40 lbs G-O-N-E!

I've got to SO much to unload on this neglected little blog of mine but for today, I thought I'd share just one super exciting highlight from my week! On Wednesday, I reached another milestone in my weight loss journey. I stepped on the scale and it read a weight I haven't seen in over 10 years!

And guess how many pounds that means I've lost to date?

40 pounds!!!

Crazy, right?!?

After being up and down the last month and a half, struggling with the balance between school, family, my health and working out, I finally decided I need to get focused again and get serious about getting to my weight goal.  I started again last week with a real determination, lost a few pounds pretty fast with lots of exercise and monitoring my food intake. By the weekend, I found myself getting lazy again and somewhere in there some chocolate found it's way into my hands and there we go.  By Monday, I finally had a little conversation with myself (not a real, out loud one---that would be scary, lol) but a little pep talk.  I sat down and did a little math and realized just how close I was to reaching 50 pounds lost. I've lost way more than what I still have left to go and got to thinking...seriously, what is stopping me from just making this happen?

This week I've been taking exercising and what I eat seriously.  I even went for a 25 minute jog in my neighborhood one day and managed to make it home in one piece!  Four months ago, you could not have convinced me to run for 5 minutes, much less 10 and now I'm finding myself wanting to just get out there and push myself.

I've been doing a combo of my walking workout dvd's, the elliptical and jogging.  Every day, even when I'm tired and don't want to open my eyes in the four o'clock hour, I've just been pushing myself to get up and start moving.  Sleeping in my workout clothes helps a lot, lol!  I'm really excited about my progress and still can't believe I've lost this much!

My original goal when I started all of this was to get down to 145-150.  As I get closer, I'm starting to think that if I can just push myself a little harder, I can make it somewhere between 130-140.  I've never been that small as an adult so I'm excited to see what the future holds.  By the time I finally get there, Fernando may not even recognize me anymore! ;)

Results...

Last week I mentioned wanting to do a little experiment to see what would happen if I faithfully logged my calories (using the "Lose It" app on my phone), stayed within the allotted amount, and exercised daily.  My goal was to exercise to my workout DVD for a total five miles a day.

Well, life got in the way and with school factored into my life now, I didn't quite meet my exercising goal.  In fact, I ended up taking a couple of rest days from exercise due to the fact that I was just plain tired from all the studying and staying up late and family responsibilities.  I'm still learning how to balance my life out between school and other life duties and it's really tricky. 

For the most part, I did pretty well to stay within my calorie limit per day. Some days I even was under my calories and still felt like I had enough to eat that day.  Every Friday here at our house is Papa Murphy's pizza night, so I even ended up having pizza and still did well that day with what I ate. I just made it a point to eat lighter during the first part of the day. I also had a salad for lunch just about every day last week, so I'm pretty sure that helped too!

Monday's are my weigh in days, so I gave myself from last Monday to yesterday to see what my little experiment would yield.   Turns out the "experiment" was worth doing because I ended up losing FIVE pounds in just the past week!  Crazy, right?  I didn't expect to lose that much in a week but between staying under my calories on some days, eating HEALTHY and exercising consistently, it made a huge difference.  I'm pretty excited that I'm now only six pounds away from my wedding weight!

This week, my plan is to continue doing what I did last week and just stay focused on my goal.  It really feels more like a lifestyle than a diet at this point, so it's just a matter of continuing to make the healthy choices I know I need to make.  

One thing that's changed a lot since losing the 32 pounds I've lost so far is the way I see myself.  When I look at my reflection, I almost can't believe that's me.  It feels amazing and it encourages me to keep on going! I honestly still struggle with wanting to give in to a treat every now and again but I have to remind myself that I love the feeling of being healthy MORE than the feeling I used to think was happiness when I was eating all the junk.  Losing bad habits is definitely not an overnight thing but every day it's a choice to choose good or choose bad.

So, that's that.  Minus 32 pounds so far and only 16 more pounds to go until my goal weight of 150.  I'm interested to see how I'll feel when I meet that goal.  Will I want to keep on going?  Hmmm, we'll have to see when I get there. :)

I stood on a bench in my bathroom to get this pic.  :)

P.S.  This is totally unrelated to weight loss, but I just wanted to ask for prayers for me and school.  Part of me is enjoying the getting out and learning new things while the other part of me misses my old life so much.  If I only would have enjoyed my life as a SAHM more when I was just doing that.  Today I had a tough day at school and I just started wondering if I can handle all of this.  I know I want to do this, it's just some days are so overwhelming when certain things I'm learning just don't make sense.  Please tell me there's light at the end of the tunnel. :)

An Experiment!

