Carrie Bandy Photography » Blog

Disclaimer: This is a personal post. It has absolutely nothing to do with photography besides the picture that started it all. So I feel compelled to put this public to basically hold myself more accountable… but if you see me in public eating a pile of pizza there’s no need to bring up this post… unless you want slapped in the face with one of my slices 😉

I am 1.25 weeks (aka, 9 days) into the “fad diet” called the 21 day fix. I’m using quotes around fad diet, because it really isn’t a fad at all, it’s how everyone should be eating in the first place! No joke. Anyways, here’s my beginning story of the events that lead me to finally get my shit together and start losing weight.

Here’s my weight history and life events that lead to my current fat-ness:

A long, long time ago in 2004, I graduated college, I weighed 130ish and wore a size 4/6 (I’m 5’6″). That weight was my norm, I was pretty thin and in shape, but of course thought I was “fat.” About 3 months after that I was in a head on collision with a semi, both of us were driving about 55mph. I had severe whip lash, and a collapsed lung, but miraculously was pretty much fine after about a month. The one lasting effect was my right shoulder KILLED me when I would really do any exercises with it. It made me cut down on a lot of types of exercises I had been doing.

Fast forward a year. I found out I was pregnant with Miss Stella in December of 2005, and I also revisited my love for chocolate. It’s all I could think about. And if I did any kind of exercising, I would puke! I remember one day after work I stopped at a gas station to buy a candy bar, but when I picked it up, they were buy 3 for $2!!! So of course I bought all 3 AND ATE THEM ALL BEFORE I LEFT THE PARKING LOT! My weigh in at the hospital before delivery was 210! I had gained 75 freaking pounds! I lost the majority of that weight, and then 9 months later found out I would be expecting little Barry Bandy in 9 months (insert shocked face). Once again my weight went back up  before I had him.

After I had Barrett, I was determined to drop the pounds fast. I had 7 months to lose weight for my wedding, and I did not want to be fat in my dress! I worked out hard starting in mid-February (after the doctor’s okay), counted calories, and went down to 150lbs. It honestly only took about 3 months to lose the weight, and then it was pretty easy to maintain it. I always wanted to get to 140, but seriously, I was O.K. with 150 😉

…and 3 years later we decided to have perfect baby Evelyn… and I went right back up to my peak weight… and in 2013 Miss Vada was born. Although these babies were big babies, 9lbs 9oz and 8lbs 6oz respectively, I did not go back down to 150 after having them.

I have started (and stopped) MANY exercise programs since Vada was born. I stay at home now, so I should be able to find 30 minutes during the day to work out, right? Well, I do, and then Vada and Evy come in, urgently need something, I tell them to hold on, they roll on the floor crying, I finish the exercise, but quickly I start dreading the stressful workout time… and quickly I just stop doing it. And counting calories is hard to do when you eat all the leftovers on the kids’ plates! How much is a half eaten pb&j? So I have been varying between 185-178 for the last 2 years. It is extremely embarrassing to say that! Goodness! It isn’t like people would see me and be shocked that I weigh that much, but still! I’m a tight size 12, and I carry 75% of my weight in my stomach/upper thigh-butt area… which makes me look about 5 months pregnant if I wear a baby doll styled top.

Now that you’re up to date, I will share the recent events that led me to change my lifestyle.

Three weeks ago, on a Monday night, some asshat stole my purse out of my car at my house. I assumed I had misplaced it around the house because I’ve been known to lose a lot of stuff, but by Saturday I needed a new ID. I went to get my social security card, and I found my old passport from 2007. I took a long look at my picture, and thought, “Damn Carrie, you just need to drop some pounds, and you could totally look like this again!” I don’t have any wrinkles yet, I’m only 33, and was AFTER I had Barrett! I could be that Carrie again… and then I kind of let the thoughts leave me… I mean, it was already mid April, and I had already given up losing weight before our Florida Keys vacation in June. It was too close to lose enough weight that would make a difference.

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(Please note the government f-ed up my birthday. So I think I look SUPER good for being 125 years old in that pic!! I’m like Benjamin Button!)

So I go in to the BMV, assuming they would just reissue my ID with the picture I just had done last July, but they did not. I was 100% unprepared. I had 0 makeup on, my hair was doing whatever, I knew I would look rough… but in the back of my mind I still expected to look like that damn passport picture… and then I looked at it.

