 Welcome back to the channel. So today I am doing a very highly requested video and that is my weight loss journey. I've had so many of you request information about how I have lost weight, how I have started like working on my fitness and my health and so today I really wanted to share with you all of my secrets and things that I've been doing. So I'm just gonna jump right in. Okay so I'm gonna just start with a little bit of history. So growing up I was always like really super thin, very skinny, my aunt and uncles would always call me skinny mini like they I was basically a stick figure. They would make fun of me and say skinny mini, teeny weeny, like very slim and slender. As I got into high school I started to fill out a lot and I wasn't like fat or overweight or anything like that ever. But as soon as I got into my adult years I started to obviously lose my metabolism and so I started to gain weight. Now I never like viewed myself as overweight. I never felt like I was uncomfortable in my body but I always felt like I could always do better. So when I got married I was about 148 maybe 150 pounds and that was in 2015 and then when I got pregnant with cash I was about 155 and when I delivered cash I was 175 or 180 so I had gained about 30 pounds in the pregnancy just give or take. And then when I started breastfeeding I lost most of that. I was down to like 165, 170 and then after I stopped breastfeeding all of that weight kind of started coming back. So at my peak weight the heaviest I've ever been it has been about 170, 172. So thinking about what I weighed when I got married 150 about a 20 pound difference. Now for me this is a huge amount of weight. When I'm when I say for me I just mean like when people look at me they say oh you're not overweight you don't need to lose weight okay but for me this is a big difference is a big change. So for me to be 20 pounds heavier I feel it and I feel uncomfortable in my skin. About a year ago I started working out with what is who is now my dear dear friend Nicole and it's actually a funny story my husband goes to the gym every day he met Nicole at the gym just in passing they were always there at the same time he would say things like oh you know my wife is looking for a workout buddy you're you seem like you're always here can I give you her number she would probably love to work out with you. My husband's kind of like super supportive so he hooked it up for me. So my husband got Nicole and I to meet each other we started working out and then quarantine happened so we were working out here in the house and then as soon as the gyms opened back up we went to the gym and we were going about five to six days a week. Now at the gym when we got there we were working out we were lifting heavy weights we didn't do a lot of cardio I do lift heavy weights and that is how I work out but I wasn't seeing any difference in my weight. I noticed that I was gaining a lot of muscle but I wasn't losing any weight and that was kind of my target like yes I want to get stronger and yes I want to gain muscle but I really want to put some of this fat out like I want to get rid of this fat. Fast forward to a year later this March I tried my wedding dress on and I realized I have to do something else what I'm doing is not working. Now I will preface this by saying I'm a foodie I love to eat food tacos mashed potatoes bread pasta I love food and that was one of the reasons why I had always kind of like steered away from like diets and like meal plans like oh okay you're gonna eat chicken and rice and broccoli or oh you're gonna do this many meals and it's gonna be these items all the time. I just could never get myself to do it because I would constantly be eating the same thing and I would get bored and I would get tired of it and then I would quit and I would cheat and nothing would help until I talk to my mom. My mom started this thing called bright line eating and she did it around last January so 2020 January 2020 and she lost about 20 pounds in a two month period. She was always telling me about this idea this plan and I kind of just sloughed it off and was like oh that's funny that's cute go ahead whatever but I never jumped on the bandwagon until I tried my wedding dress on and I realized I need something to change I want to fit in this wedding dress again so I decided to try it out so the name of the program is bright line eating BLE but what I should tell you is that I am not following the program like I do not have the book I do not do the seminars I don't get the emails like I'm not signed up for the program my mom is so all of the information that I got about this program just came through my mom so she gave me the meal plan she printed it out and I'm gonna link pictures of the meal plan in this video below I found them on Pinterest it's the same meal plan printout that my mom got and I follow that meal plan as closely as possible now there are some days where I don't follow it as closely but I never eat something that isn't on the plan so essentially what the plan is is no flour whether it's wheat white whatever no flour basically gluten free and no processed sugar so you get your sugars from fruit and stuff but there is absolutely no eating sugar so no candy no ice cream no cake no sweets none of that cut it all out no flour no processed sugar that's it then you follow a meal plan where you weigh out your food and you only eat certain foods at certain times of the day so what I'm gonna do is kind of read through the meal plan for you and I have these printed out and they're on my fridge so at all times of the day I can see them and I can plan accordingly I do the three meals per