Weeks 6 & 7 Recap {& Week 8 Goals}

Last night my family made me dinner.

I was “on-call” last week – Uriah was gone on a chartered fishing trip for a few days and then he came back and had to work a ton of hours as they had a busy weekend at the resort.  So that left me holding down the fort all week with no end-of-the-day-tag-team-out, which I really do look forward to after having been home all day.  And even though Uriah was at work before 7 yesterday – on the heels of two 12+ hour days in a row, he didn’t complain when I said I just needed some “me time.”  He even took my grocery list and Finneaus this morning and went to the store for me.

I should have gone to the gym last night; I scheduled myself to go to the gym while the humans made dinner because I hadn’t been since Friday.  I didn't go, even though a new month has started and I’ve got to get my time in if I want to get the kick-back our insurance company gives us for going to the gym a certain number of times each month.  It is a lot harder than you would think – this getting to the gym 12 times a month - and honestly, I just have to schedule my gym time or it is too easy to push it off until tomorrow and the next day and the next day.  And clearly, even sometimes when I schedule my gym time I push it off.

So, since I didn't go yesterday, I did go this morning - made myself go this morning; forced myself to go this morning.  I went before my mom's group met in the sunshine around my kitchen table to plan the last of our meetings for the year.  I went even though my kitchen was a mess, even though there were dirty dishes in the sink and the dishwasher needed to be emptied, even though the recycling needed to be taken out and a few breakfast crumbs needed to be swept. I went even though I knew I would come back sweaty and in need of a shower before placing myself in close proximity to women who really don't want to smell my gym smell.

And now here we are.  Three weeks of weight updates, a few frustrations to vent, and some goals.  Week 6 was a wash – I didn't gain or lose anything, but I started focusing more on my running at the gym.  I timed myself to see how long it takes me to run/walk a 5k (3.1 miles) and I've gotten some good running tips from my sister to help me add more running time and less walking time. The last two weeks (Weeks 7 & 8) have been gains even though I feel better about myself and even my pants feel better; I don't think the scale adequately reflects what I'm feeling, so I'm trying to ignore it for now until I have Uriah take my measurements again (it's been a month since I measured last).  I'm just going to keep on keeping on and see where the road takes me.  If I continue to have the same results in the next few weeks, it will probably require a conversation with my doctor, but I'm not going to jump to that yet.

In the scale's defense, I was very lax with my tracking and gym time last week while Uriah was gone…one too many episodes on The Netflix and two evenings of popcorn do not a happy scale make; however, I am watching my calories and so far have not gone over my "allowance," so it is frustrating, to say the least.  I’m not beating myself up about it, this is life and some weeks are easier than others.  Last week just happened to be one of those hard weeks.

So that leaves me my goals for this week, Week #8 and they are as follows:

• No caffeine.  This is partly to do with Lent, which starts on Wednesday and my fasting from caffeine for the next 40 days, which will hopefully keep me on track going forward, and it also has to do with my incredible desire to snack when I have caffeine past noon (read: Diet Pepsi while I make dinner.  I know it makes me want to have cheese and crackers, so why do I continue to drink it?  I don't know...time to just kick the habit, I think!).  So, let's experiment and see what happens when I just cut it out completely.  Decaf tea…we’re about to become fast friends in the morning!
• 4 scheduled gym times this week - I'm working on my running goals.  I had a really good conversation with my athletically-inclined sister and she gave me some good tips to get me motivated.
• Get back on the water wagon.  Tea in the morning, water for the rest of the day.  Ultimately, I’d like to get ½ my body weight in fluid ounces.  I might be spending the majority of next week in the little girls room with that much liquid!

I will say, it was glorious to have all three of my favorite humans bustling in the kitchen last night, cupboard doors opening and closing, laughter, Italian sausage smells coming up to the living room for the meat sauce and Uriah even made pasta earlier in the afternoon after he got home from work for the cheese raviolis; he rounded my pasta-centered meal with a fat green salad. Finn made me close my eyes while he brought me my "surprise dinner," and I didn't have to clean up the kitchen or do bed time. Instead I read the new magazine that came in the mail last week that I hadn't even glanced at. It was very relaxing; I really just needed that zone-out time to energize me for the week ahead.

