Hmmm....

What happened to my blog? I'm missing some of the cute stuff on the sides. Strange. Well clearly I have neglected my blog and half of it got up and walked off.

Life has been crazy. I've been traveling, visiting family, working like a mad woman and although technically compared to my weigh-in in May I have gained a few pounds, I actually gained more and have since lost 5 lbs. Try to keep up with that kind of whirlwind math.

A friend and I are doing an accountability project and so far it is helping both of us. Feeling pretty confident and happy with progress made thus far. Now to find the rest of my blog design......

Dear Me

I recently saw a magazine article that was filled with reader's online letters to their bodies. I was moved by the varying perceptions of strength, frustration and appreciation. I thought it was a great idea. Here's mine.

I haven't taken very good care of you. I have filled you at times with sugar, fattening foods and haven't moved you as much as I should have. I have taken you for granted. You're physical state has brought me to tears. You are not even close to your potential. And sometimes, I think you are actually working against me.

Looking back, you have brought me through a lot in 36 years. I'm thankful. It hasn't always been pretty. Thanks for sticking with me. With you, I have reached many goals I set for myself. You and me. A team. We have a Master's degree, you and I. We had adventures. I fell in love, and walked down the aisle to marry the love of my life. I need to take care of you. Now, more then ever. With your help, I can achieve my dream of having a child. It's not too late. So I need you to cooperate and work together as a team to become healthier. Let's do this!

Slow and.....somewhat steady

10.2 pounds lost! I am so excited to hit that mark. Obviously, I need to pick up the intensity a bit because it took 3 months to lose 10 pounds. I would like to say that I lost more than 1 lb since my last weigh-in, but at least the scale is moving in the desired direction. For my reward, I'm hitting the nail salon for a little manicure action. Yay for 10 pounds gone!

Tomorrow I am heading to Kansas City for work. My hotel has a fitness center, so I will be packing workout clothes and take advantage of my free time to exercise. I only have 10 days to reach my goal....have to work hard! 8.2 lbs to go!!!

Vacation = weight loss? Yes, yes it does!

My hubby and I flew out to Los Angeles last Thursday for a
weekend band tour. The band was set to do a series of shows in the area. I wish I could say we were able to get a lot of sightseeing in, but that just was not the case. Show business certainly isn't all glamour, that's for sure. It's an awful lot of hurry up and wait. Still, it was nice to get away--and the hotel suite was nice. I kept my eating in check (ok, well technically we went to In-N-Out twice) Other than the burgers, which by the way were delish--I did really well. And we ended up doing a lot of walking, so I am sure that helped counteract the extra calories a bit. The shows were a huge success, and we all had a really great time. I feel very fortunate that the band members are such wonderful people and enjoyable to hang out with.

We returned from Los Angeles on Monday. The bad news is, I was sick with a cold by the time I got off the plane. The good news is, I managed to drop a few pounds during a good chunk of time that involved travel. Yay! I am so excited about my loss that it almost makes up for the crappy way that I have felt the last few days. One of my issues when I am sick is that I crave comfort food. Anything creamy is what I want most--macaroni and cheese, mashed, potatoes, etc. Clearly these are foods that are high in calories and fat and certainly foods I should be avoiding and only indulging in occasionally. However, I am sure that my ability to portion-control is even more diminished since my head is congested and I'm thinking cold medication won't help my thought process. Today I was craving chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans from our local diner. Outrageously delicious --but not a meal I have more then a couple times a year. I had a left-over chicken taco instead and hot tea by what seems like the gallon because it makes my throat feel better. I am finally making some progress and I don't want to defeat myself my making a less healthy choice. I'm hoping to get to the grocery store tomorrow to stock up on healthy fare--we are dangerously low on even the basics at this point.

Anyway, back to my loss over the last two weeks---it's actually not a great loss for that amount of time, but honestly, right now a loss is a loss. I'm not going to dwell on how long it took. The scale is moving and I am getting a little farther away from 300-ville. I never want to see that number again and so the farther away I get the better I feel. My BMI went down a few points as well, which definitely feels good. So, my goal for May 10 is to lose 12 lbs, which means I have 9.2 lbs to go. That's just under a month, so it's going to be tight, but I know that if I work hard and be consistent, I will reach my goal. I need to think of a reward for myself. Any ideas for rewards?

