As luck will have it...

I'm lucky, I won't deny it, with the support and resources I have available to make my lifestyle change.

I work for an amazing company where there is a free gym in our building.  Not only can we access the gym daily from 6 am to 10 pm, the company also pays for personal trainers to come in and host bootcamp and circuit training classes FREE for the employees.  Yes, free!!

And yet, I'm still fat.  The company gym has been open for 3 1/2 years and I'm the same weight I was when the gym first opened.  However, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth, (what the heck does that even mean?) and my fitness and health are 100 times better.  I can run laps around the gym without stopping to walk, the elliptical no longer makes me want to cry.  I still hate running the stairs, but I can do it.  I have become very intimate with every piece of equipment in that gym and it has been graced with my sweat.  I have taken almost every class available to me and become friends with the trainers.  I look forward to going to the gym on a regular basis.  I laugh more inside that stupid room than I do at my desk!

Yet, I'm still fat.

That is not my company's fault, for they have given me every opportunity to lose weight (wait (haha) until I tell you about the Biggest Loser style competitions!) My weight is my fault.  My food has been hit and miss ~ I've yo-yo dieted so much that I have next to no metabolism.  For me to loose a pound, I have to work twice as hard and eat half as much as my healthier co-workers.

But I'm not giving up.

I've become quiet close with one of the trainers who is also a nutritionist.  Combining the free bootcamps, with personal training sessions (paid by me) every other week with the trainer, I'm getting a handle on what food combinations work for me.   In the middle of January I went on a restricted diet that limited my calorie intake to 1000 - 1200 calories a day after we tried many combinations over the previous year.  My food was boring.  BORING!

Here was my daily menu:

Breakfast 
1/4 cup steel-cut oatmeal
3-4 egg whites
1 serving fruit (generally 2 kiwis or 1 cup berries)


Snack
1 cup grapes


Lunch
2 cups spinach
150 grams chicken breast (baked, stir fried with herbs and seasoning)
1 cup berries (generally the frozen berry mix from Costco so the juices make a dressing)


Snack
1 cup sugar snap peas
1 fibre one brownie


Dinner
1 red pepper - raw, cut in slices
150 grams chicken
1 cup spinach
Small carb serving (generally I used 1 90 calorie 5 g fibre pita bun, or a 100 calorie high fibre wrap)


Evening Snack
*80 calories dark chocolate

* the nutritionist didn't recommend this!
I LOVE chocolate, 50 lbs of my fat is from chocolate alone.  There is no way I could live with the diet for so long if I couldn't have chocolate.

So technically I wasn't supposed to have it, but I did anyway. I figured it was worth it to keep my sanity.  I found these amazing Lindt chocolate balls where I can have 3 of them for only 80 calories.  Since I snacked in the evening like most people, I would play a game with myself so I wouldn't snack.  I would dole out those chocolate eggs at a rate of one per hour.  I got one at 8 pm, 9 pm, and 10pm as a reward for not snacking and for keeping with the diet.

And even with a few bumps here and there, I'm keeping with that restricted food plan.  I'm now allowed 1600 calories a day and generally stay at 1400 unless I go a little nuts with the chocolate.  I'm down almost 20 lbs from where I started 12 weeks ago.  I think if I keep this up, if I eat like this 80% of the time and keep the pizza and cookie dough to 20% of the time, one year from now, all the free stuff I'm lucky enough to have at work, will have paid off and I will be in one-derland!

* As a footnote, please remember I'm not recommending anyone go on this diet, I'm not a doctor and this is my and my nutritionist's diet plan tailored specifically for me.  So please...don't do anything this drastic unless you've talked to a trained professional!  Please!