Dark leafy greens are supposed to be some kind of holy grail of awesome, what with their overload of vitamins and minerals in exchange for barely any calories. It’s actually really easy to incorporate them into your every day diet, and I find that weeks where I’m eating more baby spinach, I’m losing significantly better.

I get the big giant clamshell package of organic baby spinach from Costco, but you can get large and small quantities at your local regular grocery store, you’ll just pay $1 or so more. This is one thing where you absolutely want to buy organic, even if you normally buy only conventional. Luckily, at least at grocery stores here, I only ever see organic, so you won’t have a choice!

Any time I would normally have used lettuce, I use this baby spinach instead – so salads, tacos, sandwiches, everything. It goes in omelets, it finds its way into soups, I throw it into anything that isn’t sweet. Or, actually, no. I throw it into sweet stuff, too.

Case in point: The Green Smoothie.

These make awesome breakfasts, and the best part is that you can basically throw in pretty much anything and it’ll work (whatever ripe fruit is on your counter, carrots, flax, protein powder, chia seeds…). This is my go-to smoothie, but feel free to change it up. If you have a favorite combo for your smoothies, post them in the comments!

Keely’s Green Smoothie of Joy

A couple very big handfuls of baby spinach
1 cup greek yogurt
1 (generous) cup frozen berries
1 frozen banana (great for bananas about to go past edibility – freeze them peeled, though. Trust me.)
2 packets of stevia

1. First I blend the spinach into oblivion with the yogurt. Whatever you use as your “liquid” ingredient (yogurt, milk, water, whatever), should go in with the spinach first. Doing it this way will allow the spinach to be liquified and blend completely rather than if you throw everything in together and ending up with little bits of spinach floating around your berries. Unless you have one of those uber-blenders like a Blendtec or Vitamix, don’t skip this step. If you have one of those blenders, you’re probably not reading this anyway because you’re already a smoothie expert.

2. Gather your other ingredients, pop them in, and blend the living bejeebers out of them. (As you can see in the picture, the blender contains a spring-green liquid – no spinach chunks!)

3. Pour into glass. (There’s enough to fill this 12oz glass plus some left over for any errant children running underfoot to share some.)

4. Drink. And then RINSE YOUR GLASS and your blender! I emphasize this because if you are the kind of person who would just pop them into the dishwasher to be run on the next cycle, you will be very sad. They will not come clean. The smoothie mixture is akin to cement mixed with superglue mixed with detergent kryptonite mixed with tar. If allowed to dry, you basically lost that glass forever. RINSE.

Let me know if you try your first green smoothie! And if you’ve got a favorite blend, post it! I want to try it!

My friend Elizabeth asked in the comments of my last food post: “Here’s my question: how do you defeat the “OMG my jeans don’t fit, I’ve gained so much weight, I’m so depressed – OH $#&% IT I’m going to eat ten cupcakes because who #$%&ing cares at this point anyway!” line of thinking? Gets me every time!”

I don’t know if I’m really the best person to answer this because I passed that jeans don’t fit exit and drove until my car ran out of gas and then I walked even further. I watched the signs, the ill-fitting clothes, the having to buy new clothes, the having to buy new new clothes, the wearing maternity clothes because that’s the only thing that fit, I can’t have ten cupcakes for dessert without a balanced meal of an entire pizza with breadsticks first. There were so many places I could have turned back, but I didn’t.

So if you’re already asking the question when you’re just in your own “fat pants,” you’re way ahead of the game.

I wish I had some magical wisdom to impart, some mantra you could make into a gif and pin to your Pinterest board (though if we’re being honest, “Thinspiration” Pinterest boards have the potential to be more damaging than anything Cosmopolitan has ever put out.). In any case, I don’t. I have nothing but the sad truth of the matter. In the beginning, you just have to make yourself do it.

What a rip, right? Make yourself do it? That’s it?

Well, yeah. That’s it. I could tell you that nothing tastes as good as thin feels, but if I ever say that out loud I hereby give anyone reading this permission to slap me upside the head. And really, what the fuck does that even mean? Frankly, there are a lot of things that taste just as good as thin feels, and if you’ve not had them then I feel really bad for you.

