A day of accomplishment.

Breakfast was fresh blueberries and strawberries with yogurt and a whole grain banana nut muffin. I shared with P (my daughter) or course. She always mooches off of my plate. Anyway is was so filling, so fresh and so wonderful to have a balanced breakfast.


For lunch today I had my left over Thai chicken wraps. Um, can I just say I am in love with these wraps and I'm going to have to learn to make them myself. I had some orange jasmine green tea with a tiny bit of honey. My lunch was amazing.

This is a photo of P's lunch. Those are baby spinach leaves with light ranch dressing to dip them in. She ate everything but the turkey. She loves healthy food too.

Dinner was some left over "Easy Lasagna" with a fresh salad and whole grain bread. It was delish and filling.

Today I made a ton of accomplishments. I made a long to-do list and finished it all. I was very proud of myself. I've been reflecting on the last month today. I started this blog one month ago and I was thinking about all the past changes I have made. The changes that I have really stuck with is eating breakfast, eating more veggies and fruit and trying to get up earlier in the morning. I've really noticed that a lot o these things have become a habit for me. Especially getting more things done around my house. Doing all of these things to better my life have effected my attitude tremendously even my husband has noticed.

Though, I haven't lost very much weight I feel better, I know I'm a little healthier and I feel like this is a great start to my journey. My goal is to lose 8 pounds this next month with all of my changes. I can't wait to see what my end of the month post will be next month.

For now, good night.

New Things

This weekend we finally got a new car! Yay! My husband's parents helped us trade in our old one and pay for the rest on it. It was a huge blessing. I'm a lot less stressed about things. I also got a "newer" computer so I'll be able to blog during the day. I usually wait till night when my husband comes home and I can use his mac book. Anyhow, this post is short but tomorrow I'll have more.

My weekly change is to make a to-do list for every day and one for each week.

Really quick

This post will be short and sweet. This morning I ate my favorite breakfast, whole oatmeal with fig newtons crumbled up in it. My in-laws are here this weekend so I've been super busy. My daughter P went to the ER and our car died. It's been rough.


My lovely in-laws took us out to the Cheesecake Factory and P had a freak out session which led me to come home early while they finished eating. They brought me home my dinner which was half a roll of tempura spicy tuna roll and Thai lettuce wraps. Delicious. I had lots of water and green tea today and did lots and lots of walking.

I'll be back later this weekend with some mooorreee....

xoxo

Lots of photos...sorry.

Alright, this post is a photo overload but I really wanted to document my day to see what I was eating. It made me make healthier choices but I was full all day which is great. For breakfast I had Kashi's blueberry and oat cereal with some banana slices. I loved it. It stayed crunchy for a long time.



I decided to take some vitamins today. I used to take them a lot but I stopped. There is a vitamin C and E, a mulit-vitamin, chromium picolinate and Q-10 or something like that. Sorry I don't feel like getting up and checking the bottle but you get the point.

I had a chicken taco salad for lunch. I used salsa as my dressing. P decided to share with me. I added a few multi-grain tortilla chips. Those chips are delicious. If you don't already try them go out and buy them now.




Alright so for dinner I made what I call "Easy Lasagna." I know it wasn't the healthiest choice for dinner but I'm on a strict budget and we were trying to just make meals from what we had. I did use ground turkey which is healthier. I made a sauce with canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce with sliced mushrooms. I put in pasta and cottage cheese and I topped it with a little mixed colby jack cheese and then baked it.


We had a salad and some whole grain bread that I made the other day. It was yummy and filling and I feel good about myself. Today I got up at 8 a.m. I had half of the things that I wanted to get done, done by 12 noon. I was pleased about that. Today my husband gave me some bad news. Our "newer" nicer car that we love and really need has been in the shop for over 2 months. So today, he tells me that the problem is going to cost 2000 dollars to fix, it has something to do with the engine. Well, it sucks. We can't afford that, but we can't afford not to have a second car. We'll see what happens.

I really felt the change today. I'm glad I made that post last night.

Why?

I'm trying to figure out what the deal is. You know how all the sudden your house gets really messy and when you finally decide to go clean it up you say to your self "I will never let my house get this messy again." I say that all the time. But when am I really ..."not going to let my house get this messy again?" What the heck. I've never been the cleanest person in the world but I've been a cleaner person than messy. I don't like dirt or gross things but I don't mind some clothes on the floor. I'm really self conscience about my house being dirty. I feel like everyone can look at me and know my secret. I was a much cleaner person before I got married, as a matter of fact I was a much skinnier person before I got married...and I was a lot better with money.

