My Cinch Adventure-by Steve

MY CINCH ADVENTURE

As I venture into week two of my commitment to change my life, not diet, but to overhaul the way I look at myself, the way I look at food and the way that I see how what I put into my body becomes a reflection that tells a story.  And for the past 5 years I didn’t like the way the story was taking me.  

I began Cinch partly while I was at the Convention and all the way after we got home last Sunday.  Before I left, I weighed 275 lbs. This morning, I got on the scale at 267.5.   That is seven and one half pounds in the last 11 days.  

The first week of every diet that I have been on has been of course been the hardest but where I have always seen quick results.  The problem was that by the end of the first week, I was either sick, weak, stressed etc. from denying myself of what I like to do most.  EAT.   Heaven knows how many calories I was consuming when I was eating out of control at all times of the day but mostly at night.

I take customers to lunch daily and so I had a protein shake every morning and took customers to lunch, tweeking my menu choices a bit and had a snack bar and shake for dinner with another snack about 9:00pm. 

I put an app on my smart phone called Livestrong and it helps me keep up with my calorie intake along with exersize.  I have stayed within my 2100 calories this past week and I feel fantastic.  I take Vitalizer Gold every morning and that keeps all my insides at an even keel.   

I remember back when I was a teenager, I went out about every night and would get home late and always, my mom would have a plate of food for me to eat before I went to sleep.  It created a habit within my that still resides to this day.  I cant sleep until my tummy is full.  Breaking that bad habit. 

I was with the youth at my church Wed night and we were playing a game, hold to the rod where we blindfolded the youth and we walked them up to this rope that led them thru different temptations, well I had a water bottle spraying them.  I went up to my son, Josh, which was blindfolded, and sprayed him and he said, hey dad.  I said how do you know it was me? And he said that he could hear me breathing.  That was a aha moment that hit me hard.  I have heard heavy people breathe and now I was doing it.  That has got to stop. 

I have shared information about Shaklee more this week than I ever had.  I do believe in their products and it has made this first week more than tolerable.  I am going into the second week invigorated and feel great, not weak or sick.  Gotta go now and eat a snack, not because I am hungry but because I had a shake this morning, red beans and rice with Caesar salad at Owen Brennans and I still have 1,271 calories left today.  After that I am going to ride my bike because I feel good.  See you next week.

The First Week of Our Cinch Transformation-7 Pounds!

We are wearing our "I Commit Cinch Bracelets" until we lose this weight!   Our first week on the full Cinch Program was very much worth it!    We made sure we had our two shakes a day and sometimes I would fix it at night with a lot of ice so it would be like ice cream and we could eat it with a spoon.  We would sprinkle nuts on the top or a whole grain cereal to give it some crunch, counting the calories and it was really good.  It tasted like ice milk.  One time I used greek yogurt instead of the skim milk and it made the consistency much better.  We counted our calories using our apps ("Fitness Pal" and "Live Strong") on our phones following the Cinch recommendations based on our starting weights and logged in our excercise.  We really didn't know what to expect being that we've done the "shakes" before and did lose a little weight but we were committed to really doing it this time.  We put it on Facebook so we knew everyone would be waiting and watching to see how we would do.  Steve took to heart what Dr. Jaime McManus said, "walk a mile a day" plus he rode his bike on the same day.  We were trying to get at least 7 miles in a week to start off with.  A mile a day is very low for us because we were used to walking/running at least 2 miles plus swimming.  I was sick with a sinus infection, bronchitus and a double ear infection.  (I think the smoke in Vegas did me in).  I wasn't able to work out as I couldn't breathe but I was amazed when I got on the scales Sunday morning and had lost 7 pounds!  Wow! I haven't done that in years!  Today, I began slowly easing back into my excercise routine.  The lady who had the biggest impact on me doing this said she only worked out 30 minutes a day and never did one sit up.  Her BMI was very low, she had abs and she looked great.  Not an ounce of fat anywhere.  I am doing this to be healthy but if I can get my BMI down to normal that would be the greatest achievement I could do for my health. 

Transforming in 2012-2013

        Steve and I just got back from our Shaklee Convention in Vegas and we found out that there is a great way to transform our lives, physically and financially.  I know a lot of you may be thinking, "Ugh", they are just hyped-up on convention propaganda, but we saw some amazing transformations, physically and financially, that happened to everyday people just like us.  We saw a guy who had lost 200 pounds in 8 months and his skin was not flapping everywhere.  He won the $10,000.  We saw a woman who won Extreme Weight Make-Over on T.V. using Shaklee and lost over 150 pounds.  We saw a grandmother lose 100, she won a $1000 and then we saw lots of young/old people who went from various sizes 22 down to a 2 and they did it in a slow, methodical, healthy way.  A friend of mine looked amazing and she didn't even look like she had any weight to lose to begin with.  She only worked out 30 minutes a day and did not do one sit-up!  I don't know if we have enough to lose to win any money but it will nice to try.  You tell your story and then everyone votes on it by text.   I began to believe again that I could do this one last time.  We've tried just about everything and it's kind of a joke with our children.  Oh no, here they go again...

        Why do we want to lose weight?  To be healthy and live so we can have fun with all our family.  Please help encourage us as we embark on this journey of healthier living.  This is very scary to me to be so public about this but our overall goal is to help set a better example of what good healthy living is all about.  We learned that if you make your goals more public that you will be more accountable.  So, that's what we're doing.  Let me know if you want to join us!  This is it!

     More to follow about the financial transformations! 

Our "Why"

And then we had the swimming pool moment..., all these hot, young people (and even older people) and then, Steve said, "let's go join the t-shirt group". We were so tired from all the walking, it took us 20 minutes to get to the convention wing and we walked that 3-5 times a day, that when we got to the lazy river, it felt like rapids. Don't get me wrong, we are not lazy. We have excercised several times a week for a while, but this was different. We are just carrying around way too much extra weight. Imagine 65 pounds of potatoes strapped to your back or 55 pounds of hamburger chugs all over your body. Steve is currently 65 pounds over-weight and on 4 different medications. I am about 55 pounds over weight and we are sick and tired of being that way! Aren't you? Why do we do this to ourselves. We have four beautiful children, 3 sons-in-law, and 4 grand-children that we love with all our hearts!  They are our "WHY".

Our "Before" Pictures

We learned that just because you feel okay doesn't mean you're healthy.  We've become more aware that "Father Time" is catching up with us.  (The pictures of our faces really tell the story better than I can write it.)  We have truly been through an extraordinary educational process about how to lose weight and keep it off.  We know that what we put in our bodies will eventually show up on the outside.  Hence, my insistence for my children to eat their greens.  We understand the importance of excercise and are committed to both what we eat and how we excercise.  We are wearing our "I commit" bracelets until we reach our goals.  We were challenged to check out our BMI (body mass index) and discovered that Steve and I both are obese!  That's when we both found out what the term "shock and awe" really meant.  You know those annoying little insurance charts that tell you what you're supposed to weigh, well they are still the normal weight limits for everyone.  I kept hearing on the news that the average woman in America is a size 14 and so I didn't feel so bad because that's what I am, (or sometimes even a 16-I can't believe I'm telling you this--where is my pride?!!!)  I mean, I think we've known that we've been overweight for a very long while but it was hard to look at it and realize that we can't keep going this way.  It's easy to say, "well, I'm just getting older" or "it runs in my family".

These photos showed us just how far we have to go. No "sucking it in", just the real deal. Steve said his eye was droopy and my cheeks look like bulldog jowls! We won't even talk about my saddlebag syndrome!