If you really want to lose weight – be it 15lbs or 100lbs, the starting is the hardest. The starting is where you have nothing but the work you’re doing and the stuff you’re not eating to keep you sad company. Oh, and you have the weight. You have the pounds you’re trying to ditch, but they’re stubborn and they’re fighting to stay around, because you’re pretty cool and they want to be with you so badly that they’re writing BFF in their notebooks with hearts around your name. And they’re bringing the refreshments.

So if you can manage to shake them and read those early signposts like your jeans being too tight and that dress not zipping instead of waiting until you’re at the “Last Chance Gas – 107 miles” signs with your new new new new new pants that are in a size you didn’t even know they made, you’re going to have both a harder and an easier time of it. Harder because it’s easy to put it off. You can rationalize that you don’t need new pants. That you’ve only got 10lbs to lose. You’re totally not fat, you feel pretty good. Easier because 10 is a smaller number to lose than 100, but that’s really paltry consolation. 10′s still hard.

Once you hit the sweet spot where you’re starting to lose and things are fitting better and all of a sudden you’ve got All! The! Energy! and why didn’t you do this sooner? That’s the point where success breeds success and you get to coast a little more. Even Sisyphus got to go back down the hill occasionally.

I’d highly recommend not waiting until you need to lose 100+ pounds before you read one of those warning signs as the one you must heed and turn back, but even if you do, that first step is the hard part. The part that you have to make yourself do.

And really, fuck that “Imma start on Monday” nonsense that goes hand in hand with the “I messed up and ate a cupcake so I should REstart next Monday” and the “I’ll start in the morning because I already ate three donuts today” up until you stumble out of bed and have a half a box of toaster strudel before you remember that you were starting that thing, but it’s probably good because you should eat all the junk in the house first so as not to waste it until you forget and buy more and and and it’s 3 weeks later and you’re up 3lbs, but you sure did start 6 times. This healthy nonsense must just not work. Start NOW. Make good choices the rest of the day and build on them tomorrow. Once you build the initial momentum, it rolls almost by itself.

So what are you waiting for? A bigger sign?

I’ve been a little frustrated. It’s small, nothing really consequential, but frustrating nonetheless.

You see, I am a person who until February of this year was eating fast food multiple times a day. In the interest of full disclosure, in one trip I wouldn’t be able to decide whether I wanted a Big Mac or a chicken sandwich, so I would get both. As value meals. And eat them. With apple pies. Unless I couldn’t decide between apple pies and a McFlurry and you know where I’m going with this.

When I started on this journey and cut out the fast food completely, I mentioned to the trainer I was working with that I’d picked up a big bag of baby carrots and another of snap peas from Costco for snacking so that I’d have plenty of ready food that wasn’t junk to help me through. (And bless her, she’s an amazing trainer and an amazing woman, and I am so thankful to her for everything she did, but…) Her response was that carrots and snap peas are like the candy of the vegetable world, lots of sugar. Maybe try broccoli instead.

And just this week I talked to another trainer that I was gifted a session with – a trainer with a track record of success story after success story after success story under his belt – clients who have lost mind-boggling amounts of weight. After seeing my “before” picture and my “now” standing in front of him, knowing that I have been having mega-success in this weight loss and even having lost 5.7lbs the week prior, I mentioned the green smoothies I like for breakfast and what’s in them – including 1 cup of frozen berries. “You should only do 1/2 cup.” And also I should be only having 1 serving of fruit a day.

So let’s just back this truck up and consider for a moment these statements in the context of both me personally and anyone trying to lose weight and better their health.

Really, I am still only 8 months out from consuming 3260 calories and 133 grams of sugar in an average dinner (Hello, McD’s nutritional info! Eep!) The 52 calories and 6 grams of sugar in a cup of carrots are not something I can really get all worked up about. Especially in the beginning when what those carrots replaced were 500 calories of french fries.

In light of losing almost 80lbs in 8 months, I feel like what I’m doing is…you know…working, so being told I should only eat 1 serving of fruit a day makes me a little aghast. Really? How much faster could I possibly be losing here? (Truth be told, I took a big break from May-August and maintained, so it’s a lot faster than it seems, and it seems fast without the break.) It’s almost as if when confronted with a potential client, we must tweak their plan, even if their plan is functional.

