Weight Lost!!!

13 pounds down

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Day 5: Happy Old Year

Well the last day of another decade is passing.  Sadly, when I was thinking of where I was 10 years ago, I imagined the year 1990...man does time fly or what.  Then I was like, that isn't possible, and corrected myself.  10 years ago today, I was in Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovina serving a 6 month deployment.  I was going through some changes then too, that affected the rest of my life...I do remember though, that time of my life I was on a major diet (that worked) and lost 35 pounds.  I was talking to Sammi the other day saying I feel the same way about this diet as I did about that one.  The "Yes I Can" mentality.  I did it too.  The other thing I accomplished then too, was my best ever 2 mile time in the army.  I ran two miles in 14.50!  I was super excited.  So, ten years later, I am on the same weight loss quest, but have much more to add to my list of things I am grateful for.  Christ is now the center of my life.  Actually it will be 10 years ago in May that I accepted him as my personal saviour.  I'll go into that more in future posts.  I met and married the man of my dreams!  We have two beautiful children, a great home, on an awesome street, in a great town!  I have nieces and nephews a plenty.  All my siblings are happy with families.  My parents are well!  I did say good-bye to both my Pappy and my Mor-Mor (grandma) during this past decade, but both of them went peacefully, and amazingly enough I was able to be there to say good bye to both of them, the week that they passed.

So, this decade, this year, I enter with such optimism, I am so excited to see it unfold!  My house is clean, still working on a few projects that I will continue tomorrow, but after that, my house will be in tip-top shape!  I am happy about that.  I am sure my husband and kids will enjoy it too.  I am also a business owner/partner of a great Event Planning business called The Hip Chick Co. and I have a great feeling about our biz and where it is going to be heading!

I am cutting the blog short, because I have guests arriving shortly.  I do want to mention that my exercise (cleaning the house for 6 hours) likely burned about 1400 cals according the chart I used.  I was moving furniture, running laundry up and down the stairs, organizing cabinets, so I am excited that my exercise produced two positives!  I can hardly believe that in just 5 short days, I have lost 4 pounds.  I do know that it will come off easier at the beginning of the diet than the end, but I do have to say, I didn't expect to see it so easily fall off.

Well, I did save some calories today for tonight's festivities, I will be sure to eat and drink wisely.  I am providing, a fruit and veggie tray so I will stay near that and away from the evil temptations.  I will just repeat, tasty temptations will not taste as good as skinny feels!

Weight: 208 Oh, yeah!
Breakfast: Grapefruit, Toast with spread, yogurt (326 cals)
Lunch: Mac n Cheese (615 cals) YIKES
Snack: Blueberries and Carrots (33 cals)
Dinner: 4 oz. Steak, Broccoli, Dinner Roll, A1 sauce (530 cals)
Party food: Likely about 400 cals
Total Cal: 1904

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Day 4: Who needs it anyway...

Well, today has raised my blood pressure so I am sure that will help with burning calories, right?  Just like the rest of the country we are making ends meet and getting through this recession.  We get creative and appreciate what we have, unlike when the pot was overflowing with funds, like yesteryear.  So, we have done things like try to eat on $50 a week!  We did it too, it wasn't too bad, but not too much variety.  We also recently compared cable vs. satellite for TV, and after much research and the cable company not budging to give us a good deal, we decided to go with satellite, so I called to cancel cable and guess who came around and dropped the price by fifty bucks!  So, we stayed with cable, and get $600 savings this year on TV.  Love that.

So, who needs the over-abundance of money any way?  We can do it with less.  Don't get me wrong, I'd never turn away lottery winnings, but in the real world of recession and living on less; it is nice to think we have a rich life compared to the richest of the rich one hundred years back.  We have internal plumbing, phones, computers, heat!, need I go on.  So who needs it anyway...

Now on to health and fitness.  My sister told me today about Agave Nectar as a natural sweetener in place of sugar, for those of us who need our fixes!  I haven't tried it yet but look forward to doing so.