I'm completely convinced that being organized, clean and smart with money has a lot to do with being thinner too. I think that if you can't keep your regular life in check than you can't keep yourself fit. Now some people are just "blessed" with a high metabolism and all that crap. You're just freaking lucky to be skinny and messy.

I'll tell you why I believe this.

When I was a freshmen in high school I made the New Year's Resolution to stop drinking caffeine and to run three times a week (in hopes to lose 10-15 pounds). And I did it. I never once fudged on this resolution. I completed it to the end. So the next New Year's Resolution I decided that I wanted to lose weight and be a happier person. So I bought the book "The Idiot's Guide to Losing Weight." I wasn't fat or anything...I just had curves. I mean I was a size 12, 5'10" and weighed 170 or so. That is technically in a normal weight range but I was in high school and all the other girls were rail thin, no boobs and no hips. So I felt out of place. Reading that book opened my eyes to my eating habits and how much I have to watch what I eat and keep up with my daily exercise. So...what I learned or started doing from this book was this:

-kept a food journal (counted calories)
-worked out 6 days a week running and I was on a softball team
-never ate after 8 p.m.
-barely ate carbs (only before I went running) or I ate whole grain with dinner
-drank tons and tons and tons of water
-I ate every 4 hours to keep my metabolism going
-ate tons of veggies and fruit

All of these things worked for me. I don't know what happened but I became this super nutritional freak and I counted every single thing I ate..I lectured everyone else. I never messed up I always stuck with my "diet" and I lost 40 pounds in 5 months. I was very thin but I was very healthy. I actually was. I have never felt as good about myself as I did in those 3 years in high school when I was skinny and constantly being active and eating healthy. While I did all of these things I was extremely organized. I kept two different day planners and I spring cleaned my room daily. I couldn't stand the rest of the house to be messy so I'd go clean up after my siblings and parents. I was every parent's dream. I really had it all together.

When I graduated I gained weight with birth control and being in college on my own. I got up to 200 pounds by my 3 year in college. So the summer between my third and fourth year I did weight watchers and started running again and I lost 20 pounds. I was at 180 and I was okay with that. I was active and eating healthy and 20 more pounds would have been great but I wasn't too worried about it. I kept a tidy dorm room, had a day planner and had a plan for my life. Then I got married the next year and gained 60 pounds in my first year of marriage. I then gained 70 pounds with pregnancy a year after that. I only lost 20 with birth and I have bounced about 15 pounds down to 275 to 290 and occasionally hit 305. I haven't kept my house clean since I've been married for more than a day. I have never found a place in my home for everything. I have not met one goal that I've made since I've been married. I don't know why everything changed for me.

I. Hate. This.

I'm to the point where I'm saying ... I. Will. Never. Be. This. Fat. Again. I say it and I want it just like I say "I will never let my house get this messy again" but do I keep that promise? No I don't. I have to change. I HAVE TO CHANGE. It's not a joke. I'm dying.

So this is where I'm at right now. It's 12:46 and I'm about 1 hour and 46 minutes past my bedtime. I know I have to go to sleep right now but I know I'm going to toss and turn on this all night. When will I change? When will I just get up at 7 a.m. start some coffee, eat a healthy breakfast, get ready for the day, feed my daughter, see my husband off to work, clean my house, do my chores, work out, work, study, keep up with my finances, keep up with my house, plan my future, be motivated, be organized, be a good wife and mother, be skinny, be healthy...when will I just grow up, grit my teeth and bear it? Huh? When does that happen?

Right now. I'm changing.

A day of baking.

Breakfast today was 2 waffles with a small spread of peanut butter, a drizzle of light syrup and a hand full of strawberries. All of course was shared with my daughter. She's kind of like a little bird and as soon as she's finished eating she comes to your plate and wants a bite. I'm hoping I break this habit before she's two.

For dinner I was going to make home made pizza with whole grain crust. And, I did...I just ended up making a WHOLE lot of dough. The pizza (pictures below) was just covered in olives and mushrooms. I'm still working on using everything in my pantry to save money. After that's all cleared out I'm hoping to only make things fresh and from scratch. No canned, boxed... you know with all that bad stuff they put int it.




The crust was crispy on the outside and warm and wonderful inside. It had a great hearty taste to it. I'm glad I just chose veggies as my topping. It was delicious. We have a ton left over.


