First I Survived and then I Thrived

(For those that might have gotten this in their reader twice… sorry. My computer freaked out, and published this on its own, before I was done. This is the full, finished version).


or alternatively titled.. I attending the PriorFatGirl Get-Together and it rocked!

I headed out around 7 am on Saturday morning, and made my way to The Beat coffeehouse in Minneapolis to attend the PriorFatGirl Get-Together. I grabbed coffee and took my seat.

The morning started out with Paul Kriegler - a Lifetime Fitness trainer and dietitian - speaking about how to change our diets, without going on a diet. He told us that what we eat should make us feel good and help us be able to move how we want to. He gave us 3 pieces of information about a good meal:
1 - It should be balanced - protein, carbs, and fat are all needed.
2 - It should be REAL - reduce processed and artificial ingredients (which is one of my goals in 2011)
3 - It is NOT small - awesome... because I like to eat lots!

Another thing I learned from Paul was that 1 pound of muscle burns about 50 calories/day, and that 100 calories of protein expend 25-30 calories just digesting, but 100 calories of carbs/fat expend just 3-5 calories to digest…Did you know that?

But the one thing that really stuck with me was his statement that, "doing simple things, very consistently, very well, can change your life."

Read that again: "Doing simple things, very consistently, very well, can change your life."

Yes... that is perfect! That is exactly how I lost weight. What an awesome key to success!

Next up, Jen started asking everyone that had ever lost 5 pounds to stand up, then started going up 10 pounds, 15 pounds, etc. I knew what was about to happen. I knew it was likely I'd be standing for while, which felt awesome and scary at the same time! I think there were 4 people standing at around 50 pounds... she called us all up front to say exactly how much we'd lost. I know one of the people I was standing next to was Kris. I believe she said she'd lost around 150 pounds! WOW... amazing! I felt honored to stand among people with such awesome success.

Stacy of Kitchenwerks was up next. I got a lot of ideas for snacks and also getting more veggies in my diet. I’m planning a whole blog post in the near future about snacks, and I’ll share some of her ideas about that there. But the one thing I really thought was great that she shared was how she took veggies and ground them up until very fine in a food processor, and that made them easier to incorporate in all sorts of things, AND easier to sneak in for kids to eat. Of course having a 3 year old, I was very interested in this! She also suggested arranging your fridge putting the stuff you want to eat in front, and the stuff you want to eat less of out of site. Such a simple, profound idea.

Last was the original PriorFatGirl herself sharing. If I had to highlight one thing-it was that she took responsibility for her own life and made her own success. She said she stopped caring about what everyone else thought and did whatever it took! I am positive that if everyone started adjusting their thinking like this we’d all be PriorFatGirls or Guys.

I got to meet a number of great people (JP Liz Ann, Michelle), some of which I already read their blogs and some new to me. I'm sorry if you were there and I didn't meet you. Next time I will try to mingle more.

I’m putting it out there... as Jen asked us to do. If you are local and want to meet for lunch sometime (to practice as she put it) let me know... I'm game!