed to have for a whole day. Katsup has sugar, most fruit has lots of sugar.

The trick is to use your sugar wisely. Use it for fruit and vegetables that have nutrition and fiber in them. Stevia is a new sugar substitute derived from the stevis plant. I have raised this plant and it is super, super sweet. You wouldn’t want to eat even one leaf of it. It is too sweet, but it’s pweer in taste makes for a good substitute. I will be switching to this for things like lemonade, or if I want a little sweetness in my bread. Bread has at least 2 grams of sugar per slice. Sugar is everwhere. Anyway enough of my rants. I advise buy the book even if you don’t need to. It is full of scientific information that will enlighten you about our modern eating habits.

I’ll be checking in daily if possible to let you all know how things are going. I may be screaming, but I am hopeing this will keep me accountable, as I have no one nearby to be accountable too….my husband is still heavily addicted to sugar. He has broke himself of caffeine though…I’m proud of him for that. He’ll come around eventually and he has consented to eat what I fix, because he knows it will be healthier. (He’ll just buy sugar for himself for snacks until he decides to jump on the bandwagon.)