Thankful for...Day 3

Today I'm thankful for my mom.  She's a wonderful example of what a mom should be.  She's available anytime, day or night.  She is open minded when it comes to her advice.  She tries to make me see both sides of the situation instead of just taking my side.  I really don't know what I would do without her.  She's an amazing mom and an awesome friend.  I absolutely love how she can be there to give me advice, let me use her as a sounding board, or just hang out with and play catch up.  She is one of my best friends.  I pray that I have the same kind of relationships with my daughters when they are my age.  Thank you mom for being amazing!!!  I love you!!

Thankful for...

Today I am thankful for my husband, Brendan.  He is a wonderful Christian husband and father.  I feel extremely blessed to have him in my life.  There are times when I sit and wonder what I did to deserve to have such a wonderful person as my spouse.  He's also a great role model to our girls.  They definitely love their daddy.  I thank the Lord every day for bringing him into my life.  If you would have asked me 11 years ago if I would have thought about dating Brendan, I probably would have answered no.  He was a friend that I didn't really think of like that (not to mention he was dating someone else at the time).  Here we are after 8 years of marriage and 3 little girls and life just keeps getting better!!

A New Month

November 1, 2011--Where has the time gone?  The month of October is officially over and this month will bring on more weather changes and my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

Along with a new month is work on a new me.  The past month I was not diligent on working on my weight loss, but today is a new day.  I have a lofty goal for the month of November.  My goal is to be down 15 lbs by the end of November.  I fell 5 lbs short of my goal for October.  Another goal is to walk 2-3 miles at least 5 days a week and continue on my C25K program.  I am going to start week 3 over this week because it has been a couple of weeks since I've done the program.

With this being the month of November and the month that has Thanksgiving in it, I figured I'd challenge myself to write about something I'm thankful for and why daily.

Today I'm thankful for the Lord.  I know that even in my most stressful times, I can always turn to God to help relieve my stress.  If only I could remember this all the time.  The last year has been a great one and I know that whatever blessings I have are all from God.

Here is to a great month!!!

How To Keep The Motivation?!?

Well the Biggest Loser challenged has ended and I'm finding myself losing my motivation.  I think part of my loss is due to things going on at home that have prohibited me from being able to walk on a daily basis.  This week there has been a change in weather and Peyton has been a little under the weather so this has kept me indoors.  However, I did find a little solution to my issue.  I have a found a video on demand service through our satellite provider called Exercise TV.  Last week I did one episode of kickboxing and I thought my legs were going to fall off.

So here is my new goal:

Walk every day (regardless of weather conditions)
Alternate between kickboxing and pilates every day
Continue my C25K training (on week 4)

I have a goal to lose 8-10 lbs a month so hopefully I'll be to my goal weight by May.

Oh and to give me another little boost, my work is starting their own Biggest Loser competition today.  Can't wait to get this weight off!!

It's Not a Setback, but a Challenge

So last week I thought I was really making some progress.  I thought that I had had this really awesome week. Well imagine my surprise when I get on the scale (at church)

Sunday to only be down 1.4 lbs.  I got very frustrated because what I thought had been this awesome week wasn't near as awesome as I thought.  Going off of my home scale I was down 4lbs!!!  I know that's a lot in a week, but I had been walking and getting more strict on my food.  Well come to find out my scale at home was off by almost 5lbs.  Thankfully this had not been the case during this whole endeavor and it just started last week.

I started to get really frustrated and discouraged, but a good friend of mine told me not be discouraged.  She told me that you could really see that I had lost weight.  So, I am not going to look at the faulty scale as a setback, but a challenge booster.  It helped me to get more in focus and more on track this week and really buckle down.  I did purchase another scale though.

A couple of weeks ago, me and 4 other ladies from church have started walking twice a week.  The park that we meet at has an awesome walking track and we can get a good 3.5 miles in.  I was thinking today that if I can do that twice a week, what's to stop me from doing it every day???  So starting tomorrow I'm going to start walking 3 miles a day.  I had already worked up to 2 miles a day and am handling it really well.  I'm ready to step up my game.

As of today, I'm down 14 lbs from the first of August.  I am not sure of measurements, because I didn't think to do those when I started.  On the first of October I will try to do my measurements so I can see how I'm progressing.  The way I have been charting my progress (besides the scale) is by pulling clothes out of my closet that I haven't worn in a few years.  I wore a t-shirt the other day that I haven't been able to wear since Thanksgiving of 2009.

For those of you that have lost weight, what do you do with your clothes that are too big?  Do you go ahead and get rid of them or keep them?  I plan on getting rid of mine because I am planning on never getting back into them.  I have a ton of clothes that are a couple sizes too small right now, but I plan on getting into them. What I would really like to do is go and by a dress in the my goal size and use that as my motivation.
What do you use for your motivation?  Do you incorporate your friends to help hold you accountable?  When you hit a plateau, what do you do to help break it?

Thanks for reading and I hope that I have more loss to share in the future.

Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever...

This is a quote from one of those wonderful movies featuring a the underdog team that comes back to win it all, The Replacements.  The Replacements is a movie where the professional football players have gone on strike.  So to make sure there is still a football season, the league brings in replacement players.  Players that are there to play for the love of the game and not for the love of money.  A player that is playing with heart!!!!

Last week I started Couch to 5K.  I have several reasons for starting this program.

1. To get in better shape
2. To change up the walking routine
3. To eventually run a 5K

With week one down, I feel like one of those replacement players.  Not doing the program for just physical gain, but also for a sense of accomplishment.  I started a program and did not quit!!!  On Saturday, I suggested to Brendan that we go for a walk.  I mentioned that he should start the Cto5K program and he decided to start that Saturday.  We even had Ashlynn join us.