Week 4 Recap {& Week 5 Goals}

01/26/14 - baseline weight taken

02/03/14 - <1.3 lbs>

02/10/14 - <3.6 lbs>

Okay, so I didn't post last week, even though I had lots to say, but it turned into one of those weeks where it started out okay, but then turned into lots of hard things.  The benefit is that instead of making a triple layer chocolate cake (which I really wanted to - with peanut butter frosting) I found myself at the gym, running until my hair was sweaty and curly and my muscles ached.  Which probably contributed to my 3 lb loss this week, instead of the 3 lb gain I would have had with the chocolate cake method of dealing with my anxiety.

So...lets back-track to what I wanted to post about last week but lost time and energy for. On Superbowl Sunday, Uriah, Abby & I had what we refer to in this house as a Come to Jesus talk.  Basically we lay everything out and we don't sugar-coat anything.  The initial conversation revolved mostly around around Abby and her eating habits and lack of movement and how that can contribute to a multitude of ailments, not the least of which includes diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure/cholesterol - which can lead to heart attacks and strokes, shorted life expectancy. You know...the ugly stuff of being over-weight that I think even I need to remind myself of sometimes when going to the gym is a daunting task.

I think that I have been more worried about Abby lately than Uriah has, although that is not to say he hasn't been worried about her, too. When you're talking health and weight and good food/exercise choices to a 14 year old girl, the words need to be chosen with care and the steps need to be tread lightly because we don't want her to swing into the extreme (anorexia, bulemia) but we do want her to know that the choices that she's making are not healthy choices.  We need to arm her with the tools to be able to make those healthy choices.

Now, that being said, she's 14 and she has an excuse for everything: why she can't work out, why she eats the things she does, why she doesn't eat that bad (implying that it's bad, just not as bad as it could be). So we really are stuck in a place where all we can do is give suggestions, make as many positive options available as possible, portion control to the best of our ability, and honestly, the rest really is going to be up to her to make changes that she wants to see in her own life. I will be so, so sad if she ends up with diabetes, or consumed with a life-time of yo-yo dieting or living with an inactive, unhealthy body. But, I can only work within the confines of what I have available to me and I hope that the healthy example that Uriah and I are attempting to set are going to be enough.

Week 4 changes included getting Uriah to start taking a men's health multi-vitamin - hooray! This was a hard sell for some reason, but he finally relented after our health discussion with Abby. Finn, Abby, and I continue to take ours daily and I think it's contributing to the lack of illness this winter.  I'm also knocking hard on wood right now because we have been so healthy and I don't want to jinx us! I also continued to menu-plan and I challenged myself to get to the gym 3 times last week, which I accomplished only because I scheduled it in.  I worked around Uriah's work schedule and it wasn't a consistent time, a couple of afternoons and an evening, but I got there.  Uriah and Abby have started tracking their food using a small notebook and I continue to track using My Fitness Pal on my phone.  I pre-track as much as possible.

The biggest step I took last week was to have Uriah take my measurements - we did chest, waist, hips, bicep and thigh measurements. I know that the scale is only a small measure of health and I also know that muscle takes up less space than fat, so I wanted to have another health measurable.  I probably won't track measurements as often as the scale (weekly on the scale, monthly-ish for measurements) but I think it will help over-all.

This week, Week 5, I don't have too much planned - again a goal of 3 times at the gym (maybe even 4 since we are probably going out for a romantic Valentine's dinner on Sunday night - the curse of having a chef for a husband on any holiday is that we celebrate after the big day, which I guess is okay.  Restaurants will probably be pretty quiet on Sunday night...).  I am also going to try to stick only with eating the allotted calories and not dip into the calories burned category (which can be difficult, because I do seem to be pretty hungry on gym days), do some menu-planning for the next couple of weeks using some new recipes and start researching a program for the computer that will allow me to put in my own recipes and get nutrition facts.  I have a feeling that will require budgeting for a new computer, though, as ours is a dinosaur.

Week 3: The BIG one + Weeks 1 & 2 Recap

I started writing about my goals for being healthy over here, but I decided this morning that I really want a space dedicated to this Year of Living Healthy, so I dusted off this old blog that I started and neglected last spring.

