Which brings me to GAG Today was our first weigh in. I was very good all week except yesterday, when I was mostly good. I changed a few scheduling things around the house for this challenge. I have found that both the kids and I do better if we eat our main meal in the middle of the day rather than at the end of the day. So I will be cooking what I would normally cook for dinner for lunch. My metabolism seems to do better when I eat my largest calorie meal in the middle of the day instead of in the beginning or at the end of the day. I am not sure why this is, but I decide to just go with it instead of fighting it. The only downside it that when my husband is working he ends up with a reheated meal at the end of the day instead of a fresh one. I have not figured out how to overcome that obstacle yet, but I am working on it. I also started using the Slim quick cleanse this week, as a jump start. Specifically to help jump start my metabolism, since it is horrible. Before I started this challenge last week, I had been working my but off, exercising, eating right, everything, and I only gained weight. I was getting very frustrated. So those were the two big things I did this week. The Slim quick, and changing the times that I eat my big meal.

And guess what, it seems to have worked. I weighed in this morning at 261.0. That is 11 lbs. that I lost. I was actually worried about losing that much (I still am) for several reasons. That is a lot of weight to lose so quickly, I worry that it isn’t healthy, and that I am doing something wrong. I am also worried that people are going to think I am cheating, but I promise I am not. I actually weighed myself several times this morning so see if the scale was wrong. I just keep telling myself that it can’t be right. My wonderful husband keeps reminding me that I probably lost a lot of water weight and that the next few weeks, I probably won’t lose anything. He is right I am sure.

Our point challenge this week is going to be a difficult one for me.

For every 8 oz of water you drink, you will give yourself 10 points.
For every 15 minutes of activity (NO house cleaning and “normal” activities should be counted here) outside of your normal routine give yourself 10 points.
For every day that you track your foods whether it be on your blog via in text or photos, give yourself 20 points.
For every evening you sleep for a minimum of 8 hours, give yourself 20 points!

I am horrible at keeping track of what I eat and drink. I just get busy doing whatever I am doing that day and forget to write things down and by the time I remember I have forgotten what it was I ate or drank that day. As for additional activity, I am going to try to get up in the mornings and walk again, but I get very grumpy when I don’t get enough sleep, so early morning is hard. The sleeping part is the easy part, like I said, I get grumpy if I don’t get enough sleep so I have always gone to bed early and tried to get in at least 8 hours of sleep a night.

On a side note, I have fallen in love with strawberries all over again. I love that they are so low in calories, (I forget who, but somebody once told me that it takes more calories to digest a strawberry than you get from eating the strawberry). They have become my new snack food. Plus they are sweet, so they help with my horrible sweet tooth at the end of the day.

Well I think I got in everything I wanted to say.

Have a great day.

Heather

So with the holiday weekend coming up Shiela over at GAG challanged us to come up with a plan for getting through any holiday parties that we may have this weekend. Well I am happy to say that so far we don’t have any parties to derail the diet this weekend. That is not to say we won’t have one to go to by the end of the weekend. My mom is famous for inviting us over at the last minute. I also figured it wouldn’t be so bad to have a game plan in place anyway since we are coming into a busy time of the year for us with a lot of social gatherings.

Step One: Be sure to eat in the morning and during the course of the day, rather than starve myself so that I can eat without feeling guilty at the party. In the past I have not eaten lunch if we had a evening party so that I could eat what I wanted. Well it always backfired. I was so hungry by the time I got to the party that I just ate and ate, way more than I would have if I hadn’t been hungry. So if I am not starving then I am less likely to overeat at the party.

Step Two: Avoid the appetizers. I am horrible about the mindless eating. Especially at parties. I always end up standing next to the chip bowl talking to somebody and end up eating a ton of chips and then I don’t even realize how much I ate so I still eat a full plate of food. I am going to work on staying away from the appetizers.

Step Three: NO SODA. I can’t stand diet soda so I drink regular which is filled with calories, and I never seem to stop at just one, so I am going to avoid it altogether.

Step Four: Use a small plate instead of a large one, that way my plate looks full and I am eating less, and I feel satisfied.

