Ten Months No Soda Challenge

Ten months ago today, I stopped drinking soda. I didn't gradually wean myself off of them. I went cold turkey. I expected it to be a grueling personal challenge, something that I would miss as much as if I'd dropped a part of my personal identity. After all, soda drinking was something I'd always done.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn't that hard to let go of this. I found ways to give myself acceptable alternatives, things I could have instead of soda that meant I didn't have to feel deprived. I learned to make different choices, taking tea instead of soda or water if there wasn't anything else available. The months went on, and I found that I very rarely missed soda, and usually only when I was really thirsty was I even tempted to drink it.

I had expected, as most people who told me about giving up soda had reported, weight loss to accompany this. It didn't happen. In fact, my body stubbornly refused to shed pounds or inches. It did, however, cause me to start examining my life to see where I was maybe making choices that were self-defeating in terms of the weight loss I wanted to achieve.

I began to realize that I was adding sugar into everything I drank - sometimes two or three tablespoons worth. And that was adding up to a lot of extra calories that weren't helping me gain control of my weight. So, I stopped doing that. I started drinking things without adding sugar to them. The needle began to budge, just barely, on my weight loss goals.

I entered into the Isabody challenge, dramatically altering my diet and habits. Bigger changes came. A healthier body began to show itself. I began to feel better about myself and to feel better in general. I shed over 25 inches and 18 pounds of undesired body fat. I have also become much more sensitive to sugar and need far less of it in my food to find that it tastes good to me.

Going without soda didn't prove to be the magic bullet I had hoped it would be, but it did many good things for me. It was as if making that one big decision in my life paved the way for me to re-examine my life and make a decision to make other, equally important, changes to the way I was living. I think that's probably the most important thing I've taken away from this journey.

I still have two months to go. My husband's been asking me if I plan to celebrate the end of my year with a soda. I haven't decided yet, but I don't think so. To be honest, I think I want to celebrate the end of my year without soda with a book. A book I can be proud to have written about my journey to a soda-free lifestyle. And maybe with that book, I can encourage other people who may have been thinking about giving up soda but have been hesitant to try it themselves.

3 Days from Month 9 No Soda Challenge, 60 Days Isabody Challenge

It's hard for me to believe. In just three months, I'll have completed my year without soda. What I thought would be the most challenging part, proved to be the easiest. That was the giving up of soda. What I thought would be the easiest part - losing weight after giving up soda - has proven to be the hardest for me.

I am 60 days into my Isabody challenge. I have shed a total of 25.5 inches of unwanted body fat. Sadly, I haven't lost anything since I posted the last time. But, that's mostly because I stopped being faithful to the Isadiet and stopped adding in the extra exercise I'd been doing. Those choices kicked my butt and for about a week, I went from losing weight to slowly having it creep back into place.

Let me tell you - it was an incredibly discouraging thing to take that tape measure and see those inches were starting to return. Part of me felt like saying, "Well, if I'm just going to end up back where I was what's the point of all this?" but, that was the negative part of me. It's the part that has kept me from being as proactive about my weight as I should have been all along.

The other part of me said, "Okay, if I'm putting the weight back on, let's take a look at the choices I've been making and get back to doing what was working."

I realized I had dropped my planking. I had reached being able to hold the plank for a full 70 seconds and then let laziness take over and gave up doing it. I wasn't following the Isadiet. I was only taking one shake a day rather than the recommended two, and I wasn't keeping my snack choices healthy.

I'm happy to report, though, that putting the exercise back in its place - in addition to all the walking I do - and getting back on top of my diet resulted in me being at maintenance of the inches lost rather than having lost ground. I'm making sure I eat right, eat regularly, and keep my hands off the sweets. It's okay every once in a while, but when it becomes a consistent part of my diet, it quickly becomes a real problem.

What I've learned from this experience is that bad habits are easy to fall back into, but those bad habits can quickly undo all the progress you've gained from making good choices. You have to be vigilant about your choices, and you have to keep measuring yourself to make sure you're headed in the direction you want to be headed. Running from the tape measure won't help.

