Weight loss Wednesday update

Yea I know I'm a day behind but things were beyond crazy with the kidos yesterday! Monkey has some molars coming in and he cried all day! Nothing helped! He'd cry while saying teeth then asking for medicine and ice cream! Poor guy!

Over the Christmas weekend I pretty much fell off of the wagon! Knowing that I was going to start HCG on the day after Christmas. I wish I hadn’t bc I gained 7 lbs back of the 16 I lost! I am learning that at this point every single decision really does count! In the 3 days since I started HCG I have lost 7 lbs! I don't feel like I've lost anything since I pretty much just got rid of what I had gained. But today is a fresh day and I am excited to see the lbs continue to come off over the next several weeks!

I debated if I should mention HCG or not. It is controversial and I was very skeptical when I heard of others doing it. But since I'm one of those people who puts stock in what Dr. Oz says and he approved it so I decided to find out more info and do more research. What I found I liked so I decided to give it a go!

I know fad diets aren’t the answer and that it's all about healthy choices and changing your lifestyle. Really that is exactly what I am doing. I'm using this 40 days of a very low calorie diet to retrain myself, to get back into the habit of disciplining myself and learning the importance of portions and wise decisions.

I know several people who have done it, lost weight and kept it off. Of course at the end I can't go back to a diet of cheese burgers, fried foods and chips but being healthy is much more rewarding then some fried pickles!
I love these 2 lil pinterest inspirations…

from enthuasticrunner.com

http://pinterest.com/optimusness/fitness-watch-me-shrink/

Where I am today, health wise, is a compilation of all the bad choices I made in the past.  I once changed my diet and lost a great deal but then when I was pregnant with the monkey I used it as an excuse to be a pig and eat ridiculous amounts of ultra greasy, high fat foods, to eat a bag of chips in one sitting, to get ice cream and French fries on a regular basis and the sum of all those bad choices may have tasted good at the time but looking back were not worth it!  Just as my week of Christmas gorge fest was not worth the 7 lbs! 

I was going to post my very last before pic but I think I will wait a few weeks and do a side by side of the difference !
Thanks to all my friends who are supporting me in this endeavor and I cant wait to see what the next few weeks bring!!! 

Tomorrow is a bad excuse :)

I decided to get serious about this weight loss journey a little less than 2 weeks ago and since then I have lost 16.4 lbs!

What I FINALLY realized, as I was sipping a Grande Peppermint Mocha Frap, was there have been TOO many times I used the excuse that I would start 'tomorrow' or I will start Monday or on the 1st or for the new year but there comes a point when you decide tomorrow is too late! Next week is way too late and next month is completely unacceptable! If 2 weeks ago I would have said I'm going to wait till after the holidays I'd still be 17 lbs heavier, If not more! 

Speaking from experience if I had made a future start date instead of right then I'd prob once again come to that start date and keep making excuses or try and fail to easily. There has to come a point where you stop saying tomorrow or next week I'll do it and you just decide to do it now!
You may have a bad day or take a day off for Christmas and New Year but why waste all those days in between.  I know for me that for as long as I can remember every time I said okay ill start on Monday, Monday would roll around, I’d do amazing for half the day then epic fail set it and because I had already set in the habit of ‘starting tomorrow’, tomorrow easily became next week and next week easily became next year!

Today I started a ‘Put Down That Cookie’ support group amongst some of my FB friends and Fam and I am so every excited! Everyone has their own goals and their own methods but its great to have encouragement from others going through the same things!  When I started writing this ‘tomorrow’ blog it was before that group started and before people said oh I will start tomorrow, so if you are one that said ‘tomorrow’ this blog is not directed at you and it was started before you said tomorrow and its just part of my journey.  I want the days that I blog about weight loss to be a real look at the struggles and challenges I am facing and overcoming! 
I also want to say the things to someone else in the same boat as I am, 100 lbs overweight, that i wish someone would have said to me! I wish a LONG time ago some one would have had the balls to quit dancing around the facts and say get off your badankadonk and do something! 