The second part of this challange is to give a recipe for something healthy that we would bring as an alternative. This is my husbands usual request. Roasted Potato Salad. It doesn’t have any mayo so it is better than traditional potato salad. This is my modified version for my kids allergies. The original recipe called for ranch dressing, which I substituted Italian Dressing. I use regular Italian, but I am thinking about trying lo cal dressing the next time I make it. It also calls for bacon, I am looking for an alternative for that as well. I put it in when I make it for my husband and kids and when I eat it I just pick out the bacon.

Roasted Potato Salad

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 lbs. small red potatoes, diced

½ onion chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

1 tsp. kosher salt

Dash fresh ground pepper

8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

½ bunch green onions, chopped

Italian Salad Dressing

Oil a pan with olive oil. Toss together the potatoes, onion, garlic and salt, and spread on the pan. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. In a serving bowl combine the cooked bacon, green onions, and salad dressing. Stir in cooked potato mixture and serve.

Serves 6-8

Have a great weekend.

Heather

So I have had a rough couple of weeks with the diet. I was doing great getting up every morning and walking or riding my bike. Then my feet really started to hurt, and I got frustrated. I was working my but off and wasn’t really making any progress so I dialed it back for a week to let my feet rest and I am pumped and ready to start again on Monday. I am also going to be starting a new challenge to help me stay motivated. I found about about this just tonight and signed up right away so I wouldn’t back out in the morning. The challenge is called GAG and is for 16 weeks. It starts September 1st and goes until right before Christmas.  I need to take before pictures of both me and my weight so I am going to get that done this weekend, no matter how painful it is. So here it goes. My goal is still the same I want to lose about 150 lbs. by Nov. of 2010 so I am hoping that this will be a great starting point for me.

Now I am going to bed.

Heather

Goals for the week of August 3rd:

1. Work out 5 out of 7 day (walk and EA Active) Done – I worked out Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I walked all of those days, a few days, Thursday and Friday I had to cut my walk short due to rain and some very frustrating socks. I was happy that I got up and got out the door all week, which is a huge accomplishment for me. I think I am going to try the walking, or dancing program on the WII fit on rainy days to get my exercise in without having to walk in the rain.

2. Only eat out for Friday night dinner, no lunch out. Pack lunch if we are going to be out of the house at lunch     time. - During the week I did pretty good at this. I made sure we were home in time for lunch, which was actually pretty hard this week since Alex had VBS and we were out much later than usual in the mornings. This weekend we were out for lunch on Sunday and we had breakfast with friends on Saturday, but I was better than I normally would have been, so I didn’t do too bad.

3. Lose at least one pound. - Done. I have lost about 2 lbs. in total this week. I went up and down a little bit. I am not sure why, but overall I have lost, so that is good.

4. Drink at least 4-5 glasses of water a day instead of juice of lemonade. – I am drinking less lemonade, and I didn’t have any soda last week, so that is part one of the goal. In fact the last couple of days, since I ran out of lemonade I haven’t had any. My wonderful husband went searching for a glass pitcher to make sun tea in, so I have been drinking that instead. It doesn’t have any calories, but I think I still need to up my water intake.

Goals for the week of August 10th

1. Work out 5 out of 7 day (walk and EA Active)

2. Only eat out for Friday night dinner, no lunch out. Pack lunch if we are going to be out of the house at lunch     time.

3. Lose at least one pound.

4. Drink at least 4-5 glasses of water a day

Long Term Goals

1. Be able to run instead of walk every day by next summer

2. Lose 100 lbs. by next June.

3. Lose 150 lbs. by November 2010

Yes I know the goals are the same this week as they were last week, but It isn’t yet a habit for me yet so I don’t want to set new goals until these have become a habit and I don’t have to think about it so much.

Have a great week.

