Katie's Virtual 5k

Happy belated birthday to Katie over at Runs for Cookies who just celebrated her 31st birthday by hosting a virtual 5k (3.1 miles) with around 900 participants worldwide! I meant to post last night but I caught up on some much needed sleep instead. Finally got some real answers at my daughter's pediatrician's office yesterday. Apparently she has RSV and that is most likely what my son has. This is the straw that broke the camels back and I now plan on switching from his regular family doctor over to her pediatricians office. He always received good care there, but I'm ready for him to start receiving great care like his sister does. It's safe to assume that is what I have and now my fiance, too. It's much milder for adults of course but still very annoying. My daughter's biggest problem though was actually having a double ear infection and thankfully that one can be treated with medicine. Hopefully we can all get well soon now that we know whats really going on and everyone has the proper medications.

Anyways, I was extremely tired when I woke up yesterday morning because I had been up all night long helping soothe Bethany and she could only sleep when being held that night. On top of that I was at my most miserable point with the chest congestion and sore throat so I wasn't feeling that great but I am proud of myself for going through with plans and I did my 5k as soon as I got home from dropping off Jett at school that morning. I was wheezing through most of it and half walked, half jogged it but I did manage to make my goal of less than one hour. I came in at 52 minutes and 10 seconds. I had an average pace of 3.6 miles per hour and my miles were as follows.  mi 1 - 16:47, mi 2 - 16:49, mi 3 - 17:13. Yeah, definitely was dragging ass by that last mile. lol. I'm glad I did it though and when I got home my fiance told me how proud of me he was for doing it anyways, too. I haven't done a whole lot else this week besides walking those 4 miles a few days ago to figure out what route I was gonna take yesterday.

This was me before the 5k, gearing up and getting ready to go. Side note: I wanted a random number to go on my race bib so I chose 5309 because its the last 4 digits of "Jenny's" number. 867-5309! Nerdy, I know.

and here I am afterwards all flushed and tired. lol.

I thought jumping  up in the air in celebratory fashion would look awesome but I never could time it just right for my self timer to go off. This was the best shot I got out of about 10. hahaha.

So then I finally settled for a thumbs up pic instead.

I don't feel too terrible about not working out otherwise this week because being sick is pretty miserable enough and even worse is taking care of two sick children so I've got my hands pretty full right now. I am still continuing to look after my eating habits though so not all is lost.

Here are some food pictures from over the last week or so of some things I've been trying.

Pork roast in the crock pot. Yum. Carrots and potatoes, too! Around 315 calories.

This fruit was in a huge bowl of mixed fresh fruit that was on clearnace since it was gonna go bad in a few days and they had to sell it quick. Tasted great to me though! It was less than 150 calories for this whole bowl.

Here is my new favorite version of Baked Ziti with meat sauce. I used Smart Taste penne pasta, Classico Tomato Basil pasta sauce, Lean Turkey Sweet Italian Sausage, Italian blend shredded cheese, and topped it off with an Italian seasonings grinder. This was so delicious that I put some in a small tupperware container to have for lunch the next day. There was plenty here to feed all 4 of us adults that night, have leftovers for me, and for my mom to take with her for lunch that night at work. I managed to make this for a very reasonable amount of calories, I believe. It was something like 400-500 calories depending on how much you had. ETA: The entire thing was 3,405 calories total. If you mentally divided the pan by 6 and ate 1/6th it would be 567 calories or if you divided by 8 it would have been 425 calories.

This was chicken baked a glass pan soaking in fat free italian dressing along with ranch style beans and golden sweet corn. About 300 calories. 

Sick Sucks!