My thoughts when I looked at that damn ID picture: I look like I should be arrested for hording cats. Is this really me?!?! Holy shit. WHEN DID I GET SO FRUMPY!?!?!!? I don’t really look like that!!!

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….but I do. I do look exactly like that. I rarely make time to put on makeup, and with blonde eyelashes, I look sickly tired without mascara. That is always how my hair looks. I look like some heavy “worn” lady.

THAT IS WHAT I REALLY LOOK LIKE.

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That ID picture is what flipped the switch. I cannot go on looking like that frumpy-cat-hording lady in the picture. Plus I have multiple vacations that require swimwear within the next 3 months! Any weight loss is better than none!!!

I immediately went to Target and bought some new waterproof mascara so it doesn’t smudge. I have been wearing it every day for the last 2 weeks. I am still deciding what to do with my hair besides the highlights it desperately needs.

I also started eating better. I actually ate fine before for my main meals, lots of veggies, lean meats, BUT between each meal I would have chips, chocolates, candy, etc. At 9pm I would also have my nightly food binge of a 1/2 box of cheese its. I wish I was exaggerating, but I really ate a box of them or a bag of chips within 2 nights! One night I added up my calories, and it was like 700 calories before bed time… but I could not stop for the life of me. Well, eating better throughout the day helped stop! And if I *really* needed some trashy food, I ate air popped popcorn. I also have like 4 lifesaver mints. I savor them, and it kinda helps me get over my suicidal thoughts of chips and cookies.

I started researching different weight loss programs, and I saw a lot of fad crap that I knew wouldn’t work. I wanted to change my eating habits, not drink a shake for lunch instead real food. I know I would never be able to stick with that, I like food! I also would be drinking a shake, and then what would I do with the rest of my family? I had to feed them regular food while not eating it??! HA! Yeah right!

I kept seeing the 21 day fix pop up. I checked it out, and decided to go with it. It took a week to get in the mail, so by that time, I had already lost 4lbs from just cutting the nightly chips. I’m sure most of it was water weight, but it was still better than GAINING 4lbs! I talked to Jason about losing weight, and he was all ready to do it with me (weight loss that is. ha!). He did happen to bring a pie home from work that night… I made him take it back to work and leave it in the break room! Damn him!

I was all excited to check out my 21 day fix info when it finally came, and it’s really nothing “extreme.” It’s honestly what a person should eat in the first place, it’s like a normal nutrition guide. You calculate out which calorie group you would be on based on your current weight. They give you little color coded containers, and they give you a little chart to follow. For example, I am allowed 4 servings of veggies/day, so I just cut up whatever I’m making, measure it out with my container, and check off how many servings it’s worth. I always put the food on my plate and do not eat directly out of the container, that way I can visualize what 1 serving of a vegetable is worth on a plate. There’s also no calorie counting. They give you a list of vegetables/fruits/etc for each colored container that are okay to eat (it’s the normal stuff, they don’t keep you from bananas or anything weird), with the idea of “if it fits in the container, it’s about ___ many calories.”

One major part of diet was that I buy 95% of my groceries at Aldis. I have a family of 6 to cook for, and going all over to find “whole grain organic stone ground flax seed flour” doesn’t work for me! Plus I don’t have $1k to budget for my monthly organic groceries every month. I bought the Fixate cookbook by the lady that started the 21 day fix, but I also use a bunch of the recipes off of Skinnytaste.com as well as her cookbook. I love Skinnytaste! She has recipes that seem “normal” but they taste great! Her recipes are not broken down to “this uses 1 green container, 1 red container, etc,” but it’s pretty easy to figure out as you’re preparing the meal and seeing what’s going into it. I use the recipes from both of those books/sites, and if Aldi’s doesn’t have reduced fat, I just use regular. I want a lifestyle change, not something I’m going to burn out on because it takes DAYS to find ingredients to prepare 1 recipe. Every recipe I’ve tried from skinnytaste has honestly been excellent… and there’s a lot to choose from!