Heather

About two months ago I began a new exercise routine. Since Lizzie turned two in March I have become more and more aware of my need to lose weight. I no longer had the excuse of having just had a baby. My “baby” was two years old.  My other big excuses for not losing weight were also gone. While Lizzie was not yet sleeping through the night (yes at two years old!!) she was defiantly sleeping better and I was getting a decent amount of sleep at night most nights. So I was no longer a walking zombie. I had finally gotten the hang of cooking in a new healthier way, so I couldn’t use the excuse that I can only tackle one big change at a time. So two months ago I realized that I was out of excuses. About that same time I realized that I am just not happy with the way I look. I avoid pictures, I can only find a handful of pictures of me with the kids, and I can’t stand any of them.

Since I had already changed the way I cook for the family and as an extension how I eat most of the time, I figured it was time to start focusing on getting more active. I really wanted to get back in the pool. I have always loved swimming, ironic since I can’t stand the way I look in a bathing suit. I never knew quite why but I just love to swim, and when I am in shape I can swim for hours on end. When I decided that I wanted to get back in shape that was my first thought, swimming. Well getting in the pool and swimming lap after lap is not nearly as easy at 30 as it was at 15. My first major obstacle was the fact that I didn’t have a pool in which to swim. I started looking at gyms that had indoor pools. I finally found one that wasn’t too expensive and had child care. Another obstacle I didn’t have at 15, the need to find somebody to watch my kids while I swam. Well the kids were there for 2 days when they both got sick. In fact Lizzie got so sick that she ended up with a sinus infection and a uti. So I gave up on the idea of swimming, it just wasn’t working out. I needed to find something else to do.

After Lizzie was better we were doing our weekly shopping at Target when I saw the new WII game, EA Active. Now I have had the WII Fit for about a year and a half now. It is a great idea and I love that it has a built in scale so that I can keep track of my weight right on the WII. I was not a fan of the actual workout program. I never really worked up much of a sweat. None of the exercises ran long enough to really get going, and the one that did let you go for longer than 7 or 8 minutes was a bit of a pain to get to and get set up. I was a little leery about the EA Active at first. I was worried that it would end up being just another WII Fit. At this point however I felt I was out out of options so I went for it. I am actually pretty happy with the program. It gives me a good workout and I can chose from a lot of pre programed workouts anywhere from 15 min. to 45 min.

However I am still not losing weight. Why you ask, because I have been lazy and have had excuse after excuse not to get up in the mornings and work out. I have excuse after excuse for why I don’t eat well, why I still take the kids to Chick-Fil-A more that I should. It is no wonder I am not losing weight, I am not working at it hard enough. I am not trying to become the next big supermodel, and I certainly don’t want to be a size 2. I just want to be happy with me and healthy, and the only way that is going to happen is to get off my but and to stop making excuses.

In an effort to be more open I decided to post how I am doing. I figure if there are people out there who know that I am working on this, then they can help hold me accountable. Even if it is just so that I am aware that people are expecting to see a change in me. When I am the only one who knows why I am getting up at 5 in the morning, then it is much more tempting to stay in bed. If I know that possibly somebody is going to want to know how my walk went that morning than I am much more likely to get out of bed and go walking. Once I am up, half the battle is won. The other area I need to work on is what I eat. When I cook at home I do pretty good. I have had to change the way I cook and shop for the kids and that has carried through to me to a certain extent. The problem come in when we are out of the house. When I take the kids out for lunch I am much more likely to get something that I shouldn’t. I am setting weekly short term goals and a few long term goals to keep me going. I am going to post new weekly goals every Monday and update everybody on my previous weeks progress.

Goals for the week of August 3rd:

1. Work out 5 out of 7 day (walk and EA Active)

2. Only eat out for Friday night dinner, no lunch out. Pack lunch if we are going to be out of the house at lunch     time.

3. Lose at least one pound.

4. Drink at least 4-5 glasses of water a day instead of juice of lemonade.

Long Term Goals

1. Be able to run instead of walk every day by next summer

2. Lose 100 lbs. by next June.

3. Lose 150 lbs. by November 2010

Hopefully by being doing all of this I will begin to see some actual pounds drop. It is looking like we may be going to Hershey Park again with my parents next summer and Disney the following November. I would love to be able to go on vacation and be happy with how I look and feel comfortable instead of big and yucky the whole time.

God Bless

Heather