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.