Id rather start right this minute and make mistakes along the say but keep pressing through then to keep putting off tomorrow what could very easily change my life today and totally reshape my future!  Every moment counts, every decision counts and as hard as it is to say ‘no’ to those bad things its time to sit down, make realistic goals and run after them with everything you have!  

from fitfirmfast.blogspot.com

Not everyone reading this has 100 or even 50 or even 30 lbs to lose but no matter what your goals are they are all achievable if you put your mind to it!  Hello almost 17 lbs in 2 weeks! Cant wait to look back at the end of this next year and say heck yes i did it!!! How about you???

Being Fat and never going back!

First off this is my first time to blog from my iPhone so I'm hoping it works out!

Today I went to my last OB appointment and it was bitter sweet. I have become so close to my OB and her staff after 3 back to back pregnancies! They are all so much fun and it's going to be sad to not be seeing them every month but I am certainly glad that our lil family is now complete! My OB and I talked about the fact that I had lost over 15 lbs since I was there a week and a half ago and i told her how I planned to loose much more!
My last appt before I had jax I topped out at an ungodly weight! A number worthy of the biggest looser! I understand most of the almost 40lbs I lost since giving birth was pregnancy weight but still... Whew!
My OB said she couldn't wait to see how skinny I would be when I came back for my yearly appt in the summer! I cant wait either!

When I left my appointment i headed over to the gas station. While pumping gas I noticed a 'big' girl walking out with a gigantic soda bottle and an even more gigantic bag of chips and I was so quickly taken back to the amount of times that was me. I can't even tell you how many times I ran in for some chips or some hot fries and a soda... And without even thinking about it polished off the whole bag!

There's such a difference in the will of someone who 'is' fat in every since of the word and someone who may 'be' fat and has decided that enough really is enough and they're not going back.

Some people freak out over the word fat bc it's mean or whatever but the simple reality and honest to goodness truth of it is when your bmi isn't just overweight, it's obese or even morbidly obese its time to stop candy coating it and take a hard look at the sad reality... I'm fat! It's much easier to candy coat the reality and laugh it off and dance around the subject but the reality and the truth is plain and simple! The only time a true change can actually unfold is when you stop accepting it, stop being ok with it, stop dancing around the truth and let reality slap you in the face and get serious!

Im not saying we all need to look like Barbie, but obesity is a sickness, there's an unhealthy addiction that comes along with it and for me I realize these things and can proudly look at where I am and say once and for all, yep I'm fat! But not for much longer!!!
Every day I'm that much closer to my goal! Every pound that I loose is one less pound of fatness and one step closer to health and being fit!

It's not about being skinny its about being healthy, it's about being able to look at the real numbers and see that you are in a healthy range and not putting yourself at risk for much worse things!
It's about putting down that bag of chips and that large dr pepper or that candy bar or that ice cream and realizing its time to make the right choices and to stop making excuses!

Idk about you but I'm beyond fed up with being a part of a statistic. Im fed up with not wanting to be in pictures with my husband or family im fed up with all the side effects that come from being fat! I'm fed up With being larger than all my friends and a million other things! This is why I'm able to make the change!

Seeing that girl, which is an exact picture of where I was a month ago, just inspired me more to be able to say I am leaving fat town and I'm never going back!!!!

The Power of Addiction

Its weird to me to think of ‘unhealthy’ food as an addiction but today as I was faced with a bag of chocolate that my kids got from church I quickly realized what it feels like to fight addiction. 