I have been thinking over the past few days about motivation, and staying motivated and why I think I will this time.  I have found what I think is my answer to that question.  I have put a realistic timeframe on this diet.  I remember all my attempts before I was like I need to lose 60 pounds, if I lose 10 pounds a month, in 6 months I am there!  Not real. Jillian doesn't live here.  I have to work, and be a mom, wife and everything else.  So after week 2 of my failed half-hearted attempts and no big weight loss...I gave up.  Now, I am giving myself 52 weeks to lose 60 pounds.  I am not trying to kill myself to do it either.  The other thing that will keep me moving is YOU.  I have put it ALL out there, so if I don't do it, you will all know.  Most importantly though, I am committed to being healthy and realizing that my food will never taste as good, as skinny feels.

I have also noticed that being healthier and taking an active approach to this has made me happier.  In just four days I have energy, excitement and motivation.  Motivation to be fit, but also for my home, our finances, becoming more organized, and even getting the things on my list DONE.  I have a silly little short term goal to have my house clean, laundry washed and put away, cabinets organized all by Jan 1, 2010.  It has been a process I have been working on for a few weeks, but it is actually going to happen!  :o)  I always have one ball in the air, whether it be laundry or cabinets or floors to be cleaned, it is always something, I am never fully caught up, which if you know my mom, you know what that looks like.  So, I want to walk into the new year with maintaining my household, just like mom.  No slacking and relaxing when there is housework looming, no six loads of laundry...(I hope) but just to stay on top and maintain, and oh my, I think that sounds lovely!  It will also give me a better schedule to work with, to fit my health and fitness into, and it will take my silly stress away!  Stress causes us to keep more fat.  I don't want stress or fat, so I will maintain!  So super excited about that.

I have been reading lately about metabolism and why it is so important to eat throughout the day, no skipping meals and I need to eat a healthy snack before I am are hungry.  The reason, is because if you continue to eat, your body continues to metabolize the food, when you don't eat, your body goes into starvation and stores up the food that comes next so you won't starve again, and then you don't lose the weight.  I have read that first thing in the morning, eat an apple or carrot or banana, if you can't get to breakfast for an hour or so, your body will break your fast and begin metabolizing the food, then eat breakfast and snack and meals in regular intervals!  Sounds good.  I can do that.  Another good piece of info I read, is to eat foods that contain one ingredient.  Like fruit or veggies.  When you prepare your meals, prepare them with one ingredient items, not processed foods.  These one ingredient items are the foods you find on the outer perimeter of your grocery store.  You will eat more whole foods and less of the toxins and junk you don't need.

Stepping of "soap box" and onto "cloud 9"!

Weight: 209 YES!!!!!!
Breakfast: Grapefruit, whole wheat toast with brummel and brown spread, coffee (193 cals)
Snack: Green tea and Fiber one bar (147 cals)
Lunch: Mashed Veggies* (hold the bacon), Diet Pepsi
Snack: Green tea, 1/4 cup blueberries, 1 oz cheese (cougar gold, it is simply the best!) (103 cals)
Dinner: I just twice baked my Mashed Veggies (it was a busy day today, no time to get original) (275 cals)
Snack: Fiber one bar and Green tea (147 cals)
Total Cals: 1000
Exercise: Danced with the kids and 5 lb weights for 30 minutes burning 276 cals.

See you all tomorrow!
*recipe on Day 3

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Day 3: Bigger isn't always Better

Ok, so you all are amazing!  I am blown away at the support via phone, email, comments, facebook and text that I am getting from you awesome friends and followers!  A few of you have sent me your success stories and that is an amazing help to see the end.  Others have joined forces with me to skinny ourselves to health!  I am so excited!

As you can see I came up with a fun little logo for my blog!  I took the picture of the fork today and found some fun fonts and BAM, my logo was created!  I am pretty excited about it!  :o)  Maybe I'll have to make T-shirts, or mugs or something with my cute logo on it!

