Dutchie getting fit! ��

Eggs with tomatoes, tomato chutney and cucumber from the garden ❤️

Expect to see more food and exercise related content from now on. I've had some other things on my mind (mostly exploring the world of polyamory), not paying too much attention to what I ate, resulting in weight gain. It's a never ending battle, I need to get back to it, because it's all fun and games until your clothes don't fit anymore 🤣🙈🤦🏼‍♀️

I had the time of my life at the 😘🦄

There were so many spectators and such a positive vibe 🥳
🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜

Walk

One of the downsides of having a dog is one of the best things at the same time: having to go out for a walk every day, even when it rains. I'm currently very sad that there are no more fitbit challenges lol, I'd crush every one of them 🤣

Strawberry-peanutbutter smoothiebowl 👌🏻

I'm good!

People are sending me messages to ask me if I'm ok. Meanwhile I'm here practicing how to make rainbow eyeshadow 🤣

I'm good, taking a bit of an IG break but nothing is wrong and nothing has changed so no worries! 😘

We've explored Willemstad this morning. It was nice, but I really prefer the beach atmosphere 🌴☀️
I did really enjoy wearing what I wanted, a crop top and shorts and it felt great 🥳

Another day in paradise ☀️🌴

Lunch is 2 protein buns + peanubutter and banana ❤️ All together it was 729 kcal and 43 gr of protein, totally worth it!

Today's lunch is balsamic sprouts with turkey bacon, celeriac puree and caramelized onion ❤️

My recovery will not be stalled by bad nutrition 😉 Lunch is mushroom-parmesan eggs & avocado ❤️

Lunch like a boss ✅

I made celeriac puree (with spices, cream cheese and parmesan), cheese-herb crusted cod from the oven and some balsamic tomatoes ❤️

Today's lunch ☺️ I love that I mealprepped for these days!

It's stewed pears season!

Swipe to see the rest of the ingredients. I'll cook it using my slow cooker for about 4 hrs, high heat, without a lid so the water can evaporate. Then after cooling down I'll freeze it in 1 portion size containers for easy use later on. Let the peeling begin! 🙄

This is my spot for today 🥰

Who else starts their day with both coffee and tea? 🤣🙈 The animal theme is not by ac by the way 😉 ❤️

Mealprep ✅

Getting back to my normal rhythm also means getting back to mealprep. I made lunch for my 4 workdays and prepped dinner for 2 because I'm on call tomorrow evening.

In Dutch we say: Meten is weten

It means: to measure is to know. Especially when you want to count kcal (or WW points or macro’s or any other measuring system), it is super important to measure your food. I personally don’t like the American system of using volume instead of weight (like cups, spoons etc), because it is a lot less accurate.

So what you see here is 20 gr of raw almonds, which is 122 kcal. Nuts, nut butter and seeds are a daily part of my current diet, but if you don’t weigh it out, you can easily eat double or triple the amount without knowing. When you are in a small deficit, it can be the difference between losing weight and maintaining. And while you think you do everything right, you are actually overeating.

Tummytuck update

A year further and I'm still very happy with not having to tuck my excess into tight shapewear. Exercise is also a lot more fun without that belly flopping up and down. I have talked to my surgeon about the two small hanging bits on both sides of the horizontal scar. Although they don't bother me as much as my original excess skin, they do keep me from wearing normal underwear. I have not gone through this whole process to still have to wear shapewear daily, so I'm going to get them removed. I'll probably do that in November so I'll be healed before Christmas ☺️

Monday motivation, birthday edition ;-)

I always love to use this before picture, not because I was at my heaviest (this was about 10 kg/22 lbs below my heaviest weight). This is my favorite before picture because it reminds me of how miserable I felt around that time. I was super happy with my handmade African dress when I was in Ghana, but as you can see, I sat on a different chair than my friend. I broke the plastic chair so I had to get a metal one, obviously I felt very ashamed about that. I also felt super hot and not fit at all around that time. Nowadays, I run up the stairs at work without a heartbeat. I have found that insecurities about my body remain, but the way I feel from the inside, the fit feeling, the way you have energy for everything, the fact I turn 38 today but I feel younger than ever….. It is just amazing how weightloss can affect that feeling from the inside! 🥳

I swear, when you taste home grown strawberries it seems like the ones from the store are not strawberries at all 😅

May has been a party filled month, which was awesome, but now back to normal. At least for a couple of days because I’m on call tomorrow, there’s a wedding on friday, a birthday on saturday and a festival on Sunday. YOLO!

Party-week

We had some planned treats this week, celebrated Tom's birthday with pie and this charcuterie board for dinner ❤️ Tonight we'll celebrate with friends and family, then back to normal on Sunday ☺️👍🏻

Measuring and tracking

In the end, I think it would be my higher goal to be able to eat intuitively. But, I know myself very well, I don’t have a well developed sense of feeling full, I do still have issues with binge eating and I’m a queen at fooling myself. Therefor, for now and the foreseeable future, I have accepted the fact that I have to weigh and track my food as much as possible. So I plan and track my food on ‘normal’ days, but obviously I don’t take my food scale with me to a restaurant, so whenever I go out, I just enjoy what I want to eat and get back to normal afterwards. I have learned to religiously weigh out specific types of food like peanutbutter, nuts, seeds, oil/butter, cheese and other very calorie dense foods. I am less strict with weighing out things like leafy vegetables, onion, almond milk, as those are so low in kcal, a few grams less or more does not make a huge difference.
Have you ever reverse-weighed your food? I do this with peanutbutter, because I’m a true peanutbutter lover, I’d fool myself by weighing out something on my plate and then lick off almost the same amount from the knife lol…. So nowadays I just put the bucket on the scale and reverse weigh what I take out so it doesn’t matter whether I lick half of it off the spoon.