So I'm sure the people who read this blog are probably getting a little tired of hearing about me talk about weight loss.  It seems like the topic has pretty much taken over the blog (and my life) and to me that's okay. :)  This blog has always been about the things I'm walking through and doing in my life so, just like I used to talk about cupcakes all the time when I went through my crazy baking/cupcake decorating phase, this new phase (and one I am working to make a lifestyle change, and not just a phase) is my journey toward a better weight and a healthier life and one I will continue to document.

I started my week thinking about how last week I shared here that I'd started school and my weight loss would probably be tapering off some in the coming weeks. The more I thought about what I said, the more I realized I'm just not okay with that. I want to continue on this journey, headed in a better direction towards my goal weight.  I've set my goal for 150 pounds and now that I'm nearly 30 pounds down, losing another 20 doesn't seem so daunting.

I got to thinking about how I'm going to make the necessary changes to continue on with my journey and I started considering my friend Julie's suggestion of using the Lose It app on my iPhone to start tracking my daily caloric intake.  She's been using the app (without incorporating any exercise yet) and has lost 20 pounds! (Great job, Julie!) I'm stubborn and sometimes lazy when it comes to logging in everything and was initially resistant to recording every single thing that goes in my mouth!  I ended up deciding that it would be worth it to give it a try this week!

I'm calling it my little experiment to do these two things this week and see what happens:

1)  Faithfully log all my exercise and food intake on the Lose It app.

2) Go back to doing my five miles a day cardio/walking DVD.  I've been mixing things up with the two DVD's I have and I like it!  I've had a couple people ask me recently which ones they are, so I thought I'd put the links for those in this post so it's easy to refer to in one place!

The first is this one:  Leslie Sansone:  Five Really Big Miles

The second one is:  Leslie Sansone: Walk at Home: Walk Your Belly Flat

Only three days into my little experiment and I'm already feeling changes.  I  know that sounds crazy but I'm starting to understand just how helpful logging in what you eat helps you to make better choices and think twice about eating the bad stuff if you really wanna stay on target.

I think I should also add in here that I had a turkey wrap today and decided to splurge with a little mayo and mustard.  Reading the log above makes a person think I put mayo and mustard on my salad, ha!

I'm getting so close to the 30 pound loss marker and that totally excites me.  I honestly don't think I realized just how big I was when I was bigger.  It's the pictures that I look back at in shock.  I took this one today since I hadn't really taken a full body pic.  It was just me and the little girls at home so I had to dig the big mirror out from the garage and I propped it up on a chair to get the pic. Try not to mind my messy garage! What a big difference from just two months ago, huh?

Today I decided to finally retire my size 14 jeans. It was a great feeling!  I'm now wearing the jeans I've been saving from before I had Alyssa (SEVEN YEARS AGO!) and even those are fitting me loose!  I bought some size 12's the other day that are still a bit loose, so I think I'm gonna go for it and go buy me a pair of 10's really soon.  I can't believe that I'm finally getting to say that I fit in 10's because it's been almost ten years since I was there.  It's a shock to the mind to look at myself in the mirror and see the new me but I am so happy I'm doing this.

I'm not sure how many times I can keep saying I'm so happy and I'm so excited about my weight loss before people start telling me to shut up but I honestly can't help it!  I'll come back next week and share what my little experiment this week yielded! Thank you Lord, for giving me the strength to keep going on this journey and thanks to the friends and family who've been rooting me on along the way!

So, how much have I lost?

It's time for a weight loss update so here goes!

