Sorry folks

Please accept my apologies for not posting this Tuesday.......I'll get my life in order....EVENTUALLY! :-)

178....that was this morning's weigh in! One more pound kicked to the curb. I'm doing my best to make good food choices whether eating out or not.

THANK YOU for those of you that responded to my question about eating out! I was very curious how others handle eating out. Ultimately, in our household, we eat out for two reasons:

1. It's convenient
2. My husband LOOOOOOOOOOOOVES good food. (Honestly, it doesn't take much to talk me in to going out to eat :-)

Breakfast and lunch, in our house is almost ALWAYS eaten at home. Only on very seldom occasions do we eat breakfast or lunch while we are out. When I say "we", that's really just the kids and I because my husband is at work during the day.

So, dinner is left. I would say my husband picks up dinner on his way home from work probably once a week, then Sunday after church is always a given. My husband eats out with some friends every Thursday evening, but that's just him. I eat out pretty often on Wed. evenings because I go scrapbook w/ a friend. Gosh, as you can see, we eat out a lot. Again, it's all about convenience.

I'm with Lady T in saying that it's always cheaper and almost always healthier to eat at home.

Here's to eating healthier WHILE at home!!! :-)

Now I'm only OVER WEIGHT!!

I wish I could come up with some creative titles for my posts..........some of you out there are very good at it!

The past week and a half or so has been a little rough as far as the eating goes. I will begin first by saying on Tuesday morning, (my new weigh-in day) I was at 179!! So, now I am officially a "70's" girl. I guess that would be a "170's" girl but hey, it gets the point across :-) This puts me as "OVER WEIGHT" on the BMI scale, as opposed to OBESE, so that's a VERY good thing!

Now, back to my rough week. I guess saying it was "rough" is a little over stated, but I will say it has been a little harder to make the "RIGHT" choices. We have a Carrabbas restaurant near us.....which is just terrible because they have INCREDIBLE Italian cuisine. I literally could eat an entire loaf of bread with their oil and special mixes of herbs and spices. Holy cow it's good! MOST of the time I get salmon or chicken, which is ALWAYS wonderful, but you know....when you go out to eat sometimes, you just want a big, fat juicy piece of RED meat! We went out to eat after church this past Sunday and I got a steak.........it was fixed PERFECTLY. I ate about 8-10 bites and figured that was PLENTY, and gave the rest to my husband. MY GOODNESS every bite was heavenly. I am STILL waiting for my taste buds to LOVE the healthy stuff more than STEAK and ICE CREAM and FUDGE and OOEY GOOEY BROWNIES! haha You get my point. :-) I really don't think that will ever happen, but I can wish for it, right?!?!

Here's a question for all of you......how many times, on average, do you eat out (or order out) in a 7 day period? I KNOW that times have changed because when I was little, we ONLY ate out on Sunday afternoons, after church, and THAT, in itself, was a VERY special treat. We only did that probably once a month.

I am VERY interested in what you used to do when you were growing up, AND, what you do now, so please post and let me know!

Two Points

Point One

I need to create a consistent weigh in for my weight loss blog. Unconsciously I have been posting only when there's a loss! HA! I see how some of you are so regimented with your weigh-in's I guess I should join that band-wagon too.

I think I'll put it on TUESDAY since I began my weight loss journey on Tuesday, May 8, 2007.


Point Two

As I was walking our dog last night, I realized something....TWO somethings really. The first thing I noticed is that my shorts don't ride up when I walk like they used to. Something that has ALWAYS annoyed the BAJEEBEEZ out of me. It's not completely gone, but almost! This is something I never thought about! Ahhhh....an added incentive in loosing weight.......no wedgies! haa

And the second thing I noticed was that my arms don't hit the fat around my arm pits. Follow me here........really, it's the fat just below my armpit and toward my back. This is something that has annoyed me FOREVER, and actually, it was the first sign, back when weight started creeping on, that I noticed! Wearing good bras or sport bras never helped either. So, I guess I just had to get rid of it. It's not completely gone, but almost! To the point I can tell a big difference!

Kicked Another one.......

I was able to drop another pound today! The scale just smiled at me and said, "180".

I have been CRAVING salad over the past few months. It's crazy........I bet I could eat a salad everyday. AND, I'm in a BLUE CHEESE mode. If I eat a salad, it has blue cheese. Crumbled Danish Blue Cheese to be exact. A year ago I would have told you, "GROSS!! You like blue cheese?"

On a random note, for those of you who might be looking for something different to add to your plate at night, try this. I went by the deli in our grocery store and had two pieces of seasoned turkey cut (1 inch think for each piece). I took it home, plopped it in the frying pan, added a little bit of Splenda brown sugar and a little bit of water and voila! It was very good. We threw some veggies on the side and dinner was served! Definitely not a gourmet meal, but it was REALLY good :-) Even our one year old enjoyed the corn on the cob.


