Hi! I’m Tonya Sitko. I used to weigh 270 pounds! I had been overweight my entire life. Once I met Jimi, he told me about veganism and a book called “Skinny Bitch” by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. I read the book, and everything just clicked in place. The book suggested eating “clean” for 30 days. I tried it, and I’ve never looked back. Today, one year later, I’m 141 pounds in a size 4. My weight loss has been ALL diet. Check out my blog to see how I did it!
And I’m addicted to sugar! It’s been a while since I let my sugar addiction get the best of me, but it happened. When I was WAY overweight, I had issues with willpower and self-control. Basically, I didn’t have any self-control. I wanted to lose weight, and I would get mad at myself for eating things I knew I shouldn’t, but I would still eat it. I was the type of person that had to put dishwashing detergent on top of the food to keep me from eating it…even if it was in the garbage can! I know…nasty…BUT I’m betting some of you have been there before too. By the way, I still do this. If I’m tempted by something in the house, it’s not just enough to throw it away…I must make it so that I will NOT go back after it.
Lots of people joke about being addicted to caffeine (coke, Mt. Dew, etc), but they might actually be addicted to the sugar instead. I tested this by substituting sodas with water and then taking a caffeine pill (like Excedrin) to “get my fix”. I still wanted the soda…desperately. I knew then that I had a problem with sugar. The weird thing is that I never would have considered myself a big “sweets” person. I didn’t have to have dessert or anything like that, and I didn’t eat candy all the time either, but I was definitely addicted to sodas, AND I was also addicted to things that acted like sugar in my body. Did you know that there are all kinds of things that spike your insulin and give you that sugar-high? Things like potatoes, corn, white bread, flour tortillas, white rice, and more!
Lately, I let myself slowly start eating more of these types of things, and before I knew it, I was back in the addiction cycle. I can only tell you what works for me in breaking the cycle..maybe these steps would work for you as well:
If you’re not losing weight like you think you should or you just feel bad, look at your diet, and be honest with yourself. You might be addicted to sugar too!
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w that all the kids go to school less than 2 miles from where we live, I don’t have to get up very early. Since I’m not a morning person, this works out well for me 
The problem is that I NEED to run in the morning. It just starts the day off right. How do I force myself to get up when I don’t have to? Well, I found a unique solution.
Meet “Tink”, my new running buddy. She needs me to get up early (so she can go potty), and I think we are going to do well together! The point of this post is that sometimes you have to make yourself do things you don’t really want to do to meet the goals you really want to meet. I’m sure that I will eventually love those morning runs with Tink, but first she has to go to obedience school!
How many of you totally freak out the first time you put on your swimsuit for the summer? I’ve heard of this phenomena, but never really had that problem. I hated how I looked in pretty much everything. This year is my first year of maintaining my weight loss. During last year’s swimsuit season, I was still losing weight. As a result, I bought fairly cheap swimsuits. This year I bought a cute swimsuit that I absolutely love! And I didn’t have to have to altered! (Big girls sometimes have to have their straps on their swimsuit shortened to keep their “assets” lifted…I’m just saying)
Last year I was very self-conscious due to the excessive skin I had from the rapid weight loss. Most of that skin has tightened up thanks to a healthy diet and a little exercise.
My goal for this swimsuit season is develop a consistency in clean eating and how I workout. I firmly believe that’s the way to get healthy. Just because I eat a vegan diet, doesn’t mean junk food is not available. Oreos, Spicy Chili Doritos, and even some marshmallows are all vegan – but that doesn’t mean they are amenable to the swimsuit season.
My heart goes out to all of those affected by the explosions during the Boston Marathon. I didn’t have any personal friends in the race, but I knew of many people who ran this year. I heard a few people died, multiple people were injured, and I’m sure almost everyone felt a mixture of anger, frustration, disappointment, grief, and sadness. Why is the world like it is? How do we fix it?
