that old familiar pain

Got two excellent workouts in this week and I am f e e l i n g  i t !

Also had a doc appointment this week and did not like what I saw on his scale.

However…

I am making the time for my workouts. Letting the rest of the world live in its chaos while I push the pedals or lift some weights is doing me good…painful good. I think the pain is a reminder that I’m back. No more excuses about having no time to workout.

The pain is also a reminder to stay away from the sweets…or it should be. I am weak! Emotional and weak lately. My kids wanted to watch Marley & Me this afternoon. I protested but gave in. I held my sweet 6 year old boy while he sobbed for the death of the on-screen dog… and I envied his tears. Tears seem useles. Or maybe I’m kidding myself and bottling in the stuff I should be letting go of. Or maybe I just really like chocolate.

Hoping for some good news in the next week and to find a better way to deal with the bad/sad/frustrating/infuriating stuff that comes along.

Wish me luck.

Love it, Hate it, Can I Live Without it?

I’m 41, married, a mother to three kids and I live in my own mom’s house. It didn’t happen on purpose and we’ve been here years (YEARS). Some days I have hope (or faith or both) that we’ll get our own home and others I feel stuck. Today is a stuck day. Don’t get me wrong. There are some great things about being here. This is not one of them…

She (Mom) came home from a weekend away for a family funeral and this is what was on the counter when I woke up. She cannot throw food away. It might be a physical impossibility for her. She loves treats, too, and no matter how often I ask her not to bring things like this home….she ignores me and does it anyway.

Oh my mother. How I love her. How she drives me crazy.

This isn’t a blog post to complain about my mother. It’s about all the dang sugar! I have given in to the sugar too much lately. I need a clean slate. I feel totally addicted. I choose easy, grabable (it’s a word), food filled with refined sugar to snack on, to replace an actual lunch, to fill me when I’m tired….need I go on?

I’m diabetic for crying out loud! Iwasn’t even eating candy a few months ago and now I don’t seem to know how to eat without it being something sweet. After seeing the many treats this morning I decided I need to go on a sugar fast. I don’t know for how long. I’m afraid to put a number on it and discourage myself so much that I give up before I start. So I’m doing it for today. Tomorrow is another day. I pray for the courage to stick to it tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Jellybeans & Peeps & More….OH MY!

Today many of us will be walking through store aisles filled every kind of candy Mars, Hershey, Cadbury, and the other candy companies can think of…shaped into eggs, chicks and bunnies. Don’t give in just because the candy is cute! The calories count double when the candy is cute. Honest.

Do what I do: buy the kids a little bit of candy, but make sure it is the kind you can resist. If you’re house is like mine there is so much candy that much gets thrown away in a week or two anyway. I’ve got some little toys, coloring stuff for the youngest, hair pretties for the teenager…stuff that lasts more than a couple of weeks. One friend told me they fill their eggs with coins and cash. There are ways to get around the candy and still enjoy Easter.

(Of course, Easter isn’t really about the candy anyway. Hopefully, you’ll spend some time talking about our Savior and not just about the Easter Bunny. If you need help, I offer this link to an 8 minute video about His sacrifice.)

All this talk of candy leads me to my latest decision. I’m off candy again. I lost the most weight last fall when I was skipping on the candy. I didn’t think that I ate a lot, but maybe being off candy just causes me to pay more attention to what I am eating. Weighing in yesterday showed I’m at my lowest weight (by 1/5th of a pound) since I started.

That was awesome news for me since I had the time to and worked harder this week than I have in a while. Now I have 3.2 lbs to lose until I reach 20 lbs total lost and I reward myself with a pedicure! Going back to school this week may make it harder to get as many workouts in, but I’m going to put in a valiant effort.

Eating healthy and exercising. I’m still working hard to fit those things in my life….or to fit my life around those two things…whichever.

Wish me luck!

…and have a beautiful, happy Easter!

