The numbers are looking good!!!

AlLAHU AKBAR!!!! Today was the weigh in and I am now 305 pounds mashaAllah. It feels so good to see that number small. I am praying that by next week I can say goodbye to the 300 zone FOREVER!!!!! This was a pretty easy week, no big changes I eat my large meal about 3 everyday which is a large salad( fatoush they call it here) and for breakfast I have been having this new Activa yogurt they say give it 14 days and it will make your digestive system regular( I have trouble with constipation...sorry to mention it) I have been taking it for 5 days now, its very expensive though it costs 15 dirhams for a pack of 4 where the regular yogurt is about 380 for a 4 pack so there is a big difference but lets see if it works, I drink tons of water during the day, I followed the advice of half my weight in ounces , so I try and drink about 150 ounces of water a day. In addition to my salad and yogurt I also eat an apple and half a carrot, and for a snack I crunch on cereal, so far so good. oh and on the weekends I have homemade pizza or maybe I bake a cake and have a small slice, I give myself a little freedom on the weekends maybe some popcorn or something else as a reward but then as Monday gets closer I put a little more emphasis in my workouts trying to drop as much weight as I can before my weigh in ,lol. So that's been my diet plan for the last few weeks. So like the old cliche goes "If it aint broke don't fix it" so until the scale says this aint working this will be my plan of action. Its become really easy alhamdulillah. I would like to post more often, but my laptop is broken right now so I cant get online as often as I would like, but you know for sure I will be here next Monday, InshaAllah.

Big Steps In The Right Direction

Today was a VERY big accomplishment for me mashaAllah. 3 of my children has a field trip with their school to the arcade at the mall and after they ate in the food court. I wanted to take my 3 youngest along so they can get out and have some fun besides ( the most they do is ride in the car to drop off and pick up their siblings from school). I debated with myself about going, I didn't want to be in that food court around all the good smells and the sweets and ice cream yadda yadda yadda, But I also didn't think it was fair to make my kids suffer because I am restricting my food intake. So off we went, and what do you know as I get there the kids are all sitting in the food court being handed their happy-meals which didn't make me happy at all, my little ones faces just lit up as they looked up at me like ok where is our happy meal, off to the McDonald's to get them there kids meals , and although I don't eat meat they had a garden salad and a pineapple custard pie that looked rather inviting, but I stood firm and only ordered for them, I did cave and I had a childs size diet coke, I thought U had given up on diet sodas but I fell weak to that. But mashaAllah I was able to sit at the table as my children ate and I snacked on 5 or 6 fries that my one year old thought he should throw across the table and that was it, I didn't binge and eat anything that I shouldn't have and it felt really good after that I was able to remain in control and pass up all of my favorite eating spots. I think this was a sign for me that I can do anything that I put my mind to , and I have to put food in its place. I was so motivated I went into carrefour after and tried to by an exercise video and a stepper , neither of which they had but I plan on looking elsewhere inshaAllah.
I am looking forward to this Monday I have been alot more strict this week with my carb intake, inshaAllah it will pay off.

First Weigh In!!!!!

Well as promised I weighed myself today and mu current weight is 140.5 kilos which is 310 pounds, so thats means I am down 4 pounds from last Monday. HORAYYYY!!!!!!! Four pounds closer to my new self. The weekend is over thank God. Weekends are rough, I mean its nice to have everyone home and all but it really interfears with my routine. And the all day eating of the children and my hubby dont help either. This past weekend I had a few rice crispie treats as a treat to myself, but this week I said I want to really buckle down and see if I can lose more than 4 pounds by next monday if I really limit the carb intake, also I set a time of 7:30pm as a cut off and I only alow myself to eat before that time. Yesterday went really well, everytime I thought about snacking after that time I just chugged down some water. I also have not had a diet coke in a few days, I read that the sweetner in diet sodas can actually cause you to crave fatty foods,hummm, who knew ???? So this week I am really trying to limit myself to salads and the bran cereal that I snack on. We will see if it pays off next monday. I really would like to blog more often but finding time just isnt that easy these days. I would also like to do a bit more cardio excercise but I need a cd or something to follow.
I will share a few websites that I have been using to help look up things about weight loss maybe they will be of some help to you as well.
http://www.weightlossforgood.co.uk/nutrition/nutrition.htm
http://familydoctor.org/788.xml#4
http://www.fatfree.com/diets/mcdougall.html

the last one is really interesting but a bit too restrictive for me, as long as what I am doing keeps working I will stay on that track because its easy for me.