Ugh.... been slowly but surely getting sick all week. This morning it seems to have hit me full on. My son ran a high fever late Saturday night so I took him to the Emergency Room and they decided that even though the test came back negative that it looked too much like Strep throat so they were giving him antibiotics and said to keep giving motrin for any pain. Well he's had this awful cough along with it and so I went ahead and got an appt with his regular doctor and we went there yesterday afternoon. He didnt even test him again and just said well here let me prescribe you some cough medicine and just keep taking the antibiotics, too. Hopefully that helps control things but I've had strep twice before and right now does not feel like either time I had strep. When I had it I felt completely like I was dying. This just feels like a terrible cough and deep congestion with sinus issues. Baby girl has been coughing for the last 3 days now, too. Her doctor has been too booked and we can't seem to get an appointment. I want to try and get her some baby vicks though and some vapor bath wash stuff to see if that helps her out.

Been so busy dealing with sick kids and sick me that I've not really exercised much. On Tuesday, I managed to walk 4 miles. I was trying to map out my run for Katie's, over at Runs for Cookies, virtual 5k this Friday. It's going to be her 31st birthday and since a 5k is 3.1 miles she thought it was a great way to celebrate. She already has well over 700 people from all over the world signed up to run/walk it! Head on over to her blog to sign up if you wanna join us and go ahead and print you out a bib to wear too to really get the feel of it! :) I really felt like jogging at the time I started that morning but I made myself walk the entire thing because I wanted to get a good feel for how much time it was going to take me if I absolutely couldnt pick up the pace. lol. I managed to walk 4 miles in an hour and 20 minutes. Not a great time but I suppose it could be worse. Should be easy enough to improve on though. That puts me at about 20 minutes per mile so as long as I do some jogging throughout the 5k on Friday than I should easily make it under my goal time of less than one hour.

Wednesday there was no working out at all and I've yet to do anything today either. My eating has been well still though and I have been doing housework. Hopefully I can manage something later today though.

3 weeks down

So I'm a little annoyed today. I forgot to weigh in first thing when I woke up and didnt get to weigh in until after I got back from dropping Jett at school. By then I had already eaten breakfast and so I know that threw things off along with not being my normal weigh in time. Well the scale said 241.2 even though on Saturday morning it said 240.4 lbs. One week ago I was 241.8 so while I was down 1.4 lbs by Saturday I somehow managed to be up from that and my total loss for this week was only 0.6 lbs. Very frustrating but trying not to focus on the numbers so much because I know I worked harder this week than I have the previous two weeks and so I know I'm building muscles and that the different weigh in time has an effect on what the scale reads. I still feel great and better about eating healthier and working out more often. I've started incooperating workout dvds that have me include small handweights in the routine and I'm really feeling the burn. I was really anticipating seeing 239.8 or less today and looking forward to being out of the 240s but I'm not defeated and just gonna let this give me a push to be that much stricter on the things I'm consuming and how much time I give myself for frivolous activities like facebook instead of working out.

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. Here it is 3 weeks later and I'm really starting to feel like I'm back in this for the long haul no matter what. Hoping like hell that I really can follow through and stick with my goals.

Trying new things...

So I have continued to keep on trying out new ideas for meals and am really enjoying myself with it. I've also been doing more workout dvd's lately and pleasantly surprising myself with a little bit of improvement each day it feels like. Getting back in to doing some Turbo Jam exercises and I can't help but think about how freaking awesome Chalene Johnson is and that I want to be just like her. lol. She's so full of energy and I really love how she just threw together some moves with some good music and then added in some martial arts and was like there - tadah you've got yourself a workout. That's something I was thinking about doing at some point was creating my very own type of workout that I could do that would be fun and enjoyable. If others liked it then great. If no one else wanted to do it but me, whatever! I think it'd be really cool to become a personal trainer someday though and affect the lives of others like me so I can tell them things like hey - I know exactly how it feels because I've been in your shoes so many times before! I think its much easier to relate to someone you know has struggled than someone who has had the perfect body all their life.

Anyways... back on the subject of new meal ideas. Here are some more pics of things I have been trying recently.

I had this wrap for lunch today and made it out of an Ole Xtreme Wellness Tomato Basil tortilla. I filled it with light string cheese which i heated up in the microwave and then added some deli ham, tomatoes, and sprinkled with Mrs Dash Tomato Basil Garlic. It was sooo good. I just bought that new seasoning last night and I absolutely love it! 158 calories

These were Pepperidge Farm Baked Naturals multigrain cracker chips with Santa Barbara Bay Roasted Garlic Ranch dip for 250 calories total. I got the dip from walmart in a 2 pack that also came with spinach artichoke dip which is just as tasty!