I started the program over and today did Day 2.  I do not suggest doing this at 5:30 in the evening.  It is too hot!!  I'm very thankful for the breeze we had though.

Along with my goal to successfully finish this program, I am also wanting to increase my walking time to get my mile under 20 minutes.

As of today I'm 9 lbs away from my first goal.  Here's to losing the next 9 lbs!!!!

Here is a pic of me around the 1st of August.  Not quite my starting pic, but still with a way to go until my goal weight.

Go Big or Go Home!!

I absolutely love reality TV.  I don't like drama in my life, but I love watching the drama that comes with reality TV shows.  One of the shows that I watch is the Real World/Road Rules Challenges on MTV.  Let me say this before I continue, I am not a fan of MTV and don't sit there glued to all their other shows.  The RW/RR Challenge is that only show I do watch.  The object of the show is to make sure you are one of the challengers at the final challenge.  The way to do this is to be the best during the daily challenges and keeping out of the elimination round.  To keep the teams pumped you will hear several of the players cheering each other on.  During some of these challenges there are those competitors that literally GO BIG OR GO HOME!!!  They put all their effort and strength into the challenge to make sure they stay on top.  

This is how I kind of felt today.  Yesterday I was searching through various apps and found a Couch to 5K app and it was FREE!!!!  So I thought I would start the program today.  I got a call from Brendan this morning asking me to bring him something up to work and I just knew that my morning workout was going to be shot.  I ran by his office and then ran a couple of other errands while I was out.  As I headed home, I realized it was only 9:30 and I also realized that I still had time to get my morning walk in before Mason needed her nap.  Off to the park I headed with my phone and headphones in hand.  We got to the park, got the kiddos buckled, and started on my first day of C to 5K training.  I am so thankful that the park there in Yukon has really good walking trails and since it was later in the morning it wasn't as crowded as it normally is at 8:00 AM.  

So this morning I decided to GO BIG!!!  I started the program and I plan to keep up with it.  According to the program, it is a 3 day program for 8 weeks.  Since I started today, I will do it Thursday and Friday of this week.  Next week, I'll do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I am hoping that this will help me gain some stamina when I run and also to help me out when I play soccer.  

Day 1=SUCCESS!!

Keeping on the journey to the new me!!!

You Can't Have Just One

Do you remember the Lays commercials that would say, "You can't eat just one."?  I remember as a kid making up my own commercial where I was able to eat only one.  Well last night at work I kind of had to remind myself of this little commercial.  I gave into my want for fries last night.  This is both good and bad.  The bad is that I couldn't eat just one.  The good is that I didn't go crazy and the fries themselves didn't taste all that great.  Has my body become a little conditioned to dislike the taste of grease?  I hope so!!  I have always been told that if you crave something it is better to give into that craving or else you might end up binging on what you've been craving.  So I gave in and had some fries.  I am actually glad that they didn't taste as good as I was hoping.  It's nice to know that I will for sure be able to survive without fries in my life.  

I really thought that I would miss fried food.  There are times when I would like to indulge myself in fried cheese or boneless buffalo wings, but it's not to the point where I crave it.  YAY!!!!  

Goals for the upcoming week:

1. Stay strong and resist the fried food

2. Try to get 1 gallon of water down before having a soda

3. Walk every day

Month 1 gone!!

So the last time I wrote was August 1st.  I decided last month to give up fried foods.  I am happy to report that for the most part I was able to stay fried food free.  There were two instances when I slipped up and one of them was unconsciously done.  I find this to be a big victory in my book.  I plan on continuing the trend.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was.  In face it has proven to be a lot cheaper by cutting out fries from fast food meals.  It has also forced me to make better decisions while eating out.

For the next month my goal is to continue with not eating fried foods.  I am also planning on limiting the time I eat out to once maybe twice a week, that goes for lunch as well.  I'm trying my best to count calories and watch my sugar and carb in take.  Also, since school has started, I have made it my mission to get dressed for walking.  After I drop Ashlynn off at school, the girls and I head to the park for a good walk.  I was able to walk three times this week.  I also found a neat little app that tracks my distance, time, and calories burnt for me.

Here are three things I find have helped me in this journey:

1. Lose It! app-It has helped me to track my calories, tell me how many calories I can have, and also show me where I am on my weight loss.

2. Sparkrecipes.com-This has helped me to find low carb recipes using chicken or ground turkey.  Since Brendan is diabetic, I try to cook as low carb as possible.

3. Log Your Run Free app-This app is free and it tracks my distance, time, and calories burnt.  You can customize it with routes.  It also keeps a log of your stats for the day, week, and month.  I really like this one!!!

So that's how the last month has gone.  Oh, did I forget to mention that I lost 11 lbs. last month!!!  WOO HOO!!!  Very excited about this.  I am officially under my pre-pregnancy weight.  I hope the next month is just as successful.

Another Beginning

I started this blog last year (I believe) and titled it "The New Me". I am not a faithful or diligent writer by any means. However, I'm going to give this blogging another whirl.

3 weeks ago I decided to join in a friendly Biggest Loser competition (I hate to use that word, but could not come up with anything better). I'm not quite sure why I couldn't just take off right from the beginning. I'm not quite sure I didn't throw myself full force into it. Instead I only put half my heart in it. Because I didn't start out fully committed, my results have been mediocre.

Today is August 1st. I made up my mind yesterday that today was the day!! I am going to be more focused and more dedicated to the journey I started out on over a year ago. I have always struggled with my weight. Why is that? Because I love food!! There is no other excuse except that I have an affection for food. Not just any food, but the food that is not good for me. Whew, I finally admit it!! A big step in the right direction!!

I may not write every day, but I will try to write as often as I can.

Thanks for sticking in there with me!!!

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