3 for 3

Yes, I am still here and no I have not given up!  In fact I am doing SO well!!!!  Woke up Monday early and EXERCISED!  Same Tuesday and same today!  I am 3 for 3... SO happy and MOTIVATED about that!  I'm feeling pretty good.  Kinda tired, but hello?  Alarm blaring at 5:30 every day would kill almost anyone, right?  But I am so happy I have 3 days under my belt.  YIPPEEEE!!!!!

And... I have been tracking every little thing I eat.  It is awesome to see where I am by the end of the day.  I'm eating healthy - really watching calories and fat.  And drinking at least 8 glasses of water every day.  My main focus is on lots of fruits and veggies, plus protein.  But I've ALWAYS been a snacker, so here are a couple of things I have found helpful so far in this healthy eating changeover...
 
 I get munchy hungry later in the evening - I've solved this with a 100 calorie bag of popcorn.

 I've also found that snacking on baby food helps curb my appetite AND gives me extra fruit and veggie servings.  I buy the pouch variety, so I just open it up and squeeze it all into my mouth, just like a gogurt.  I got this baby food snacking tip from Reece Witherspoon, and duh she looks amazing.

 

If I get a chocolate craving, I love the 100 calorie pack of fudge-shoppe cookies.  Just the perfect amount of sweet and crunch.  LOVE. 

I love flavored coffee.  The instant variety has only 60 calories per cup.  It's like heaven in a mug.

I also have found I really enjoy chai tea.  The bag itself only has 10 calories, but I can't drink it plain.  I add low fat non-dairy creamer (hazelnut flavor).  Again... bliss, especially when it was a snowstorm outside the other night.

And of course keeping track of it all on myfitnesspal.com is amazing.  

 And a little extra motivation for the day....

Failure? Maybe not...

My first inclination was to declare yesterday a failure.  Just like the day before.  But the more I really examine what happened yesterday, the more I can see that there are 2 VERY important things to realize about myself... and these 2 things are going to be VITAL in my weight loss efforts.

1. My BIGGEST diet weakness is from the time I get home until I am through making dinner.  I get SO hungry and I don't care about anything but feeding that hunger.  It doesn't help that my kids are all over me wanting attention.  And they want a small snack before dinner... that's where I'm searching the kitchen to find them something quick and I stumble upon leftover pizza or that forgotten box of ding-dongs.  It's so easy to just pop a few things in my mouth as I'm making their snack and even easier to keep eating as I'm putting together our dinner.  SO now I realize just how many stupid calories I am consuming during this time.  SO here are some of my ideas to stop this from happening:

• Have healthy, pre-made and ready-to-grab snacks ready for me when I get home so I can avoid wandering the kitchen finding stupid things to eat.
• Pre-make dinner the night before or morning of.  A casserole assembled and refrigerated overnight... or a crock-pot dinner to simmer all day keeps me out of the kitchen (mostly) when I get home from work.
• Eat a quick yogurt or piece of fruit before I leave work so my stomach isn't empty and all sense of reason goes out the window when I get home.
• I also need to realize that eating is NOT a pastime.  It isn't something to do because I'm bored.  I've heard ideas about chewing gum or drinking ice water when these cravings and out of control behaviors hit, so I'm going to do a little more research about this and see if I can't find something that will work better for me. :)

2. I am never going to make time to exercise in the evening.  I have too many other things going on and it just isn't going to happen. Kids, dinner, baby, husband, exhaustion... too many other things I want to do.  And I admit, nothing feels as good as getting home, taking off work clothes and getting into comfy clothes to lounge around in.  Once that happens, the exercise clothes are never going to come out that night. So my only 2 options are:

•  Get up in the early morning and exercise in our exercise room that has yet to see me in it.  We have an exercise room in our house and I haven't even used it since we moved in in June.  NO EXCUSE!  I hate getting up in the morning, but once I'm up, it isn't so bad.  And I always feel so good after I get up and get that out of the way.  Half hour on the treadmill, and then 15 minutes doing the strength exercises in my last post.  45 minutes total.  Every morning.  I can do that.  I can!
• I can also exercise at work.  On nice days, we have a great walking path I can use.  Half hour with my iPod... nice break form work and it gets me outside and gets the blood pumping.  Win-win.  On bad weather days, I can do stairs in my building or walk the halls.  Heck, even stretching exercises at my desk is something.  I just need to do it!!!!!

So yesterday was NOT a failure, it brought to light 2 things I can work on.  Because I can do this!!!!!

My weekly exercise routine

In addition to the treadmill each day, I will be doing the following exercises each week... kinda excited about these actually:

 

Rotten Day

Today is just no good.  I feel really down and bad about myself today.  I am tired, sluggish and just want to crawl back into bed.  I feel fat today.  I want to be skinny NOW.  I really am the most impatient person ever and I suspect that's why I continually fail at my diet/exercise attempts.  I don't get the results I want soon enough and I give up.  Logically I know how stupid that is, but I've never been very logical about my self image.  Years of abuse in my first marriage marred that and I'm not sure I will ever fully recover from how I felt about myself for so long.  I believed so many bad things about me...

I lost SO much weight when I got divorced.  It was liberating and I felt SO good!  I want that feeling back!  I want to look in the mirror and do a double take because the image I see is one to be proud of... it's skinny me!!!  Please come back skinny girl... come save me from myself!

I totally failed at my diet yesterday.  I was doing so well until I got home and had to deal with my kids.  It was too much and I lost it and ate food NOT included in a healthy eating plan... somehow a slice of pizza and a ding dong were consumed.  I went WAY over my allotted calories for the day - which wouldn't have been so bad, but I didn't exercise at all either.  NOT ONE BIT.  Grrrrr.......... (that's me growling at myself for not doing anything). 