Planning

This week I’ve been trying to work on planning. Saturday I made a meal plan for the week and went grocery shopping. By the time I get home from work I’m so tired I don’t have the energy to cook dinner {sad, but true story} so the night before I’ve been prepping the meal and putting it in the fridge with foil and then the hubs pops it in the oven when I leave work and I get to come home to a hot, home cooked meal. It’s a win win here, folks! I can’t believe how much this little preparation has helped me this week. The bonus is that I have leftovers to take for lunch the next day, so I don’t have  to spend money on lunch. It’s great.  

Another thing I’ve been working on is not weighing. I told Bry I was only going to weigh on Thursday mornings, but that didn’t last. But I did only weigh 3 times this week, which is pretty good for me. This morning I weighed and I’m down 2 lbs. That’s a good, healthy weight loss. I’m proud of that. Especially after all the stress that’s been happening my life. Yesterday I had a bad afternoon…. I *may* have indulged in some chocolate dipped pretzels. I realize that they weren’t going to change the bad day, but they sure did taste good. And you know what, it’s ok that I indulged.It is not realistic for me to say that I will never have chocolate, or candy, or ice cream again. Everything in moderation, right?

So, my goal for this next week is to continue to plan my dinners and to add in some exercise. I did go walking on Monday, but I need to kick that up a notch. Also, to try and remember that emotions, happy, sad, whatever they may be, does not mean that it’s a chance for me to eat poorly.

Hope everyone has had a good week!

xoxo

Autumn

 

i might be crazy

I don’t feel like writing. Getting dressed for church today I felt fat in everything. Ok, so the skirt I wore was actually barely staying on. Still felt fat. Why does feeling fat make me want to eat my weight in chocolate?

I weighed myself on Friday…

This claims I’ve lost more than 12 lbs. total. I think it was kind of cheating since I had a stomach virus. And 12 lbs doesn’t feel like a whole lot. I know. I know. It is. It’s a big deal. 12 big deals. But I feel more like: big woop.

What? Oh, I’m sorry. Your distracted by what’s on my feet? They’re shoes. No, not water shoes….although, I’m pretty sure they’d be fine in water. They’re Vibram Five Finger shoes. My husband heard about them from a colleage and so we did a little research and decided they might be good for me because of some of the foot problems I’ve had. It’s almost like working out/walking/jogging barefoot except with grip & protection on the bottom of your feet. No padding. I love them. LOVE THEM. I’d been working out barefooted and not doing much walking/jogging, but I like both much better with these.

I don’t like running. I barely can make myself jog. Why get a pair of shoes that is meant to help one run more naturally if I don’t like running? Cuz I’m fat. Need to lose (more) weight. Doing lots of stuff I don’t really like. Hoping to start liking it more. You know it’s funny after a month (or so) of not eating candy that sweet stuff is almost too sweet. I’ve also noticed that my tendency is to reach for candy when I want a quick snack…or I’m bored….or tired. I’m hoping this period of abstinence helps me to retrain my way of thinking and keep avoiding candy. Sorry. Sidetracked. This is how my brain works.

So, I’ve got the fancy shoes, and I hate to run. So why not sign up for a half marathon. Well, at least that was the plan. Hiccup in my plan is that the race I wanted to run (same one my friend who just lost her husband is planning to do the full marathon) well, it sold out in an hour. Had the half marathon in my cart, walked away to help a kid get ready for school, came back, hit submit…SOLD OUT.

Maybe I should take it as a sign.

My sister doesn’t think so. She was going to do the half with me. Do you know how long a half marathon is? 13.1 miles. Crazy, right? Run that all at once. Well, crazy runs in my family. My sister is gung ho. We’re finding a half to do next Spring (Summer would be too hot – and let’s not add something else I don’t like into the mix or I might lose my motivation). So we are looking for a Saturday half marathon in May or June that isn’t too far away (although, I did see one in Ireland I liked)!

Wish me luck.