Even P (my daughter whom I'm just going to refer to as P from now on) had some homemade pizza. She also had black grapes with hers. She loves fruit.

I had sooo much whole wheat dough left that I made two little bread loaves. I'm going to cut each one in half and then freeze them. I'll probably pull them out as needed with different meals.


I also did a TON of baking today. I had bananas, cherries and eggs that were going to go bad and I had to use them up before I had to throw them away. I plan of freezing the majority of all this stuff. I made whole grain bread, whole grain banana nut muffins, chocolate chip cookies and cherry oatmeal cookies. I only sampled a little tonight. Dinner filled me up so I didn't need to eat too many sweets. I'm going to freeze them for when guests come over. Saves me some time in the future I guess.

It's Monday and on Mondays is when I am supposed to do my weekly change. I decided to not drink soda anymore. I don't drink it a lot anyway so this isn't difficult for me. I just want to make a conscience effort to not drink it when I'm out to eat or an some one's house. I've already been cutting down a little on the sweet tea. I've been making it with half splenda and half sugar. I'm hoping to go to all splenda. Sometimes I just think it tastes funny with just splenda. Anyhow...I've been doing well with eating breakfast and eating more veggies (not quite as many as I'd like) and I've really tried to think about what I'm trying to change about myself all through out the day. It's really helped in all areas of my life.

For the next few weeks I want my weekly changes to be non-diet changes. So in other words I want to change a habit for cleaning, organizing, getting through the day or an attitude type of thing. I've already noticed that I have a better attitude towards things since I've started the change but I want to consciously work on it as well.

I hope your weekend was lovely.

Yummy.

This photo above was dinner tonight. It was a veggie burger with tomato, avocado and lettuce on a whole wheat bun. I made homemade "chips"...they were just russet potatoes thinly sliced and covered in olive oil and Italian seasoning. I also had a little bit of baked beans. It was so delicious and so filling. I couldn't hardly finish it.

The last two days I have not been able to work out or eat the healthiest. I've been extremely busy with cleaning, budgeting, organizing and mostly chasing my almost two year old around. Today we found out that we over spent on our budget and over drafted in our account and wasted almost 500 dollars! I've been so stressed today trying to figure out how we are going to pay the bills. It sucks. So the next few weeks meal plans are going to be really tricky. I'm going to have to come up with random meals from the pantry.

On other news....next week I HAVE to get my gym membership changed so I can ASAP. Hopefully I'll get some works outs in soon.

Just so you believe me.

I had to share a couple of photos of my body just 4 years ago. No stinking lie. I was over 100 pounds lighter than I am now less than 4 years ago...actually I can really say just about 3 years ago. I've only been married for 3 1/2 years.

This photo above doesn't show that I was the most skinny person in the world but I was fit...and actually my stomach wasn't that big I'm wearing like 3 shirts in this picture and I'm bending forward. I was really into running then and my stomach was really flat. As you can see in my wedding photo I was actually around the same size as my husband. Now I'm over 100 pounds heavier than him. I hate that.

I'm showing these to tell you that there is a skinny well put together person inside this fat body of mine and I want my life back .

A Clean house is a happy house.

My lunch today consisted of left over shrimp salad from yesterday and some teriyaki noodles with two servings of veggies and a big glass of water. I could NOT eat all of this. I actually shared it with my daughter. She likes to just sit by me and nibble off of what I'm eating. She's only 20 months old so she hasn't learned to eat off of her own plate yet. Nah, I'm teasing she just always wants what mommy wants.


My daughter and I also shared a snack around 3 today of cheese, crackers and turkey meat. She loved it but it was also very filling and we couldn't finish it all either. I ended up making chicken marsala for dinner but I didn't eat a lot of pasta, I mostly at the chicken. It was delicious. My husband, daughter and I ended up taking a walk in our neighborhood after we cleaned the kitchen. It was a lovely night.


I do want to talk about how much I accomplished today. I haven't been this productive in a long time. I cleaned my kitchen, dining room, bathroom and daughter's room AND I even did 2 loads of laundry and about 2 hours of ironing. I also did all of these things while my air conditioner was broken today. (It's fixed now..thank the LORD). I was so sweaty but I was sooo loving it. I kept thinking this is a great workout and a great way to sweat it all out.


