Back on Track:)

So, after quit awhile of a hiatus, I'm back on track. Life can get the best of me, stresses with Logan, traveling, and just plain giving into, my constant urge to eat out. Just an idea of how many meals we've eaten out in the last week - we have 8 new glasses (free at McD's with a super size meal) So, tonight we went shopping- healthy shopping- Caputo's. When I shop at Caputo's I come home with fruits, veggies and meats:) A very good choice when following the lifestyle change I NEED to make. So, my plan- 3 healthy meals- few carbs, high fiber. Soda, My actual biggest weakness- not sure what I'm doing there- not ready to give it up. I may just focus on eating healthy and portions, but allow myself my soda--
I keep thinking baby steps is the way to go-- change one habit each week, or one new goal each week. So my goal this week is healthy meals and I'll let you know next week how it went.
I do have some stresses and difficult eating situations coming this week- Logan is having a test to determine ultimately if he needs a feeding tube on Friday (I keep eating double for him even though he is not nursing) Then Friday night we have a party for Aaron's work- stressful in the fact that it is lots of unhealthy food and stressful in the fact that I don't know many people there. Then on Saturday is my Birthday- I have to have cake for my b-day (weakness number 105). We are also going out of town for the weekend- Sat. and Sun. So, with all of that, wish me luck:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you a happy and blessed Thanksgiving today!

Since today is such a wonderful holiday, I have actually not had time (or the thought) to weigh myself, so I will forgo this tonight. However, I did want to say that since today is Thanksgiving, one of my biggest goals has been portion-control. I kept reminding myself throughout the day that I did not need to eat in excess just because it's the holiday of massive amounts of delicious food. So, I ate regular, good-sized portions and was full by the end, but not stuffed to the gill. And now, I'm off to spend some time with my boys, so I hope this day has been nothing but full of laughter and joy for each and every one of you! God bless!

It's Been Awhile....Oops! ;)

So, yea, it has been a while since we have posted.  Remember when we said in the beginning that this blog was going to be a chronicle of real life struggles and real life successes.  Well, I guess you could say we have been in a bit of a struggle of late.  Just an example of how life so easily gets in the way of what we set out to do.  So much is going on now.  Jason (my husband) has been working like crazy lately filling in for a coworker who has been under the weather so he has basically been around for dinner and then off to bed to get ready for another day of the rat race.  We have also recently transitioned to the "big girl bed" with our almost 3 year old so Mommy has not been getting a whole heck of a lot of sleep these days.  I am so bad about letting the teeniest break in routine knock me off of achieving my goals.  In other words, I am a stress/emotional eater at its finest.  So, one thing we, as a group, have all learned recently is that it is super important for us to make a decision within OURSELVES to better ourselves and go down the road of weight loss because if we are pretty much only relying on each other for support, then as soon as one person starts to struggle we sort of all go down, too.  Instead we talked last night about the fact that if we rely on ourself and do this for ourselves then when one person starts to falter, we can come together and provide support and help pick that other person up.  So, basically, we realize we need each other for accountability and for support but in order to be the best friend and support network we can be, we need to first of all go down the road of health and weight loss for ourselves.

We came up with a few things to hopefully help us stay on our path.  We are going to begin to email each other daily or close to it and answer a few questions in the email - an accomplishment we made, something we did not do so great at, a small goal we had for the day and whether or not we met that goal.  That will really help us to daily hold each other accountable.  We also assigned each person a day of the week to weigh in and to subsequently update our blog.  We meet on Tuesday nights so we decided to take a break from the blog on that day and most weekends, but we are aiming to update the blog Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  We left last night with a renewed drive to succeed knowing that along the way we will deal with more struggles because we are indeed human and we may take two steps forwards and one step back, but at least we are still heading in the right direction and through the power of friendship and also love for ourselves, we will eventually succeed in this journey.  

Stepping out of the box

The other day I was listening to Oprah (because with 2 kids thats about all you can do) and her show was about stepping out of the box, to be bold. On the show Oprah had 4 women do three things - roller derby, sky diving, and skinny dipping. I found the show interesting and it did make some good points. For me it made me think that I have pushed part of "me" down deep inside. Growing up as the obese girl I never wanted to bring extra attention to myself all I wanted to do was hide myself, hide my fat. I know that there are lots of things I have and still want to do. I feel like on the outside I dont truly represent myself. My mom always told me that when I was little I was fearless but I feel like I have let the world get the best of me. One of the moms on Oprah said she wanted to do these things because she wanted her children to be proud of her and look up to hear. I know how that feels. Being a mom of a girl really makes more aware of how I am as a person. So part of this journey for me is to be true to myself. I dont want to hide behind all these walls I have put up. I have also decided that after this winter and yucky weather I am going going to make a bold move and step out of my box and do something daring. I would also like to challenge my other mommy friends to do this too. Now im not talking about a new hair color or wearing a dress im talking about more. For me I think that will be skydiving or rock climbing. I havent totally made up my mind but come on ladies lets think big.

Another thing that always catches my attention is the theme song to The Biggest Loser. If you really listen to the words I think it can be inspiring and the part that always gets me is -what have you done today to make you feel proud - I think that should be something we should all think about because as moms we should be proud of ourselves and our family.

Now I have to run because one child is crying and the other needs a diaper change.

Why Do I Do It?

Snacking. Snacking. Snacking.

I know it can be okay, even good to snack, but for me, it's more just something to do with my hands. As a mom of 2 little, energetic boys, you'd think that I'd never have issues with keeping my hands busy. After all, running around, chasing after them, along with the endless (or so it seems, some days) diaper changes, clothes changes, and cutting up their food into itty bitty pieces should keep my hands busy enough. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I have categorized myself as a "bored eater." I tend to munch when I am not keeping busy - and by busy, I mean, so busy I don't think about eating.

This is probably my biggest issue. That and portion control (but that's another topic for another day). And exercise. Okay, so this is a big issue for me. I need to eat something small inbetween meals because I'm a nursing mom, but I know it should be more nutritious, instead of potato chips, ice cream, or pasta that's leftover from last night's meal. I should also make sure to eat more lean proteins and veggies and fruits. So, this past week, I've been making more of an effort. I haven't done 100%, but I've been doing better. I've eaten a couple apples and said "no" to pasta. Another thing I've been working on is limiting my pop (or some might say, "soda"). I drank pretty much nothing but pop while in college. It was my caffeine-staple. When Scott and I first got married, we both were HUGE pop drinkers. However, once Matthew was born, our budget got cut to less than half and we cut it out of our daily diet. It still was something I tended to crave, but since I was pregnant with Mark, I really worked on drinking a LOT more water. And these past couple of weeks, I've been limiting myself to one glass of pop a day, if that. I've noticed that the healthier food that I eat, along with drinking water most of the time, my taste for pop has declined considerably. I can't stand to drink more than a small glass and once I have drunk the glass, I have no desire for more.

Along with trying to change a few small habits, I've been working on getting organized and getting my half-finished projects into finished projects. I'm a very crafty person - I love starting projects and really enjoy making things myself instead of buying them at the store, but I tend to start something and never finish it. So, that's also another goal. It'll get things done (much to the relief of my husband!) and it'll keep my hands busy. All the while, keeping a glass of water next to me :).