Here I am!!!!

Well as if the title of my blog doesnt already say it , I am 30 years old and I weigh over 300 pounds, not much over but too darn much for me. How did I get here, well in short I have been happily married( with lots of bumps and bruises) for 14 years in which time I have birthed 9 beautiful children............but in all that time of being a pregnant/breast feeding mom I never stopped to see what was really happening to my body and in 15 years I blossomed from a nice healthy size of 160 pounds to a now unrecognizable 314 pounds. My goal is to return to that 160 pound bombshell that I was ( if i dont say so myself..hahahahaha) with the aid of my lord inshaAllah........You have to know that I wasnt always this big after every baby I would try one fad diet or another to try and recover my body , but always after about a 40 pound loss I would get pregnant again only to gain back 60. Can someone tell me how a 314 pound woman can give birth to a 6 pound baby and the next week she still weighs 314 pounds well I am here to tell you its very possible and all to real to me.
Should I end this post now or do I keep typing, hey what the heck I am on a roll now.
I think its only fair that I mention I have some medical issues that may have contributed to this , I was diagnosed with having hypothyroidism after my fourth child which explains why I need only look at food to gain weight. I am still at a loss how it went undiagnosed for so long but my doctor at the time seemed to think that I had been suffering from it for a long time thats why I would never shed my pregnancy pounds. Who knows but I am trying to shed them now.
This time I am trying a different approach... I have stopped eating all meats, including chicken , fish, beef, ect ect ect, and I eat very few carbs I mostly eat salad and sometimes raw or cooked veggies. I did stop drinking soda all together but I have now become obbssesed with diet coke again grhhhhhhh.
I dont any eat sweets like I used to, what I do now is I calculate the calories of everything and I only alow myself to eat 100 calories of any food, like I made this slammin bannana bread and rather than eat the biggest slice I could fit on a plate like I normally would I only ate a bite a small bite, I am sure that bite had to have been less than 100 calories. In addition to this I drink at least 3 liters of water everyday, I have trouble with constipation( like I dont go for days) so I started drinking 1 or 2 cups of diet tea a day and that is helping keep me regular. I have also become a housework fanatic, I put my mp3 player in my ears and I clean like my house was about to be inspected by the ministry of health( If you live in the UAE you know everything is a ministry,lol in america we would call it the health dept.) and I dance and clean dance and clean for hours, and you know with 9 kids its easy to spend the day cleaning and I mean that literally , I dance and cook, I dance and clean I dance thru the house all day long, I know my kids must think I am nuts but hey I have got to get this done before I am knocked up again. In addition to the dancing I do some cardio workouts I use my excercise ball, I walk sometimes, I do tons of crunches daily and I plan on getting a stepper this weekend.
I was driving myself crazy getting on the scale once and sometimes two or three times a day but I promised myslef that I would cut that back to once a week, its too stressfull when you know you worked extra hard and then you get on the scale and its up a kilo( I couldnt find a scale with pounds at carrefour). So my new routine is I watch the biggest loser on sunday for motivation and I get on the scale on monday mornings. I started out at 320 pounds and I am now down to 314 as of last monday so I will be sure to let you know how things are going this monday.
Was it hard to not eat meat, no way, surprisingly I dont miss it at all. I was alwasys a sweets junkie anyway that is my weakness. Ok well its time to go boogie(clean). This has been really theraputic there is so much I want to say to sort of play catch up I will take it little by little I dont want to blog-overload if thats possible. Well if you made it thru this far your good, thanks for stopping by..............( who the ____ am I talking to,lol) .