Just an Everyday Woman: Improving Your Lifestyle, Your Health, and Your Body — Forever

By Robin L. Stevens

Gaining as little as five or ten pounds can be hard on a person’s self-worth, confidence, and self-esteem. This hardship only grows stronger as the pounds add up. In Just an Everyday Woman, author Robin L. Stevens takes you on a journey of self-realization through her personal experiences with weight gain.

She dives into the struggles women have with their weight and self-image, and offers a road map which leads you to a healthy lifestyle and self-image. Just an Everyday Woman shows you how to change your thoughts about food, exercise, and yourself. Stevens invites you to change your lifestyle and your reality.

Praise for Just an Everyday Woman
“Robin Stevens understands what it means to be an ‘everyday woman’ trying to find time in a hectic schedule to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle. Robin’s personal journey is inspiring, and this book is the perfect road map to help other ‘everyday women’ make positive, lasting changes in their bodies and lives. …”
—Christy Chapman, Author, The 6 Step Diet

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483414607

Book preview

JUST

AN

Everyday

Woman

Improving Your Lifestyle,

Your Health, and Your Body—Forever

ROBIN L. STEVENS

Copyright © 2014 Robin L. Stevens.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1459-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1461-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-1460-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912368

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 7/30/2014

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

When It’s Time to Change Your Life, and You Know It

How Did the Weight Gain Happen in the First Place?

My Turning Point, and How to Find Your Own

Let’s Get Started Changing Your Life for the Better, Starting Today

Changing Your Habits Once and for All

Why Dieting Never Really Works

The Danger of Liquid Calories

The Love of Food

Eating Right in Social Settings

Making Food Your Friend, not Your Enemy

Meal-Planning Tips

Shopping for and Preparing the Right Foods

Learning to Cook for Yourself and Bringing It All Together

Labor of Love—Taking Time Out to Commit to Eating Right No Matter What

Dining Out without Fear

Learning and Practicing Proper Portion Control

The Importance of Exercise

Setting Goals to Keep You on Track and Help You Along the Way

Support or Sabotage—The Importance of a Good Support Network

Conclusion

Recipes

Acknowledgments

I am so blessed to have the love and support of my family. I have been married to my husband, Ken, for twenty-seven years, and he has supported me and loved me through all my ups and downs. He is my rock and the love of my life. I want to thank my two wonderful children, William and Pamela, for all their encouragement and love through this journey.

I am also grateful and fortunate to have several mentors in my life who helped me step out of my comfort zone and grow personally and professionally. So to Marcus Straub, Kenny Chapman, and John Burwell Jr., thank you for always believing in me and helping me get out of my own way!

Foreword

Putting on as little as five or ten pounds can be very hard on a person’s self-worth, confidence, and self-esteem. This hardship only grows stronger as the pounds add up. Every time a person who is overweight and living an unhealthy lifestyle looks at himself or herself in the mirror, puts on clothes, goes out in public, or gets into a bathing suit, the sense of self is laid upon with more guilt, shame, and regret. Over time, this leads to a loss of hope, more eating, unhealthy living, and a further diminishing of one’s quality of life. As a person’s self-image fades, so does happiness.

This is the very reality Robin addresses so wonderfully in her book, Just an Everyday Woman. She dives into the struggles women have with their weight and self-image with an openness and down-to-earth feel that speaks directly to the hearts and minds of other everyday women.

In the following pages you will see yourself through the experience Robin, herself, had and which she now shares with you. She takes you on a journey of self-realization through her personal experiences with weight gain and a busy life that seemed to run away with her, to a place where she owns her life and is now healthy, balanced, and happy. In Just an Everyday Woman, Robin shows you how—once you’re ready—you, too, can experience a healthy and happy life as an empowered woman.

Over the years, I witnessed Robin’s struggle with her weight, her lifestyle, and herself. I have also witnessed her journey to a healthy lifestyle, a weight she feels good about, and a version of herself that she respects, values, and believes in. The mental and emotional turnaround, coupled with the loss of weight and the new lifestyle she makes possible in the reader’s mind, is perhaps the most powerful aspect of Robin’s work. It is comprehensive, realistic, and doable.

