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How I lost 50 Pounds Naturally

I once saw a picture of myself that my daughter took that was so devastating it drove me to take action. It wasn’t the way I looked that bothered me so much, even though I looked like an overweight, tired mom of two for sure. Losing weight wasn’t a vanity metric for me at the start. What I saw, or didn’t see, which is what became most important to me. It was the sparkle. The sparkle had died in my eyes and I could see it plain as day in that photo. That even though I had attained what I thought was the peak of adulthood, I was drowning inside. I had gotten a masters degree, gotten married, been promoted, had two children and purchased a beautiful family home anyone would be happy to live in, but I wasn’t happy.

It was then that I realized that success for me came in the form of growth. And in that photo I had lost the one thing that kept me thriving, which was the desire for more. But more for me wasn’t a new car, a new home, or a better vacation. More for me was more energy, more creative projects, and more personal developmental and growth. When I had my babies time stood still, as it should. I dove into motherhood ready to tackle all the things. I learned how to care properly for babies, then toddlers, and now school aged kids. But somewhere in between changing diapers, feeding my kids and doing the laundry, I lost track of me.

I used to work out and find time to play with my friends, but now everything in my life circled around work and kids. There was no planning of anything for my self development. I had even gotten a job where the typical conference a year wasn’t even an option. I was stagnant and needed a complete overhaul of focus so I could be more. Because you can’t pour from an empty cup, and in this moment my cup was empty. I was out of gas and needed to take a moment to reevaluate how to move forward.

What I started with was nutrition. I realized that my energy was not what it used to be, and in order to feel better I was going to have to fuel myself better. The very next day, I vowed to eat only single ingredient foods. I cut out all the packaged foods and went back to if it didn’t come out of the ground, off a tree, or from an animal on land or at sea, I’m not eating it! And I stuck to that every day for six months straight.

It wasn’t always easy, but it was worth it. I began to feel the inflammation come off of my joints. At the time, I suffered from a lot of tailbone and lower back pain and I noticed that as time went by, I felt less and less joint pain. I also added a freshly squeezed lemon to my water every day, and I think this too helped with inflammation and joint pain. I also noticed that I wasn’t getting sick. I typically would get what my kids picked up from daycare, but I was flying by the winter season without a cold in sight.

After a few weeks of eating Whole Foods I started to add more movement into my day. I was having more energy from the food I was fueling my body so it felt pretty natural to add walking in. I started with walking for a half an hour a day non negotiable. That was pretty easy to accomplish and by two weeks, I had upped it to sixty minutes of walking every day. That was more difficult, but I did that for a few weeks before I remembered the fitness AP on my phone for my watch had sent me some workouts that I could follow if I paid $9.99 every month. Now that’s the cheapest gym membership I ever had, so I signed up and I used the dumb bells I already had in my basement. I had five pound dumb bells, 8 pound dumb bells and a 20 pound dumbbell set. I realized really quick i needed to purchase 15 pound dumb bells, so I bought some of those and I was set! The workouts consisted of using full body weight with the dumbbells. They were full body workouts and I did them every other day, no exception, and that is when things started to change.

The weight began to fall off my body and by month three I was already down thirty pounds! I was at a place in my life where I wasn’t eating well and moving my body and the inflammation was really high. I was carrying a lot of water weight, and the movement mixed with the Whole Foods allowed my body to drop the weight pretty quickly in the beginning. And that win on the scale is what motivated me to keep going. Once I had taken off a lot of the water weight, it was time to build some real muscle and the twenty pound dumb bells weren’t cutting it any longer. I needed to either purchase an at home gym, or join a gym so I could stay consistent in my gains. I eventually decided on Anytime Fitness to meet my needs. It was close to my house and had all of the heavy weights that I needed.

I easily picked up a routine of working out at Anytime Fitness on my lunch break. Over the next few months I ended up losing a total of fifty pounds. All from eating real food and lifting heavy weights. I was in the best shape I had been in a decade and I was full of energy. I had added in supplements and could work all day, workout at lunch , and run around with my kids until bed time. All without getting sick or even a pulled muscle. By showing up for myself every day, even when it was difficult, I created a lasting routine that I still am using today.

I had lost the weight, but more than that I had gained back the sparkle I had been missing. The little piece of me that reminded me that my thoughts, and my dreams are just as important as everyone else’s. That year I went on to get my motorcycle license and purchased a motorcycle. I made a bucket list of plans that I wished to accomplish and I am still working on this list today. Heck, even this blog is a result of a bucket list item that I am working on. To become a better writer and connect with a community of people, just like me. To keep the spark alive, to learn, create and find my joy.

If you are on a journey, any journey, please drop it in the comments and subscribe! I’d love to hear what you are working on or what you have accomplished!

I believe in you!

We got this!

Sandra Alynn

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How I started writing my first book

I began my writing journey the day after my aunt’s funeral. Strange, I know. I’ve wanted to be a writer my entire life and have tried to write in the past, but I always threw in the towel after a few days. I doubted that anyone would ever want to read what I wrote, and wondered why I thought I could write any better than anyone else. The stacks of doubts had climbed to mountains of various reasons of why it couldn’t be me that would succeed.

I measured myself by reviewing other writers books, blogs and social media pages thinking that I don’t have what it takes to be that good. And then I’d worry, what if it did work out and people saw my face and judged my writing, and everything I’ve done in my life up until this point. What if I just wasn’t good enough. Or what if I was, but only once. What if I wrote one thing that people liked never to write anything of value ever again.

You see, I had never even started writing and I was already convinced it wasn’t going to happen for me. The thing that I didn’t know back then, that I have learned through experience is that it doesn’t matter how good I am at writing. The accomplishment for me was in doing what I said I was going to do. Setting out to complete a monumental task that I had placed on my bucket list as a child. It was the journey of learning to write that was going to make me a better writer. I wasn’t just going to wake up one day and know how to string a sentence together that people were going to want to read. I had to wake up with the intent to write, and sometimes a good sentence or paragraph would find me.

After watching my aunt enter a hospital with a urinary track infection, only to pass away after spending two weeks attached to a ventilator, did I suddenly realize that I needed to work on writing my first book. Seeing my family grieve the unexpected loss of my aunt reminded me that life is too short to waste it on doubts. Someday it will be me in that hospital bed, and the feeling of regret that I would never make it as a writer would haunt me. The unknown, untapped potential would gnaw at my soul. It was in this moment that I realized I didn’t care if anybody read this book. It was more important that I complete a dream that I had envisioned as a child. A dream that no matter how many accomplishments I wracked up at work, it never dimmed.

I couldn’t tell that little girl inside of me that I had failed one more time. And somewhere in the act of writing, I realized, that showing up to write is half the battle. The feeling of doing something that I wanted to do that was difficult every day was forging a path of self development that I hadn’t realized that I needed. Each word count milestone was a testament to respecting myself. Each time I woke up early to write another 500-1,000 words I recognized a determination and discipline that I thought was not attainable for me. It was in this process of writing my first book that I recognized the creativity I held as a child was only a keystroke away as an adult.

Every morning I wake up to write is a day that I fulfill my dreams of becoming a writer. There is no good or bad writing for me, as long as I show up and complete the goals I set out to accomplish, I am honoring the little girl that lives inside of me.

I believe in you!

We got this!

Sandra Alynn