day plan because it fits with my lifestyle I am a working adult I'm not at home all day to eat all day long I only get certain amounts of breaks at work so I do the three meal plan and it works for me so for breakfast I have one protein one breakfast grain and one fruit also on this picture is a list of foods and how much weight of each food I would eat so a breakfast grain typically eaten by a woman it says potato sweet potato yam rice quinoa oatmeal oat bran cream of rice grits shredded wheat or fiber one so basically all of the things that you would consider a carbohydrate you eat it in the morning and you can have four ounces after cooking or one ounce dry and then cook it so I eat a lot of grits in the morning I eat potatoes I eat hash browns I eat rice cakes I eat rice but I don't eat breakfast until like 10 20 because that's when my lunch break is at school so I just don't eat until 10 20 every day then for lunch I can have one protein six ounces of vegetables one fruit and one fat then again I just look on my list to see how much weight of each item I can have and I plan my meal accordingly so proteins might be yogurt milk eggs cheese cottage cheese chicken turkey pork beef lamb fish shrimp tofu tempeh beans lentils hummus edamame veggie burger or soy or any other nut so I can have pretty much any protein that I want I just only have four ounces and then I can have a fruit I can have a vegetable so a fruit could be strawberries pineapple as my go-to bananas apple whatever I want any fruit I want I can either eat the whole fruit or I can have like a few pieces of each one I weigh it out six ounces of fruit okay so four ounces of protein six ounces of veggies six ounces of fruit and then a fat which again everything is listed so my fats are listed here I could have a spoonful of peanut butter I could have salad dressing I could have nuts so like a handful of nuts not a handful I would need to weigh them it's a half an ounce of nuts a half of an avocado okay so everything the key the trick the secret is weighing everything out and portioning your food so then for dinner my camera is about to die so I'm going to restart in a second for dinner I have one protein six ounces of vegetables an eight ounce salad and then another fat so I generally have peanut butter for lunch and then avocado for dinner because it generally goes with things that I would eat at dinner so same thing you just pick whatever protein you're doing weigh it out pick your vegetables weigh them do a salad sometimes I don't do an eight ounce salad sometimes I do less because by the time like a week and a half or two weeks in your stomach is shrinking so you're not going to be as hungry an eight ounce salad to me after eating protein and veggies I couldn't eat anymore I was getting full okay so that is a three meal plan so what I'm going to do is link a couple of things down below first thing I'm going to link is my Pinterest pin board for bright line eating it's going to have a couple pictures that look like this on it they're teal and I'm looking for all of the pictures that I currently have but I also found a really neat fridge magnet that is on Amazon and it has all of this information on it and it's a magnet that goes around in your fridge so I'm going to link that down below I'm actually going to buy that right now but I will link it down below for you there's also a book that you can purchase if you really want to read on the whole program how it works why it works the way my mom explained it to me was that carbs and sugar are an addictive substance flour itself is an addictive substance and so is processed sugar so once our bodies don't have access to those anymore we don't crave them and we have way more will willpower we have way more self-control and we just don't want those foods anymore and I will tell you that is a hundred percent true after about two weeks doing bright line eating I stopped craving flour and I also had way more willpower I would have pizza around me pasta tortillas tacos everything that I still loved eating was around me but I didn't eat it because I didn't really care to have it it wasn't like oh gosh I really want those tacos those flour tortillas oh gosh I really want to try the bread oh my gosh I need to have the crackers I didn't feel like I didn't have self-control anymore I felt like no that's just not my food that's one of the mantras of the bright line eating is that's not my food so it definitely works I have lost a total of 10 pounds since Easter and that was April 27th I forget so I'm almost I'm barely even a month and some change in and I've already lost 10 pounds so this does work one thing that my mom told me now again I am not like part of the program I didn't sign up for the program I didn't buy the book I didn't do any of that I'm just going off of what my mom told me so if you're one of those people that wants to like learn for yourself get the book sign up for the program definitely they have like Facebook support groups and like there's tons of people on Pinterest and Instagram you go for it I'm just going off what my mom told me you're not supposed to work out while you're doing the weight loss plan because there's a weight loss plan and a maintenance plan basically once you've lost all the weight you want to lose you maintain your weight by eating similarly but you can start adding more things in like more protein at a time you're allowed higher portions because you're maintaining your weight now so I haven't been going to the gym as often as five days a week but I have been getting there at least two days a week to keep my momentum and keep it a habit so during the summer now that I've lost