Okay, to recap, my goal to be Healthy in 2014 involves mind and body health. I was very vague and a little complacent when I originally wrote about my word for 2014 and what that's going to mean for me.  I am not putting a weight number on it, but after thinking about it, I realize that I work very well with measurable goals, so I have revised my original intent and I do have some very loose weight goals in mind.  I am confident that if I'm vigilant, I will make it.  I know that it will take starting over every single day, not getting complacent, and pushing through the tough stuff (so much tough stuff).  It will also take small changes every week - nothing drastic,  like never eating pasta or cake again, because I am also smart enough to know that I can't live my life like that.  

Here are the small changes that have been rolled out over the past two weeks:

Week 1:

Baby steps to the elevator, right?  I started by adding 3 small changes to our days.  First, track all calories/exercise using the My Fitness Pal app.  I can get over confident in my counting abilities and if I don't immediately track, or better - pretrack my meals for the day - I end up significantly over my calorie allotment for the day.  Second, I resurrected the Fruit Bowl from last summer.  Easy snacks or addition to dinner.  Relatively low calories.  No brainer.  Third, I implemented After Lunch Rest Time. One half hour of quiet reading on the couch, sleeping optional but not frowned upon!  I have found this to be the most amazing 30 minutes of our day. Finn has his books at one end of the couch and I have mine at the other end. We don't talk to each other, sometimes I put on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical station and we re-juice our batteries for the afternoon. Even Uriah rests with us on his days off during the week.  Additionally, a good rest is a prerequisite for Finn watching a show on Netflix later in the afternoon.  He has to earn his tv time by being a good listener, finishing his chores, and above all - having a good rest!

Week 2:
This week we started getting our water bottles out daily.  Finn has a small pumpkin shaped water bottle with a straw that he likes to have a couple of ice cubes in.  It follows him around from room to room and sometimes gets lost amid the flotsam that surrounds 3 year old play time, but usually he knows right where it is and he happily fills it up himself (such a big boy).  I try to drink at least half of my body weight in fluid ounces a day.  It helps to keep me full and my snack cravings in the afternoon at bay.  Some days I get all of my ounces. Someday's, not that close.  But the point is that, from the time I get up until the time I go to bed, I have water at the ready and so I don't even really have to give it a second thought - I just sip on it all day. And I've almost completely cut out diet pop and iced tea.  This week also brought on the daily multi-vitamin for everyone.  Finn asks for his every morning, Abby has some sort of tracking list so she remembers to take hers in at breakfast and I take mine before bed.  Uriah is a hard sell on the multi-vitamin, but I'm confident that I'll be able to get him on board soon enough.

And so that brings us to Week 3, which technically starts today.  I weighed myself yesterday because I knew that I needed a base-line, although based on how well my fat-pants are fitting, I think I knew where this was going.  It's just a number and a starting point and that's all the more thought I'm giving to it.

The big thing that this week is bringing will be replacing a meal with a shake, for me that's going to be breakfast most days because I live with a body-conscious 14 year old girl and so I have to be careful how food is portrayed and talked about and how weight is addressed.  At this point, I know that Abby could use some help in the weight category.  She is abysmally inactive and although I send her to school with a lunch (usually leftovers from the night before in a smaller scale) and we all eat the same dinner (I'd say we're pretty healthy on that front in that we don't prepackaged meals/fast food/eating out, we're just maybe not balanced or portioned appropriately).  Anyway, I have no control over her snacking during school and after school.  I know she does it, I'm guessing a lot, I'm just not sure how to address it.  I guess that's another issue for another time. I'm still mulling it over.

So...the shakes.  I spent about half an hour yesterday portioning them into freezer bags.  Now all I have to do is pull a bag out in the morning and throw it in the blender with some milk.  I wrote the calories on the bag and what's in them, so I'll be able to re-use the zip-lock bags again.  Green bags for my green smoothies.  There were a lot of different smoothie options out there, but I knew that I didn't want to do a pre-packaged shake, nor did I want to do something like Slim-fast.  I wanted these breakfast shakes to be healthy and calorie conscious.  And above all, they need to take me from breakfast (which ranges anywhere from 7am to 9am depending on our morning) until lunch (we at noon on the nose - Finn let's me know when he hears the noon church bells ring!).  We do not snack in the morning, but we are busy and so I need to not be watching the clock, counting down to lunch time.  I did a little of my own research on these smoothies.

