Long Standing Member of The Never Been Skinny Club

So I have never been skinny, not at least that I can remember. I  guess I was just a twig around age 5, but got chunkier and chunkier as I got older. My mom just recently told me that I went on my first diet at age 11 or 12. I saw my mom dieting and struggling with weight my whole childhood, and thought I was fat too. Of course the years only made the problem worse and by the time I was heading off to college I wore a size 18.

I guess my point is that my whole life I viewed myself as overweight for as long as I can remember. I've always thought of myself as fat, it really has been a big part of my identity. I don't want it to be that way anymore and I can't believe I am saying this but I'm also a little freaked out about loosing that. I so desperately want to loose enough weight to be healthy, I want to loose enough weight to feel good, I want to loose enough weight to feel normal but I also feel like I am forging into a whole new world outside of my comfort zone.


Today it dawned on me that I am finally about 13-14 lbs from the skinniest I have been in 9 years. And the weird part was that my next thought was who will I be when I am done loosing weight? What will I feel like? What will happen when this part of my identity is gone?


Strangely I have spent so many years hating my fat, hating being overweight and here I am having success at loosing and I am having crazy irrational fears about what life will be like once I cross over into the world of normal sized people. lol I know! It sounds crazy to me too, but I'm just being honest.


My husband and I started working on loosing weight in late Jan/early Feb by just eating healthier and just started the 17 day diet 9 days ago. My husband has lost 32lbs, 9 of those on this diet. I have lost 27 lbs, 8.5 of those on this diet. So we've both lost a pretty good chunk of weight.


I have no intention of giving up, this is going really well, and working really well and this is something I have wanted my whole life and despite this weirdness I am feeling today it is making me REALLY happy to be smaller.


What are your thoughts honestly? Have you lost a lot of weight and gone from a "fat" person to a "normal" person? What changed for you? How did you feel at the end of your journey? Were you able to let go of that old identity and embrace your new one? Anyone else in the same "club" as me feeling this too?

Baked Chicken with Mexican Cauiliflower Rice C1-D9

Baked Chicken = Protien
Mexican Cauliflower Rice = Vegetable and 1/2 TBSP Friendly Fat per serving

Usually I plan what I am going to make at least one day ahead of time. It takes away the last minute scramble for something to eat which is not only stressful but leads me to want to grab something quick and easy and not usually something 17 day diet friendly. I like to defrost the meat for the next day so that it's all ready and set to go. Yesterday I meant to take some chicken breast out for today to defrost and then totally forgot about it.


So this morning when I realized that nothing was defrosted and my plan of marinated chicken on the BBQ was out for today I went on a search through my cupboards for something I could put over the frozen chicken breast so I could throw it in the oven to bake and to give it good flavor.


I found a Jar of Roasted Salsa Verde (no sugar added), which is made with Tomatillos. Now I know these are not on the food list but I looked them up and found out they are very similar to a tomato and have 4 less carbs per serving than a tomato so I figure they should fit into the diet excellently.


I just lined my baking dish with the frozen chicken breast poured the whole jar over them, covered it with tin foil and threw it into a 350 degree oven and let it bake for 2 hours while I was getting everything else ready.


I took my head of cauliflower out, rinsed it and cut out the core. Then I gave it a rough chop so that the pieces were smallish (I found that bigger pieces would not process as well) then threw them into the food processor and gave it a few buzzes until the cauliflower was chopped into tiny peices about the size of rice. I had to do it in about 5 batches because I have a small food processor. Also just to warn you it was kind of messy because the tiny peices of cauliflower want to get everywhere!


Then I put them into a big frying pan with 1 TBSP of olive oil, half a green pepper and half a red pepper diced tiny. Then I put about 1 TBSP of garlic powder, 2 TBSP chili powder, 1 tsp each of cumin, smoked paprika, coriander, and oregano (these are estimates because I VERY rarely measure anything, feel free to adjust to your own tastes). Then I turned the burner on high and sauteed the cauliflower until it was tender. Resist the temptation to add water. The cauliflower has enough moisture in and of itself to fry in and if you add water it will make the cauliflower soft and mushy.


I served the chicken on top of the rice and topped the whole thing with a tsp of fat free sour cream and a small sprinkle of fat free cheese. I am going to preface this by saying I do not like cauliflower. Never have, but this totally rocked! It was really really good. I kind of felt like I was cheating because honestly the cauliflower tasted amazingly good. Really did taste very similar to mexican rice. My husband loved it, and all I can say is yummmmmm!


What did you have for lunch today?

Turkey Burgers

Turkey Burgers = Protein and vegetable
Asparagus = Vegetable and 1/2 TBSP healthy fat
Peppers, Onion, mushroom = Vegetable and 1/2 TBSP healthy fat

So I've been cooking with a lot of ground turkey the past week and have found the main problem is that it is dense and dry when cooked. My hubby wanted to do turkey burgers on our grill for lunch today so I got the turkey and started to plan. Oddly enough I hadn't come up with an idea of how to counteract the dryness/density issue yet but one came to me in the middle of the night when I was having trouble sleeping. I decided to add grated carrot, and mushroom minced very fine. I realized  that they both would add not only flavor, and extra nutrients but moisture. I also mixed in a TBSP or so of Weber gourmet burger seasoning (you can buy it at Walmart). The result was awesome! Definitely helped give them moisture and break up the density and the flavor was wonderful.