The major change with my diet was the amount I was eating. I thought lettuce was kind of “free” in a salad, well, to be honest, I thought veggies in general were free, but they’re not. So I measured it out, and I had to cut back all my portion sizes. Carbs were the main thing I was eating way too much, but I really wasn’t eating THAT much. I had a piece of toast during breakfast, a wrap/bun during lunch, and some type of noodle/potato/bean/bread side during dinner. That’s 3 times the amount I am supposed to eat! I was actually pretty surprised about that!

The 21 day fix also comes with 7 exercise videos and a calendar to follow. I used to wake up at 6ish and screw around on my phone till I had to get up at 7 with the kids. Now I get up at 5:50, get ready, wait for Jason (for too long. seriously, that man is the slowest moving man in the morning!), and then we do an exercise video at 6:15am. The kids start appearing by 6:40, and shit gets crazy then. We need to start a little earlier because it’s honestly sooo much better to do the whole thing before a child is awake! I really like that it is a different routine each day. I start hating monotony. And their jokes after about 3 days in a row 🙂

So I’m 9 days into the 21 day fix. I have lost 5lbs on it, so I have lost a total of 9lbs since that horrible ID picture 14 days ago. I thought after 9lbs I would start to notice more, but I really don’t. I do FEEL a lot better, and my core already feels sooooo much stronger, but I still fit into a size 12… not a 10 yet! I was a TIGHT size 12, and now I can actually move and breathe comfortably with my pants that have zippers 🙂 🙂

That mother f-er Jason has lost 14.5lbs in 9 days! I am basically his personal chef, and do all the meal planning and hard work for him. He reaps the benefits as long as he doesn’t go astray from the food I prepare for him. (I am actually very happy for him, just a TAD on the jealous side.) He does do the dishes more often because now that I’m making so many meals that require lots of prep, there are a LOT of dishes dirty!

One more thing ~ It takes a while to figure out meal/menu prep. I’m still figuring it out, but it seems like I am staring at my cookbooks/websites every time the kids have ball practice, trying to plan out what to eat for the week. It’s hard. It takes up a lot of time. I think it will get a lot easier after I get like 5 “go to” recipes. I can use a few of those each week, and then add a few new ones in to try.   I also spend a LOT of time in the kitchen. Meals don’t actually take that long to prepare, but it’s still 3 times a day for me, even if I have stuff half prepped. I also actually use all the veggies I buy instead of letting them rot in my fridge. And I started giving all the leftover plate food from the kids directly to the chickens, then I don’t feel so wasteful.

Two weeks have gone by. I have lost 7lbs on the 21 day fix, to make my total weight loss 11lbs. I am VERY close to my first milestone goal. I have been weighing myself daily, but I think at this point I should do a weekly weigh in… It’s annoying seeing -0.3lbs each day, I want to see WHOLE numbers, so if I wait till the end of the week, I will be much happier with a 2lb loss 😉

It’s now about 25 days, and I’m down a total of 13.5lbs. I met my mini goal of getting into the 160s, and now my next mini goal is getting into the 150s! Weight loss has definitely slowed, but it’s still going down, not up. I’m going to Disney tomorrow, so I will just eat to maintain my weight, not to lose… Hopefully that little break in low calorie eating changes my metabolism, and I lose more next week when I start back up. 🙂 I have stopped measuring my food as much and just keep a mental note on how many carb and protein servings I’ve had throughout the day… I somehow always eat the amount of vegetables I’m supposed to, and if I haven’t ate fruit throughout the day, I have a small desert fruit smoothie in the evening. Mr. Bandy has lost 20lbs. I swear that man didn’t even have 20lbs to lose! I am going to start lacing his food with lard.

In other news, I ate a piece of cake for Mother’s Day. I thought, “Carrie, it probably won’t taste very good because I haven’t had cake in 3 weeks.” I was lying to myself, it was wonderful. I wanted to eat the whole damn thing! Jason and I have had about 1 “eat to maintain your current weight” day a week, usually on a Saturday, and it’s nice. We don’t go crazy and binge eat entire pizzas, but we do eat small amounts of food we’ve been craving 🙂 Totally helps us stick to a life change and not a drastic diet plan.

I also have a before, 1/2 way, and current picture, but I’ll share them when I hit the 150s. Right now I am not far enough away from that before picture to not be embarrassed. Yes, I def look smaller, especially in the stomach/booty region, but not small enough to share it with the public 😉