A little hard to keep motivated

There always comes a point where things in life tend to take over the time and mind of a person. Right now that is happening to me. Life is getting complicated and I am having a hard time keeping my mind in the zone I need it to be in for weight loss. I did walk this week, but am trying to get to it today and I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I need to do it.
I am pretty sure I will, but I have so many other things that need to get done today also.
Ok, no more writing, I'm going to work out right now!
See ya!

Same weight this week

I appear to not have moved on the scale. I actually think I may not have eaten enough this week.
I worked out a lot, mostly five miles each day and ate under 1300 calories every day. But I also upped my weight lifting so that may account for the no change. But maybe I'll have a bigger number next week to make up for this week.
Birthday party today for Scarlett! She's turning five on Monday, but we had the party today since tomorrow is Easter and Monday is a school day.
Faith and Ben came for the birthday.
We had a nice time. I am not feeling too good right now, belly troubles. I think it's because I ate birthday cake, and I haven't had anything like that for a good month and a half.
So, anyway, that's all for now!
Until next time!

Another three pounds bite the dust

Fantastic news on the weight loss front. Three pounds gone. They will not be missed.
Been crazy and busy here with Josh working eight days in a row with no day off. And now it's great because I am about to go into my sewing room and get working. It's just been a while since my last post so I thought I'd better get on it!
Total weight loss to date is 18 lbs.
I am very proud of that. And I have been working very hard. Although I could probably do more working out. But I don't think I'd better push it, I don't want to burn myself out. I already do one hour a day. But I may try to add in more dancing or something extra. Also it will be easier to get in extra activity for myself and the kids once the weather improves and we can take trips to Fort Stevens and do the lake and some hikes and walking on the beach. Those are always fun things to do.
Also I am thinking once we have a good job that it would be nice to find out how I can get Hannah signed up to learn horse back riding. I think she would be amazing at it. I just don't know if there is something if you don't actually own a horse. Because I know we aren't going there, Horses are crazy expensive to keep.

Here is a recent photo!

Five pounds...wa wa wa what?

Yep! I lost five pounds last week. At least that's what the scale is telling me.
I'm still walking every day and eating well. So I think the walking is becoming a habit now. Which makes life easier.
Still getting about a sale a day on my Etsy shop. While that is good, it's a lot slower than it used to be.
But part of me just thinks it's the time of year. I just wish the Christmas stuff could be more spread out, because last christmas killed me! I am not sure what I will do this time around. Maybe just offer a ton of new items as is, no modifications and then I can just mail them out as I have them. But I'm not sure how much surplus I can get made by then.
I was contemplating slowing down the shop yesterday, thinking I spend way too much time on it and perhaps I should focus more on the kids.  But then all three will be in full time, all day school starting in September.
Well it's a lot of things to think about.
I have decided that I am going to let my hair grow out again, while I like it short for the most part, I hate waking up with my hair being completely insane and the only way to make it look presentable is to shower, because brushing it doesn't cut it. And when it's longer you can brush it or put it in a ponytail and then immediately you are presentable.
Friday begins Spring Break for the kids, and Josh's school too. All next week I will have to figure out what to do with all my munchkins, say a long prayer to whoever you pray to that we will have decent, and by decent I mean not rainy, weather for at least some of the week next week. It might be nice to get some yard work done. Maybe Spring will actually arrive sometime soon.
It's rained everyday for the past two months pretty much and I'm frankly just about at my wits end with it all. I told Josh yesterday I wouldn't mind moving to North Carolina, or Arizona or somewhere where it doesn't rain all day every day for months. The poor kids, there are months where they can do nothing outside! SUCKS!!!!
I think I've got a bad case of PMS and a weather related mood disorder.

Lost another 2 pounds

Yippee! Down a total of 11 pounds since starting last month. Good on me!
I walked today for a little over an hour, did four miles. I have been used to getting five miles walked each day, so today was a little shorter.
I have lots of work to do and I have to take care of the kids while Josh is at work. He's gone a lot lately.
Been working tons of shifts at the hospital. So it's kind of sucky to not see him that much.
Anyway, good news about the loss, I'll take it!