Maybe the ideal athlete or person losing weight eschews all baby carrots in favor of kale. Maybe I would lose 11 pounds per week if I ate nothing but chicken breast and organic broccoli, but who does that? Who wants to do that? Not me. Frankly, we are dealing with enough unrealistic societal standards in terms of youth and beauty and thinness without adding additional ones for those wanting to make healthy choices for themselves. Incremental changes work. Responding with a thinly veiled Well, that’s not good enough to a person standing in front of you who has made a change for the better does not work, and frankly is the same sort of shaming that occurs when that same fat person eats the McNuggets. McNuggets are bad, fat person, but your choice of vegetable leaves a lot to be desired. And put down that apple while you’re at it.

REALLY?

In light of this, I’m instituting What I’m Eating Wednesday. Honestly, second only to “Do you eat anything?” the question I get asked the most about my weight loss so far is “What are you eating?” Starting this Wednesday, I’ll be talking ingredients, recipes, meal plans, anything relating to what and how much goes in (a lot goes in, y’all!). If there’s something about what I eat that you’d like to know, just ask! I’m happy to make it a post.

Also, I know I’m ruining the suspense, but what I’m eating includes a lot of fruit. Also butter. And thus far does not include kale, though if anyone can make a convincing case for it being edible, I’ll certainly try it.

In any case, what I’m eating + what I’m running and lifting have done this (and that “after” is like 15lbs ago!):

Well. I posted when I lost 9lbs, so I ought to put on my big girl panties and post when I lost POINT FOUR.

I’m not sure what the deal was this week. I was well within points, and I worked out every single day. Okay. I lie. Maybe I know what was up. Maybe I sucked at drinking enough water, and maybe that bit about not losing if you don’t eat enough is coming into play, even though it sounds like total bullshit of the highest order. I also ate cereal for breakfast instead of eggs (I am so bored of eggs, what else do you eat that’s protein-rich in the AM? Suggestions? Recipes? Favorite things?), so even though it was whole grain and no HFCS, it was still…well…frosted. I admit it. Frosted.

In better news, I am LOVING doing the strength portion of my workouts every other day. I was all set to brag in this weekly update about how I jogged for 5 minutes straight on Monday now that I’m up to week 4 of the Couch to 5K, but then I took my angst over the Tuesday weigh in and channeled it something fierce into W4D2 today. It’s supposed to be intervals of 3 minutes jogging, 1.5 minutes walking, 5 minutes jogging, 2.5 minutes walking, and then repeat once.

I was really nervous about the 5 minutes when I did day 1, but I handled it and I was actually looking forward to today. I get on the treadmill and I feel really good. Taller. I have no idea why, but I did. I was into my walking warmup and I was at the speed I’m always at and it felt slow and my heart rate was at what my resting rate was a couple weeks ago. I remember thinking how funny it was that before I’d turn it on to that speed and be surprised at how fast it felt and here I was feeling like it was slow.

I do the 3 minute jog interval and I felt like I could keep going, so I did. Then I just kept not stopping, and I jogged through the whole thing for a total of 24 minutes. TWENTY FOUR  MINUTES.

I’m not sure who this person is, but I’ll take her.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(I thought it would be fun to keep track of pounds, inches, and miles my feet have carried me!)

Pounds lost: 9.4

Miles on my shoes: 34.32

God, at least I hope so.

Tomorrow I begin the 90 day weight loss challenge at my gym. I will admit that the biggest draw of the gym was the fact that they offer 2 hours per day of childcare included in your membership. I have three children. There are anywhere from 28-31 days in a month. That is a lot of me time, I have to tell you. And the membership fee (that includes access to the club, almost all the classes, and family hours in the pools and gymnasium) is like miniscule when you add in the child care. It’s like the equivalent cost of someone watching the three of them for a few hours one day. I kid you not.

Anyway. The 90 day weight loss challenge.

I am really fat.

It is not my genes, it is not my thyroid, it is not a serious mystery medical condition due for its own special on TLC. It is the fact that I don’t exercise and I eat my weight in Little Debbie.

So, when I joined and found out that within just a few weeks they were starting this weight loss challenge, I figured that I ought to go ahead and win it. I am the perfect storm of factors that put me in line for this particular crown. Like I said, I’m really fat, so I have a lot to lose and fat people tend to lose big chunks of it more quickly at first. I’ve lost weight successfully before (over 60lbs, kept it off a long time, though this is my highest weight by about 55lbs), and just before getting pregnant with baby girl, I completed the Couch to 5K program. I was fat then, too, and it gave me incredible amounts of confidence as well as the absolute knowledge that I can do it again.