I shared this the other day but my egg whites turned out much pretty in this picture so I had to share it again. lol. This is 2 servings of All Whites with Great Value Taco seasoned Cheese and ham cooked inside of them and a side of Turkey Bacon.  176 calories.

Here is a photo from when I broiled pork chops seasoned with Mrs Dash Garlic and Herb. I roasted the asparagus and sprinkled it with a touch of salt, garlic, and then parmesan cheese. The corn was just canned golden sweet corn. This plate was 363 calories.

This was actually a quick and easy microwaveable dinner. Healthy Choice Steamers Lemon Herb Chicken. It was much tastier than I anticipated. The pasta was a decent texture and the sauce was very delicious. The chicken tasted just like chicken and the veggies were very good. lol. 210 calories

Here I used the Xtreme Wellness Tomato Basil tortillas again but this time to eat some John Soules Chicken fajitas. I topped it with some taco flavored cheese, diced tomatoes, and slices of avocado. I was low on calories for the day so I had a rather large serving of each so the calories on this were 550.

Tonight I made my first pork roast in the crockpot and it came out really great. The meat was just falling apart and oh so delicious. I took some pictures of it too but haven't gotten them off my camera yet. I'll post them another time. :)

Gotta keep moving

I know its not normal weigh in day for me, but I was craving some girl scout cookies and had a little bit earlier this week already (still within my daily calorie count) and thought to myself today that I should weigh in and see where I'm at and use that as my motivation to stay on track with eating. There is also a trip planned today to take Jett to play at Mcdonalds and use the $5 giftcard he got from a relative for christmas and so I know I'm gonna be smelling all that stuff and I just wanted to do well. Turns out that trip is being postponed until tomorrow but, whatever it still applies. Anyways... I'm down 1.4 lbs since Tuesday. I've got 3 more days to get that number higher by staying on track and working out more. My eating has been mostly alright on most days but workout out is where I've slacked on some days. On days when I do get a workout in I feel better and want to work out even more that day and usually do. On days where I wait around because Ive got other things to do and then I keep putting it off, then by the end of the day I dont usually want to. Sometimes I make myself do 5-10 minutes anyways but its usually not as much work as it should be. I feel alright though. This is still just the beginning but I wanna get more active. I wish it wasnt so cold outside here. The weather looks beautiful through my window with the sunshining everywhere but then I walk out there and immediately wanna run back inside. lmao

Mmmm protein...

Well week 3 has begun for me and today was the first day I decided to start drinking my protein shakes again. I finally started upping my workouts to something a little more physical so I figured it was probably best to make sure I'm getting enough protein to help build my muscles back up and recover after exercising them. I did 50 minutes of a kickboxing routine today. It's called Kickbox Bootcamp and it's in the 10 Minute Solution series so it was divided in to 5 ten minute workouts. I originally started it thinking I would only do the first couple then I was pumped by the 3rd and thought okay I'll round it off with a nice half hour routine but then the next was playing and I still felt good so I did it anyways. It was a much tougher one though so I modified a lot of the movements. After that there was only one left and it was ab work on the floor so I figured I might as well just complete the whole thing. It felt good to get it all over with. I still feel like I should do something else later today. Maybe go outside for a walk or just hit up the elliptical or both.

Fit Tuesday!