Do you fool yourself like that too? And what do you do about it?

First time being abroad since 2019 😅 We're away for the weekend with friends and it's exactly what I needed.

Preparation = easier living

On Mondays I mealprep, but I also clean a little and do stock-ups. When I talk about living a balanced lifestyle, I also talk about other things in life, like chores, household stuff, social events and last but definitely not least…. Planning! People sometimes think I’m super organized by nature, but that’s not the case. Ask my parents lol ;-) I have realized that my messy and unplanned nature, doesn’t really help to reach my goals. If I don’t plan something, I won’t do it. Planning does not automatically mean it happens, but it makes the chance of doing something a bit bigger. Especially ‘big things’ can be so overwhelming to do, cutting it up in smaller pieces and plan those can help getting it done. Planning ahead and do things like stock-ups helps people who are messy by nature. Being more organized in all aspects of life, really helps me to live that balanced lifestyle. For me it is: more mess = less headspace = more stress = more eating. Planning also takes away ‘having a choice’. Sounds a bit weird, but I plan my workouts ahead and I follow my program that I have in my workout app. I do my workouts because that is the plan. If I’d only workout when I feel like it, I would be really inconsistent. The same counts for food. I plan ahead our dinners, we do the groceries accordingly and we eat what we planned. Even though I might sometimes feel like eating pizza and drink a bottle of wine. One of the keys to living a balanced lifestyle is sometimes doing stuff even though you don’t feel like it. Planning helps with that!

Midwaist

Ever since highwaist jeans came in fashion I embraced it with all my heart. Especially with the extra skin, it felt nice and tight to tuck it all away. Recently I accidentally bought midwaisted pants and I was surprised by how well it actually works with my figure. Not only with normal shirts but also with the crop tops I bought. Never too old to learn new ways. Obviously I bought some new midwaisted jeans since my discovery ☺️

I just want to use this moment to thank for this fantastic mealprep recipe. (For the recipe, go to sweetpeasandsaffron.com, search for ‘chicken fajita lunch bowl’)

I have been using this recipe for my lunch meal preps for ages now and it never gets boring. It looks like just rice with veggies and chicken, but it is so much more! Over the years I’ve adjusted the recipe to my likings and needs. I switched the corn for edamame beans, I use liquid sweetener instead of sugar, I use brown rice instead of white rice and I don’t use olive oil. I nowadays also use ready to eat frozen chicken instead of cooking the chicken myself which is such a time saver. But back to the recipe. If you really work hygienically, let the rice completely cool down before mixing and you use airtight containers, this meal stays fresh and delicious for FOUR days. I make the meals on my day off on Monday and I eat the last meal for lunch on Friday. On the days I don’t work, I eat other things for lunch, so there is still a lot of variation. With the ingredients I use now, the meal is 462 kcal and has a whopping 43 gr of protein. I never really like those recipe posts where people say ‘this recipe made me lose my weight’, but if there would ever be a recipe that helped me a lot with losing weight (and maintaining it), this is the one! This is not a paid ad, I’m just a fan, she also has a lot of other great recipes, so go check out her website!

Four years ago I visited New York, although it was a super fun time and I finally got to meet my friend , I was not feeling well. Having to ask for a seatbelt extension in the airplane is no fun. Wanting to take the subway because your body hurts but your friends/colleagues all want to walk is no fun. Taking touristy pictures of yourself when you are not happy with yourself is no fun. There was a big part of me that always felt out of place, the first thought in mind was always that a new person wouldn’t like me. Not necessarily only my appearance but jus myself as a whole.

Making that change is hard though, it wasn’t until august of 2018 that I picked myself up and went for it. Most of that motivation came from , who had already lost a lot of weight by then. All my life I have struggled with my weight, lost weight and gained it all back and more. Now it’s different. It is a process of change, changing your habits, changing your thoughts, changing your environment. It is most definitely NOT about the ‘the perfect diet’. Any ‘diet’ can give you results, in the end it is about finding a new balance that you can stick with for the rest of your life. The hardest thing is that YOU have to change. You have to prioritize yourself, and it means that there will be things and people who you will lose. In order to make the change stick, you have to make hard decisions every day. It is not just a one time moment where you decide ‘enough is enough’. Even after almost four years, it is still hard work every day and there are still moments of setbacks. Learning to be ok with that has been the biggest difference for me. It is good to work on yourself, I still find myself changing and learning every day. Like realizing I still think new people won’t like me, that I have to prove myself to be worthy. Those feelings are deep and won’t change overnight. I’m working on it though, and together with Tom, we talk, we change, we evolve. The whole process of changing your lifestyle is SO MUCH MORE than just food and exercise!