I think it's been about two weeks since I talked weight, so I'll start from there.  I said a while back that I would be happy losing two pounds a week, like I'd been doing and hoped that my weight kept falling off at that speed. Two pounds is steady and great and just enough to make a difference but not drastically.  Well, things were going well with exercising and I told myself I would do my five mile cardio/walking work out every day until the girls started school. After that I knew I'd have less time to exercise because I would have to start waking them up early, cutting into my workout time. That worked out well but by the end of that week prior to school starting, I felt a little discouraged because the scale didn't seem to be moving.  The credit to that was my monthly visitor so I just kept on trucking and by the following week, and seriously within a matter of days, I began to notice a shift.  I stepped on the scale and was so excited to found that I'd lost pound(S)!!!  I was thrilled because I wasn't expecting that at all and when I coupled that with the weight I'd lost the previous week, I'd lost SEVEN pounds!!!

I was so excited!!!

Over the past week, I've had less time to exercise because I'm now in school, in addition to the girls.  It's taking all I know to be organized just to make life run smoothly but I'm doing it.  I make lunches and prepare the coffee maker in the evening and then I set my alarm for 4:45 or 5:00 a.m. so that I can get up and exercise for an hour before having to wake the girls for school.  Time goes super fast in the mornings and because of that, I've had to change to doing just three miles each morning.  I got this new Leslie Sansone walking DVD that's been great and even though I've only lost a pound this week, I'm feeling more toned and my belly is feeling a little smaller.

I've also noticed a change in my backside, so much that that I've had to pull out my old jeans and even those have been sagging in the booty! Ha!  I'm thinking a trip to buy some new and smaller jeans is on the agenda for this weekend! (So excited!!)

I recently also started making protein shakes for my mornings for on the way to school and they've been great!  There are some yummy recipes HERE if you wanna try making them too.  The base is just some protein powder ( I found some at Trader Joe's), Greek yogurt or cottage cheese ( I prefer the taste of yogurt better), ice and water and then whatever fruit/other items you want to give it for the real flavor.  I've been making lots of fruity ones, like raspberry/banana, strawberry banana but have also tried chocolate/peanut butter and cookies n/cream!

My other new obsession is making lunches with these super yummy whole wheat tortillas I found at Costco that are only 80 calories each.  I make them for wraps for lunch all the time and they are hearty and super filling!

I'm honestly feeling the best I have in a long time and can't believe that I'm seriously only 10 pounds away from the weight I was when I got married!  I'm thinking my weight loss will be slowing down a bit with me being in school and having less time to exercise so I can focus on my school work, and the balance between that and family, but I'm committed to continuing on.  Healthy eating is actually not as hard as I used to think it was and for once, exercise is something I can barely go a day without.  Who would have thought those words would be coming out of my mouth!!!

I've been at this for two months now and guess how much my new total weight loss is?

28 pounds!

Can you believe it?  Crazy, right.  :)  I'm feeling like a new person and it's amazing to see how much happier I've been just by getting some of this weight off.  For a long time I wondered if people would like me better as a friend if I just weighed less.  I'm the same person I've always been but now that I've lost some weight, I'm now way happier with myself and that happiness is being projected onto others which in turn makes everyone around me happier.  I'm learning a lot and it's been a pretty cool journey so far.  :)

Minus Twenty

I'm falling so behind these days on the blog so it's time to fix that!  We're in our last few days of vacation before both Alyssa and Audrey start school, so life's been full of lots of busyness in prep for next week. I've been running around trying to check everything off the list from haircuts, yearly check ups to school shopping!  We're pretty much set so I'm feeling pretty good about that. :)

Over the past couple of weeks since I last updated, I've continued to stay on track with my weight loss plan and I'm excited to say that I've finally reached 20 pounds lost!!! It feels really good to say that and even more so when my family has started to notice a big difference.  Being told that I "look hot" by both my husband and my sister is a pretty good feeling, lol!  My sister came over this morning right as I was finishing my workout and was like, "you're butt totally looks smaller" and you look the best you have in years!"  It made me smile when she said that and I told her thanks and wait to til I get to my real goal! ;)

Me last week, at 18 lbs lost.

And just to compare, here's one of the first pics I took about 6 weeks ago when I got started working on being healthier...

I don't look pregnant anymore, thank goodness!!!

What I think is making the greatest impact on my weight loss is all the exercise.  From my morning aerobic workouts to my evening walks or elliptical times, all exercise is good exercise to me at this point.  There are days when I wake up feeling like I'm dragging, but just making the choice to exercise is what's been paying off big time!  My goal for this week has been to ramp up my morning workout from four to the entire five miles.  So far, so good!