Love this pic!! Want to do this with Josh! :)

Lost another pound

Since last week, I lost one pound. That doesn't sound like much, but it is a loss at least. I have walked every day since coming back from my trip to Italy. That's about a month now of every day walking. And the calories have been under for the last week what I should be eating. So I am probably just needing to actually eat more calories. Although it seems counter intuitive to do that.
Last night we got a couple of pizza's from Papa Murphy's the take and bake kind. For me I got a d-lite veggie pizza and it was soooo good. Plus I was really hungry!
I have a bit of leftovers of that also. I think I may have it again tonight for dinner.

Been working hard with the shop this week, lots of orders and a new Liberty of London fabric that a customer from Japan requested that I get so she could have a wallet made from it. So I made it and she ordered it and also another wallet for her friend. So that was a great sale! And I get to have another Liberty of London wallet in the shop!

Kids are all doing well. I'm trying to make healthy eating a thing in the house that we pick all the time. Especially getting the kids to choose healthy, which they usually always do. They love fruit and we try to keep a lot of it around. Also broccoli is a good one with the kids, they always eat that too.
I just need to figure out what to cook for dinners, I always have a hard time with this!
I am not so good at planning out meals.  

That's something to strive to get better at.

So just to sum up, since I got home from Italy I have lost 9 pounds. And it's been one month.
So that's a pretty good number for one month! I'd take that every month!

Here's a photo of five pounds and one pound of fat, I lost almost two of those big ones! Yuck!

Snow day?!

Today was a bit icy so the school's were cancelled. The kids were home all day and it was a good day overall. I got my hour and twenty minutes of walking in. I walked five miles. And then I did a few weights for the upper body. Then I also got a few orders today for wallets so I worked on those the rest of the day. Got about three completely sewn and the rest cut out and interfaced for working on tomorrow.

Josh has to work every Fri, Sat and Sun for the entire month of March, the 2:30 to 11:00 shift. Which sucks, but that's the only shift they really give him. I guess the day shifts are always taken. But it looks like there is hope that he may get to work in the ER for his internship part and then possibly that can turn into full time once he gets the RN degree/license.
I hope he is able to get days and not nights some time in the future.  I just miss him when he's gone. Night time is the best time to hang out without the kids and watch movies, etc.
So it sucks that he's gone all weekend essentially.

Ok, enough complaining! I did really well on eating today and for dinner had a protein shake we made with frozen bananas, protein powder, vanilla yogurt, skim milk and a  little reduced fat peanut butter. It was really good. And I'm not hungry which is the plus of the protein!

Off to bed! Will walk and eat good tomorrow, and every other day for the rest of my life!

Great workout

Today and yesterday were both great workout days. I walked for 85 minutes both days and tried to up my speed. I did most of the time at 3.5-3.7. So pretty good pace there.
Eating is great too, very good choices and no going over calories at all.
I am feeling pretty good about myself now. Definitely an improvement over how I felt before I made the changes.

I am thinking of doing stickk.com, which is where you set up a commitment for yourself, with a monetary commitment to any person or institution that you please. I was thinking it would be pretty motivational to try and Josh suggested that I make the money go to the Republican national committee and I agreed that that was the perfect thing because there isn't any other person or group that would motivate me more to not give my money to than the Republican party. So if I were to not meet my commitment then the money would go to them, if I do good and make it through to the end I keep the money.
I have to say I think I may do it. I just have to figure out the particulars of it though.

I have several wallets to make and some new fabric to get wallets made from! I have to figure out the particulars of when I am going to do this!
I have a new focus and that is my health and I have made that a priority, which means I will not be sewing from dawn until dusk. I have to figure out a happy compromise between work and life.

Ok, that's all for now! Bye!

This is a photo of me and my friend Holly from high school  about 1994. 17 years ago.
omg, 17 years ago. That's insane!

Monday, Monday

Today has been great. I did an hour and twenty minutes on the treadmill. Did a higher speed and a few jogs in there too.  I would like to work up to more running/jogging.
I watched a couple of different things today, one about diabetes/prediabetes, etc. It was very interesting to learn about. And then I also watched some of another show from Frontline about obesity in America.
I like learning a bit about nutrition while I exercise. I am really happy that I am working out and plan to keep going for the rest of my life. I have made a choice that I just don't want to be overweight and out of breath anymore. I also want to fit into cute clothes and be more active and able to do things with ease.