So I've never really watched much of the actual show The Biggest Loser before because my parents were always recording a whole bunch of other things that aired at the same time but now that we have the hopper for dish it records every single thing on the main 4 channels that airs during prime time and you can also set it to record other things at that time as well. So since the show was getting recorded anyways I figured what better time to start watching my first full season of it than now. It runs on Monday nights apparently and so I usually watch it Tuesday morning and use it as motivation. There was a girl on the most recent episode who spoke about her 'Fat Tuesdays' where she had a personal trainer work with her in the mornings and then on her way home she would stop by a drive thru and order a bunch of junk food immediately sabotaging all her hard work. Her name was Cate and she was very upset and talking about how she can't believe she just kept wasting her trainer's time every Tuesday. Well her trainer on the show, Dolvett, made it very clear to her that it wasn't her trainer she should be sorry to. He basically told her that she needed to be apologizing to herself because she was wasting her own time. That hit home with me for whatever reason and I really love that he put it to her that way because its so true. We are the ones ultimately losing out when we continue to lead unhealthy lifestyles. Well come time to weigh in and her team ends up losing and she gets voted out that night because out of everyone there they knew she would have the most supportive family and friends back home to help her continue on her journey. I was sad to see her go because she was one of my favorites from the start. I just loved her personality in all the episodes so far and how she was so genuinely caring towards another teammate on the first day who had a rough time and was actually forced to leave the gym early. I was glad to see she's doing so well though. After going home she started referring to her previously named 'Fat Tuesdays' as 'Fit Tuesdays' and having protein shakes and fruit for a snack after her workouts instead of stopping for fast food. She's currently training to run a marathon, too. She began her journey at the ranch weighing 237 lbs and the update they aired at the end of the show says that she was down to 196 lbs already. I can't wait to see how much further she is by finale time.

Well today was week 2 weigh in day for me. I lost 2.6 lbs since last week putting me at 241.8 lbs. That makes 7 lbs total in the last 2 weeks since the first of the year. I am pleased with those numbers but I do have to keep reminding myself that things are different this time around and I shouldnt be trying to compare with how I did the first time. In January of 2011 I lost 10 lbs in the first 10 days. However I was 25 lbs heavier than when I started this time and I also had 2 less family members in my schedule. Last time I started working out as hard as I could from the very start and this time around I've been slowly trying to get myself back in to the swing of things so that of course affects things, too.  I feel good about my weigh ins so far though because they are slow and steady improvement. Fat secret told me if I continued to lose like this that I would be at my goal weight within 9 months time. I know I wont always be able to lose 2 and a half lbs a week, but I'll damn sure try. Of course its going to be harder the closer I get to goal weight but its nice to imagine its possible to be down that far in one years time still. When I told my fiance that I was down 7 lbs in the last 2 weeks he told me he was really proud of me and that it was a huge accomplishment so that made me feel good, too. Especially coming from a person who has never been bigger than a stick his whole life. lol. He thinks he's fat now just because you can't see all of his abs anymore. lol. He was about 130 when we started dating and now he might weigh 145 soaking wet. It's really great that he's concerned though and he's been trying to eat healthier with me as well and give me enough time to exercise without the baby, etc.

I still haven't gotten around to working out today... for shame... I plan to after I post this though. We'll see how that goes. I have been eating alright though. I had a tasty breakfast of egg whites with taco flavored cheese and ham scrambled in to them and a side of turkey bacon. All of this was 176 calories.

Lunch was kinda random and not as healthy but still decent on calories. Dinner was absolutely yummy though. I had petite sirloin with baby idaho potatoes that had red skins and golden flesh. I even steamed broccoli to go with it. I don't like it much but I ate it anyways because green things are good for you especially when you are anemic. This came out to 550 calories. A little hefty but I'm still under my count for the day so far by about 50 calories. 