Today was a great day.  Besides the sick husband, we all did great and are moving along nicely with our new food-life!
My friend, 3-day walk-partner, and business partner, Sammi and I went for a good stroll this morning.  We were plugging along too!  I think we walked about 4.5 miles in 70 minutes, clocking about a 15 minute mile.  She is a really good walker, in fact during the Breast Cancer 3-day last year she earned the name Pace, because of her incredible pace and her ability to keep us on pace.  Randi, named Commando (figure it out!) had no problem keeping up.  However, my name was Sport Beans.  Not a good name, without going into the detail of the name, I will give you an understanding of what a Sport Bean is.  It is a jelly bean that you eat for energy. 3-day "Sport Beans" as we named them, were the zestful, yet overweight walkers on the trail, these particular women had all the gear, the best shoes, fanny packs, the whole nine yards.  These same women, could answer all your questions on walking, fitness, health and training.  However, they remained to be overweight.  They were all over the trails.  They, like myself, also finished!
Back to my point...I was able to keep pace with Pace this morning!  Yeah.  It was awesome, it felt great!

I have been thinking about the phrase "Bigger is Better" and for some, that may be the case,  but this is my blog, and for me, it isn't.  In many cases!  A bigger house, means more mortgage, and square footage to clean.  Bigger credit card allowance means more money out of your pocket.  Bigger debt...well no brainer.  Bigger body is not healthy at all.  So I was trying to find some ways to help with the "Smaller is Better" things!

I found some great websites today both as a suggestion from friends and through searching, thought I'd pass them along to you.
www.lowermybills.com and www.billshrink.com
These two sites will help you find the best deal from cell phones to credit cards!  It is worth a trip to that site. I was reading my Real Simple magazine last night and they talked about a Mortgage Modification Program that the government is helping out with.  Many of us have had our situations change, job loss, pay cuts, small business owners without enough clients...They are all valid reasons to qualify for this program.  If your home mortgage is higher than your home value you can qualify as well.  Check it out.  Smaller mortgage is better, right?!  Here is the government website http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/ don't be tricked by companies that say they can do the same thing.  You actually have to apply for this through the bank or institution that your mortgage is through.  Make sure you are armed with all of your income info as well as debt and bill info, all of that goes into consideration.  So, have all those hard numbers at the ready when you call your bank.

Back to fitness and health:
Another easy skinny idea is something I read that Denise Austin does (who by the way is 52!!! NO WAY, she looks younger than me)   While waiting for toast to pop up, or veggies to cook or whatever it is, use those minutes to exercise.  Do push-ups against the counter, do lunges, or squats.  Keep some 5lb weights in your kitchen and do 3 sets of 15 curls.

I thought of another great calorie burner, stair stepping for stay at home moms.  I know for me at home with the kids, I am either, making meals, doing housework or sitting on the couch and floor, playing with the kids.  I figure why not step for 20 minutes or even 5 minutes here and there, while they are playing nicely on the floor.  Everything counts, and it all helps.  So I have stopped standing around and sitting around and I have started moving around!  At Target they have these little steppers, just for your feet, for like $50, I can store it easily in a basket. It is about the size of a toaster oven.

I have also started using www.livestrong.com/myplate to record my food intake and exercise output, from the advice of a great chica at church.  I also found a website http://caloriecount.about.com/ that you can get an estimate of the amount of calories you need each day to stay at your weight.  Of course to lose weight, you burn some of those by doing exercise as well as by eating fewer and healthier calories.

My caloric intake to maintain my body weight is 2360.  I couldn't believe it!  I eat that many calories!!!  Obviously I did, but not any more!

So now that I am recording, it is easy to see what I need more of, and what I should stop eating.  So I enter my food into My Plate at Livestrong.com and it calculates everything for me!  How awesome is that?