I want to travel and not feel tired half way through the day. It really limits you and makes life much less fulfilling. I just can't see that there is any downside to losing weight and being healthy. My only regret is not starting sooner. But I can't beat myself up about that. I have to just go from here and improve and become a better person and make the good and right choices for health. I don't want to die at 49 like my mom did from not exercising and being overweight.

I guess you could say that I've made the decision to live and not to die young. I want to live into old age and be a healthy older person. I don't want to have diabetes and have to have limbs removed because I ate whatever I wanted and didn't exercise. 

Today for lunch I had leftovers of a chili I made the other day. I took a photo of it. It was made with turkey that was 99% fat free and pineapple, salsa, tomato sauce, kidney beans.
It's very good. I also had some pop chips and 2% cottage cheese.

Lost four pounds

Finally I have a title for my blog post and it's one I am proud of!  I have lost four pounds! Wow, great huh? I am not sure why I am so obsessed with the scale. I know I have been losing because I feel a difference. I really am so proud of myself for walking every day. Even with my time of month, when usually I avoid everything! So there's the good news for eating right and exercising.

Today was a busy day. We went as a family to get subs at Subway and took them to the Port of Play, a big play gym and the kids ran around like crazy and Josh and I even got some fun games in with them.
So I had a turkey sub, with no cheese, added spinach and tomatoes, pickles, olives, mustard and vinegar. It was very good. We all had the baked lay chips. So all in all for fast food, not bad. My meal was under 300 calories. And I had water as usual.
Then we did a little more Xbox dancing and I tried a little of a yoga workout. But not much of it. Maybe I'll try more of it another day.

Tomorrow there is a Head Start Home Visit, which will annoy me, take up an hour of my day, sometimes more than an hour and I don't even see the point really. It's seriously a waste of my time.
Oh well, you gotta do it to have your child in Head start.

But I intend to walk for an hour and  a half tomorrow.  I also need to start working in some weight lifting as well to build up my muscles.
I have some small weights and Josh has some bigger weights downstairs.

I have realized something important today. You cannot rely on anybody else to be proud of you, you have to just be proud of yourself. And you can't rely on anybody else to be there for you when you need them. I hate to admit that, and when the person you should be able to rely on the most isn't really there for you when they are needed it is a very sad thing. I wish it weren't true and if my mom were alive today I'd have the person I need. The sad part is that these people are always around to tell you what you are doing wrong but not to praise you and encourage you when are doing right.
My sister is very good at encouragement but she doesn't live here and is always very busy.
I just need someone to talk to who gives a shit. That's what I'm getting at.
Or just realize that it's a one person battle and you are the only person who is going to give a shit! :)
To put it bluntly.
Ok, that's my rant for the day. You have to encourage yourself and motivate yourself and be proud of yourself. If you wait for others to do it you will wait forever.

February 25, 2012

Today has been an amazing Saturday! I walked for an hour and twenty minutes, watched a documentary about Obesity and another about healthy living, including raw foods and vitamins. It is really great to workout and learn all about healthy living at the same time. Then later on the kids had a dance competition using "Just Dance" on the Xbox. It was great! A good way to be active even when the weather outside makes activity outdoors difficult. I plan to try to do it much more often than I have. Now we are watching Grimm on Hulu in bed. We are eating low fat popcorn. For dinner I made turkey chili with pineapple. It was good and rather interesting. I think I prefer chili without pineapple. But it is good to try new things. I also bought Vitamin D gummies for the kids. This way they are getting what they need for Vitamin D. I also bought some natural vitamins for help with sleep. I am going to give it a try. I also got more Vitamin C chewables which I had and gave the kids some as well. I am trying to learn more about vitamins and all natural remedies for health.

February 23, 2012

Figuring that coming up with a title every day that I post might get a tad tiresome, so I've decided to just write the date as a title when I can't think of a better one!
Today I did 85 minutes on the treadmill, the entire time at 3.5. Which is relatively fast for me!
It went very well. I watched the rest of the documentary about Roman ship wrecks, and then began the documentary about Bill Cunningham, the photographer who does the New York Times Fashion on the street page. It is very interesting! He is a unique guy for sure, check it out if you get a chance.
I had some pretty awesome cereal this morning, from Special K, the cinnamon and pecans. It's actually kept me from being too hungry today as well. I haven't eaten a lot today, but did have a Starbucks Mocha. Which I can drink all day pretty much, so it's good for me. Just re-heat repeatedly.
Made one wallet today. Not much progress done on that front. Scarlett was sick, coughing all last night and then was so tired today and fell asleep while we were out running errands. I came home and put her to bed, where she stayed for a couple of hours. And now she seems to be much better. I hope it lasts!
I need to try to remember to take pictures to post on this blog but keep forgetting.
Ok here is one that features things that are making me happy today!
My Entertainment Weekly came in the mail and my Starbucks Mocha.

