I also very recently got slapped in the face with a different reality. I was my best friends Maid of Honor this past weekend. Early July my dress finally arrived at the bridal shop! I was SO excited! Now, for all you ladies who know bridal world. Clearly, we all have a love/hate relationship with it. You can be a size seven in reality but in bridal world that easily makes you a size twelve or fourteen. The measurements are always off and something always needs to get tailored or adjusted... Keep in mind ladies that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a size 12/14/16/18/22! We are all beautiful in our own skin. Weight for me has always been an uphill battle. Especially throughout my childhood and teen years. My body image is still a battle for me to this day but I work on knowing I have shed that portion of who I used to be.
Back to the meat of this story... I tried on my dress which is a size ten. The dress fit beautiful and like a glove! The only thing that needed minor adjustment was in my breast area. Of course, it needed to be taken in. Three weeks later my dress was picked up and I went to my best friend's apartment to zip it up. Well, when I say she couldn't even zip it halfway up my back that is no exaggeration. That dress was NOT fitting! Only three weeks had passed! Could I have gained that much weight? No way! It just wasn't possible. I began to break out in sweats, I am pretty sure I began to swell up and freak out. With just a week and a half until the wedding we had no idea what we were going to do about this. Quick side note, I recently embarked into a new relationship with a wonderful man. We all know what happens when you get into a new relationship. It is exciting, fun, tons of date nights and eating out and slowly the gym is the last thing on your mind. However, three weeks from the fitting did not pack twenty pounds onto my body! Rita said she would call the bridal shop first thing in the morning because surely something had to have gone wrong in the alteration process. I ended up going home that evening and calming down a bit. I know this sounds super silly but I went and pee'd, yes pee pee. Prior to going to try on my dress I ate like a cow and drank iced green tea and two bottles of water. I definitely did not help the situation. So when I was relieved and comfortable within my own walls I called upon my mother to help me out for a minute. She was able to clasp and zip the dress! Mini SUCCESS! The dress was pulling and too tight! BUT, I was in it! That very moment I decided no more eating out, no more junk or sweets until this wedding was over!! I told Rita to not call the bridal shop because I was going to focus on eating right and getting into this dress on the big day! Talk about pressure!!!
As you can see my back was swollen and this dress was pulling an awful amount!!
For the next week I focused on nothing but drinking water like it was my job and green tea too! I believe my boyfriend and I went through two twenty-four packs of water bottles in a week (mostly from me) and the tea section of my supermarket was cleared out by me as well. I walked for my cardio but did not push it too hard because again, my schedule is extremely hectic and I do tons of traveling. By the end of the day I am just wiped out! Also, during that week my good and dear monthly friend came and gone. Which, I believe that had a lot to do with my bloating and swelling too! I made a firm decision to basically eat chicken and veggies until I couldn't do so any more!
I am sure it is the same for all of us women... I can't just eat plain grilled chicken. I do need some flavor to it! I want to share an awesome recipe with you that helped to get me through the week! You can change it up by cooking some brown rice on the side as your carb to mix with the chicken and the veggies!
I made Rosemary Lemon Chicken (ummm YUM!) and the best part of it all was that it was in the CROCK POT!! So ladies, we all know what this means.... MINIMAL PREP AND ZERO CLEANUP!
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This was such an easy and simple meal. I believe it took me ten minutes if that to prep!
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Ingredients:
- Four boneless skinless Chicken Breasts (side note, Nature's Promise makes individually packaged chicken breasts which cuts your prep time even more!)
- 1 Cup low sodium Chicken Broth (definitely low sodium after that dress experience lol!)
- 1 Lemon thinly sliced
- 4 Sprigs of Rosemary (I got the Rosemary plant from the food store)
- 2 Cloves of Garlic, Chopped
- Dash of sea salt and a few dashes of ground black pepper
Then, all you have to do is place the chicken in the crock pot, pour in the chicken broth, top it off with the lemon, garlic, rosemary, sea salt and pepper! You can cook it on high for 4-5 hours or what I did was high for two hours and on low for three hours. When I cook this again I will probably just try to cook it on low for 5 hours. The crockpot I use is on steroids and gets hotter than your average I feel.
Here is what it looked like when all was said and done!...
Yumm!!
Since I had embarked on the, "You better fit your sweet little butt into the MOH dress" journey, I opted out of cooking brown rice and just stuck to some broccoli. It was a yummy healthy meal and there was zero cleanup! Side note, this is an AWESOME meal for your toddlers! You can buy everything natural and organic too if that works best for your household!
These pictures were taken the day before the wedding! SWEET SUCCESS!!!!!
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| I was SO EXCITED! |
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| No more pulling or swelling in my back! |
Have you had any times where you had a certain time crunch to fit into a special dress?! Please share your stories below! We would love to build a community here at Play Dates & Sippy Cups where you feel at home to share, comment and talk with us!
XOXO,
-D
** I am not a nutritionist so please talk to your doctors before changing your diet