I like to work in measurables, so that's why I count calories.  I have found that shakes can blow calorie counting way out of the water if you're not careful.  One shake I looked at, when you put in the numbers, was 810 calories!  I about fell off my unicorn, because that's more than half of my daily allotment of calories...for breakfast...which I'm drinking!  I did some careful balancing of what I wanted in my smoothies, and this is what I put in my freezer bags:

• 1 tablespoon nuts (I had pecans, so that's what I put in; other nuts would change the calorie count) = 52 calories
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds = 60 calories
• 1/4 cup dry oatmeal = 75 calories
• 1 cup fruit, any combo
• 1/2 cup strawberries = 39 caloreis
• 1/2 cup blueberries = 40 calories
• 1/2 medium peach = 20 calories
• 1/2 cup raspberries = 30 calories
• 1/2 medium banana = 54 calories
• 1/2 cup pineapple = 40 calories
• 1 cup cantalope = 25 calories
• Orange (medium) = 60 calories
• Add to the bag at the end one cup of greens (about a handful)
• spinach = 20 calories
• kale = 34 calories

I stuck all of those in the freezer.  Dump in a blender in the morning and add 1 cup of milk (mine are caloried out with 2% milk, which is what we drink in this house.  I don't drink enough milk to justify buying 2% for the kids and skim for myself.  It would go bad very, very quickly!).  

You could probably add more milk (more calories) but if it's too thick, I think mine out with a little bit of water.  I don't like crushed ice in mine, so I don't add ice to my smoothies, but you could probably do that, too, if that's your thing.  I have also considered adding vanilla whey protein powder to my smoothies, but until I feel like I need an extra boost of energy to get me through my morning, I'm holding off on adding that to my smoothies.  

All of my fruits are frozen.  When raspberries went on sale last summer (when they were in season) I bought a bunch and froze them in gallons sized bags.  Same with strawberries - when we picked strawberries, I had enough left over to fill 5 gallon sized freezer bags - and that was after making 3 batches of strawberry jam, a strawberry pie and strawberry ice cream.  We picked a lot of strawberries.  I am not complaining!  My blueberries are from Sam's Club, and I'll have to wait until peaches come in season again before I have those stock-piled in my freezer.  The point is - if you plan ahead a little bit, it's easy (and cheap) to have fresh fruit for whatever - in cereal, as a snack, in smoothies.

Additionally, this week's menu has been planned out - breakfast, lunch, and dinner and even scheduling my gym time.  I know that I can do some exercises at home - I have some free weights and a large ball.  I hate doing exercise videos, they do not motivate me in the least.  I went onto Pinterest and found some exercises that I think i can accomplish and printed them out, with reps, on one sheet of paper (front and back).  It will go to the gym with me and I will modify if I need to, but I've got something for every muscle group so I'm giving it a month.

3 weeks of making positive steps toward being healthy.  And they aren't crazy huge and really, at some point I won't be making any more changes, just plodding along every week doing all these things like they're second nature - exercise, vitamins, water consumption.

I can't wait for that day.

Virtual Motivation

I'm guest-posting this week over at 100 Miles in 3 Months about virtual motivation...and visual motivation.  Check it out here!

Are you looking for a fun way to stay motivated this spring as you shake off your bulky winter-weather clothes and transition into lighter spring/summer clothes (and - dare I say it - swim suit season?!)? 

We're only one week into Round 5 of the challenge, you can easily join in the virtual fun.  You don't even have to have a blog to do it - all you have to do is email Amanda (her email is on the Challenge's blog homepage) that you want to participate (see the guidelines here) and commit to walking/running (or logging exercise) to accumulate 100 miles between April 1st and June 30!  I can assure you - it is a totally attainable goal!  Each week Amanda sends out a call for miles and each participant leaves a comment with how many miles we logged for the week.  I track each work-out on my phone using the app: CardioTrainer, this makes it super easy to see what I've done for the week and drop a quick comment with how many miles I've walked.

I love that this challenge motivates me to get some miles logged each week (I've challenged myself for the month of April to exceed the miles I walked in April of last year - I may even try to beat the miles I walked for April-May-June of last year, but one month at a time!).   I also love knowing that there are women all over the country getting out and pushing themselves each week! 

Isn't this virtual world we live in awesome?! 