Getting exercise done first thing

Probably one of the best things I can do for myself is to get my workout done in the morning. This sets the mood for the entire day and makes it much more likely that I will make good food choices for the rest of the day! I know I hate to spoil the entire workout by eating crappy.

I walked for a little over an hour. Which is totally awesome! I only wish we would have gotten a working treadmill sooner. I say a working one, because we had one for a long time that never worked! I just say a daily prayer that this one stays working for a very very long time!  We got it at Costco and it was so heavy and difficult to maneuver down the stairs. 

Having it in the house really makes committing to exercise a whole lot easier! Today I watched a very interesting documentary about Pompeii, and then one on ancient Roman shipwrecks where they went down and salvaged some very cool old vessel that would have carried wine. Very interesting.
I like learning something new every day. Expand the mind while improving the body!

I have several new orders to get made for the shop, which is always good news.
Even when I don't want to have work of course I know it's very good that I have it to do.
I also need to get going on planning to get more made and ready for the this year's holiday season. It will be very nice to already have a supply going of already made wallets. Nothing feels better than getting an order for a wallet you've already made! I love that feeling.

Another thing I've decided to try to do is to not weigh myself that often. I think I just tend to get overly discouraged when I am doing everything right and the weight on the scale isn't moving. So maybe just weighing myself once a month would be a better alternative for me? Hmmm, something to think about.

Ok and I will end with a photo from Rome when I went with Becki at the end of January.

Yesterday was a hungry day

So I am sort of feeling like there are going to be days where I am hungrier than others. I think a lot of yesterday's hunger had to do with the way I started the day. Yesterday I had a instant oatmeal for breakfast and then had hunger pangs most of the day, despite eating all the other meals the same as prior days. So today, I started the day with eggs, as I was doing prior to yesterday and it has been a different feeling day completely. I am not as hungry at all. I think I will stick with a protein at breakfast, in some form or another. I walked for about an hour today. I made the mistake of taking off my bandaids too soon from my blisters, and then reapplied new ones, but I must have pulled on one too much and the whole walk was a bit on the torturous side! I am hoping by tomorrow's walk my foot will feel much better. So I thought I would mention one of the things that motivates me to walk each day. A way I find that works well for me is to use the IPad, which hooks up through the MP3 port on my treadmill and I watch t.v. shows, movies, what have you. Recently I have been on a big documentary kick, so I find having something interesting to watch really helps me to be able to stay on the treadmill for much longer than I would be able to otherwise. My sister mentioned something a few days ago, about maybe a trip to England next year! I really hope that it happens. We had such a great time on our trip to Italy that I really look forward to another travel adventure. And this time I refuse to be overweight and out of shape for it! It will be tough to plan for it now, not knowing about Josh's potential future work schedules. But at least I know that by this time next year all of the kids will be in school! Although Isaac, my oldest, 8 year old has been begging to be homeschooled, he doesn't like how the teacher goes over things that he already knows and he hates traveling to and from school. Which in his defense does take a really long time. But I have been putting him off, I just am relishing the idea of having an empty house for once! Can you blame me? It's been 8 plus years of always having a child at home. I don't think I can hardly remember what it is to spend the entire day at my home alone! :) Oh the freedom of it! Other things on my mind lately have been motivation and all those factors. I recently read on another blog, by an amazing woman who has lost a lot of weight and did it in a very healthy way, her name is katie, and her blog is, Runs for Cookies, well she had this post about the difference between Motivation and Determination. It was such a great post and really made me think about how I am feeling mentally this time. She says that for her motivation can come and go but determination is what sticks with her day in and day out. And that having the determination to change never left her throughout her entire time losing weight. I think that this is a very good point. I think that there is a large mental component to weight loss and finding that state of mind where you are absolutely determined to get to your goal is the key to getting there. I know that there have been many times in the past where I was feeling motivated to do something but lacked the determination to get it done. Now I think I am there and this blog is going to help me. And all I have to do is remember my recent trip to italy with my sister, and remember the times I felt so tired and sore, and wanted to stop. I will not be that way anymore! I am determined to change and become and more active person! And here is a motivation picture, of a dress I'd like to wear some day!