Taking a Little Trip

Tomorrow morning, we are heading out to the hill country to picnic and hopefully see A LOT of gorgeous wildflowers. I look forward to this time every year. Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes, and so many more beautiful wildflowers are such a sight to see. It's amazing because when you see an entire field of bluebonnets, it looks like water! So pretty. I actually need to go and prepare our lunch for tomorrow. I bought individual mini loaves of artisan multi-grain bread for turkey sandwiches and I am going to make a pasta pesto salad. I think along with fruit and wine we will have a lovely lunch in the hill country. Oh, and our pup is going too, so can't forget the Scooby snacks! Ooh and I need to make iced tea to take along. I was going to make cookies, but I'm kind of glad I didn't have time because who needs the extra calories? Not I!

I am so thankful that we get to get away and spend some time together.

Whoa.

Image via Wikipedia

Don't look now, but it's my second post of the week. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

My week so far has been good--I'm hoping my weigh-in next Monday will reveal the evidence of my work this week. I have cut way back on diet sodas--in fact, I think I have only had a couple in the last week!

Here's a wrap up of my week so far. Thank goodness it's a short work week, yay!

Monday-- I was not feeling well and took a sick day. I made a point of eating healthy and slept a lot. We still went out for an evening walk though as I was feeling better and needed to get some fresh air. Hubby grilled chicken and we had that plus small baked potatoes and fresh broccoli for dinner. We spent the rest of the evening catching up on DVR'd shows--Amazing Race and Rules of Engagement.

Tuesday--Went to the office....tried to stay away from the The Candy Jar, but did succumb to a snack size M&M's and one rolo. Not bad. I took my lunch, skipped breakfast and ate my apple/peanut butter for a snack. We walked again in the evening and for dinner we had left-over grilled chicken, brown rice with toasted pine nuts, olive oil, parsley and a bit of parmesan and a side of lima beans. And lots of iced tea with splenda! Does anyone know of any issues with using a lot of splenda? Tuesday is Biggest Loser night! My typical routine is to watch the show while I prepare dinner, which is great motivation to cook up something healthy and not snack mindlessly, which I am so prone to do when I get home from work. I am going to be sad when Biggest Loser wraps up the season--the contestants are such an inspiration to me.

Wednesday--Worked from home...hubby made breakfast of one egg and slice of 2% cheese on a sandwich thin (love those!), coffee with flavored creamer and splenda. Lunch was left-over spaghetti with meat sauce (a small portion) and snack was popcorn. Lots of tea and water. Took our pup for a walk. For dinner, we went out (these days meals out are not common) and went to a fave italian place. I ordered a veggie calzone (which was ginormous) I took more then half of it home for lunch tomorrow. Splurged with a diet dr. pepper! ha We went to Target to pick a few groceries, a baby shower gift, and a new stability ball (ours developed an inability to hold air).

And this brings me to Thursday--my Friday this week. I just need to persevere through one more day of work and then playtime on Friday. We are planning to jump in the car with our labrador and drive to the hill country to see all the wildflowers and picnic. Looking forward to getting away from the city.

I just remembered that I didn't say what I am thankful for in my last post. That will never do!

Today, I am thankful for:
*my hubby and our home
*the money to buy fresh, organic produce
*my pup, who gives great hugs, I swear
*one more work day!

Buh-Bye 300-ville

Image by seanwolter via Flickr

SO....it turns out I am horrible at creating regular blog posts. Life somehow gets the best of me and man does time go by fast!

The good news is that I have officially left the 300's and that feels so great! Here's what I have been up to over the last couple of months.


*Work has been non-stop craziness! Staff changes, deadlines, additional responsibilities....all have added to my stress level and have really forced me to practice healthy habits to compensate. Drinking more water, increasing exercise and trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep have really helped.

*Dealing with my grandmother's illness has been tough. My grandmother is fighting lung cancer and the whole family has been really upset and struggling with the news. She is doing pretty well despite that chemo/radiation is really tough on her. She inspires me on a regular basis!

*Discovered Leslie Sansone's Walk-at-Home series and really love it! I ordered several DVD's from Amazon so I have a great selection. I'm doing these on the mornings twice a week when I work from home.

*Taking our dog for evening walks. With the spring weather being so nice, we have been walking the neighborhood almost every evening. This has really helped the pain I was feeling in my hips. I noticed tonight that I wasn't feeling any pain and haven't for a couple of days.