On my walk this morning I burned 521 calories!  Doing my little exercises while waiting, I likely burned about 200 calories throughout the day
I consumed 1959 calories today!  So the big test is, how much do I weigh?

Weight: 211.2  YEAH!!!
Early Morning Snack: Baby Carrots and 1 cup of 1% milk (146 cals)
Breakfast: Hardboiled Egg, Toast with Brummel and Brown Spread, Grapefruit, Coffee with milk (227 cals)
Snack: 1 apple and Fiber One bar (320 cals)
Lunch: 2 Pork Tenderloin Medallions, Black beans with skim Mozzarella, sweet potato and peas (583 cals)
Snack: Fiber One bar (140 cals)
Dinner: Mashed Veggies with Turkey Bacon* [recipe below] (517 cals)
Total Calories: 1959

*Mashed Veggies with Turkey Bacon (my own creation)
1 head of Cauliflower
1 medium Sweet Potato
1 cup Baby Carrots
3 slices of Turkey Bacon
Margarine
Milk
Chicken Broth

Boil veggies all together until they are soft.
Drain water.
Mash veggies together like you would mashed potatoes, add 1 tbsp of margarine (I used Brummel and Brown Spread), 1/4 cup of skim milk and a dash of chicken broth.  Blend on medium for 2 minutes or until the veggies are mashed.
Crumble up cooked bacon into the bowl, add a dash of Mrs. Dash and enjoy!
It makes about 3 servings, so you can have it for dinner tonight then, have leftovers for tomorrow!
Saves time for lunch.  It was only 517 cals!  It filled me up too!

Take time to read the comments people post, they are great.  They are wonderful inspirations for me that is for sure!  Make sure to pass my blog on to others that you think may enjoy reading about a crazy determined lady.  Have a great night.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Day 2: Head in the game...

Hello Monday, and all you bring with you.  What a day!
Food wise, I did pretty good.
Let's get to the brass tacks and then I can ramble
Weight: 212 (same...boring!)
Breakfast: Banana and Coffee (not on purpose to eat so little, read on, kids were nutso)
Lunch: Hardboiled Egg, Salad, peas, 2 oz. turkey
Snacks: 2 clemintines, Fiber One bar, green tea
Dinner: 2 Pork Tenderloin Medallions, sweet potato salad, coleslaw
Snack: Cup of milk and carrots

Today, my kids decided to stage a coup against me, maybe to break me down and get me to snack on the cake left by friendly neighbor (for the kids), but I held my ground and won the battle of food...even if I did lose the battle of the kids.  They were crazy people today.  In the morning, I had two neighbor friends over for chat and play.  The kids were NUTS, I didn't even recognize them, an amazing headache started...Enter In-Law's in saints clothes!  Nana came and Hava calmed to a pleasant girl, but the boy who was a fright never settled down until nap time.  My sainted in-laws stayed and ran interference for me and Gabey.  When my white knight arrived from work I left for my massage (it is on trade otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it) and I came home to fed kids and normalcy!  My massage went long and it was GREAT.  She is amazing.  If you live in the Metro and need someone let me know, she is great!

As far as exercise goes for today, I did an hour of housework (please note, in-laws were coming over so I actually did 2 hours of housework in one hour and worked myself up a good sweat!)
I did stair master for 20 minutes and yoga for 30 minutes.

I am looking forward to a bath after the kids go to bed and reading of some fun magazines.

Today as I was getting my massage in the silent moments I was all excited about being the skinny person I see in my mind, and wondering what great feat I will accomplish in my next year  (2011).  Oh, being motivated  is good. I need to keep reminding myself of that when the days lack motivation!

Today one of my dearest of the dear friends answered her phone call from me saying "You are Brave!" Not hello. I thought she was referring to this blog, but she was referring to my posting of "the" weight...Yeah, it is either brave or dumb.  I don't care, it is a number, I am not defined by it.  Ok well maybe today I am, but next week and next year...it will be ground gained and I feel it necessary to me to put it out there, so I'll take being brave!  Thanks Lady for the compliment.  I love it!  It is because of friends like you who love me the way I am that make me brave!