Post Party notes

Hannah had her seventh birthday party yesterday and it was great! Lots of friends and fun. I can safely say I didn't eat any cake or ice cream and not because I was saying no to myself, I just didn't want any, which is very strange for me.
I've been walking every day. I walked for 85 minutes today. I need to start planning the meals for the week, which is something I haven't ever really been good at, but really need to work on!
Got an awesome gift from my sister, Becki it is a wonderful photo book from Shutterfly all about our trip to Italy. Such great photos and such a great time! I am really looking forward to our next adventure together. She was so amazing and made the trip so much fun! Never would have been the same without her!
We had amazing meals and saw amazing things! I also am using that trip as the jumping off point for this weight loss and life change. I just realized that I was so slowed down and in a lot of pain because of my overweight body and I have decided that I don't deserve to continue living that way! I deserve a better life and that's what I am going to give myself.
I have about four orders to get going on here for my Etsy shop. So it's going to be a busy day plus tomorrow there is no school, so all the kids will be here, all day! :) Fun times!
Going to post a motivational picture I found today,

Shopping

Probably one of my favorite things in the world is to shop for clothes. Only most of the time there isn't much that looks good at my current size.
Today I went out to buy a couple of things to work out in. I got some tummy control yoga pants from Costco, which while pretty tight, do give some nice sense of having it all sucked in, which is a change from my normal pants.
Also went to Fred Meyer and got a few tops to wear to work out in. I needed some.
So we will see how they work out.
I already walked this morning on the treadmill for 55 minutes. And then later on in the day I did another 55 minutes. My blisters weren't happy but I walked through it.
I do need to get to work on some of my shop orders! I am getting rather behind on them at the moment. I have Scarlett home with me all day and we had to do shopping for Hannah's Birthday party which is tomorrow. We got a cake and a veggie plate, also some little smokies and croissant roles to wrap them in, those are good finger foods that all kids seem to like.
Snacking on cottage cheese and pop chips. Those things are the bomb!
I'm going to post a photo from 2008 when I had lost that forty pounds, as motivation!

Beginning a blog on weight loss

So here it goes, I have been reading and reading all kinds of blogs and wonderful weight loss success stories. I thought I might join the others who have used blogging to help them achieve their weight loss goals. I promise to be very open and am really just doing this for myself to help me with my goals and to document all that I am doing to affect change in my life.
A little bit about me. I am a 34 year old mother of three children, ages, 8, 7 and 4. I have been overweight for much of my post-pubescent life, literally from the time I "became" a woman, until now, I have struggled with my weight. There have been many times in the past where I have done very well to lose weight and just as many times where I have given up. When I was in college I managed to actually lose the freshman 15, rather than gain it. I worked out all of the time, walked to classes and made an effort to be involved in recreational sports. But then I graduated and began a sedentary job as a secretary and then my mother died, which again prompted me to eat emotionally and lose all control of myself. I gained a lot of weight. Then I went through a few gym joining phases where I would work out for a time and then lose my way. I got married, and then quickly had three children from 2003-2007. A year or so after the last child was born I tried very hard and was able to lose about forty pounds. But stopped short of reaching my ultimate goal. This time I intend to reach my goal and hope that by putting everything down in this blog that I will be extra motivated to keep going, even when the going gets rough!
I know I can go for three months, I have done that before, but I really need to remain consistent and keep going and reach my goal.
So here we go, the stats, the information most will be interested in and is terribly embarrassing to admit to.
My weight: 230, there it is. Wow, that's crazy to write and I am very embarrassed by getting back to this weight again.
But that's why I am here, to get rid of it.
My height: 5'6"
My goal is to reach 150 lbs. I will do this by losing 1-1/2 pounds a week until I reach my goal, which should be March of 2013. So I am intending to go slow and do it the right way with improved eating habits and exercise.
For exercise, I have been walking on a treadmill everyday. I have been walking for about a week now. I walked today for about an hour and a half at a speed of 3.3.
Here is a beginning photo of me, one of my girls took it today, it's very unflattering, but that's the point I suppose!