Zumba Fitness Review and Some Fun Motivation

I am proud of myself for this past week! Today I have been doing Zumba Fitness for 1 week and I am LOVING it!  I have had several people ask me if its worth the price and I have to say YES! The Exhilarate series has 7 dvds, so far I have only done 2 and both are awesome! I actually find myself excited to work out.  Today while cleaning house I caught myself shaking my hips a lil while doing everyday things like laundry, sweeping etc! I cant even begin to tell you how much more energy I have and how much better I feel.  

I have been watching my calories every day.  Most days I have stayed right where I need to be, a few days I went a little over but burning 600 calories during a Zumba work out kinda offset it!

I have been planning out each day in advance so I know what to expect, where to decrease or increase calories as needed.  Today I knew I would be eating out so I adjusted and planned accordingly and had a yummy lil splurge with some chips and salsa without going over my calories!  Yay!

Along with Zumba and Calorie counting I have found that little motivations help. 

I found this cute little idea on Pinterest and came up with my own!  Each marble is worth half a pound and it is very motivating to be able to move the marbles over and see the shift take place!

I also have a before pic on my fridge and on the bathroom mirror, I keep my scale in the kitchen and have a pair of the jeans I want to wear hanging in a visible spot in my room.  Once my hubs gets home I wont be displaying the before pics or the jeans so visably but at this point every little motivating tool is a part of my success!

Lets not forget Pinterest!  I love to browse the ‘fitness’ section and pin motivational sayings, exercises, healthy foods etc! Check out my Motivation Board Here! 


Come back Wednesday for my Weight loss Wednesday update! 
YAY

160 cal dinner creation!

So today has been crazy! Princess had another BAD night of teething and overall I got 3 hours of sleep! Not more than 1 at a time! Boo! On a good note when she and peanut decided to be wide awake at 530am I did 30 mins of Zumba! So the day got off to a good healthy start!  Breakfast went well then steroid hunger hit and I had some grapes then succumbed to animal crackers.  I thought oh 1 serving is only 130 calories no big.. then before I knew it 1 serving turned into 2! Boo! Then to top it off because I was SOOOOO tired I decided I couldn’t last any longer without some strong caffeine and gave into the Green Straw!  Since I am now dairy free I had to do soy which has more calories so my need for caffeine cost me 330 calories!  Good grief!  So since I had pretty much wasted a good portion of my calories needlessly I needed a LOW cal dinner so I got creative.  Heres what I came up with…

Usually I HATE jarred spaghetti sauce but this flavor was super yummo!  

I just browned up this can of Chicken Breast then added sauce and simmered and a added a lil garlic powder!

160 Calories! Heck yes! For my kids I served with pasta but for me I ate as is and I was surprised!!!  Next time I’m gonna try it with zucchini!

Weight loss Wednesday and Zumba Fun

Its Wednesday! I haven’t done Weight loss Wednesday in 2 weeks because of all the drama but I am back to it and excited to be on track!  Over the past 2 weeks everything has been crazy with my hospital visit for what looks to have been a mild Cronhs flair up and all the steroids and crap that followed.  Surprisingly I have not gained any weight.  I kinda went up and down for a few days but am now back down to where I was at the end of my crazy diet.  27.8 total lbs gone!  16.2 lbs to go to get to my before Monkey weight! 

Since it seems that Cronhs is trying to rear its ugly head again I am working on getting back to my ultra-healthy Cronhs Friendly diet.  When I had a bad flair 3 ½ years ago I changed my diet drastically and the symptoms subsided and I lost a ton of weight and got healthy all at the same time. 

The biggest thing to cut is Dairy because it aggravates my symptoms more than anything.  You would probably be surprised how many things actually have hidden dairy in them.  For the most part my diet now consists of Veggies, Fruit and Meat.  There are a few other things like eggs, certain oils, condiments, beans, nuts etc.  But no refined sugars or dairy and VERY limited pastas, grains and only green tea and water to drink etc…

I am very excited to be doing Zumba!  I actually ordered the complete Zumba Exhilarate program and it’s awesome! Right now I am still trying to conquer the step by step dvd.  Its crazy!  I always thought I had good rhythm till attempting these moves!  I do great until they pick up the pace to super-fast then OMG! For some reason the Merengue 6 step is crazy hard for me lol! Practice makes perfect! I love that in the 55 min Step by Step DVD you burn 598 calories!