Plus, they’ll take care of my kids for 2 hours every day. I will happily run on a treadmill and lift a bunch of weights and crunch my stomach off if somebody is watching my children and I can also use that time to think a complete thought and not wipe anyone else’s butt. Seriously.

Even though I am of course going to knock it out of the park and win the whole thing, I am still going to need motivation and to remember just exactly why I am doing this. So, here’s a list that I can go back to when I feel like crap and want to eat an entire cake.

1. I want to be strong. I remember when I was nearing the end of the C25K, I would see my arm moving to close the car door and just feel like that was the strongest arm ever. (And remember, I ran it on my legs, so who the heck knows why it translated to the arms, but it did!) I felt so good and so fit, and I was still about 75lbs overweight.

2. I have a daughter now. I know it’s important to model a healthy relationship with food and exercise to boys, but it seems just so much more urgent now that I have a baby girl. I do not want her to remember her mom as being morbidly obese. I do not want her to remember her mom being on a diet. I do not want her to see foods as guilty things or hidden things or things you gorge upon when sad or stressed or overwhelmed. I want her to see her mom make good choices, enjoy exercise, eat treats in moderation. I don’t want her to know that McDonalds is a restaurant that gives out toys.

3. I want the energy and clarity of mind to deal with my children in a peaceful and patient way. It’s hard to do that when you have barely any self-esteem and you’re fat and uncomfortable and exhausted. No amount of red velvet cake fixes this deficit. A strong body and a healthy mind (2 hours a day!) will go a long way toward helping me reach this goal.

In order to win, I need a big percentage of weight lost in this 90 days. In order to do that, I’m going to take advantage of the exercises available to me for 2 hours every day, and nix all the junk. I’m not going to go no carb or super low carb or any of the other “diets” that might jeopardize my milk supply for baby girl and my ability to run or crunch or lift. I’m going to feed my body good foods in appropriate quantities and work my ass off. After the 90 days, my goal is to taper into a nice 1-2lbs per week rate of loss until I hit my goal and then maintain. Because this initial 90 days is going to be incredibly difficult, I’m going to need some help. I’m going to need to talk about it. I’d love the accountability that comes with people knowing I’m doing this. It would be super fun to just suddenly turn up in 90 days like, “Oh, you think I’ve lost weight? I’ve just been popping over to the gym and eating a few less cupcakes, no big.” In reality, it is very big. This is big big big.

So tomorrow is my “before,” and they weigh me and measure me and send me forth into the gym with a written plan and the tools to set this thing in motion. What I do with it is all me. Care to join me in May for a victory lap?

Before:

Oh, hey. I had a blog. Let’s get up to speed. About 2 weeks after that last post (you know, the one where I said I was going to have 4 boys?) I found out that I was pregnant. And, wouldn’t you know? That blanket was for her. (Pictured here on a different blanket, hexagon paper piecing tutorial coming soon!)

(Photo by Kathryn Kaye Photography)

So, yeah. That happened.

BUT! Little Debbie! What’s with Little Debbie? Okay, well, Pinterest also happened this year, and not only has it changed my life in terms of the sheer number of sparklingly mudless mudrooms and t-shirt redesigns I’ve seen, it has also given me access to a compendium of cool-looking recipes that have mostly come out awesome.

My adored friend Cara from Why Can’t Wheat Be Friends linked them, intending to make a gluten free version, so of course, I had to repin the Homemade Zebra Cakes recipe from Confessions of  a Cookbook Queen because Zebra Cakes are the yummiest little bits of dry cake and waxy coating ever invented. However, while the Cookbook Queen recreated them faithfully, I am nothing if not unfaithful, so I tweaked just a bit. I figured, if I ran Little Debbie, what would Zebra Cakes look like? Well, they’d be red velvet cake and much more fun looking. Seriously, standing there in front of the Wilton’s Candy Melts in eleventy colors, how on earth could I buy white and brown? Would you buy white and brown?

So, if I am ever asked to run Little Debbie, I will release an unlimited edition Zebra Cake and I will rename them Zebra Cakes of Fantastical Awesomeness and they would be approximately this:

Also, I will let any kitchen helpers lick the beaters.

Moral of the story: Don’t just pin it. Make it. And while you’re at it: Don’t just make it. Make it funner.