Successful Weight Loss?

How sustainable can weight loss be?

What would one consider a success in regard to weight loss? Well, it depends.

Back in July – August 2014 when I was still trying to cut all ties to my 3rd ex (hence the name of the blog) he got on a meal replacement shakes protocol to get rid of a considerable amount of weight. He was very enthusiastic about it but did not impress me.

In 2010 when we were dating he lost about 110 lb in short 4 months, only to gain it all back shortly after we got married that year. He encouraged me to contact his cousin who was doing direct selling of the product for this meal replacement protocol in one of those MLM businesses, where majority of distributors lose money.

I was not interested in selling anything but decided to give this protocol a go just for the heck of it. Even though I could not imagine drinking shakes instead of cooking and eating meals, the idea played well into my absence of desire to cook. I lived alone at that time, so no one but me depended on me cooking or not.

Obviously, I won that argument with myself, and after 30 days of doing shakes twice a day and having one regular healthy meal within 600 calories I lost 14 lb!!! This never happened to me before.

Needless to say, I was convinced and carried on for about a year, until a lot of circumstances in my life changed, including my son moving back in with me. Here are my results – pictures are worth a thousand words. Even though I was 18 lb away from my ideal healthy weight, I considered what I’d achieved a success in releasing my menopausal weight gain!

The changes in circumstances in my life which I mentioned earlier were super good ones, as well as super bad ones, also those that looked like a catastrophe at the first glance but later turned out to be really good ones. 

They lead to 'let’s eat some Russian candy to celebrate'! Or 'let’s drink some Merlot with chocolate covered fruit from Walmart and watch Netflix to relax after a very stressful work day and to cope with loss and grief from shocking decisions my loved ones make'!

How do you think this turned out? Yep, slowly but surely, though not all of those 53 lb, but 75% came back – here are my pictures at 212 lb on January 1, 2019.

Did I mention that even when I started with meal replacement shakes I knew that way of eating was not sustainable? Well, I quit the shakes altogether finally in December 2019, when after losing about 12 lb in a year through combining shakes and whatever knowledge about keto diet I could master from the internet and Facebook, I got almost all of it back again.

My weight on January 1, 2020 was 207.7 lb.

You guessed it right – new year, and new resolutions. Then on January 5th father of my children died at 59 years of age from heart failure. I did not know that he had heart problems, so this was completely out of the blue for me. I am not a blood relative obviously, but he was two months younger than me…

I divorced him almost 30 years ago (read he was not any part of my life for that long), and his passing caused a lot of fresh pain and sorrow on top of old pain and sorrow. A couple more deaths happened around me in December and January, and my colonoscopy was scheduled for January 31st 2020. All of this put me into very reflective state of mind.

That is when I noticed a post on Facebook from my dear friend who had spent two years as a missionary in my city of origin back in Russia. I know her to be an honest and trustworthy person, so I clicked on the link to a video and could not stop watching till the end – about 40 minutes or so.

The woman with an accent I did not know was talking about insulin resistance and other health problems caused by excess weight, due to menopausal weight gain. At the end she invited any woman who wanted to change her health and life for the better to join her in '30 days one dress size challenge' – and I did!

She offers this program twice a year, so if you clicked on the picture above, you will get to her main program – 8 weeks program to beat menopausal weight gain. But here’s that video that I watched and was completely sold on.

* Disclaimer: If you click on any of the links in my post and go on a shopping spree, I will get commission. Just thought it would be fair if you knew. :-)

Dominican Vacation – Day two with Eve.

I mention her so much because I spent 7 out of 8 days with Eve.

She is 19 years younger than me – could be my daughter.

It has been a trend in my life last three-four years  – one after another women young enough to be my daughters enter my life. Some stay to be friends, some leave and remain extremely hostile. All depends on where I and they are at the moment in our walk with God.

The truth is we are more than naïve when we think that we invite (or not) God into our lives.

Objective reality is – we all are part of His life either way – no matter if we acknowledge His existence or not, surrender our plans for life to bask in His plans for our lives or not, are aware of the fact that there is no way to hide from Him or not.

Eve told me her story on the first day during those two enjoyable lunch hours in the restaurant. Regardless of being born and raised in two very different countries, our lives had some significant similarities, faith in Jesus Christ is a major similarity, that made it possible to understand each other when big questions about life came up in our conversations.

Both she and I do not have good warm loving relationships with our families.

Both she and I live outside of our countries of origin and don’t have any intention of going back to stay.

Visit – maybe, but definitely not to stay. 

It has nothing to do with our friends in our countries of origin, it has everything to do with close and extended family relationships or absence of such. Neither one of us are revengeful or angry about it, we just wish things in our families were different than they are.

Luckily for me, Eve loves the sea and swimming, so that is what we did on day two – we swam, then read books then swam again. I ventured out to take an underwater video with my iPhone in a waterproof pouch and kept going back to the same spot to say ‘hi’ and ‘by’ to those fish from that day on until the end of my vacation.