Obviously food is another component in this whole weight loss journey that I've continued to work on as well.  I've decided that I want this to really be something I will stick to so I can actually succeed for the long haul, instead of just dropping of for lack of will power.  What that means is that there have been days where I've treated myself to a slice of pizza or a scoop of ice cream.  This is not a starve myself, eating plain chicken breasts for dinner every day "diet' but more of a lifestyle of eating smaller portions and limiting the junk. It also means small adjustments to eating the same stuff I used to eat, only minus a couple of things here and there.  For example, the other day I treated the girls to McDonald's and I ordered the chicken sandwich for myself. Instead of eating it exactly as it came, I took off several things I knew I could do without and added a side salad.  I was able to eat out but not feel the guilt of consuming some outrageous amount of callories doing so. It was sort of a happy medium!

I'm pretty excited about my progress with my weight loss, especially seeing the numbers go down consistently, week after week.  I'm losing about two pounds a week, which I think is pretty good!  I started looking ahead on my calender and figured that if I keep things up at this pace, I can be to my goal of 150 pounds by the beginning of November!  That is totally within sight so I'm gonna keep my eyes on the goal and keep on truckin'!

P.S.  I'm working on cleaning up my blog and added a weight loss tab to the top so I can keep those kinds of post in an easy to go to place. I also removed the recipes tab since it really wasn't essential.

One month down!

So it's been a whole month since I decided to make some changes towards a more healthy lifestyle.  Exercise is becoming a part of my every day language and my pants are fitting a lot better than they did at this time last month! :)

Over the past week, I've pretty much stayed in the same place weight wise since I ended up catching a cold from the girls that knocked me down for several days.  In addition to that, I went a little overboard in the exercise department and decided to do the "hard" mile on my workout DVD last Friday.  It involves squats, lunges and a resistance band, and let's just say, the next day I was not myself.  Every muscle in my legs was screaming "PAIN" and I could barely walk!

I tried to do just a couple miles on Saturday only to be in agony with every step.  I decided to take the next several days off to rest which worked out well since that's when the brunt of that nasty cold came on.  

On Tuesday I got back into my groove and started my four mile a day routine. I was able to do it again today and it felt good.  It's been a great feeling seeing my middle slim down some, although I still have a lot of work to go in that area!  

It's funny to me that even after having lost 15-16 lbs in a month, I'm starting to forget what that felt like to be that much heavier. What I do remember is hating what I saw when I looked in the mirror. When I look in the mirror now, I still see BIG but I don't get as upset. Progress is being made and I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

So, to recap the first month in this journey:

Starting weight: 198

Week 2:  191

Week 3: 184

Week 4: 182

I start school at the end of August and my goal is to get as close to 172 as possible since my goal was to lose 25 lbs by school.  I think I can, I think I can!

Hopefully the new workout shoes I got myself today will get me motivated! 

Work in Progress

So it's been a little over three weeks since I made a new commitment to myself to start living healthier.  It's been tons of work but it's been worth it. I've exercised my heart out and I'm starting to see results (even though others totally might not be able to) and I feel better than I have in a year! In fact, I'm almost to the weight I was around this time last year when I lost the 20 lbs right before my trip to TX! Today is going to be my rest day from exercise because I've been working so hard lately and my body told me I needed a break today so I'm doing it!

I thought it would be a good idea to start recording a few of the things I've been doing to lose the weight for a couple of reasons. a.) I want to remember what has worked to get the weight off and b) Maybe sharing what I've been doing will help someone else to get started.

First off...I am not on any particular diet.  I honestly think diets suck and are not realistic for everyday life.  My goal is to just be healthy and follow a plan that I can use practically. I've been learning to read the labels and take into consideration how many calories things have (something I never really did before) before I eat them, which has been an eye opener.  Reading the labels has definitely helped me be aware of everything I put in my mouth. 

Here are a few things I've been doing:

--Drinking lots (and lots) of water! I have also eliminated all other drinks aside from a glass a milk a day (which I usually drink after working out).  Soda is junk and I DO NOT need it, diet or regular! I've found it most helpful to fill up my plastic sipper bottle and carry it around with me where ever I go.