I challenge you to join us!  There are still 12 weeks left in the Round 5 challenge - that's only 8 miles each week - or just over a mile a day - you could probably get that in by walking a half an hour on your lunch break!

Week 2: Recap

{ Weigh in date: Saturday, March 30, 2013 }

{ Results: +3 lbs }

Well, crap.

I did not see this one coming. Okay...maybe a little, considering we were "on holiday" last week at my in-laws and that equates to snacking, snacking, snacking. And cocktails. And we got 8 inches of snow the second day we were there, so I pretty much just phoned in the rest of the week. And I paid for it this morning when I stepped on the scale.

Today I am working on getting my menus and my tracking in order and figuring out how to work in weekly work-outs and my gosh, I am overwhelmed! I want to hit my goal weight by June 30, which to me - the master of procrastination - seems like plenty of time, but I tend to see-saw so much from week to week, that it makes me anxious and sweaty and overwhelmed. 

 And then I stopped and stepped back and said to myself, stop looking at the big picture. The big picture always overwhelms me because I have such big plans. And sometimes my plans are unrealistic, although I think that 1.5 lbs a week is not unrealistic. And sometimes life gets very much in the way of what I want to accomplish.  HOWEVER, if I take it one week at a time, that's not so overwhelming. And if I break it down even further, one small change each day - whether it's 15 minutes of weights before I make the bed in the morning or skipping a snack that I don't really need - no matter how healthy - one small concession each day will make 1.5 lbs a week attainable.

Goals for this week:

1. Plan dinners for the next 2 weeks, complete with points and in pencil so I can change my mind if life gets in the way!  
2. Walk 3 times - weights 3 times.
3. No alcohol   No excuses - last week was indulgent.  This week, I am going to best friends with Betty Ford.

And also, I'd really like to beat my April miles from last year, which was 66.2 miles!  (I think I did nothing but walk last spring!)

Here's to starting a new week on a hopeful and realistic foot! 

{ Life-Style Changes so far }

• {Multi-Vitamin every day} - so far so good, I just keep them by my bed and take one before I go to sleep at night.  I do not like to take them in the morning because they don't sit well in my belly and tend to make me feel like throwing up.  I hate to throw up, so I just take mine before bed.
• {No caffeine after 12pm} - the days I cheat and have a Diet Pepsi in the afternoon, I am absolutely dying for the rest of the evening.  I could snack my way to bed time and beyond!  The days that I stick hard and fast to my rule, I have a much easier time controlling those cravings.
• {Water, water, water!}  - I just keep a glass of ice water full on the counter in a large mason jar.  It's fun to drink out of (I even have to share with Finn sometimes, but that's okay, I'm pretty sure he doesn't backwash too much!).  Sometimes I add a lemon or a lime, but mostly I just drink it plain.  And I thought I'd be peeing a lot more, but I guess my body really needs water, because I don't feel like I'm excessively running to the potty!
• {Exercise 3 times a week} - this one is getting easier now that the weather isn't ridiculously cold.  Also, my back has started to bother me again, so it is imperative that I get out and move for a couple of miles each day in order to get that beast under control.

Week 1 Recap

{ Weigh in date: Saturday, March 16, 2013 }

{ Results: +/- 0 lbs }

I didn't gain and I didn't lose, so I can assure you that I'm okay with how the first week went.  It is still too cold here to get outside and do anything, and it snowed again earlier in the week, so it's really going to be awhile before I can venture forth outside.  Free weights inside, I guess or maybe some shoveling - that will surely get my heart rate up (there is so much snow outside my back door!).  

I have managed to successfully go cold-turkey on the No Caffeine After 12pm Rule that I set for myself.  I found that a hit of Diet Pepsi in the afternoon was causing huge snack cravings and I know that was due completely to the jolt of caffeine.  Now, I have a cup (or 2 or a 3) of coffee in the morning and that is it...water the rest of the day.  I had some pretty dull-throbbing headaches for the first three or four days, but now I'm pretty much used to it.  Don't get me wrong, about the time Finn goes down for a nap, I would love to enjoy my Diet Pepsi snack, but I have also found that since I cut that out, I've had almost no afternoon snack-cravings, so I find something else to occupy my time during those craving moments (folding laundry, empty dishwasher).  They pass pretty quickly anyway.

