Back on April 17, I wrote about starting the Arbonne 30 Days to Healthy Living challenge. I was stuck at a weight I didn’t like and I couldn’t get under.  I was ready to do something radical.

Now, a month later, I’m loving it.  As of May 19 I’ve lost 12 lbs.  I don’t have exact measurements right now but I know I’ve lost significant inches in my hips and lower abdomen especially.  Other improvements I wanted to see were decreased gastric reflux and IBS flares and some improvement in my psoriasis.  I haven’t had to take much medicine for reflux at all.  I haven’t had any IBS issues.  I knew cutting out dairy would fix that one.  My psoriasis hasn’t changed at all but I didn’t really expect it too.

I’m continuing on the program.  I’ve also started the husband on it.  I’m sort of surprised that he wanted to do this.  I knew it would be good for him but he is a dairy addict.  The diet involves cutting out dairy, gluten, and sugar.  He loves all of those.  You can go more hard-core and cut out a lot of other things in order to eat super clean.  I didn’t tell him that.  Just cutting out those three things is a major lifestyle adjustment for him.  He’s in his first week and he has lost 3 lbs. 

My goals for this month will be:

  1. Continued weight loss – I’m not likely to be done with that for a while.  I’m still 55 lbs heavier than when I met the husband in 2008.  I don’t think I can get back to that weight because I’ve gained a lot of muscle since then and I was only that skinny because of my divorce.  Still, there is a way to go.
  2. Eat better – This seems like a weird thing to need to do since I’m losing fat but I’m eating like crap.  When I first started I had my emergency food.  I had a container of cut up veggies and fruit to eat if I got hungry during the day.  Eventually this morphed into eating a little something with my shakes at breakfast and lunch so I functioned better.  That’s fine.  Then it changed from fruits and veggies to gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free snack foods.  (Believe it or not, there are some good ones.)  Yeah, so I’m eating junk food and losing weight.  Dream situation to be honest but I need to cut back and go back to the vegetables.  I’ve also just been living on veggie burgers and rice variations for dinner.  Quick and easy but it wouldn’t hurt to do real live meal planning again and shock the system with some vegetables.
  3. Work out – I haven’t exercised at all in the last month.  Again, dream situation.  Weight loss without exercise.  I know the body doesn’t function well without exercise though.  I need to quit being lazy.  At least go for a walk or something.

So far, I feel really good.  I’m satisfied with much less food.  I think that’s the major change I’m seeing.  I still have sugar cravings.  My sweet tooth has not gone away. 

I signed up to be an Arbonne consultant so I can get discounts on our own products.  If anyone is interested in finding out more about the program, I can get you information.  It turns to be about $9 a day for this.  That’s less than what I was spending for breakfast and lunch before.  It is just a bit of a shock to the system to have to hand it over all at once and up front.  I’m saving money and losing weight that I couldn’t budge before so I’m pretty happy.