*Focusing more on my spiritual life. Nothing like a family crisis to make you get on your knees more. I have been spending more time in prayer and that is always good.

I'm just trying to make healthy choices as often as possible. I can't wait to see the scale keep moving down. My current goal is to lose 12 lbs with a target date of May 10th.

This Week's Weigh-In

Today was my weigh-in day and ......drumroll, please.......

I lost 5.4 pounds this week!

I am so happy and excited about this loss. I have been extremely focused this week and have been making every effort to meet my calorie deficit. I had a deficit every day--even though sometimes it wasn't my goal deficit. I burned MORE calories then I consumed and it actually worked!

I am so pumped to work hard this week and continue to make progress. My current goal is to lose 5% of my body weight which is 15 pounds and I am 1/3 of the way there!

I have been thinking about the behavioral changes that I have started to implement in the last week that has contributed to my success this week.

* Planning meals for the week ahead of time and shopping for those meals (I did this on a Saturday). This week I mostly cooked from the "Getting Thin and Loving Food" Cookbook by Kathleen Daelmanns. Awesome book, btw.
*Logging my food on the Bodybugg site. This means also measuring/weighing my food--which is becoming less of a pain actually. I am so mindful of calories now. My hubby made a grilled cheese sandwich tonight and used 2 TBSP of butter! I told him that there were 200 calories of butter on his sandwich and he called me the calorie nazi! lol
* Making sure I packed my lunches and snacks for work days
*Only eating out for lunch one day a week (as compared with usually 5 days per week--I work downtown and there are of course MANY wonderful restaurants filled to the brim with temptations) As a bonus I have saved A LOT of dough. Ka-ching!
*Never going more then 4 hours without eating something
*Working my meals so that I have enough calories for one serving of ice cream a day--so I don't feel deprived and tempted to cheat. This has worked really well for me. It's the little things.
*I did 20 minutes of elliptical on the days I worked in the office (3 days) and the 2 days I worked from home I did a 20 minute cardio workout video. Saturday, hubby and I went to the gym and did strength training for a couple of hours. Sunday was a rest day.

Today I did go to lunch with a co-worker but I ordered a cup of soup and salad with balsamic dressing on the side. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical but later I also did about 20 minutes of DDR.

This week I plan to increase my cardio M-F by at least 10 minutes and we are planning to do another session of weights on Saturday. My cardio video also has a weight component with dumbbells, but it's minor. I really felt the weight session from Saturday. Hubby and I were both so sore both Sunday and Monday! I guess that's how we know we did something good though.

Today I am thankful....
...............for progress!

I'm back. Again.

I have been contemplating returning to my blog for a couple of weeks. I'm not completely sure why I have been avoiding it. I enjoy journaling, and I certainly enjoy reading other blogs. They inspire me, give me hope and help me press on.

I think a part of me has been a little uneasy about putting myself out there...everything...my deepest darkest...for the entire universe to see. I realize I have one follower. Thanks @Halving Hadley, by the way. But there is the possibility that someday, with a little luck and maybe some pixie dust, I could have two followers. :) And I don't know, it's just a little scary to be vulnerable in this way.

I need to get over that though, because this is helpful to me. And I have been working very hard. I got a Bodybugg for Christmas as a gift and it's made a huge difference. Just being able to see how many calories I am actually burning is incredibly empowering. I can clearly see the calorie deficit and KNOW I am making an impact. I am faithfully logging my calorie intake. I am trying to eat as clean as possible. Thank you, Super Target for all the great deals on produce lately. I keep a big water bottle at my desk to drink during the day. I've managed to cut out all the diet sodas and limit myself to just one daily. Did I mention I am drinking A LOT of water? I started doing a Leslie Sansone walk at home workout in the mornings and then elliptical after work for 20 mins for a total of 40 minutes daily. I am actually looking forward to my next weigh-in!

I am focusing on a 10% loss of my body weight. That is 30 lbs, which now that I see it in black and white, feels like too much. Let's pare that down to 15 lbs. Better. I'm also not going to commit to posting daily at this point. I want to post every couple of days for now. I can't believe it has been since October that I last posted. It doesn't feel like that long.

Oh, I almost forgot. I have completely avoided The Candy Jar. Score!

Today I'm thankful....
....that I am working from home tomorrow. Hello, pj's all day!!