SO.  Today is a brand new day and even though I feel like crap, I am resolved to eat well today and freaking exercise when I get home!  I have no excuse.  My kids go to their dad's tonight and my baby will nap.  I will tackle that damn treadmill when I get home.  And then reward myself with a hot relaxing bath after.  Ahhhhh....

No really.... THIS is Day One

Kick off is today... still no pictures to post.  Oh, I took some, but can't quite bring myself to put them on HERE.  In PUBLIC.  For ALL to SEE!!!!  Can I please have some brownie points for just taking the damn pictures of my curvy self?  The camera does NOT lie... I have work to do.  For Sure. 

So far today has been easy.  I don't feel well, so I'm not hungry. I wish all days were this crave-free.  I started my on-line food journal.  I love that I have this app on my phone - it makes it SO easy to keep track of every-little-thing!  And although I didn't get up early and exercise... I am going to treadmill it when I get home tonight.  I am.  What?  You don't think I will?  Just for that... I'm going to stay on it extra long.  SO THERE!!!!!!

Two months from now we will be in Disneyland with our 7 kids on a surprise trip they have no idea is coming.  My goal is to be 10-15 pounds lighter by that time... I have some cute clothes to fit into for this vacation!!!!! :)

Places to visit...

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about how I am going to accomplish my goal of losing 30 pounds.  I can't just say "diet and exercise" because I know me and I won't follow through unless I have very detailed tools to use in this endeavor.  There are some good ideas, tools and websites out there.  So I need to gather what works for me and maybe tweak it a little to fit my life and my schedule.  Two things I plan on using a lot are:

• The website www.myfitnesspal.com .  This is an awesome place to keep a daily food journal and exercise log.  And it has a fabulous iPhone app you can use to really keep yourself honest and up to date about what your are doing.  Remember... WHAT YOU EAT IN PRIVATE, YOU WEAR IN PUBLIC.
• My Pinterest folders on diet tips and exercise routines.  I have collected some of the most amazing tips and advice.  If you need an invite to join Pinterest, let me know.

So you'll notice NO pictures yet.  I know, I'm procrastinating that already.  I promise they are coming.  This weekend I will strip down and post the horror.  Ugh... I hope I have a bottle of wine in the fridge.....

I do have some good news to report already.... I have been focusing on eating better this week (not counting the package of Skittles last night) and I lost 1.5 pounds.  Probably water weight more than anything, but YAY for me!!!  EVERY little victory counts!  :)

A few more sites I want to investigate further...

EXERCISE - great mini workouts and lots of tips

• http://fitbie.msn.com
• http://weightloss.allwomenstalk.com/ 
• http://downtownn.tumblr.com/tagged/workout

DIET - yummy recipes and lots of eat this/not that

• http://www.health.com/health/eating/
• http://keepyourdietreal.com/
• http://www.skinnytaste.com/

Day One

So here's the thing... I am SICK to death of how I feel about myself.  Don't get me wrong I like myself, I just don't like what stares back at me in the mirror.  here it goes.... I have let myself get fat.  Wow.  That was even hard to type.  I've been in denial that I am overweight.  I have made SO many excuses... such as:

• I "just" had a baby (yeah, he's almost 9 months old now)
• I have no time to exercise
• I eat on the run and don't have the energy to cook healthy
• I have 7 kids... hello?  SEVEN!
• I'm pushing 40
• I work full-time
• I'll start next week, or next month, or at the first of the year (It's 12 days into the new year and I still haven't begun!

It' ridiculous.  I'm through with the excuses.  I'm done with the lame reasons why I can't do this.  I CAN.  Plain and simple... I CAN DO THIS.  I will do this because I want to be happy about me again. SO to start this off right, I am going to list a few of the reasons why I want this to work...

• I have an entire closet full of clothes I can't fit into or think I am too fat for.  I miss them and want desperately to wear my cute jeans again!
• I want to have energy for my kids.  I want to go hiking and biking and swimming and all the fun things that we should be doing.  And I want to feel comfortable in a swimsuit!!!
• I want to be hot for my husband... he loves me no matter what, but let's be real.  Sex is so much better when you feel good about yourself.  I want that back bad...
• I will turn 40 next year and I want to be here for a very long time.  I need to make some healthy changes so avoid risking many of the diseases associated with being over weight.
• I deserve this.  I have spent too much of my life believing I was not good enough in my first marriage.  This is my whole new life with my second husband and it is SO amazing... I want to look AND feel amazing too!!!

SO, how far do I have to go... well, it's more than I've ever had to think about losing, but it is what it is.  Sugar coating does not help.  I need to lose 30 pounds.  That seems SO daunting to me.  I know some people would think that is nothing!  But for me it seems like such a large number.  I can't even bring myself to publish what I weigh right now... maybe as I start to lose, I will feel better about showing how far I've come?  But for now, saying I need to lose 30 pounds is all I can bring myself to admit.

How am I going to do it?  One damn pound at a time.  I can't focus on the entire amount, it will kill me, but every pound lost is a victory.  I get to have 30 little victories to equal one big ecstatic win.  I am excited about that... it's getting there that makes me scared.  My goal is to start on Monday... I know, why not right now TODAY???  Well, I need to get some things in place before I go all out to achieve this goal.  Over the next few days I will share my preparations with you (Nobody even reads this, but it's ok - I'm doing it for me) and I will be super brave and post pictures.  This is not only for motivation, but I truly want to see how far I have come over the course of this next year.  I am going to be embarrassed to post what I look like initially, but I need to show myself how hard I worked and overcame and made myself into something to be truly proud of!

SO, come Monday, January 16th... this launches for real.  Look out world - I'M DOING THIS!!!