the 10 pounds that I've wanted to lose I'm gonna get back into the gym now that I have my eating habit under control I have my gym habit under control I can marry the two and live a healthy lifestyle am I gonna go back to eating flour no I don't need to I don't feel the need to do that if I go out for dinner and there's a flower item on the menu that I really want I can probably eat it and I'm gonna go right back to my bright lines the next day so it is a lifestyle that you can upkeep as long as you're in the right mindset so the tools that I recommend that you have before you begin your bright line journey is a food scale I got this one from Amazon I believe so just any food scale that measures and ounces you're gonna want to either print your meal plan or get that magnet I've got it already in my car I'm ready to check out as soon as I get off of this video with you guys that's gonna be really helpful having the magnet there for me to use so a scale print out your eating plan and then you're also going to want to start thinking about getting creative because if you're a flower lover like me and you need a lot of sandwiches pizza quesadillas things like that you can get creative Trader Joe's and Sprouts even Safeway fries most grocery stores are starting to provide more flowerless options because of people who are gluten-free it's a lot easier so a couple of the things that I use staples in my grocery list every week are things that involve cauliflower cauliflower thins to be exact they sell these at Trader Joe's it comes in a pack of four I use these for almost everything so I use these to make little miniature pizzas I use these to make sandwiches I use these to make tacos pretty much anything that I would use with flour I replace with this and it works I did have to get over the taste cuz to me they kind of taste like farts at first but once you get over that they taste delicious if you season whatever you're eating really well you won't even taste them another one that I really love are these folios these are from Trader Joe's as well but I believe most grocery stores are carrying them now it's literally a wrap of cheese I love sandwiches so I like to throw some salami lettuce mustard and wrap it up in one of these cheese wraps and it's like I'm eating a sandwich I snack on some pickles on the side as part of my veggie and then I throw a little bowl of pineapple in the mix and that's my lunch so those two items are great and then I'm a chip a holic I love to eat chips and salsa chips and guacamole corn chips you can have but you need to eat them in very much moderation so I don't even really eat them unless I'm at like a party or someone's house and there's corn chips then I'll snack on them but again my stomach is has shrunken so I'm not gonna be as hungry but I use plantain chips they are they only have plantains sunflower oil and salt in them these are from Trader Joe's as well but plantain chips are a great substitute if you're a snacker like me oftentimes for my lunch and I eat lunch around 2 30 every day but oftentimes my lunch consists of plantain chips some sort of cream cheese based dip protein as long as I measure it out at a time I can have it any type of cream cheese dip like artichoke dip whatever I dip these in it and then I also add carrots bell pepper I dip those into the into the dip so I'm basically eating anything I want and I'm losing weight so those are my three staple items things I I always buy these every week and then another thing I just wanted to mention that I'm also doing in addition to bright lines is I am taking these flow gummies which are supposed to help with bloating and I don't know if they're helping with bloating but my acne is doing a lot better so I am taking these and these have 3 grams of sugar in them so anytime you're looking for a sweet treat or something look at the sugar content as long as it's like 3 grams below I'll usually eat it like a chocolate hummus the other day that had like 2 grams of sugar in it my alani new energy drinks they have like 1 gram of sugar 2 grams of sugar in them that's okay just don't like go above 3 grams of sugar so like your coffee creamer might have some sugar in it just be very mindful of how much sugar you're putting into your diet because if you start adding process sugar process sugar process sugar then you're not cutting it out of your diet so bright line eating it's working it's working for me going to the gym a few times a week I've lost 10 pounds some days when I wake up it's down 12 pounds and I feel really good and I'm happy and I'm so much more confident in my skin and I'm just digging it so I'm gonna enter insert some photos here at the end just some comparisons as can see where I started where I finished I'm such a dodo I didn't take like progress pictures that was so silly of me but I definitely can tell that I'm thinning out and people around me can tell as well so my mom I go a few weeks without seeing her she's like wow yeah you're really losing weight my dad even says that I am and Scott he says that I'm losing weight so it's definitely working and I really hope that it works for you guys check my description for helpful links again I'll link that magnet I'll link the book if you're interested in that and I will link my Pinterest board that has pictures of the meal plan because these actually just got from my mom she sent them on her phone so there's no way to get you this but I can send you links to where you can find them so anyway I hope this video was helpful for any of you that are trying to lose weight who are struggling like I was hopefully this helps at least one person and I will see you guys in the next video