Sweet Tea

Where I come from it’s like Bubba off of Forest Gump. Their is chopped bbq, sliced bbq, coarse chopped bbq,white meat, dark meat, bbq slaw(That red vinegar goodness that most of ya’ll turn your nose at) and then there is bbq tea. Yes, that’s a real thing. It’s 2 cups of sugar per glass with a drop of tea. Lol, no really it’s corn-syrup flavored tea and it’s addicting with that good ice and you can only find it in the south. Yesterday, I mentioned that photo I can remember it was April 6th, 2018 that I sit in my recliner home alone with my son and said, “Self we need to have a talk, you gotta change.” I may or may not have said it out loud, but I said it. I acknowledged that I had a problem. Most people think of addicts as alcoholics or struggling with drugs; for me I had a food addiction. It IS a real thing!!! I knew that day, I could visualize it, a skinnier-healthier-happier me. I knew from that moment this was no diet, this was not a fad, or something short term, this was a lifestyle change. Folks, I am no doctor, I don’t know the specifics about being a nutritionists but I started researching what I had and how to change it. So if you know you have heart problems, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc. start there. Make this personalized for you and what your body is dealing with and take photos.. lots of photos. I started out at a little over 250 pounds, I know people said I carried well. I took the most gosh awful photo that made me throak a little bit even doing it with my belly all flopped out. You will come to love this picture, I swear it will be your lifeline at some points. I took my photo, went plopped right back down in my chair and started pinning recipes. Went to bed, woke up and on my way to work stopped at Smithfield’s (Which is as close as it gets at the beach) and ordered my large sweet tea with extra ice. I took one sip and I kid you not my subconscious started arguing with me. Like girl didn’t we just talk about this yesterday, there is no waiting till tomorrow, or I’ll start Monday. Today is the day!!! I drove my happy butt to work and threw it away… a waste of $2.34. But my inner-self smiled and the woman inside me said you can do this. So I gave up tea! That’s it… no not really. I wish. I became conscious of what I was eating that contained sugar. Everything in this world has some type of something that is bad for you. I will say this from the start, I am not big on reading the labels on the back. I should be and I glance, but I do not say you’re only allowed such and such calories, sugar or carbs. For the first week I limited carbs (which I learnt later how to tell which are good and bad) and sugar. Then I took a picture, weighed myself and critiqued it, enlarged it, made a collage for side by side comparisons and you know what? I had lost 5 pounds and noticed a difference. My son had his birthday party, I skipped the cake and ate the fruit. I know 5 pounds may be nothing for some of you, but for me to see a difference it was huge! So it began, my body didn’t feel bloated, I started drinking water (with lemon) and I started experimenting with recipes. The funny thing is, I never really told Ben what I was doing I just started doing it and he went along for the ride. So when I started cooking with cauliflower he didn’t even give me a second look. There were some good ones that are still my go to’s, some bad that you hit “delete” and some you keep but think how can I make this better. You really don’t learn this over night. Even taking a class would be overwhelming for me to try to remember everything and folks I still use bacon grease. I don’t know I guess it’s in my roots. I love them pigs. So I challenge you to think what is my goal, is it to lose a couple pounds to hit your high school weight, an underlying health condition, whatever your reason is let it be what motivates you. I knew for one if I didn’t do something I would miss out on activities with Chase because I physically couldn’t do what I use too, my body wasn’t proportioned..humor me, blow up a kiddie float you know one of those round ones and step in it, now blow up some arm bands, now let some air out. It’s like doing the hokey-pokey and shake it all about. Except my shake kept dancing well after the song was over. It’s okay, I accept that now. Why because I let myself get to the point of unhappiness. It was nobody’s fault but mine. Yes, I may have PCOS but it did not tell me to down corn-syrup every day. It played a role in how my body reacted to it, but my condition did not get me to 250 pounds, I did! This afternoon, think about yourself. What is going on that you are even reading this, I know ya’ll all want to see magic results, but sometimes that comes from within. Then decide am I ready for the next step. So go weigh yourself, take that dreaded photo and start Pinning, go buy you a healthy cookbook, just go.. take the first step.