--Exercising for 90 minutes a day (6 days a week):  I've found that in the past and the present, I have the most success exercising first thing in the morning.  It's in that window of time I see Fernando off to work and before the girls wake up.  At the moment, that requires that I wake up around 5:00 every morning but I don't care.  I have a solid hour of uninterrupted exercise time to myself, without having to worry about fighting children or changing diapers! I've continued to use my aerobic exercise Leslie Sansone DVD and it's been great.  It falls into the "walking" category but it's so much more than that. It's leg lifts and kicks and side steps, etc and all at a very brisk pace. The DVD is broken up into five individual miles and I've been doing four of the five every morning. By the end I'm sweaty and tired but it's a good kind of tired! I'm already thinking about finding another DVD to start changing things up because the workout is pretty repetitive.  It's working for the now, which is most important. In the evenings after I put the girls down, get on the elliptical in my bedroom and watch TV for 30 minutes.  That's when I get a good sweat!

--Cutting down my portions.  I used to eat WAY too much and then I would go for seconds too. Seconds do not exist any more and now that I've been eating less, my stomach is shrinking and I'm getting used to the smaller portions. I eat til I'm full and then stop, something that may be simple for others but has always been a struggle for me. For lunches, I've been eating a lot of those Weight Watcher's "Smart Ones" freezer meals.  They've helped me learn what the right portion size looks like and also allow me to eat things that aren't so plain.

--Getting rid of the junk.  From sweets to chips, I've eliminated all of those.  When I have the urge to get something sweet, I eat a sugar free jello or put some lite cool whip in between a graham cracker and make a little sandwich out of it.

--Cooking healthier.  I found a recipe blog that is a Weight Watcher friendly and awesome!  I've made a handful of her recipes for dinner and they've been really good!  The blog is called Skinny Taste.

The further I get into this new routine of eating better, I've found my desire for sweets and junk go down and it's been replaced with my desire to feel great and lose the weight!  I am still a major work in progress though because there are moments where I totally think about how delicious some bread from Panera would be or a Starbucks frapp and I start to get the urge to give in to those thoughts.  When I start to go there, the thought of how much better I feel now that my jeans are fitting better reminds me that staying on track is worth it! 

My starting weight: 198

My weight this week: 182

16 lbs down, woo hoo! I'm doing it!!!

Having fun & Losin' It

One thing that mortifies the heck out of me is being seen in public in a swimsuit.  I'm a big girl and bathing suits and me have never really been friends.

But, there comes a time when you gotta do what you gotta do and just bite the bullet. And that time was last week when I joined some friends from MOPS for the afternoon at an aquatics center nearby.  I'd never taken the kids there before but knew they would have a blast from the way everyone described the place. I was also curious to check it out since that was a job site of Fernando's for a really long time a couple years back. He helped to set the footings and poured the foundation for the aquatics center and it's parking lot and as a carpenter's wife, it's always fun to me to check out places that Fernando has worked to build. :)

Open swim time during summer there at the aquatics center is from 1-3 so we ditched our usual routine (and naptime), and met our friends just in time for pool opening. When we walked in the doors, the girls and I were super excited to see what was basically a play gym in shallow water. It was so cool!

They had so much fun checking it out and going up and down the stairs and down the slides.  Their favorite part was getting to have the water being poured on top of them from that big blue bucket up high that filled up with water and poured out every few minutes!

Because Alivia is still small, I obviously had to get in the pool right there with her.  At first I was able to get away with wearing my swim top and capris, but not too long into it, I got pretty wet with all the splashing around the girls were doing.  Not long after that, Liv started getting antsy seeing her big sisters get to go down the water slide and wanted in on the action too.  She couldn't go alone so guess who had to take her down?  Yep, momma!  I decided to just bite the bullet and hope nobody judged my big ole self in a bathing suit and got up in there with the girls.  

I'm glad I got past my self-consciousness because I ended up having such a fun time!  Liv and Audrey made me take turns holding them down the slide and begged me to go again and again!  I felt like a little kid again and in that moment for a while there, I forgot how embarrassing it was to be in my swim suit.  It was just me and my girls and we were having FUN!

A lot of my summer has revolved around doing things that are for the kids and I've been totally fine with that. But a couple weeks back I had an awakening when I went to put on my jeans and they were super tight!  I decided to step on the scale and was shocked when it read 198 lbs!!! Horrified was actually a better way to describe how I felt. I'd been eating a lot of junk and sweets and had started noticing my face getting more full in pictures but nothing up until that moment had stopped me from continuing down that awful path.