Since it's Spring Break week and we are headed for Kansas City, goals for this week are as follows:

1. Limit snacks and cocktails.  Essential - alcohol is empty calories and they cause me to be very un-motivated.
2. Pack running shoes - if weather permits, outside I go (at least twice).  
3. Pack healthy snacks for road trip - this includes trail mix, fruit, and lots of water!

Are you playing along?  Have anything motivating to share from your week?  I really would love to hear from you!

The Pilot Episode

Hi.  I'm Heather.  I've had an on-again off-again relationship with dieting and weight loss for pretty much my whole life.  I am a stress-baker, and subsequently a stress-eater.  I don't handle change very well, I cope by cooking - and therefore, eating.  I don't like to run.  Or be sweaty.  Or over-exert myself.

Clearly, I am a case-study in food and exercise issues.

About 2 years ago, in the midst of a major move and during the heat of an Iowa summer, I threw out my back.  At the time, I had a baby who wasn't yet mobile, a surly 11 year old and we were in a new town with nary a family member or friend for 200 miles.  Oh, and my husband had just started a new job (read: 50+ hour work weeks), I had just decided to be a stay-at-mom and we were valiantly trying to figure out how our new household positions worked (Do I have to do all the laundry now that I stay at home?  When do I get a day off?  Can I consider yoga pants to be my "work uniform?" How do we balance everything now that my work is home and my home is work?).  In retrospect, it was the best thing to ever happen to me and it is ultimately what catapulted me into an exercise and weight-loss routine.  You can read about some of my weight loss struggles and triumphs here and here and here.

I have since lost almost 50 pounds, but over the course of yet another major move, this time from Iowa to Northern Minnesota, and a very, very, very long and cold Minnesota winter, I've only managed to keep about 40 of those pounds off.

I have a hard time motivating myself, so this blog is my accountability tool.  My ultimate goal is to lose another 46 pounds.  And keep it off.  At that point, I am either going to:

1. Go on a fantastic tropical vacation with my husband where I will leave the children at home, wear a bathing suit from Victoria's Secret and enjoy fruity drinks with umbrellas in them while I lounge pool-side.
2. Have another baby - and get back on the weight-gaining track instead of the weight-losing track.
3. Be ready to move into a rest home because I'm afraid I will be so old by the time I finally get that extra 46 pounds off!

So...here's what this little blog is for: motivation and accountability.  I plan to post each Saturday about what went well the week before and what sucked.  I guess we can consider it my open journal of keeping it real in the world of fatty-fats.  I might post a recipe or something motivating or what I'm going to try the next week.  I might just sob incoherent sentences depending on how the week went.

I will not be posting my weight number.  I am not that brave.  But also, because weight is really, truly just a number and if I've learned one thing it is that it will change from week to week and month to month - up and down like a damned roller-coaster at World's of Fun (I hate roller coasters, ps). I weighed myself this morning, so I have a base-line to go off of and based on that I will post weekly (probably on Saturdays, but maybe on Sunday's if I have something awesome to do on Saturday) the number of pounds up or number of pounds down.  Once a month I will post measurements - again, not actual numbers, just up or down in inches.

This week, I have but 3 small goals to get me motivated:

1. Drink water all. day. long.  No soda.  No iced tea.  Coffee before noon only.
2. Take my multi-vitamin every day.
3. Exercise 3 times this week.

I would love it if you joined me on Saturday's by posting in the comments section what your weekly goals were and if you met them, or, if you're brave and you're tracking, was your weight up or down?  What worked for you?  We can motivate each other!  Or you can just read about what I'm doing, which is fine, but it would be more fun if we worked together!




READ THIS, IF NOTHING ELSE!!  I am not a doctor (although I play one in my head).  This blog is about things that work for me.  I am not endorsed by Weight Watchers (even though I could totally have taken Jessica Simpson's place when she got knocked up again) or by Dr. Atkins (because he's no longer alive, so he can't endorse me. Obviously.).  Talk to your doctor if you want to start losing weight.  Mine told me lots of things that would be benefits to losing weight (Smaller boobs! No plantar fascittis! No back pain!) and lots of things that made me want to cry into my ill-fitting paper gown if I didn't lose some weight (umm...death.  And also diabetes.  And also...death. That was a pretty big one.).