Christmas weigh-in

So, as usual these holidays have been filled with all the things that are bad for us. But luckily we got a Wii for Christmas! Who knew Nintindo could prevent weight gain?! Instead of death by chocolate, I've been "training" on Wii Sports! Boxing, baseball, tennis, bowling, and golf. Instead of gaining weight I've broken even! Oh, and solved 5 CSI cases! I suggest we all get Wii's!

Pilates!

Pilates just works for me. Everyone has certain types of workouts that are more effective for their bodies than others... pilates is that for me. Sandie and I just started them last week and I feel so... GOOD! Every time I do them, I think why don't I do this more often? So I am making it my goal to do pilates at least twice a week. Hopefully it will shake things up a bit because I seem to have hit a bit of a plateau... which is lame, because at this rate there is no chance of me being at my pre-pregnancy weight by Matthew's birthday! So wish me luck!

Guilt Free

Here is one of my friends opinions on Guilt-Free Chocolate Cake. Mmmm.

Go Ahead and Laugh

I have just accomplished something huge. I can now fit into my old "Fat" clothes! Yay, I feel so skinnier!

I walked the 5K today and I reached my goal! I thought I could do the race in 1 hr, and I did it in about 49 minutes. I was much more prepared than I thought I would be, so my next goal is to run a 5 K, I haven't come up with a deadline on that one, though. I also didn't want to finish last, and I finished 621 out of 740, and 251 out of 288 for my age group. So, I met my goals, but I definitely have room to improve.

HOORAY!!!

Goal #1 met, minus 1 pound! SOOOO excited, now onto goal # 2... which is about 33 pounds away, but whatever... I will not dwell on that right now, so happy!

You know you need to lose weight if...

if someone sees a picture of you thats a few years old and says "wow I wouldn't have known that was you!"

Here is the picture:


Depressing, to say the leaste...I forget sometimes that I don't look like that anymore, but I'm always reminded when a new picture is taken of me. This is the reason I have avoided having my picture taken at all cost. The few pictures that have been taken, I wish to be deleted! The sad thing is, this means I really don't have many pictures of Matthew and I. I don't like the idea of not having any pictures with my baby boy in the first year of his life! I mean, he is 8 1/2 months old which means we are not so very far from a year.

But the good news is, I've lost 4 more pounds since I last posted! Sandie and I finished our Chalean Extreme program and we've moved on to tennis and running! We started the "couch to 5k" running program. SO HARD, at leaste on my ankles and calves! But I'm really enjoying it, my asthma is really bad so this is a good thing, I WILL work through my asthma!

On another note - I have 3 weight loss goals. #1 is to be XXX (I'd rather not mention!) #2 is to be back at my pre pregnancy weight, and #3 is to be back at the weight I was when I got married (really crossing my fingers on that one) - so the good news is, I am 1 pound away from my first goal! SOOOO excited about that! Anyway, just thought I'd share my good news!

I'm finaly doing something after having a baby!

So, I just set a goal for myself, it may seem small, but its only been 5 months since I had a baby! I just signed up for a 5K, I'm going to be walking it. Its on August 22, and I'm doing it with a friend so that I don't give up on it :). And in order to accomplish that goal I'm going to walk for at least 30 minutes 5 days a week for this first week and then gradually increase that until I'm able to keep up a decent pace for 3.2 miles (I thing that is how long it is). I don't intend to win, just not be dead last, but its something more than I was doing! And now that I've told you all about it then I have to follow through!

Lunch

Does anybody have some good solutions for lunch at work? It is my least desired meal of the day, but in my opinion more important than breakfast. If I don't eat breakfast I will still wait for lunch. But if I don't eat lunch I will binge as soon as I can get my hands on food! The problem is that I can never seem to find anything appetizing for lunch, that's also healthy. So I'm looking for some suggestions beyond sandwiches from home, and left over dinners (because let's face it, I just ate it a few hours ago, I'm not interested in eating it again!).

Clearly We Need to Stick Together

This is a follow up to Melanie's last post. I just got home from a big camping trip, so I just discovered this blog! Melanie and I have been working out to the Chalene workouts together and we are in the second week of the final month this week. Well since I was camping Thursday (last week) through this morning (Monday) that means that I wasn't around to work out with Melanie, not there to support her...and nobody was there to encourage me either! It just goes to show that support and encouragement go a long way, and when the structures are removed it's just that much easier to give in to temptation.

I include myself in those statements of course. I decided I would skip all of the work outs since there wasn't any real good way to do them camping. I wasn't exactly going to hook the lap top up to the power inverter and work out in the tent or by the picnic table or anything! But I did tell myself that I could do other things to stay active. And it sort of worked out. I took the dog out for walks on the beach in the morning, I played a little football with Elliott, we went on the Hall of Mosses hike, and we took lots of walks with the dog around the campground. BUT..... I also ate toasted marshmallows, I drank lots of sodas and juices, I ate junk food, and even had breakfasts such as beacon and eggs and pancakes, etc... so over all....it was a TERRIBLE weekend! I even tortured myself and gave in to cravings and had an ice cream cone on the way home on the ferry today!!! I'm not even supposed to be eating dairy, so I paid for it dearly within half an hour...but bad bad bad with the self control!