Thanks for reading, pass me along to your friends to read and follow!  I am not perfect, and am sure I will incur some bumps in the road, but I expect them, and will move right over them.  I am excited to be me.  I am transparent and promise to be that way in my blog entries, so more of you (in your transparency) can relate!

If any of you would like to join my journey.  Please feel free to do so, privately or on my blog.  Just post daily comments with your weight and high/low points!

I am excited to lighten the load along with you!

God Bless,
Heidi

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Day 1: Getting my head in the game...

So, after many years of hating getting dressed, shopping, and even going out with friends or to family functions, I have decided that I CAN lose the weight and I WANT to lose the weight.  I thought you'd all like to join in and encourage me.
I am super social, love fashion, enjoy eating, I have a great family both my own family and extended.  All of my closest friends are skinny, beautiful and fabulous.  They tell me I am beautiful as I am.  Some of them have known me when I weighed in at a whopping 110 lbs when I graduated high school and others have known me as the (satisfied) 160 pounder and some have only known me as the 200+ pounder that I am today.  All of my fabulous friends love me as I am.  Recently, one of my best friends told me, I am beautiful the way I am, but she will support me through this.  That is what I need!  Another one of my best friends earlier this year, said something to the tune of, I remember you when you were a rail (too thin, in her book) and to see me now, was different, but once I started talking and making her laugh during a terrible time in her life, she said, I forgot your weight and you are the same person.
I think it is these amazing people that are going to get me through this.
My mom and I were talking about our weight, she is a beautiful and happy women, I was saying how I wanted to lose this weight and she said, you must not want it enough, because if you did...you would.  Thanks Mom!  You are right.  So here I go.
I woke up, not waiting until tomorrow or New Years (note today is SUNDAY) to start my new life.  I ate great for breakfast, refused the tempting and tasty Panera at church and although I probably ate too much lunch, it was all healthy!  I am using the Weight Watchers' Core Plan, focusing on avoiding sweets, sodium, starches and fried anything.  I know I can do this!  I have started 3 businesses, made it to the rank of Captain in the Army.  Had amazing jobs, raising two awesome pre-schoolers, got my Masters and graduated with a 3.98, and more.  (This list of accomplishments is for me, not to gloat or whatever...)  Remember my past accomplishments shows me that I CAN do this and I WILL do this.  The fact that my health and fitness is much more important than many of those things on my list (except family).  I have to look back at those things to keep me moving.
Today is my anniversary.  I have been married to my husband for seven years today.  He married a hot little 135 pound woman, who ran, worked out daily and ate rather healthy.  So for my 8th anniversary (one year from today) I am going to give him back his wife.  He married a skinny woman.  Today, as I was contemplating this blog, I actually thought to myself, would my adorable, talented, smart, husband even consider dating the me of today?  I thought to myself, sadly, probably not.  Nothing against my sainted husband, but he is very fit and fitness is one of the top 10 things of importance to him.  So I think he and I would be friends, but doubtful to be lovers.  At this weight in my life, I would likely not have the gall to ask him "out" like I did back then.
All this to say...here I am.  I am motivated, excited and anxious to watch the Heidi that I see in my mind come out and show the world it is do-able, even if I am not on The Biggest Loser.  I can do this, with my friends, family and blog-followers!
Dec 27, 2009
5'8"
212 lbs
Started a blog and read how to get started on Weight Watchers
Breakfast: Bran Flakes with 1% milk, coffee with half & half
Lunch: Quiche with spinach, broccoli, onion, garlic, tomato, egg and cheese
Dinner: Baked Salmon with a Salsa topping and veggies (a date with my awesome man)
Drank: 1 diet coke, coffee and water
See you tomorrow!!!