Random Weightloss and a Kid and Weight Friendly Cookie Recipe

I feel like I lose weight randomly and without reason. I have lost another two pounds. I am now 243. Did I do anything terribly different from last week when there was the slightest negative movement? Nope not really. I was sick this week and wanted to eat everything I saw. Oh man did chocolate sound good on my throat. I ate my points, went over my points rarely and had horrible dinners like chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries and pigs in a blanket (although I did use fat free hotdogs so I was kind of good) and for vegetables I had a lot of v8 fusion. Didn’t exercise  because when I barely moved because my head would swim. I guess the moral of my story is just stick with it. Make the healthy changes that you can. Get eight hours of sleep. Eat less calories. Include six serving of fruits and vegetables in your diet.  Drink your eight glasses of water. Balance your carbs and proteins. Exercise 30 minutes a day.  Make sure you get enough healthy fat so that your body doesn’t go into starvation mode and store everything you eat.  At least those are the steps to living weight watchers correctly. Luckily the calories, carbs and protein are included in the points system to make it easy for you.

 

This week I did make some yummy cookies with my daughter when she was starting to feel better and I had kept the tv on for her all day. I felt bad so I rallied and did something fun with her. This recipe was awesomely yummy and so easy my two year old could be involved in lots of it.

Pumpkin Chocolate Cookies

1 Can Pumpkin 15 oz

1 Chocolate cake mix (do not add the water oil and egg. it’s just the powder)

combine in bowl and spoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

Yeilds about 27 ish cookies. One cookie has 88 calories: 3 g of fat: 15 g of carbs: 1 g of dietary fiber: 8 g of sugar: 1 g of protein

1 cookie is three points and 2 cookies is 5 points! Yay!

We enjoyed them I hope you do too!

Cravings

I’ll admit that I was naughty this week in that I didn’t track every single day every single thing I ate. A weight watchers no no. However, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t eat more than my points allowance for a day. I am that familiar with the program. And even if I wasn’t sure how many points I was eating I was cutting my portions down quite considerably from what I would have eaten before I started weight watchers, so I consider it a success.

This week was hard craving wise. I can’t handle open bowls of candy right in front of me. We went over to my in-laws and made gingerbread haunted houses. Oh my torture! Especially after cream and cheese soups and rolls. (I may need to figure out what to do about eating there. I don’t want to blow all my weekly points by eating Sunday dinner there. Any recommendations would be nice.)  I ate a few sixlets and luckily candy corn offers no temptation to me at all.  Those were the closest bowls to me. I said no to the ice cream and had one pumpkin cookie. I was proud of myself.  But ever since then I’m like craving little candys. Did you know half a bag of peanut butter M&M’s is only 3 points? I find more and more three points used for candy, when they should be used for dressing and croutons on a salad. I heard once that your body craves what it needs. There is no nutritional benefit from candy. So why am I craving them?

I don’t know if any of you use Pinterest, but I am hooked being the crafty DIY girl that I am. (Have I mentioned monday is my two-year olds birthday and I’m making everything including party hats with mickey mouse ears, cupcake wrappers, and decorations to name a few?).  Back to my point. I was on pinterest the other day when I saw someone post this awesome chart about what you are craving, what it means your body is lacking, and a healthy alternative to eat.  I thought it was awesome so I’m posting it here. . 

It  originates here.  So according to this chart, I need to find some nuts, legumes or fruits. Awesome, because fruits are 0 points on weight watchers.  What do you crave? What can you try to replace it with?

Timing

Rae is cruising in the Pacific with her husband and shipful of strangers. I’m sure we’ll get to hear all about it next Monday! She tried to compose a blog post before she left, but ran out of time as she got ready for her cruise. We’ll excuse her for a vacation that was planned months before I beguiled her into blogging.

As long as I’m here making excuses I figured I’d share a little something. It’s that Time of the month for me. I know I’m not the only one that craves fat and carbs (preferably sweet ones), right? And during this Time…that’s all I want. I was lurking in my pantry and tried to convince my husband we should have pre-packaged cupcakes for dinner. Luckily, he has more willpower than me (must be why he’s so skinny) and gave me the serious voice when he said, “You can’t have that.” He even helped me (ok, he did it all) get a real dinner made.

After dinner, I was back in the pantry looking for chocolate. Why is chocolate so good during this Time? Thankfully, my friend, Tami, introduced me to this delicious, healthy alternative….

Chocolate, almonds, hardly any sugar…Brilliant! Had myself a little handful and gladly left the pantry. As for the rest of the week…

Wish me luck!