We are going camping again this next weekend, and Jonathon promised to let me have more control over the menu to make sure that we eat healthier because this weekend was just embarrassing!

Tomorrow at work, I will know the damage when I use the fancy digital scale....Melanie, expect to hear from me with tears!

Monday Confession

Ok my confession is... last week I was lazy and missed half my workouts. I'm currently doing the Chalene Extreme program (I blogged about the program on my other blog I started: click here to check it out) and it has you working out every day but Sunday and Tuesday. So I did my Monday and Wednesday workouts...and then nothing. I was completely lazy the rest of the week! In my head I keep thinking about how much I want to lose weight but for some reason I couldn't get off my lazy butt and actually DO anything about it. On the plus side I was ok with my eating so I suppose I didn't gain any weight... but still. At this rate it will take me years to lose it all. I did go swimming yesterday so I suppose that's something, but half the time I was holding Matthew, so again...not too helpful.

So my goal is this: my sister Merry is coming into town on the 18th of July and us 4 sisters are going to go out for the day. My goal is to be able to wear my old Express jeans that day! They are actually my old fat jeans... now they are my jeans I so wish I could wear. I've been occasionally trying them on too see how close I'm getting, and this weekend I could pull them on AND button them! Unfortunately my stomach is so squidgy from having a baby that when I button them, I have a serious "muffin top" going on ... so not really ready to wear out in public yet. But it's progress!

My goals for this week:
1. actually DO my workouts
2. no junk food, period.
3. drink as much water as I possibly can - at least 3 of my 1 liter bottles of water
4. not think about the million other things I have to do that I think (or would like to think) should take precedence over working out

Thai Basil Chicken

So Annie posted this recipe in the comments section, just thought I would make it an actual posting so it was easier to find. If anyone has any question on how to post, just ask me! Also I sent Author invites to everyone (everyone who had a gmail account) but I think some people missed it and accepted just the invitation to view the blog. If you wanted to be an author (so that you can create postings like this) then let me know and I can resend the invite!


Thai Basil Chicken

prep time:20 min
start to finish:20 min
makes:4 servings

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/4 lb)
1 tablespoon canola or soybean oil-for easy go w/canola
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped-easy go with McCormicks
2 red or green jalapeño chiles, seeded, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce or reduced-sodium soy sauce-easy soy
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves-easy just tear them apart
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves-easy tear them apart
1 tablespoon chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, if desired

1. Cut each chicken breast into 4 pieces. Cubed
2. Spray 12-inch skillet with cooking spray. Add oil; heat over medium-high heat. Cook chicken, garlic and chilies in oil 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is no longer pink in center. Stir in fish sauce and sugar. Sprinkle with basil, mint and peanuts.

Serve with rice and take leftovers to work for lunch the next day.

Control

Last night... I turned down a brownie.

Let's Try This Out

Ok so everyone I've invited to this blog knows - I need to lose weight, and I am losing weight...it's just going a bit slower than I'd like. Every time I start out trying to lose weight, I eventually hit a point where my determination starts to waver... sometimes it's because I'm tired of working out, the scale isn't moving fast enough, I'm HUNGRY, I'm busy, or even because Aaron feels like getting a bunch of junk food and I just can't quite bring myself to say no or even remember why exactly I'm not supposed to have doughnuts or candy bars. So I think I'm hitting that point... I've been working out since March and sometimes I think if it weren't for the fact that I workout with Sandie 2 days a week, I might have lost the will to do it all together. So I had an idea - maybe if I got more people involved, it might be helpful to me! And not just for me, but for all of you who want to lose weight. I know all the women in my family want to lose some amount of weight, and I know we aren't the only ones. Sandie and I had a discussion a while ago about if you tell alot of people you are working on losing weight then you will feel that much more accountable towards that goal. You don't want everyone to think you've failed - so you keep working at it.
So my idea is this: if I blog about it where I know other people will be keeping up on it, then maybe that will help me. And I'm inviting all of you to blog on here as well... blogspot has a feature that allows multiple authors, so everyone I've invited to view the blog I am also inviting as an author. Whether you want to write about your own weight loss goals or possibly just share a healthy recipe or tip, I encourage you to do it because I need all the help I can get! At the bottom of the page I put a weight loss ticker for my own goals, if anyone wants to join in you are welcome to do the same. If you are interested I made mine at The Ticker Factory. I'm keeping this blog private because I know weight can be a sensitive topic for alot of people, and the only people I am inviting so far are the women in my immediate family, and the women in Aaron's family (his mom, sister, etc). I think you need to have a gmail account to be invited so if there's someone I missed it's because I don't have a gmail address for you but I will be looking into the ones I'm missing. If nothing else ladies, please just check in on me from time to time and comment on my posts so I know that someone is holding me accountable besides just me!