Robin’s willingness to put herself out there in Just an Everyday Woman, to expose her personal struggles—her roller coaster—so that others may see themselves and find the strength to overcome as she did, is refreshing and empowering. Her passion for helping other everyday women take ownership of their lives and their health reaches through the pages to inspire the reader.

Just an Everyday Woman is not another book about dieting. It is a road map which leads you to a healthy lifestyle and self-image. Robin shows you how to change your thoughts about food, exercise, and yourself. She invites you to change your lifestyle and your reality.

—Marcus Straub, Author

Is It Fun Being You?

Introduction

HEAVIERPHOTO.JPG

I am not a nutritionist, trainer, doctor, or celebrity. I am just an everyday woman who has struggled with weight loss for over twenty-one years. In essence, I am just like you!

After trying many diet programs, pills, and diet drops, I still could not keep my weight off permanently. In reality, and in the end of this up-and-down cycle, I actually ended up gaining weight. I felt frustrated and defeated with every new diet that I tried! In my mind, I was never going to beat my battle of the bulge and just started to blame it on the fact I was getting older.

Like so many of you out there, I blamed age, genetics, or a lack of time for my inability to lose weight. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I believe that I became uncomfortable in my own skin and started the justifications.

I Knew I Wanted Change, and I Was Ready to Commit to It

All of this was taking a serious toll on me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I wanted to live my life, and instead I felt miserable and exhausted. I knew that it was time for change, but I wasn’t quite sure how to get there.

You may be able to relate to these feelings and the desire to change your lifestyle. If so, this book is written from me to you—and I will prove to you that you are capable of changing your life for the better, too!

You may be asking what I did to change my lifestyle. It all started with a Facebook post, and since that fateful post, I have lost fifty-two pounds and feel incredible! I finally made a conscious choice to change my lifestyle and do something significant about it. I found out it was not too late, and yes, I finally won the battle of the bulge. I took control over my weight, over my health, and over my life. And you can too!

I’m not somebody who will tell you that I lost the weight simply running around after my kids. Nor am I a health-care professional, who will get into the science of why certain methods don’t work. I will say it again—I am an everyday woman just like you. I tried so many methods out there and suffered the same disappointments and frustrations you do. I know what it means to be at the crossroads, and I am here to tell you that effective change can be made. You, too, can enjoy the same positive results!

I Have Been Where You Are, and I Am Here to Say It Can Get Better

This is why I am so passionate about sharing my story with everyone. I realized there are other people my age or even younger who are also stuck in that crazy dieting cycle. I understand that there are many others just like me who feel they will never win. I understand that terrible feeling of defeat, when you submit yourself to the fact that you will just be overweight for your entire life. So if this book helps just one person, I will consider it a success.

It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, and it certainly doesn’t matter how much weight you have to lose. If I can lose fifty-two pounds in a healthy way, so can you. This book is written for and dedicated to the everyday woman who wants change and is ready to commit to it.

It’s time to get off of that terrible dieting yo-yo cycle and move toward a healthier lifestyle. I attribute my success to making healthy changes, and I am here to show you just how it works.

I have lived over half my life and have been blessed with a wonderful family. I want to be sure that I am healthy and fit enough to enjoy the next part of my life and to share in all the great moments and adventures yet to come. If I continued on the path I was going, I could not make that statement today.

So if you are an everyday woman like me who is truly ready to change and willing to commit to a healthier lifestyle, let’s get started. I want to share my experiences with you, give you some helpful guidelines that worked well for me, and ultimately help to contribute to your own success. You can do this, and I will show you how to get to where you want to be!

So let’s get started on helping you take control of your new, healthier lifestyle, where weight loss can happen in the right way.

Don’t be scared, as I am an everyday woman just like you. We can do this together!

When It’s Time to Change Your Life, and You Know It

Before I get into the story of how I gained the weight, I want to help by pointing out some common signs in knowing when you are ready. In the end, you know when it’s time to lose weight, but you may not always be willing to admit it. You may feel frustrated, but you aren’t truly ready to commit to the changes that are necessary. So how do you really know when it’s time to change your life?

More important, how can you be sure that it’s time to actually make the changes? When do you recognize that you are truly ready to commit? That’s the key here. And speaking from one everyday woman to another, I tell you that a true commitment will