I’m going back to last week to start this goal… here is why. 

I have finally settled on how I want to set my goals now. I’m going to go in ten pound increments and my slight OCD makes me want to go from 10 to 10. Like 180-170. :o)  SO I’m backing up to last week when I weighed 180 and starting my new goal.  I’m not putting a time on this one I’m just going to do my best and when I get to ten pounds I’ll set another goal. I’ve already lost 1 so I have 9 more to go to get this goal knocked out.

Here’s hoping that I have as easy a time meeting this goal and as much success !!

Pick either word in the title. They both work and so are interchangeable. This has been a very bad week in many ways.  I did horrible with my diet and I didn't exercise AT ALL !! I didn't pig out so to speak I ate everything in moderation but I ate a LOT of unhealthy "comfort foods".  It is soooo easy to slip and dive, not fall,  DIVE right back into those familiar habits.
I am dealing with a lot in my life lately and now have had a one more potentially serious thing added to my plate. It involves one of my children and to me that is the ultimate thing to stress about the health and well being and general happiness of my babies.
So the good news is I may not have  followed my plan to it's fullest potential and I may feel like I've had a failure of a week in that department but... I weighed in yesterday morning and

179

So despite everything I still lost one pound. I am thrilled with that one pound !!!  I got on the scale with my eyes closed and had to force myself  to open them. I just knew at the very least it was gonna be a stalemate week with no movement. But I was heavily leaning towards a gain.  I am holding on to my one victory this week but trying not to let it lull me into a false sense of “I can do what I want and still lose” . Partly because it was the breastfeeding that saved my butt and I won’t always have that to rely on. Also I am a bad “give an inch take a mile” person and I will eventually quit altogether if I don’t nip this in the bud so to speak.

So that sums up this week… I will try to blog better next week.  Justin was supposed to be home today. We’re now not sure when it will be but hopefully in the next week sometime.

However… My goal was 12 pounds in 6 weeks. I have lost 14 pounds in 6 weeks. That’s already 2 pounds more than my goal. My motivation to meet this goal was my husband’s return so now I have another week to see how much more I can shave off before he comes home. :o)

Peace

Steph

So I got on the scale this morning and …      180

Once again I am excited !!! I have now not only met my goal I have passed it by a pound AND I did it in 5 weeks instead of 6. YAAAAAAAAAAAAY !!!!!!!    :o) 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do as my I met my goal treat. I know it won’t be food though. I made up my mind at the beginning of this journey that my goal met rewards would not be food and will most likely be something for my appearance a pedicure, new clothes , a new hair do, getting my ears re pierced etc.  “Hey I just lost 10 pounds lets chow down on a gallon of ice cream”  just seems kinda counter productive.  It would make this a ONE step forward,  TWO  steps back thing and I would eventually give up. Anyway, when I decide what I’m gonna get I’ll post about it ! I may wait til Justin gets home and let him help me decide.

And  THAT  folks is my tip for today !! DON’T make your rewards a food item !! You would do better to pick a day (mine is friday night at family movie time) and let yourself have ONE serving of something you REALLY miss… for me it’s root beer. Barqs to be specific.  :o)  If you do that you can handle sticking to one portion where if you put it off for a looooooong time and make it a reward you can’t help but eat a lot cause you missed it for so long and you feel entitled to do so cause you “earned” it. But you will also “earn” your way back up the scale.  I will pick anything I may want (cds, movies, a shirt, my new tattoo)  but I know a good bit of the time it will go toward my appearance. I want to enhance the new me cause I’m proud of the work I’m doing and the self control I now have. Plus being pregnant for almost 2 years straight I did NOTHING for my appearance. When I’m pregnant I’m to miserable to care.  :o) 

I am going to work out EVERY day this week including Saturday and Sunday because hopefully Justin will be home next weekend for 6 days and I don’t know how much formal exercise I’ll be getting in that week. I am also going to work out twice a day every other day this week.

So “the skinny” is ….  I worked out Mon.- Weds. and I worked out twice on Thursday.  Today I did yard work for exercise and it kicked my butt cause I was already sore.

I stuck to my calories all week EVERY day !!

Peace

Steph

There have been many changes in my life since I decided to start this blog. One of them being I have become a “temporary single mom” 3 and a half weeks out of the month. I also have started babysitting my neighbors little boy to help her out. However in a few weeks I will be taking on a full time babysitting job to help out with some of the bills and household expenses. It will be two children and one is a baby only a month older than mine. I am already busy and soon I will be busier so I have made a decision. I will blog any day I get a spare moment but…  I am going to really only blog twice weekly now.  Friday cause its weigh day and Tuesday cause its about the halfway point. If I have a bad day and cave to temptation I will definitely post what happened though. So if I don’t post assume I had a good day and stuck with it.  :o)   

I have done something interesting … I have been trying to add in  a second workout but just haven’t gotten to it.  Well  I finally did ! I finished watching Biggest Loser and thought “I’ll start doing a second workout today kind of like a “last chance workout” and if it works out I’ll continue to do it every other day and then eventually add it to every day.”  It went well and I enjoyed it ! I did my favorite  Firm DVD after getting Connor off to school and then did the short 30 minute one I blogged about the other day at 4 after getting Connor off the bus. Weigh day is tomorrow so we’ll see if it paid off.

Jamie I am working on a good vs. empty calorie tip section for you ! And I have asked my sister to make her first guest post about that as well so be checking for that !