I am also excited that my hubs and I are going to be doing the OKC Autism Piece Walk/5k in May to support one of my sweet super mom friends who has a little boy with Autism.

This will be my first 5k and in about a month I am going to be starting couch to 5k!  I am excited to get to start running again after 3 back to back pregnancies and also excited to be able to support such a great cause.

Thursday Five Link Up

 

http://www.flipflopsandcombatboots.net/2012/01/thursday-five.html

 

Blessed

Incredible

Productive

Elated

Happy

This is my first time participating in the Thursday 5 link up! It looked fun so here it goes!

I am so Blessed to have 3 beautiful babies under 2 years old! Most people have negative thoughts about having 3 so close together.  Though it has its challenges (and believe me there are many!) I wouldn’t have it any other way. Monkey who is 2 and Princess who is 1 are best friends and they play so incredibly well together! I love it!

I have the absolute most Incredible husband any girl could ever ask for!  He is my best friend and words can not even begin to express the multitude of ways he surpasses incredible!

This past week has not been Productive whatsoever!  Among some of the challenges that come along with having 3 kids ages 2 and under is the obvious reason that some days are just down right unproductive.  The days I do get to get everything clean, my 1 and 2 year old quickly rip though like a tornado destroying everything in sight! Super Nanny anyone?

I am BEYOND Elated that this deployment is almost over!  We don’t have a for sure time for them to be home yet, not that I could share if we did, but I know its less than 3 months away so for that I am VERY VERY Elated!

I am so Happy that its almost Friday! Not because I have grandiose plans but just because that means another week is almost over and another week closer to deployment being over!

New Blog Design from Utterly Chaotic Designs

OMG I totally suck! I got my blog redone over Christmas Break and I totally forgot to tell you about it! 

For a long time I have been wanting a professional look and have been looking for just the right person to give it a new look.  About 6 months ago I actually entered a contest and won a new blog makeover but the person never followed through and with R&R and Peanut being born I had been to busy to blog.  Now that I am getting back into the swing of things I thought what better way to get going again then with a new look!  I found Brea at Utterly Chaotic Designs and OMG I adore her! She was an absolute pleasure to work with, SUPER quick and came up with a design that I LOVE!  You should check her out!  

http://www.utterlychaoticdesigns.com/

Thanks Utterly Chaotic Designs for my fantastic new look! I LOVE IT!!!!! 

Painful choices

So tonight as I made my very low cal dinner I was quickly reminded that there is a high price to pay to achieve huge goals and I am completely willing to pay a stiff price in order to get where I want!  It's new years and this day is often filled with great intentions, lofty goals and plans that often are forgotten in a few weeks!  But that is not the case here!

At the beginning of December as I was filling out our Christmas cards I was utterly disgusted and far beyond embarrassed to be sending out this pic to friends and family! Each envelope I stuffed I looked at the picture and my eyes were drawn to how fat my legs were and the anger grew! Yea I just had 3 back to back pregnancies but even before that I was still about 40 lbs overweight!   In our family pic session the hubs and I had pics made together and I cant even stand to look at them bc I look so fat! Don’t say oh your not fat etc.. but the plain truth of it is I am! Like I said in a previous post no need to candy coat it any more.  
  

fromhttp://pinterest.com/betsygreen75/

There comes a point, like I've said before, where you actually say it's time to change and you actually do it. Through out December I watched my calories and lost 16 lbs of course Christmas and the loading phase of my diet caused its usual weight gain and I gained 7 or 8 back...  But those few pounds came with a heavy price and they taught me a very valuable lesson!
This past week I have strictly followed my diet and now 21.8 lbs down from where I was at the beginning of December!
Point being, this quest for health and weight loss is not a new years resolution nor a goal that I take lightly it's a serious life change... No going back!

Tonight for dinner I had a fried egg wrapped in lettuce and some strawberries!
Was it good? Eh it was ok. But it was worth it and when I wake up and step on the scale and even see just a fraction of a pound gone its beyond well worth it! Every morning I am taking joy in seeing a number that I will happily never see again!
No it's not easy but it is doable and if you really want it bad enough to do something about it its completely possible!

I AM changing my life one decision a time!