How easily one forgets..

It is truly amazing how easily one forgets how difficult calorie counting can be and how much mindless eating you can do. Yesterday as I realized I was getting sick I thought “Hmm… some hot chocolate would be really nice for my sore throat. Maybe I can the hubby pick some up at the station.” Then I realized that if I had some (I’m not talking typical Swiss Miss hot chocolate, I’m talking gas station out of the machine hot chocolate), a) I wouldn’t know how many calories I consumed  & b) I would more than likely consume half if not all of my calories for the day in that one single cup of hot chocolate. I realized it was time to forget that idea and just cope with the throat. I think I have some tea but I’ll be sure to stock up on it for future colds. MUCH lower in calorie and really all I’m going for is something warm on my sore throat. I mean really, even hot water would work but flavor is nice.

I’ve also realized how hard it is to feed the baby without wanting to take a bite myself. Definitely need to find more finger foods for  him so I don’t have to help feed him and feel like I should “sample” it. I’ve managed to stop myself from sneaking a Cheez-it or a bite of baby’s lunch so far and I intend to. Breakfast and lunch for me right now are Slim Fast but I think I’ll switch to a higher protein, lower carb protein shake. This allows me to easily control my calories and gives me a large allowance for snacks and supper. I can even sneak in a pop if I want to so for now I’ll continue this route and see how it works for weight loss. If I deprive myself too much, I’ll never succeed and with the holidays coming up I need all the help I can get.

I’m also using Daily Burn to track my food and workouts (I also track my workouts on Daily Mile). If I’m unsure of the calories of my meal, I’m actually entering the recipe so that I can be as accurate as possible. I know it’s not perfect but as long as it’s close it works for me!

Rethink Your Shrink: Weigh-in #4

Woof have I been busy! I’ve taken on another job so I work full time hours from home now. Yeesh! Plus I try to parent my boys of course. lol I didn’t get any shredding in. :( But I did my couch to 5k! I managed to run a half mile at a time on Sunday. I’m sure that’s the most I’ve ever ran/jogged in my life. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the scale since I’ve been dipping into the ice cream lately, but I managed to lose 2.4 pounds! Woohoo!

I am officially down to 170, so I’ve lost a total of 8.4 pounds so far! Yay for breastfeeding and exercise. We also might have added someone to our “half marathon team” so it won’t just be my hubby and I running. One of my gal pals may join us. Gotta love convincing someone else to be as crazy as you are. hehe

Rethink Your Shrink: Weigh-in #3

I have not been blogging about this journey nearly as much as I would like to, but it’s all for good reason. I am too busy working! :) And of course caring for my boys. I have been getting my Couch to 5K workouts and squeezing in my 30 Day Shred workouts a couple times a week as well. I am still not controlling my diet too much, but I am attempting refraining from over-eating every chance I get.

I wasn’t expecting any impressive numbers for this weeks weigh-in. Boy was I surprised when the scale showed 172.4! I was 176.1 last week, so I lost nearly 4 pounds!! And am down 6 from when I started. Woohoo!!

This has more than made up for the rollercoaster ride our household has been having with bills and reduced hours at my husband’s work. I also should be starting a full-time position tomorrow that will allow me to continue to stay home but help contribute financially. Wahoo!!! That should help the grocery bill a little bit!

Rethink Your Shrink: Weigh-in #2

I have been such a slacker with my blog this week. Yeesh! My diet has been less than perfect this week so I was definitely hesitant to look at the scale today. I was expecting a gain, but surprisingly I still managed to lose a little. Last week I was 176.6 and today I was 176.1 for a loss of 0.5. Small, but I’ll take it. So far for the Rethink Your Shrink challenge I’ve lost 2.3 pounds!

I’ve added Jillian Michael’s 30-day shred in this week in addition to the Couch 2 5k plan, so hopefully that will help with the loss. I’ve gotta blast some of this fat away so I’m a little thinner for my little guy’s baptism next month. I’m also going to attempt to be better about drinking water. I have been really bad with that. I usually am.

The Monday Project #1: Project “Me”

Wow! What a slacker I have been this week!! Not so much with exercise but with blogging. It’s time to post my homework Monday Project and I’m just getting around to it. Yes, that’s me, always waiting for the deadline. In my defense, I have been busy with work and kids. It definitely did not help that my hubby couldn’t come home Wednesday night because the weather was lousy. It was nice here at home though. Well, as nice as it can be in Minnesota in January.

