Our Journey Begins

So this is me and my family. Angela (44), Jeff (43) and Katie (15). We are big and beautiful, husky and handsome-however you want to look at it, we need to get healthier. Our goal-to lose a combined 225 pounds and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.

  Katie started this process by suggesting she go on a low-carb diet. We decided to do it together and Jeff was totally on board. I went to Goodwill to get some books about the low-carb lifestyle and cookbooks to go with it. (I LOVE thrift stores-a $25 book for $2.99-heck yeah!) Jeff cleaned out the kitchen-good bye pasta, bread, chips, cereal, etc.) and spent about $300 at the grocery store stocking us up on healthy foods to kick this thing off right.

  We have all had physicals within the last year. It is very important to me that Katie especially approaches this safely, as she is still growing. At 5'3", she has already passed me up by an inch, but I have no intention of allowing this "diet" to prevent her from reaching for the stars (5'6"?) or affecting her health in negative ways. Us girls are pretty stellar, by the way, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and thyroids are all good. Jeff had a few elevated levels-not overly dangerous, but definitely some extra goals for him to work on.

  We started the diet officially on Monday, January 26th. So far, the food is fairly tasty and the changes haven't been too challenging except for the great Nutella sacrifice for Katie and my tearful farewell to flavored coffee creamers (admittedly, I used the last of it this morning *sigh*).

  We are going to use this blog to chart our progress, share our challenges and successes with all of you, we'll rate diet foods, cookbooks, meal plans, include some pics and videos and see how long it takes to reach our goal-225 Together!