I wanted to share a few shots of my clean kitchen and dining room. I feel that sharing a little more personal photos of my life will help you get to understand me a little better. I have chosen to not share my name or photos of what I look like because I want to be able to share my thoughts, struggles, goals etc more freely on this blog. I feel like if I put my name and face on it that I will hold back and I won't be able to really grow. You see, this blog isn't just about losing weight to me. It's about changing myself, my attitude, my soul and everything about myself. I've come to realize that a lot of why I struggle with my weight and this overwhelming feeling of being out of control of life is because I have not had control of my actions or my mind or my soul in years and years. The more I lost control of my will, mind, soul, heart, etc...the more I gain weight. I tend to want to control other things instead of myself and put that focus on everything but myself and the more I do that the less I focus on how I'm killing myself, I'm keeping a terribly filthy house and I'm making poor decisions as a mom, wife and friend. In every single way I want to change myself. For now, I'm taking it one day at a time but I really feel the difference.

A healthy day

Okay so I finally made me some sushi. It sounds like a super big deal but it's really easy. Usually when I make sushi I make it all myself from scratch but today I just used this sushi wrap in box. It's delish! One serving is only 170 calories before adding anything inside...so you can determine how many extra calories you want or how healthy you want your filling to be. Today I just used avocado and cucumber. I ate this around 11:00 a.m. it was filling for a couple of hours or so.


So at about 1-2 p.m. I made a veggie burger with avocado on a whole wheat bun. It was amazing except for the part where I over cooked my patty. :( My fruit on the other hand was so good. Blueberries are so good right now.


Now for dinner around 6:30 I made and ate one of my favorite salads. I call it my shrimp salad cause I don't really have an interesting name for it. Anyhow its a mixture of romaine and iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese, shrimp (cooked in lemon juice and pepper) and oil and vinegar for the dressing (sometimes I use a dash of salt and pepper on the entire salad as well). Today I had to meet my husband up at the church to eat dinner so I packed up a meal for the three of us. Me, hubby and our daughter (she's 20 months old). She liked it. We didn't actually get to eat the cherries...I'm saving them for tomorrows breakfast.


So ...today I decided to stand on the scale (I have no idea why). I know I should wait and only weigh in once a week but I just did it. I weight 288.... It's such a huge number. I'm just staring at it. Although it is a big number it is 5 pounds down from Sunday's weigh in. AND...I'm even on my period now which means I'm bloated. So being sick really has helped me lose weight. Too bad it sucks to be sick. So the goal is to keep those 5 pounds off for good. I can't wait till my next blog post....see you then.

So I've been sick.

Yesterday after I got up early I got sick. It sounds weird but it just hit me. I had a fever, chills, throwing up (hey I lost two pounds ..haha) and just completely out of it. So today I didn't make it up until 8 a.m. I will say that even though I was sick I did end up eating breakfast both mornings. This picture above is of one of my favorite breakfasts ..it's 1/2 a cup of old fashioned oats, splash of milks, sprinkle of brown sugar and 2 crumbled up fig newtons with a few raisins. It's delicious.

This morning I had boston cream pie flavored yoplait light. This is my favorite flavor. I also had a banana and a big glass of water. I shared both my yogurt and banana with my daughter. Today I let her have a huge amount of blue berries. She loved them. I do love making sure she eats healthy. I will say that I have not been doing well with my goal of eating so many fruits and veggies each day. This will be something I work on harder from now on. I've been craving sushi for like a week now. I'm thinking I might make an avocado roll tomorrow for lunch.

I am feeling better now by the way. I think it was some sort of 24 hour flu or something. Tomorrow I plan on switching my gym membership to the gym here in town. We just moved to a new city and I have to switch my membership. I'm hoping they have free child care at this one and a good yoga program. I love yoga!

I actually got up.

So it's 7:34 right now and I've been up for about 20 minutes. I forced myself out of bed this morning. I'd like to say I feel better about myself but all I'm thinking about is how I can crawl back in bed. But I won't do it. Right now I'm eating a yogurt for breakfast and drinking a glass of water. Maybe getting a little something into my system will help perk me up.

For being a fat free yogurt there sure is a lot of sugar in it. I'm going to look around at some other yogurt today. Today I'm making a big grocery run. I've got my list and my meal plan. Hopefully I'll get some more fresh veggies and fresh fruit in my house. I've been eating canned all week...besides a handful of fresh cherries. Anyhow...I'll be back with some meal planning, exercising and more updates.

Have a lovely day.

Getting organized

Yesterday along with my cleaning I did a little list making. I am trying to plan out my meals for the week. I found the meal planning tablet from Anthropology. I made out my meal plan and my shopping list to go with it. I checked the budget and then read a little Shape Magazine for some inspiration/motivation.