This week we are taking a look back and figuring out why we are here. I definitely know most of the reasons why I am where I am right now. One of them would be the beautiful baby I see swinging across the living room. Relax, he is literally in a swing right now. I have 2 boys and I gained 50+ pounds with each pregnancy. I lost all of the weight with my 1st. I had a pretty active retail job during college and after college. That helped to make it so I didn’t really have to exercise or watch what I was eating too hard to maintain a pretty decent weight. I’ve always been relatively thin, but have always had body issues. Probably doesn’t help that my mom always called me “bubble butt”. She swears it wasn’t because my butt was large, but only because she thought I had a cute little “bubble butt”. haha I guess it’s because she has almost no butt. Her butt is very flat, maybe that’s an effect of aging. I remember even at an age of 7 or so, thinking my thighs were too big. In retrospect, I’ve always had muscular thighs and I think I honestly looked down at that muscle and thought it made my thighs look fat. When I look back at pictures of me at that age, my thighs were definitely NOT big. If only the little me could see the big me now. What would she think?!

So, I gained my 50+ pounds with my first pregnancy and really did very little to lose the weight. I continued to breastfeed when I went back to work, so I’d grab a Slim-fast for breakfast so I’d have breakfast as we dashed out the door. Then I’d grab a Slim-fast for lunch so that I could go pump for the next day. I believe the combination of the Slim-fast, breastfeeding, and going back to my active job helped me lose weight and get me back to where I started, which was about 5-10 pounds heavier than I wanted to be. If only that version of me, could see me know. Yikes!

A couple of years ago, I finally left my retail job for a desk job. That was the beginning of the end. haha I worked at that job for about 6 months and tried to eat right to maintain my weight, but that didn’t work very well. Then I became a SAHM and that combined with TTC baby #2, suffering a miscarriage, and then getting pregnant packed on the rest of the weight. The day before my 2nd son was born, I tipped the scales at about 211 pounds. Yeesh! I remember actually having fears I wouldn’t be healthy enough to actually survive labor and/or not have the strength to push him out. I ended up needing a c-section, so those fears really didn’t matter. I lost 35 pounds right away. It was so nice to see the weight “melt” off without trying, but frustrating that I couldn’t keep the weight loss up because of recovery.

That has what has brought me to today. I’ve lost all of the baby weight that I feel will just “fall” off of my body and now it’s time to do the work on the rest and then tackle the extra weight beyond where I started when I became pregnant a year ago. I hate seeing myself in pictures and refuse to be this size for very long. I want to be happy with how I look and how I feel and I know I have to do some work.

The biggest obstacle I need to overcome is diet. I am such a sweets addict, it’s ridiculous. It’s literally a disease like alcoholism for me, only it deals with food. I have to learn to control that. Food is my major problem/weakness along with portion size. I need to learn self-control. I’ve already seen from this week that I am going to have to start counting calories and/or tracking portion size if I want to see continued results. Exercise will help, but it will not do it alone.

I have my husband on board to do a half marathon with me, which will help motivate me to at the very minimum hop onto the treadmill. Heck, I did my run last night and he didn’t! He has better willpower than me, so I truly think getting him on board for this was the best thing I could have done. I need someone to push me, without being too pushy. Plus, he could stand to lose weight and he knows it. It’s a win-win!

Weigh-in Wednesday

Wow! Where did the week go? Today’s the day to find out how badly the remainder of the holiday season was to me (or is was I bad to it? lol). I was pleasantly surprised when I saw I had lost some weight. I didn’t technically start exercising until Sunday and I haven’t actually started counting calories. I can’t get the hubby on board with that and I REALLY need his help on that, so for now I will continue to watch what I eat without feeling overly restricted and keep up with the exercise. I have cut back, so I should definitely see results.

So, drum roll please………..

 

Starting weight: 178.4 lbs.

Weight today: 176.6 lbs.

Total loss: 1.8 lbs.

 

Not too shabby!

You don’t want to miss this!

The crew over at The Sisterhood of the shrinking jeans has an awesome giveaway to kick off the new year. They are giving away two, yes TWO, gift cards to The Healthy Pantry. I wasn’t familiar with the Healthy Pantry until I saw this giveaway, but let me tell you I am very familiar with it now. Their meal kits look amazing and are just the thing I need to jumpstart my weight loss. So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to Shrinking Jeans right now to check it out for yourself!