SO I have been at this now for about 4 weeks but I took that week long vacation in which I neither gained nor lost so we’ll skip that and say I’ve been at it for 3 weeks…

I weighed this morning and    183

I am so excited 10 pounds in 3 weeks !!! My goal is 12 pounds in 6 weeks and I have almost met my goal with 2 weeks left !! YAY !!!  10 pounds, I can NOT believe it ! I have struggled so much in the past I can’t believe how everything is coming together for me this time instead of working against me. I have put in some serious hard work as far as will power and sticking to my calories go but all in all it has so much easier than before. And I have done all this without really exercising so i can’t wait to see how this week goes when I step up and workout ! My sister has shared with me that even on a breastfeeding diet with the breastfeeding exclusively  burning 500 calories a day if I were to add even one workout I could get fabulous results. I got started and never got around to the exercise and am doing great without it. I am excited to see how much more it can help :o)

Well I finally have something to say here ! I am EXCITED and ECSTATIC and so many other feelings. WOW ! I can’t wait to keep going,  I can’t wait to do more. It is amazing what seeing some results can do for you. I am way beyond motivated right now I just want to hold on to this feeling, wrap it up and save it for the stressful days when I THINK I desperately NEED that bar of chocolate or bowl of ice cream. :o)

I’m going to get back to writing down what I eat so those who might need to see what I am eating to know you can eat good and enjoy it can see it. I’m also not walking around “hungry” all the time. Some days I have trouble eating enough to get my whole calorie quota met.  I have not really felt deprived since starting this. I might miss the occasional candy bar or soda but thats about it. I have discovered help for my big weakness though and that will be tomorrows tip.

So “the skinny” for today is

Another work out

And my daily calorie total is       1811

SO… I actually did some formal exercise yesterday that wasn’t a ride on my recumbent bike while watching TV. Although I have decided that I don’t get enough exercise and as long as I ‘m not having to hold the baby atleast one of my hour long shows if I wanna watch I gotta pedal :o) that gets me exercising,  even on my busiest days I make time for a little tv. Anyway… I did one of my favorite things a THE FIRM workout dvd. I have several and I tried a new one cause it was only 30 minutes and I didn’t have a lot of time.  Also it promised to be light and easy and I’m WAAAYYY outta shape (no wait round IS a shape :o) ) So I did it and I made it thru the whole workout without stopping. I was barely sweating and my heart rate was up but not killing me. I thought ok either I didn’t do it right or I have finally found a work out by them that is awful. I have found ones I don’t enjoy or care for but never a bad one. And then,  I got up this morning and couldn’t walk up my stairs.  HELLO muscles I forgot I had. As the day wore on I felt it even more. HELLO muscles I haven’t used since my horse riding days. Then this evening I sat down to watch my favorite show and when i got up after an hour I was stiff and even more sore… HELLO muscles I didn’t even know existed. And hello heat pack. It’s really not that bad I can function but I can indeed feel that I did something and did it right :o)  I am so glad I did this cause now I have found a good easy one that I can manage even on busy days (not crazy days but the busy ones there is a difference) and I am now motivated to get back to doing these every day I can. I was putting off doing my dvds cause I was afraid that I was so out of shape I would be dying half way thru and hate it.  The picture below is the workout I did   

SO my tip for today is www.thefirmdirect.com  You can find older  dvds (and the new ones) by them on ebay (search the firm workout ) and clips to see if you’d like a specific one on youtube. Also if you want to know what a specific one involves and if you’d like it email me I can probably tell you :o)   They promise visible results in 10 workouts and they deliver if you do them right. I remember my mom saying when she started their older series when I was younger “Yeah you get  results in 10 workouts, you can’t walk .”  These things really work I LOVE them they are my favorite workout ever and I swear by them so to speak.  I may highlight the contents of my favorites in later tips.

“The skinny” for today is

I worked out again so I’ll probably be REALLY feeling it tomorrow

And my daily total in calories is … 1796

Peace

Steph

I had no idea that the diet would be easier than I expected and the blogging every day part would be the hardest.  I have always had so much trouble losing anything after any of my pregnancies. ( part of why I am so heavy at this point) This time it all just seems to be coming together for me and I am so grateful ! The blogging every day I thought would be so easy but life has been so CRAZY !!

So todays tip is the other half of my food schedule…

I now sit down in the morning (or the night before) and plan out my meals for the day. If i do this I know how many calories I’ll consume that day.  This way I don’t come up short in 2 ways both of which are bad.

At first I would get to the end of the day and go to total up what I ate for my blog and I would come up several hundred calories short which might be ok if I was full all day and not starving myself but not right now. Since I’m breastfeeding I really need to meet my quota. Then I realized that was no good so I’d come to the late afternoon total up what I had eaten so far, come up short and eat til I met my quota. Also not good. Even though I stayed within my limits that many calories all at once or squished close together most of them get stored as fat because you can’t burn them all that fast. Also it was the END of the day so I’m getting ready to climb in bed and yup you guessed it store calories instead of burning them cause I’m sleeping so I’m not using much energy.

If I get into the day and decide I don’t want what I had planned I just look for a substitute that does sound good at the moment with a very similar calorie content. That way I don’t have to refigure my whole day but I’m not stuck to what I wrote on my menu.

Okay not a whole lot to say here again… I have noticed again that I’m starting miss a few things. We do “family movie night” on the weekend though so I’ve decided that if I’ve stuck to my calories thru the week and exercised (formal exercise) at least twice I will let myself choose one small thing I miss as my movie night treat. Then I will also have to exercise self control and portion control while I eat it. I think giving myself this “treat” now that I’m well established in my GOOD eating habits will keep me from giving up or giving in to often. :o)

So here’s “the skinny” for today

Couldn’t begin to tell you exactly what I ate since I am playing catch up here but I’ve been writing down my daily totals.

My daily total is                 1805

Peace

Steph