I made asparagus to go with it because we got a huge bag of it at the local farmers market for $6 and also because we both love it, and we also got 2 big beautiful portabella mushrooms for $2.50 so we rubbed those down with a light coating of olive oil and dusted with garlic powder, fresh ground pepper, and celery salt. We also threw some peppers, extra mushrooms and onion into a frying pan which I sauteed for burger toppings.

To assemble lunch we put the turkey burger on top of the portabella, then added the miscellaneous sauteed veggies, then some mustard and topped with a sprinkle of fate free cheese. Asparagus served on the side. All I am going to say was this lunch made me happy, I did not feel deprived AT ALL!!!!

What did you have for lunch today?

Weigh in: C1 D8

So I went to the gym I am a member of today to exercise and weigh in. That is the official weigh in scale I am using because I started a weight loss competition there at the club in Feb so it's the one I'm in the habit of using.


I was shocked this morning to find out that my total for this first week was 8.5 lbs. I have never in my life lost this much weight in one week, save for giving birth and I'm not counting that. It is amazing how exciting it is to be having such great success. I know it comes off faster because I have a lot to loose (60-80lbs) and I will not loose these numbers every week, but I must say that this was an awesome way to start the day!


How much weight did you loose in your first week?

Kale Chips - C1 D7

Kale chips = Vegetable and 1/4 TBSP healthy fat per serving

The one thing that I craved the entire first few days of this diet was chips. Not sure why because I don't even eat them that often, but for some reason all I could think about was eating something salty and crunchy. Then the answer came to me like a beam of light from the sky (well, sort of) I saw someone post on the 17 day diet facebook page about Kale chips. As soon as I saw them I knew I needed to make them!!! Friday when my hubby and I went grocery shopping I bought two bunches of kale, and started looking for a recipe online.

This is the recipe I used as a template. First I filled my sink with cool water and soaked my two bunches of kale for about ten minutes, then I made sure each leaf was clean by rubbing them under the water with my hand and making sure it was rinsed in between all the folds. I dried them with a few paper towels and then peeled the leaves off the stem. I put them into a big bowl, drizzled them with 1 TBSP olive oil and used my hands to massage in the oil and make sure they were coated well. The I laid them on a ookie sheet, in a single layer, and sprinkled them with season salt. I did not measure just eyeballed it.

The original recipe says to bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes but I found that by following that, the curly edges of the kale were getting crispy and browned too fast, and the middle flat part of the leaf was still soft and bitter (kale is bitter when raw but looses most/all of that when crisped up properly) so I turned the oven down to 300 degrees and baked them for 17-18 minutes and they were perfect. Crispy through and through.

One serving is about 1/4 of the final product. They shrink when they bake so it will be less than what you started with.

I loved them, Jeremy (my husband) loved them. My mom and dad (who are also doing the diet) loved them. I give them a standing ovation.

For some reason my 15 month old is currently avoiding most vegetables as if they were infested with the plague but he seemed to think these were great so if you have kids that you have a hard time getting veggies into you might want to try them ;)

Why Am I Doing The 17 Day Diet?

I've been trying to loose weight for as long as I can remember. I was a size 13 at age 13 and it's only gone up from there. In the past 9 years the smallest I've been is a size 18, and the biggest a size 24. I am 27 years old, and I'm sick of this!


I have been pregnant twice in the last 3 years. I had to say goodbye to one son and got to bring one son home. My life has been such a roller coaster lately and my weight was at an all time high. When My little guy Griffin turned one year old my husband and I decided to really make a change in our lives to better ourselves so that we can be happier, healthier and there for our son in the best way possible as he grew.


In January we started eating healthier and trying to control our portion sizes and it was going really well. We both lost weight and felt better. As time went on our weight loss slowed and finally stopped. We had slowly fallen back into bad habits and for some reason could not get back onto the bandwagon.


I have tried to loose weight sooooooooooo many times throughout my life, and for some reason I always seem to give up when things start to get hard. This time I am more determined than I have ever been before. I want this for myself, I want this for my husband, I want this for my son. So I looked for something new. I decided that I needed some structure. I needed someone to tell me what to do for a while because right now I was not strong enough to do it for myself.


I came across the 17 day diet first on the Dr Phil show. I thought it sounded good, and looked into it. All I saw online were good things. When I read through the information I saw that it was a healthy eating plan. Nothing crazy, so I decided to do it.


I talked to my husband and he was on board. We bought the book (I read it in two days), went grocery shopping and set our start date. I was really excited to start loosing weight again :)


We are on Cycle 1, Day 7 right now. I have lost 6.5 lbs so far and my husband has lost 5.5 lbs.


The hardest part of this diet I have found is that I have to plan everything in advance. It's not EASY to eat all fresh veggies and unprocessed foods. For right now the benefits are so far outweighing this inconvenience. I feel so good right now, so motivated, so energetic. I'm loving the food, loving how I feel too. I hope it lasts!

So that is my story, what's yours? Why are you doing the 17 day diet and how is it going for you?