Celebrating One Year with Trim Healthy Mama!

To say that I have been camera-shy for years now would be an understatement, but here's the picture that I have been promising in celebration of my one year anniversary on Trim Healthy Mama!  I am so thanksful for the blessings of God in this area and for good friends who've encouraged me thus far and helped me find my way; I am now down 45 pounds and 2 dress sizes.  It's been a good year.

I've been on this wonderful diet since the middle of July 2013, but it really all started last April when I asked God to help me lose 25 pounds by my 54th birthday, which is also one week away from my 30th wedding anniversary!   I knew of course that, being God, He could do that if He wanted too and just left it in His hands, since I had tried many "eating plans" over the years and the pounds just kept creeping on.  When I say I left it in His hands, I mean I REALLY did!
I completely forgot that I had even asked.  I just went on my merry way, cooking and eating...I've never been a bad food junkie, just guilty of combining many of the right foods in all the wrong ways and of course, enjoying my sugary drinks at every meal!



In mid-July my husband and I ran into a dear friend that I had not seen in quite a while.  I noticed a change in her appearance right away. She had only lost 7 pounds and was not heavy anyway, but she just looked better.  I had been concerned about a butterfly type rash on her face for years...It was GONE, and she just generally looked like she felt good.  I asked her what she'd done and she said that she was feeling great and doing two new things.  One was Trim Healthy Mama and the other was a product called Plexus Slim.  She had energy and the ability to withstand the awful food cravings that always come when you get off sugar.  This all sounded doable to me so, with my husband's encouragement, I went by her house and got started on Plexus that day.  It definitely took care of the appetite and energy problems that come with sugar restriction for me and, surprisingly, took away some yeast symptoms that I had been experiencing for quite a while. Problem was, I had all that under control but didn't know what I was going to eat!

Within a week or so another friend of mine convinced me to order the THM book.  I told her I would, but this was a long time friend and she didn't believe I'd get around to it, so she ordered it for me.  I was so grateful and touched and I tried to pay her for it, but she insisted that she didn't want my money, she needed my time. She wanted me to help her get started on the diet and most of all she said she wanted me to "WRITE IT DOWN".  I said sure I'd try to do that, but you know...what are the chances that I was going to get that done??  I devoured the book and started trying to help my friends with the diet right away...now I needed to exercise.

I'd had a really good experience with Curves for Women a few years ago, I have a chronic back problem and it is the only exercise program that I have been able to stick with that did not cause me problems in that area.  Also, from what I could tell Curves met the basic criteria for Serene's exercise plan all in a nice motivational package for me. So now I had all the resources I needed to finally get loose from this ball and chain of weight that I'd been lugging around for too long!  On August 1st, already 5 pounds down, I started with Curves.

August brought the loss of 10 pounds and I was so excited!  Then, September rolled around and I will never forget one morning toward the end of the month, I realized that in a few days it would be my birthday...and I had lost 10 more pounds for the week of September!  Than's when it dawned on me, my faithful God had answered the prayer of His forgetful and sometimes faithless child once again and I had lost 25 pounds by my 54th birthday.  Thank you Lord for your mercies and for the incredible support team that you have blessed me with...really the weight loss was just icing on my cake, when you think about it.

So, by October I had lost 10 more pounds and 1 dress size and realized three things: 1) that I would still need to lose at least another 30 pounds; 2) that I wanted to slow that train down because at my age I just didn't feel that I needed to lose that much weight in such a small amount of time; 3) that I was enjoying the side benefits of this diet so much that I didn't mind being on it long term.  I have heard some people talk about plateaus, but I never experienced that at the time..I felt like I could just lose non stop and effortlessly at this point. After Christmas I started core exercises within the 30 minute hydraulic weight circuit at Curves.   As a result I lost one more dress size even though I have only lost 10 more pounds in the subsequent 6 months.  I am very pleased with the results and hope to lose the rest of my weight over the next year.

And, yes, I am WRITING IT DOWN for my dear friend and I am praising God for His loving kindness and all His benefits toward me.

This blog has been so helpful at helping me stay on track, since I now feel the need to study up on recipes a lot more and end up cooking lots and lots of trim healthy stuff so I'm never hungry.  Plus it helps to have somewhere specifically to refer friends so I don't end up writing down recipes and talking about the diet so much at friendly and family gatherings.

As for my friend, she's my number one subscriber and for the first time in her life she is losing weight!  She has now lost 27 pounds since the first of May!

And last but not least I want to thank Pearl and Serene for helping so many Mama's (and Papa's) come to understand that we can still serve good food without being the Servants of Food!