On that day also, Eve and I went to look at each other’s apartments.
I knew she was unhappy with hers, but I was quite happy with mine, except for the shower not working, but hey, I am just a simple Russian woman, who used to wash herself in wash houses back in Russia when visiting my grandmother in a village and later in life. Most definitely those wash houses did not have showers.

I told Eve, the main thing to remember is – whatever it is in our apartments that is not quite to her (or mine for that matter) liking while vacationing – it is not forever, it is temporary. She was there for a whole month though, so it was not as easy to accept for her as it was for me – 8 days without shower, but with hot water running is not bad by any standard.

She really liked my apartment though – I had a sea view, a net to keep insects out of the apartment and no bad smell in the apartment.

We spent quite a lot of time talking about it and she told me that the idea of her living situation being a temporary one and not forever was helpful.

Eve and I spent the evening of day two in the company of our Russian friends. I must admit, it was rather entertaining to talk in 3 languages – Olga’s first foreign language was German, and Eve’s first foreign language was German as well. How true is the saying ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’!

I could definitely recognize the German words when Olga was speaking, but it was very hard for me to build a single sentence. However, I was excited to remember more and more words.

I definitely needed them the next day. You just have to wait till the next post to find out why.

… To be continued.

Oh, if you purchase any products on the site where they sell that nice coffee maker, I will get commission 😉

Dominican Republic Caribbean Vacation - Day One with Eve

The day started as expected – with sunny calm weather and a gorgeous sea view from my bed.

I actually had a good coffee maker and yes, spent some crazy money at the food mart located right on the resort property when buying coffee.

I think the sales person makes up prices as she goes.

I spent quite a bit of money there on my first night when I was not emotionally stable because of events of the previous month and what happened on my way to the resort.

As of this writing, just over 3 weeks after the events, I actually got an apologetic phone call from Southwest Airlines that inaccurate info on their website caused me some stress during my vacation!
This is one more reason I will stay loyal to Southwest, just love how they treat their customers. 😊

Back to prices in Dom Republic.

I am very glad that I did some research about being a tourist there.
What I found out is – when I ask about price, rule number one is to always remember to bargain, because the locals name very high prices on everything when they realize that they speak to a tourist.

That worked very well for me when hiring a taxi to take me to theresort, but I completely forgot about it when shopping for coffee, wine and chocolate on the first night. All I cared for was that all of it was available.
Big mistake. Never to be repeated again kind of mistake. 😊

So, after a cup of good local coffee made in my apartment, off to the beach I went. My friend Olga was on the dock already enjoying the sea and after a short conversation with her I went swimming. That is how my morning went all the way till lunch time.

I spent a lot of time in the water swimming to the deep water, marveling at how clear it was far away from the shore. I got into trouble with a security guard as they did not want people swimming all the way into boat routes, as it is most definitely not safe.

Olga left for lunch a little earlier as her son was bored on the dock so she followed him to the resort water park. That is when a young woman came up to me and started talking to me in rather broken English.
We started talking and she asked if she can make me company for lunch. We spent about two hours in the restaurant together enjoying the food and the scenery.

Both Eve (was her name) and I were renters of condos and did not technically qualify for all inclusive buffet, which included tiny pastries and fresh cut fruit. Dessert buffet looked so incredibly good!

Eve and I asked our server if we could have some, expressed readiness to pay.
Our server went to talk to his shift manager to find out what to do about our request.
The manager went to check with the Chef, and we were granted permission to have dessert on the house! This became our daily game during lunch, and each time the Chef was gracious to let us enjoy ripe fresh fruit and delicious pastries.

It still amazes me that I got two friends on this vacation.
Both of them were kind to listen to my story of the previous month and candid about their experiences.

Eve does not have children and will not have any if she stays married to her husband.
She is happy in the marriage, so I told her that not having children is not necessarily a tragedy, things could be really grim when children become completely different adults than their parents had hoped they would.

That can be quite painful and make parents question if their efforts and years of life were wasted while raising that child.

Earlier in the day when talking to me Olga looked at the issue of why some young people struggle to find their path in life, comprehensively – how we feel physically and emotionally is largely dependent on how well we take care of our bodies.

This is where a lot of problems start. It looks innocent and everybody is inclined to give themselves permission to indulge in food and sweets and be a lazy coach potato. But results can be devastating both physically and psychologically.

Being fat (overweight, obese – whatever term applies to your particular life) is only a tip of the iceberg. What’s hidden are consequences of this imbalance. Fat cells in a human body become a source of chemicals which throw off balance many processes regulating our physical and emotional well-being.

What seems to be an innocent indulgence leads to lack of motivation, low self esteem and loss of purpose in life.
Yes, it is that serious. We are created to be lean and able to be of service to others.

As attractive as it seems, constant entertainment and indulgence don’t lead to better satisfaction with life, quite the opposite – lack of meaningful activity leads to loss of purpose in life and joyless existence.

… To be continued.

Oh, if you purchase any products on the site where they sell that nice coffee maker, I will get commission 😉