Reorganizing my life

I'm not sure what it is about this time of year but it just feels so fresh and a time for changing things up. I'm still very pleased with the new look of my blog. It feels more like where I'm at now I suppose. Every time I looked at it lately before the change it just kept reminding me of where I was. I was in a great place then of course but it was a constant reminder to me that I'm not still there with my weight and health in general. I will get back there but in the mean time I don't wanna bring myself down thinking about where I could be by now if I hadn't stopped in the middle to have Bethany. I don't regret that or anything, its just... well hard to explain... but for a person who already has body issues - sharing your body with someone else is really hard. I mean, I'm sure its hard for even the most confident woman. I just think its a different kind of hard for those of us who already got problems. lol. With my first pregnancy I was a smoker before I found out and then took the next day after finding out to pretty much make myself quit and then all throughout my pregnancy I would get these random cravings for a cigarette. My nerves were on edge enough just being a single mother to be, but then when any other kind of emotions crept up on me I'd be a wreck and would be pretty upset with having to share my body. Of course in the end it was all worth it. That wonderful little joy is well over 4 years old by now. This last pregnancy it was more about 'omg you just spent a year working your ass off literally and now you gotta up your calorie intake to care for this new little parasite invading your personal space'. But life is full of little surprises and you can't prepare for everything. If I knew I was going to have a baby in the next year I probably wouldnt have even tried to lose all that so its good we don't know everything. I'm a firm believer in 'everything happens for a reason'. :)

Anyways, I've gotten way off topic. lol. I decided that I need to reorganize things in my life too, not just my blog. Today's goal was to tackle Jett's play room. I moved literally every single thing in that room. I rearranged almost all of his stuff except there is no other place his bed will fit so I left it in the same spot but I did move it out of the way to find all the toys that fell behind it. I picked up every single toy from the tiniest little lego piece to the biggest train table. I threw away anything that was broken. Bagged up everything that needed to be donated and then boxed up anything that he had outgrown but was still something I wanted his sister to have someday. He has so much more space in his toy box now and everything fits in a spot! Yay! Took me literally all day though. I'm glad its finally done. I also talked to him when he got home from school about where I moved everything and that if he made sure to pick up his toys and put everything back before bedtime every night then he would get a 2nd sticker on his reward chart each day. He gets the first sticker for if he was good at school. He had a rough start this school year but after trying several things we finally found that the sticker reward chart worked best. If he got all 5 stickers for the week then we would take him to do something special on the weekend like the park or mcdonalds playplace and sometimes six flags or the zoo. This past weekend he got all 4 (no school monday) stickers and was able to go bowling with my parents on Saturday evening.

Here I am getting sidetracked again though. lol. I loved that fish I had earlier this week so much that I had it again on Saturday. This time I ate parmesan garlic roasted asparagus and garlic butter steamed red potatoes with it. Yummo!

Then last night I made everyone some turkey burgers. I thought they were really thin so I doubled up. I had one slice of cheese and ate it on a whole grain sandwich thin with mustard, pickles, and tomatoes. This was 445 calories. Mmmm...

Tonight I did the great value brand of shake and bake on some frozen boneless skinless chicken breast. I really like the flavor of the great value brand better than the name brand stuff. I had some more of that delicious uncle ben's long grain and wild ready rice and some cut green beans with it. This totaled 340 calories. It was sooo tasty!

And here is a new motivational picture I came across the other day. To me it makes me think that there is always a way if you choose to find it. Nothing is impossible. :)

Total Revamp!

Just overhauled my blog between last night and this morning. I needed a fresh new look to go with my fresh new start. I went ahead and updated all my pages, too. I even added some new pages. I'm loving it all and its really getting me back in the mindset of where I need to be right now.

Staying busy

I've been meaning to come update you guys here but I seem to keep staying busy this week. I've continued to keep track of my eating habits and am still exercising but there were a couple days when I only exercised for about 5 minutes because my day was just so full of other things. I didn't actually start doing any workout dvds until yesterday. I was planning to pop in an easy Crunch series workout but ended up opting for something I hadn't tried in a long time. I did a TurboJam Ab routine. It was fun and nice to start working on other areas of my body again. Today so far all I have done is some exercise ball moves. I did about 15 minutes of random ab work and also used my 3lb hand weights to include my arms and shoulders, triceps and biceps. I do intend on getting some more workouts in later this evening.

 As far as the foods I'm eating go, I have been trying a few new ideas lately to try and keep my mouth and tummy as excited as my brain is about getting back to healthy again. lol. Here is some lemon pepper fish we had on Wednesday night.

