The best NSV yet...

So a few months back I mentioned, in this blogpost, how my son saw a picture of me when I had lost a significant amount of weight the first time around but did not recognize me. He asked me "Hey mama, who's that lady? She looks kinda like you, but skinny." This was a small blow to my self esteem of course but I knew I had already began working on getting back in shape and so I didn't let it sidetrack me much at all.

My newest Non-Scale Victory happened last night when I was least suspecting of course. lol. As I was getting ready to exercise and had just changed in to some workout clothes then came back in to the living room where my son and daughter were playing, he kinda stopped what he was doing to look at me in the face and said something along the lines of "Wow, mama you really are starting to look like you used to a long, long time ago." This of course caught me by surprise because I'm still heavier than I was in that picture and I wasn't expecting a 5 year old boy to take much notice to that sort of thing. The real kicker though was that he immediately followed this up with some added motivation. "If you just exercise a little bit more you will be there in no time!"

I love my son. :)

I'm feeling pretty great today, as far as fitness and health go anyways... I did have to take care of some legal matters that I wish I didn't but they aren't detering me from continuing to count my calories and be conscious of my eating. I woke up feeling extra skinny this morning and almost as if I was already in the body I once had for a short while. lol. I think I had several dreams about fitting in to old clothes again. I'm sure most of the good thoughts came from my son's observations but also because of reading about Sunshine's latest NSV over facebook just before I went to sleep. lol.

I know... I know!

Yes It's been awhile since I've logged in and posted here. Fret not though because it wasn't entirely because I had fallen off track. It was mostly just that my life is so much busier now that I have a job and my fiance is off working in another city so he's not home to help me with the kids a lot of the time. There were definitely a few off days and after a couple weeks of staying the exact same I missed my weigh in the week before and didn't actually weigh in again until yesterday. To my great relief and joy, I am down about 4 lbs from the last time I checked the scale 2 weeks ago. There was a lot of stress with all the birthday party planning I had to get done for both kids and then there's also been a lot of stress with missing my fiance and so I havent made the best choices every single day but it has been quite a few days in a row now that I have been making great choices. I'm officially back to calorie counting with the help of myfitnesspal and my new phone. I can scan things and the calories automatically fill themselves in. Its great! lol. I've used it every day since Wednesday so far and the more consecutive days I get it done, the less likely I am to give up on it again. I've also been cutting out a lot of the caffeine and diet sodas and drinking more water. I've got a new pair of 10 lb weights as well that I am dying to find the time to break out and use. lol. I'm hoping I get the chance to do just that later on tonight. 

Anyways for those curious.... tadah here is my new weigh in - 236.4 which puts me about half a lb away from my next goal I've got written on the left sidebar here. I decided yesterday that I have another goal in mind though. With Halloween right around the corner and wanting to look good in whatever it is I end up wearing - It'd be super awesome to hit 220 lbs. That's the weight I spent the majority of my teens and early 20s at, just before I got pregnant with my son. While I know I still need to lose a lot more, it'll be nice to be back to a sort of regular (for me) size. I have right at a month and a half to get there and 16 lbs in that amount of time should be totally doable if I work at it and I intend to for sure!

Yes, that's Bethany's feet and skirt you see running through my picture. lol

Dressed up for my bestie's birthday.

I can see my face starting to thin out a little bit again finally.

A lot of my stress has been because I'm dealing with the kids on my own a lot. My parents are here to help of course but often that just stresses me out more because they don't always parent like I want my kids to be parented and so I have to correct them and my kids later. Also its really frustrating for Jett to have 3 different people telling him what to do all the time and so I know that's affecting his behavior but there isn't much I can do about it since I'm off working now. Him being in school most of the day is a small relief to me though. 

Then there's the fact that my fiance is getting to live with his friend kid free and they go off an do whatever things in their free time that they feel like... well mostly what his friend feels like as its his truck. I just kinda miss being able to drop things at any moment and go on a 3am roadtrip for no reason. lol. So I've been jealous of all his free time lately. I know he'd spend it with us if he could and he has spent as much as he can with us, but we're also trying to save up money and not spend it all on gas. We need to first afford a car and then get our own place so I understand him not being here every day off, etc. 

Yesterday was my best friend Ashley's birthday though and she wanted everyone to go hangout and skating with her. It wasn't actually a party, just a few of us getting together at the rink and making fools out of ourselves. I had a blast there and also got a pretty big shiner on one of my shins. lol. Afterwards I was able to convince my parents to take the kids home for a few hours while I rode along with some of the others and Ashley to go hit up Braums for dinner/dessert and then a local bar where one of them worked. We had her serve us delicious drinks and by the 3rd one I had to call it quits because I was totally gone already. lol. I hadn't had but 2 drinks since Bethany was born and being pregnant with her, and those were back on New Years so it's been quite a while for me! I was good earlier in the day with my eating and at Braums I made sure to just eat my grilled chicken and leave the bread alone. Since it was her birthday though I did order a junior cone of some ice cream so she wasn't the only one eating any. lol. I don't like cones though so I didn't eat mine. I don't feel any regret about my food or drink choices yesterday because I had a great time and made sure to think about what I was doing when I was doing it. Yesterday was a much needed break from reality for me and it came just when I really needed it. I feel like now I can move on from all the other stressors and just progress forward. 

I'm really excited to get back in shape, not just for me but for my fiance too. His absence really makes the heart grow fonder and he texted me a picture of him the other day looking really good with a smile on his face and his big blue eyes just staring back at me that I couldn't help but share on my page almost as if I'm bragging. lol. I did manage to see a friend of mine comment on the picture saying wow Jen, you've got yourself a good looking man right there. Score, it worked. haha. I wanna be able to send him pictures of me with a genuine smile on my face that he can feel proud of too though. Like I know its not super important or anything but I wanna be his arm candy when we go out and not just him be mine.