Seeing that ugly number on the scale is what it took, and so the next day (which was two weeks ago Monday), I decided to start eating better and exercising again.  The first three days were a nightmare, with constant headaches and nausea. I was mad and wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn't.  I pulled out my Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds DVD and started exercising again, just like I did last year when I worked hard to lose 20 lbs. (I gained back all but two of those pounds, so I was basically starting all over).

The DVD is broken up into 5 walking miles, so for the first week I did two miles a day.  The second week, I stepped it up to three miles a day and this week, I decided to do three miles a day plus 30 minutes on the elliptical (which I have here at home). This morning, I got a wild hare to do four miles and it felt great!

I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to lose weight and failed, or lost and gained it all back, but this time, I'm really determined for it to be "it."  Fernando has been encouraging me a lot and so have a couple of sweet friends who believe more in me than I do and have encouraged me a lot. :)  It's been a challenge and yes, I'm just at the beginning, but I'm encouraged already, after seeing results from my hard work!  In just the last 2 1/2 weeks, I've dropped 10 lbs!  My goal is to lose 25 lbs by the time I start school, which is next month. I know that's a big goal, but if I keep up the exercise and eat right, I know I can do it.

Will you say a prayer that I will continue to be encouraged to move forward and stay with this healthy new lifestyle?  I hesitated even sharing that I'm trying to start over because I've said these exact words before and then gone back to my old self. I just know that in sharing this, I will have people who know what I'm trying to do and can be there to encourage me and help me stay on track.

10 pounds down, 40 more to go!

Where have I been?

Well, I've been up to no good in the blogging department lately.  And honestly I hate that I've let so much time go by since I last blogged.  Last week was a really yucky week for me with sick kiddos and an assortment of other things that put my in a bad mood.  I hate how easy it is for me to slip into a bad place mentally and just get stuck there.  I have so much to be thankful for and I guess some days life gets the best of me and I sink down into a pit and have a hard time finding my way back out.  Through it all, I'm just thankful for good friends and God (I totally posted that on my status on FB last week because it really summed things up for me) and the reminder that I'm not alone.

In the middle of my pity party last week, I started having second thoughts about my blog and if I should even be writing here anymore.  I know I've changed a lot of things over the summer and to be honest, I miss the way things used to be. I miss talking about my mommy adventures and baking and all that good stuff. Of course, I was the one who made those changes, so I have no one to blame but me on that one. I guess I just started the summer off in such a broken place, with just having lost the house and starting all over.  I didn't want to feel exposed anymore so I pulled back and really hard.  Changed things around but still felt like my blog has been missing the core of who I really am.  In both the good and the bad, there is still life to be shared and that's what I want to continue doing on here.

In the emotion of my week last week, I took things even further and decided I would just put my blog on private and leave it alone.  I know that was so dumb but again, I just thought it might be better off if I took a break from blogging.

Well, a sweet friend FB messaged me mentioning she'd noticed I'd put my blog on private.  At that moment, I totally forgot I'd done that and felt so silly.  Why I take things to extremes at time, I do not know! ;)

Anyhow...I'm gonna work on keeping this thing updated again in the way I always used to.  Or close to it anyway.

Today was the first meeting of the semester for MOPS!  We had a fun meeting this morning and I was so excited about seeing all the girls again.  We even had four new faces today which I am so happy about.  I love how our group is growing and how we get to do life together!  I'm really looking forward to this semester and would totally encourage you, if you don't already belong to a mommy group, to check out your local MOPS.  You can go HERE to find a group near you.

Another exciting thing I have to share is that I'm still going strong on my weight loss journey.  I'm still drinking only water, watching what I eat and exercising nearly every day and I have lost a total of 17 lbs in just this last month and a half.  I am SO excited because I'm really starting to see results and that is the greatest thing ever!

I posted this pic on FB last week that my Hubby took of me before a morning walk.

 It may be hard to see a major change since I haven't really posted many pics of myself on here these last few months but here's something to compare it to.  This was me with my nephew in June at his high school graduation party.

Notice the difference in my face?  I'm fitting into clothes I haven't fit into in a LONG time and that's an amazing feeling!