Not a whole lot to report. The school year is coming back around again and I love it. Ever since I was a little kid I have loved the beginning of school because it meant new clothes, new school supplies, organizing (yes, I think I'm a tad OCD), and pretty much everything starting anew. Being a teacher, I was the same way, it was just on the other side of the coin. I LOVED it. Now, I am staying home with the kids and my husband teaches, so I get to see him go through all of this, however, he doesn't find the "new" thing as exciting :)

Our almost 4 year old son begins preschool. We had visitation day today and it was wonderful. Rumor has it that this preschool is one of the best preschools and so far it hits the mark. I am very excited for him, and in turn, he reflects the excitement back at me. His first day is Monday. OH HOW FAST THEY GROW UP!!!

Food with a PUNCH

OK, I totally stole this from a SparkPeople email, but I thought it might help my fellow weight loss buddies!

It's a small list of food that packs a punch...

GRAINS:

• whole wheat cereal
• oatmeal
• whole wheat bread, pita, bagel, pasta
• brown rice
• deli rye
• pure bran muffins
• cream of wheat
• raisin bread

FRUITS/VEGGIES:

• oranges
• berries (especially blueberries)
• cantaloupe
• watermelon
• apples
• avocado
• chili peppers
• spinach
• sweet potatoes

DAIRY/PROTEIN:

• low fat or skim milk
• low fat yogurt
• salmon
• tuna
• chicken
• almonds
• peanuts
• walnuts/hazelnuts
• beans
• eggs

My Belly

Nothing like getting straight to the point, eh? :-)

I am getting a little aggravated with one thing but before I tell you more about it let me say I am VERY happy with how things are going with my weight loss. I am not a pessimist by any stretch of the imagination and my weight loss is no different. I know it's pretty simple math---calories in vs. calories out and I'm very conscious of everything that goes in my body. Anyway, with that being said, I'm going to complain about something today.

As I have already said, MY BELLY.

My belly annoys me. A LOT. I'm not sure if it's because I gained a lot of weight while pregnant with my first child, which maybe stretched out my entire stomach or what. I had another child over a year ago and REALLY watched everything about that pregnancy (weight gain). I did a great job but I'm thinking maybe I stretched things really far out of whack?

Here's the scary details....for those of you that know me personally.......you might want to stop reading here because it might be too much information to look me in the eye again :-) haha

My belly has a little "hanging" going on and I contributed it to my pregnancies, however, I read on Pasta Queen's blog that she did the pencil test. (Let me say here that, yes, I did the pencil test and it fell to the floor :-) I don't believe Pasta Queen has children, so maybe my belly "hanging" isn't from pregnancies. In support of this, I see women all the time that have had children and their bellies look flat and don't have "hanging" going on (J, you are a perfect example). I'm guessing that when I lose all of my weight, most of my belly hanging will go away!?!? I also know from TONS of reading that you cannot pinpoint weight loss, meaning you cannot do sit ups for it to help lose belly hanging. All the fat has to go away first, which is what I am losing. I just hope it takes the belly along with it.

Part two of this is clothing. My butt and hips are comfortably in a size 14, however, my stomach is in an 18. I have a pair of Spanx which does help "put things in place" but it's weird how my body works. It's like this.....I'll put the Spanx on and the fat is pushed up over the top.....like an over filled muffin tin!!! HA!!! I like muffins and all.....but I don't like LOOKING like one

So, my weight loss continues. I hope to get rid of my "muffin" soon :-)

Funny Story

Shopping today:

My son: "Can we get some candy?"

Mom: "Son, that's the LAST thing we need to do right now."

My son: completely silent....

30 minutes later, as we were leaving...

My son: "Mom, can we go get our candy now?

Mom: "Honey, I told you we weren't getting any candy."

My son: "No you didn't. You said it would be the last thing we would do."

The big 2-0!!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen..........I have reached a loss of 20 pounds this morning! I did the victory dance :-) I think my son will sum up my mood....



I guess I really need to set some goals and put them in writing. I didn't have a "set" goal but for some reason when I hit a 20 lbs mark, I feel incredible!! It is 1/3 of my total weight loss goal, which is wonderful! It's also a solid number....it's even...it ends in zero....it's all around a good number :-)

I keep telling myself, I know I could loose more weight if I exercised a LOT. I just don't have the desire to do it. I HATE exercising to be honest. HATE HATE HATE it. Before I got pregnant with our second child I was going to the YMCA about 3 times a week and really trying hard. I hated it. Everyone says, "find something you LIKE to do!" Ok, how about scrapbooking? I like that!?!? However, that doesn't make you loose weight.

Anyway, WAAHOO for me today!

This morning when I woke up, I felt good before my feet even hit the ground. I love days like these....when everything falls into place :-) Though I must admit that it's only 8:43am so there's a lot of day ahead! ha! I will say that I am one lucky person and I don't say it often enough. I have two incredible children and an awesome husband. He works so incredibly hard for me to be able to stay home with our children, and yet, tries very hard to find time to make "special" for all of us.

See, I told you I woke up in a good mood this morning :-)

Happy August 1st to you!