I baked it in a glass pan covered with foil and soaking in lemon juice with some lemon pepper seasonings sprinkled on top. I also made some Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild ready rice to eat with it and some golden sweet corn. It was absolutely delicious and I for sure will be trying this again. If I knew ahead of time how little the amount of calories in it was then I would have had a second helping of fish. I ended up way below my calorie count for the day and had to go eat something else to get where I needed to be.

Last night I wasn't quite as fortunate with my dinner. I ended up making kabobs and roasted asparagus sprinkled with garlic and parmesan. They looked great when I was making them.

I used beef stew meat that I had soaking in a marinade of orange pineapple juice, soy sauce,  extra light olive oil, and a few random steak seasonings along with some medium sized shrimp that was already peeled and deveined and I removed the tails from. I added pineapples and a cherry tomato to each skewer. After these were all prepared I stuck them in the oven to broil while I started prepping the next batch. My father and I enjoy all of these ingredients, however my fiance does not like pineapple and my mother doesn't like shrimp so I did each of theirs without those respective foods. Well, as I was making theirs I didn't watch ours as closely near the end of the broiling time and so when I did pull them out of the oven they were a bit blackened to say the least.

I thought they might be okay, but as they sat out in the air for a little bit they dried up pretty fast. The shrimp was shriveled and almost nonexistent anymore. The beef was hard as a rock in most spots. The pineapple and tomato were both still very juicy and tasty though. I had never had grilled/roasted tomato before and it was an interesting taste. I think I enjoy them more fresh but I would eat them again this way. The beef and shrimp would have probably been better if I had dipped them in bbq or ranch or something to distract from the burnt, lol, but I wasn't about to add any more calories so I just ate them as is. My mother's and my fiance's batch turned out better but were still a little bit dry in the meat department. Maybe next time I should either use a different style of beef or marinate it longer or both. Possibly just do chicken instead. 

Oh well, I lived and I learned here. I'm still proud of myself for trying new things. I'm really looking forward to all the new recipes I get to try this year. Do any of you have any particular suggestions for me? Maybe something with chicken or pork?

One week down!

Alright here it is one week after jumping back on the wagon towards my healthier lifestyle. I'm feeling great and have remained eating well minus the mishap on Thursday. I stepped on the scale this morning to see where I'm at and am down 3.8 lbs already. I weighed in today at 244.4 lbs. Not too shabby considering there was a whole day in there where I completely sabotaged myself. I also have been trying to take things easy this time around and so I feel that is a very reasonable number for me. Today I'm going to start back on some dvds I know I can handle. Maybe in another week or so I will feel up to tryin the 30 Day Shred again or the Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout. Speaking of BL. I'm about to go watch Sunday night's premiere. I've never really watched the show before now but I'm excited to start. I'm hoping it'll get me super motivated today and I'll go workout right after its over. I'd workout while watching it if my exercise equipment was in the same room. I may do some random exercises in front of the tv though anyways. :) Hope everyone else is having a great day! I'm glad Jett is finally back in school now, too. It was great having him home but I love that he gets so much time at school to be around other children his own age. :)

Gaining stamina

It feels so great to finally be getting back in to the swing of things. I think the few times I tried the last couple months I was too overzealous from the get go. I knew I would be and even blogged about being worried I'd try too hard and burn out too fast. lol. Guess ya just gotta live and learn. Well this first week back I have just been sticking to the elliptical and the treadmill or walking around the neighborhood. I am very anxious to get back in to my serious workout dvds but I'm gonna try and hold off on those for a little while longer. Starting Tuesday after it's been one full week then I'm gonna pick out something easier to do and start with that and then build my way back up to doing the 30 day shred and the biggest loser last chance workouts. I know those helped me lose so much in the past but I also didn't start with them right off the bat so I have to control myself and take things one step at a time. I am sooo ready to get my old body back that it's hard to wait. I feel like a kid in a candy store. lol. I know it'll be worth it though if I can remain patient.