I think that's true about any positive change we want to make in life. We need to find a measuring tape for our changes, use it regularly, and keep track of the positive gains we've made. We also need to be honest about where we've fallen short and take steps to get ourselves back on track as soon as we're aware of the problem. Losing the weight is a harder battle for me than it might be for some, but it's a battle I'm determined to win.

10 Days from 8 Months, Isabody Challenge Day 26

It's amazing what you can do when you get a little help doing it. When I gave up soda nearly 8 months ago, I didn't know how long my new resolution would last. Could I really go a year without soda? It just seemed so unthinkable. Now I'm almost eight months into my challenge, and not only have I remained soda free but I don't miss it.

Things that have changed: I have a new sensitivity to sugar, meaning I feel its effects faster when I eat it and I get sick sooner than I used to when I have too much of it. I no longer plow through a bag of candy in a single sitting. I can have a piece or two without feeling the craving for more. Heck, I even made it through Easter with only 3 pieces of chocolate the entire day.

My Isabody challenge is going very well. I have shed a total of 20 1/4" of unwanted body fat. I'm still not where I want to be, and the scale I bought doesn't seem to have moved (although I suspect that's because it's a cheap scale and broken), but my clothes fit better and I feel better than I have in a long time. The progress I wasn't able to make with diet and exercise changes alone are happening at record speed with the help of my new system.

No, I'm not starving myself. Nor am I going without the things I enjoy from time to time. I don't have to give up everything to get what I want, I simply have to have what I want in moderation. I'm nearly done with the first 30 days of that challenge and you can imagine that I am really eager to see where the 30 days following this one takes me.  I would like to be down to a size 14 by summer, and to a size 10 by next fall.

It's cost me a little to go with this system, I'm not afraid to admit that. I've spent more than I normally would have in a month on my products. However, I decided that I am worth it, that my health is worth it, and that the expense of the products is far less than a lifetime of high blood pressure medicine and diabetes treatments, or worse.

Here's the ugly truth: Self-control isn't enough to lose weight. Diet and exercise alone, when you reach a certain point, may not be enough either. Sometimes your body may need extra help to get that weight loss started and to keep it going. Mine did, and I'm definitely glad that I decided to take advantage of that help when it was offered to me.

Just 3 weeks ago, I measured the size of my gut as to how far it protruded from my abdomen. It was 3 1/2"! That's a lot of fat sitting around your gut, and it's a very dangerous place to have fat accumulate as it leads to heart disease. Today, I measured it again. It's only 2 1/2" today. That's a whole inch of fat that is just gone. I'm so pleased.

Here are my measurements from Day 12 on April 4th:
Neck: 14 3/4"
Bust: 41 1/2"
Diaphragm: 36 1/2"
Waist: 37 1/4"
Gut: 46 1/4"
Hips: 44 1/4"
Upper left arm: 14 1/2"
left wrist: 7"
upper left thigh: 27"
Upper left knee: 17 1/4"
left calf: 17 1/2"
left ankle: 10 1/2"
Upper right arm: 15"
right wrist: 7"
Upper right thigh: 26 1/2"
Upper right knee: 17 1/2"
right calf: 17 1/2"
right ankle: 10 1/4"

Here are my measurements from Day 26, April 20th (Today):
Neck: 14"
Bust: 41"
Diaphragm: 35 3/4"
Waist: 36"
Gut: 44 1/4"
Hips: 42"
Upper left arm: 14 3/4"
left wrist: 6 3/4"
Upper left thigh: 25"
Upper left knee: 16 1/4"
left calf: 17 1/4"
left ankle: 10"
Upper right arm: 15"
right wrist: 6 3/4"
Upper right thigh: 24 3/4"
Upper right knee: 16 1/4"
Right calf: 17 1/4"
right ankle: 9 3/4"