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!