Yesterday I feel like I really gained some stamina while I was on the elliptical. I ended up doing 35 minutes straight and I think that's probably the longest time I've spent on one of those machines so far. The day before I had only gone 25 minutes and that was the longest up until then so I feel like jumping up 10 whole minutes in one day was pretty awesome. I just felt really good listening to some great music on my headphones and couldn't bring myself to stop moving so I didn't. Today I only spent 30 minutes on there but I'm still very impressed. I felt like I wanted to get off only a few minutes in to it. It seems like once I get past that 10-15 minute mark though, if I get myself lost in whatever music I'm listening to instead of staring at the time on the Nexercise app on my phone then i can go for much longer than I expect myself to do.

I also ended up doing some random exercises after that just because I still felt so pumped. I went outside and climbed the stairs of my front porch over and over again for a few minutes. I then did some jumping jacks and a few different ab crunch routines I had memorized from before.

I ate really well yesterday too and also finished out Friday night pretty well. I ended up on deciding to have this delicious dish. Avocado, tomato, corn, and black beans in tortillas. I had ran out of the carb balance wheat tortillas I like that have considerably less calories in them but I made do with these and this dish totaled at 400 calories even.

Thank god I chose to go ahead and make my own dinner because shortly after that my dad started to cut up and deep fry some chicken strips and french fries! The smell lingered through the entire house and was such a torture. Luckily everyone else scarfed it all down and there were no left overs to keep tempting me throughout the night. lol. I was a little upset the next morning though when I realized he used the chicken breasts I had just bought to make a bunch of new healthy recipes I had been looking up. Have I said how much I can't wait until we are finally back out on our own? :)

A new motto

Well yesterday morning I had high hopes for myself but around noon things started slowly shifting south and then quickly picked up in to the evening hours. To say I had a bad day was to say the least.

I had plans to attend one last Christmas family meetup this past Sunday but got rescheduled to Thursday because we had all been sick and were still getting over it on Sunday. Well for some strange reason my Aunt decided we should meet at Pizza hut. I knew this ahead of time and tried to prepare myself mentally for eating at a pizza buffet only 3 days back in to my routine. I started out great. Then we sat there for awhile longer and so I got up for another plate. Then they were still gabbing on and on about random stuff so I got another plate. Then another. I don't want to even know how many calories were consumed. Of course they weren't all pizza. I did get lots of cottage cheese and peaches. I had carrots and pickles and tomatoes as well. I did have my fair share of pizza and desert pizza though, too.

I got some pretty devastating news later in the day and that's when things began to entirely spiral out of control. I ate and ate and ate. I knew better. I kept telling myself that just because I had ruined the earlier part of the day was no reason to continue sabotaging myself. Mentally, I knew exactly what I needed to do. Physically, I couldn't stop myself from drowning my sorrows in food. Which of course only upset me more. I then became upset because of ruining my own day and that just made matters worse. I wanted to exercise all day but never once got around to it.

That was yesterday. I admit I was too ashamed to come blog about it at the time. However, I've always said here that I want to share my true journey. The good and the bad. I knew I would be telling on myself here today.

Today has been sooo much better. I again had to leave the house but this time I kept things under control. I ate a boiled egg and an apple for breakfast. A few hours later I had a granola bar for a snack. At lunch my mom stopped to get Mcdonald's for Jett but I told her I couldn't eat there so we got our lunch at subway. I refrained from getting the extra tasty bread and just chose wheat. I then made sure to order the lowest calorie sandwich I could find on the menu. I had turkey and ham and even held the cheese for a change. I chose mustard as my dressing to cut calories there, too. I was proud of myself for those decisions and enjoyed my sandwich even though I could smell the strong aroma of Mcdonald's fries in the back seat the whole time.

When we got home I stepped on the elliptical and then also did some time on the treadmill. I had popcorn for a snack and then took off for a stroll down my neighborhood with my fiance and babygirl. I am currently sitting at 637 calories and wondering what I should have for dinner now. :)

Anyways though... sometime today as I was lost in thought while walking I decided that I have a new motto for myself. If you didn't sweat, then you didn't try hard enough.