One step at a time. It just slapped me in the face. We fix it one step at a time. One voice at a time. One decision to change. We can change our bodies. We can change our lives. We can do almost anything…even run a marathon…one step at a time.
I started thinking about my running goals and how I’m not even close to being on track to run a marathon. But last week was a good week. I worked out almost every day. I have people who love me. I have people I love. I have friends who care. It was a good week. I’ll take it and be happy about it. I’ll keep reminding myself…just focus on one week at a time.
I got back on the workout wagon this week. I’ve worked out 4 out of the last 5 days this week. I started taking Body Pump at my local gym, and I really like it. One thing I would like to add – just in case this happens to you – I also gained weight this week…not much but a pound or two. I was like, WHAT??? And then I remembered that it sometimes happens. I don’t think I’ve built enough muscle to equate to that weight gain (okay, I know I haven’t). My guess is that I made up for my increased activity by eating more!
Don’t forget to eat more when you work out. If you try to stick to a reduced eating plan while increasing cardio or strength training, you will likely run out of energy and get frustrated. The goal is to make healthy habits stick for life! You can do it!!
Jimi wasn’t in the mood for cooking a big meal last night. He asked what I was in the mood for, and I said something I can dip a chip in. Well, he came up with this alternative to a Mexican 7-layer dip. Keep in mind, Jimi can’t have spicy food anymore or tomatoes (food allergies). In my opinion, this is even better!
Layers (from the bottom):
This was delicious! Try it out
I can’t believe that another month is about to slip past me. Didn’t I just make those goals for February just a few days ago? I can’t report anymore weight loss this month, but I’m definitely stronger. I can see definition in my arms, and I love it! It’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t make any noticeable changes after a few weeks. That’s when you need to analyze what you’re doing. I should be able to answer “yes” to all of these questions, but sadly I can’t. That’s okay! I’ve just got to recognize where things went wrong and adjust. I might lose a play, but I will not lose the whole game.
Check this list to see if you may be struggling in some of these areas:
Hopefully, all of you had a better February than me. Stay tuned for my goals for March – maybe you can use them too.
When the buzz about Pinterest began, I stayed away. I didn’t think I wanted or needed another social media outlet. I kept hearing great things about it, but I still stayed away. Then, it happened. That night when the kids were in bed, before I met Jimi, while I was still a night owl, and Facebook was dead that night…I logged onto Pinterest. Great ideas just filled the screen, and I was hooked. I LOVE Pinterest. I love the ideas, the creativity.
And for Valentine’s Day, Supermom decided to make a cool dinner for the kids – veggie dogs and spaghetti noodles and cheese. Definitely not the healthiest selection, but I thought those noodles coming out of the veggie dog would be the coolest thing ever, and I would forever go down in history as the absolute coolest mom on the planet.
I got my veggie dogs and my pasta (gluten-free). I cut the veggie dogs into bite-size chunks and proceeded to push multiple uncooked spaghetti noodles through each one. I started with 6 per bite – this time-consuming task quickly caused me to drop that ratio to 2:1 (2 noodles per bite). The noodles broke so easily! I did use angel hair pasta instead of the thicker variety – that could have caused it.
What Pinterest didn’t tell me was that you need a HECK of a lot of PATIENCE for this task. Two veggie dogs in, and I threw noodles and bites in the pot of boiling water. I did finish those two dogs though!
When it was all done cooking, I couldn’t really tell which ones had noodles through them and which ones didn’t. My work was for nothing. I learned my lesson.
I also learned that the pasta won’t cook all the way when it’s shoved through a veggie dog. A veggie dog with a crunchy uncooked noodle through the middle is not tasty! At least they had their V-Day candy from school
Happy President’s Day, everybody! We’ve added a new page to our site answering questions with videos! It’s a link to our YouTube channel. Check us out!
Here’s the video page if you didn’t notice it in the main menu. Leave a comment – let us know what you think!
Sometimes we make crafts. Sometimes we make cookies. Sometimes we do this. Enjoy!