Newbie saying hello! Vegan with 45lb goal.
Hello, I'm Christa, and I'm from Canada's west coast. I've always been on the chunky side, save for a couple of successful attempts to take it off- the first time was the year before becoming pregnant with my son (Fall 2003), where through diet & exercise I got into the best shape of my life. The next was the year after he was born, when I did Weight Watchers and quickly got my weight right back down, though I didn't focus enough on getting much more activity, and when I stopped counting 'points', and moved to a new city (with lots of new restaurants to try), I slowly started gaining every last pound back. In 2009 I opened a bakery out of my home, so imagine doing that and not gaining 15 lbs in a year! And so I've inched back up to my highest weight of all time- the weight I was when I was 18- 196lbs.
I'm very comfortable in my own skin, and feel confident and attractive at this weight, but I am very apple-shaped, carrying it all in my belly, and have a family history of diabetes. At 32, I don't want to continue ignoring the slow gain every year as my metabolism slows down with age. It's harder than it should be- health & a long life should be enough to motivate me! But I do find it so hard to exercise self discipline and use portion control.
My family and I have been vegan for about 2 years, which was taken on for health, and for environmental reasons. We love eating this way, and are very occasionally "junk food vegans". We never eat processed meat substitutes, but it's easy to get into jags of eating too many chips and not enough greens. Both my husband and I carry about the same ratio of unwanted weight.
We are very low-soy vegans. We have soy sauce and soy creamer, but beyond that, it sneaks in here or there- usually when we go for sushi and have edamame, or go for breakfast and get a tofu scramble. We've decided in an effort to lose weight, that we don't want to be slaves to calorie counting, but focus more on eating whole foods pretty much exclusively. We have a fantastic juicer & vitamix, and have been getting back to what we know has given us such great energy in the past- green juices and smoothies. I've been making raw chocolates for when my sweet tooth strikes, and buying little packs of sesame roasted seaweed for when I want something salty. I've discovered cauliflower rice, and it is my new best friend!
Really I know all the simple changes I should make- more water, exercise, don't eat too late in the evening, don't eat until you're stuffed, and get a lot of fibre in the form of fruits & vegetables- but I still am challenged in the implementation. Or really it's more like I'm challenged in implementing these habits for more than say, two weeks! So I thought I'd try getting involved on this site and having somewhere to enter my weight each week and feel a bit accountable.
So hello, nice to meet you! I am so sorry because I to tend to ramble- I meant this to be brief! Hope everyone is well today. Anyone care to tell me a bit about themselves, or have you stopped reading?
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CHRISTA ~ to another fellow Canadian ... we have a vegan / vegetarian Forum here that I'm sure you would like to check out.