Feeling good

Day two of being back in the habit. I feel good. I stayed around the 1200 calorie mark yesterday and didn't feel overly hungry at any one point during the day. I am a little surprised I wasn't even tempted to have a soda at all. I did consider lots of tempting food options and had to tell myself no not that, do this instead about ten times, lol. But the drinking situation was under control. Nice. I would have expected to get a caffeine headache at the least but I never noticed one.

This morning I ate 2 more eggs and the last of the turkey bacon. I'll have to head to the store later to get more along with a few other things anyways. I'm at 230 calories for breakfast today and haven't had any lunch yet. I planned on doing another 15 minutes on the elliptical this morning. I surprised myself yet again though when I actually stayed on for 20 minutes. At the 7 minute mark I remember sweating it and thinking oh god why isn't it like 14 mins already?! lol. When I got to 15 though I was jamming out to something on my headphones and didnt even realized I had passed it. At that point I said screw it, let's keep on pushing til 20 minutes! Took a few minutes break to switch between activities on my nexercise app but my headphones were still in so I was jamming out and moving my body around involving my arms some more in exercising and stretching. Next I hopped on the treadmill and did 15 minutes there. I was pouring sweat on there even though I was only doing a speed of 2.5 mph. I thought man I must be really out of shape. lol. Oh well. I felt really great afterwards and my cheeks were bright red. My shirt was drenched and my face was glistening. I washed my face and then got online to check facebook and post another update here. :)

Oh yeah... I know I said a few posts ago that I wasn't really liking the nexercise app, but that was because I didn't understand how it worked. Now thanks to my friend Ziona over at I want to look like a pinup explained it all to me. Apparently it's the mPoints that actually give you the rewards and I wasn't even looking at that part at all. Now that I have I'm looking forward to cashing them in for some sort of giftcard eventually.

In other news, I saw this shared on facebook yesterday and it brought me to tears. So of course I have to share it here with you guys.

Staying on track

Okay. I got a late start waking up today, but I think I'm back on track with things for now. I had 2 eggs and some turkey bacon for breakfast. I then did 15 minutes on my elliptical. The goal was 10 minutes but that's when I really started feeling the sweat build up so I thought of one of those recent pictures I have posted that says "when it starts getting tough is when it really counts" or something like that. I know Jillian Michaels says in a lot of her videos, too something like - When it hurts, that's when your body is actually pushed to make changes. If you don't push past what feels like your limits then you can't break through them.

Anyways. After that I still felt great but I was regretting not sticking in my headphones first so I went and grabbed my mp3 player and then headed out the door for a walk. The baby was still sleeping next to Sparky and Jett was inside playing with his cousins. I also went further than I originally intended with walking. Each time I got to a hill I decided I should jog up it. It was very cold outside, but I didn't wear a jacket and made sure I was walking fast enough to keep myself semi-warm. When I started feeling more chilly, that's when I'd pump my arms and legs faster. I carried a water bottle with me, so while I was walking, I was also switching it between hands and doing different triceps and biceps exercises and stretches for my chest, shoulders, and back. I even added some twists to get a little bit of midsection included. After I got home I had half a can of Progresso Steak burger soup. I've just been drinking water and sweet tea made with Splenda all morning. I almost slipped up and grabbed some sparkling red grape juice first thing today, but then I stopped myself and put it back in the fridge saying - hey don't screw up on your first day back in the swing of things! lol.

So far my calorie count for today is at 410. I am hoping to stay as close to 1200 calories per day as possible. It's been just over 4 months since Bethany was born. We are all over being sick, now. I feel like I'm getting plenty of rest again. I'm gonna loosely have a schedule each day of what I need to be doing to stay on track. I think if I work out in the mornings and get it out of the way then I wont have a million things I still need to do at night before bed and find an excuse to not do it.

Happy New Year!!!

• January 1st 2013

  
  

  
  

  Height: 5'5"

  Weight: 248.2 lbs

  
  

  

  
  

  Measurements

  • Bust: 47 inches
  • Waist: 48 inches
  • Hips: 55.5 inches
  • Thighs: 31 inches
  • Calves: 19 inches
  • Neck: 16.5 inches
  • Arms: 15 inches

  
  

  BMI: 41.3