I went to a Christmas party on Friday Night and there was tons of food! I kept busy and really it was no big deal to stay away from bad choices.  But today as I was home alone, with the exception of my kids, I was faced with the choice.  I looked at the snickers and the twix and said NO! But then the oh so loud voice of addiction spoke up and filled my mind with reasons why it was ok.   For every time I said no and walked away I found myself thinking of half a dozen reasons why I should eat just one!  Before I knew it, I had eaten 5! UGH!

image from diseaseproof.com

I should have read the quote on my phone that says…

“Hold on, Put that down! Look how far you’ve come! Look at your goals!  Think of how great you are good you are going to feel once you hit those goals.  Do you really want that? Do you NEED it?  NO! Don’t eat it! Its not healthy! Go eat some fruit to replace that, you can do this!  You are not a failure, you are strong and you can stick to eating healthy! If you eat it you will just feel gross, unhealthy and fat after.  Say no! Its not worth it!”

I found this quote on pinterest and cant find it for anything now but it is so good! I need to pin it up everywhere!

Its true that after I felt gross, I felt like a failure and I felt like a fatty giving in and I am sure that once I see the number on the scale in the morning I will more than concede with its seriously not worth it! I realize that there will be days like this but I also realize that its more than just wanting to change my lifestyle its breaking addictions!

I never really understood addiction before.  If someone had an addiction I would think well just quit and heres the reason why. And I couldn’t understand why they cant just say no for the bigger picture.  But now I do.  Its like you want to say no, you know you need to say no and before you know it you find yourself immersed in the sin!  Before you say oh that’s not a big deal or its not sin its just a little candy you have to understand that one piece of candy to a fatty is like one drink to an alcoholic!  Or one peek of a half dressed woman to a porn addict or one sniff of pot to a pot head… That one lil taste is NEVER enough.. Before you know it the addiction takes hold of you and at the end you are filled with regret, wishing you could take back what you had just done but you cant! 

That first lil snickers was so yummy before I knew it I was eating a twix (these were bite size) 1 lil bite turned into 5 lil pieces of candy, then an oreo (since was making oreo balls for a gift) then a bite of red velvet cake (making red velvet cake balls) then a pretzel rod… it might as well have been an all-out binge but luckily it ended there.

I think back to the movie “Love Dare” and how the man threw out his computer bc it kept tempting him and though that seemed very drastic I realized you have to remove the temptation in order to succeed. Recovering alcoholics cant even have a beer in their house because that temptation of one drink is often to much for an addicted person to overcome on their own!

I should have said no thank you to the bag of candy, my kids are to small for it anyway.  I should have not thought it would be nice to make oreo balls and cake balls and chocolate and candy coated pretzel rods for others because not only am I giving them unhealthy gifts I am putting this big ole carb addicted fatty right in the midst of a butt load of temptation.  Basically I set myself up for failure!  Its like sending an alcoholic into the liquor store with $100 and saying don’t buy anything… DUH! How could I roll up that yummy oreo ball and not take a bite? How could I roll up that red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting all mixed in and not indulge?  Ugh…

I have had an incredible week of losing at least a pound a day as well as making extremely healthy choices with no cheats so in the grand scheme of things one bad day is not that bad.  But I want better for me, I want better for my family!  All I can do is repent and realize that tomorrow is a new day and I can do this! 

Quick, easy and healthy meals! All under 350 Calories each!

I’ve had several people ask what kind of healthy foods I am making so I decided to dedicate Thursdays to Recipes, healthy food ideas etc… Most of the things I have been making are random creations and crazy easy but if there are any busy moms like me, easy and healthy are great and I’m always looking for new ideas! So I hope you can use some of my crazy creations!!!  These creations are all low calorie as well as low carb!  I am trying to stay away from high starchy/carb stuff like pastas, potatoes, sugars etc… the carbs I am getting are from fruits and veggies and the little in the diary or meat I am eating!

Heres what I am learning and why I am eating the way I am.. If you want different results then what you have had in the past you have to do or eat something different!   I want to be able - NO! I will be able to look back a year from now and see DRASTIC change and if i want that Drastic result I have to make drastic changes!

Being a mom of 3 kids ages 2 and under with a hubs deployed I often need super quick options! I don’t usually have time to stand in the kitchen for a long time unless I want things burnt! One of my fav new finds is Tyson Grill Ready Chicken!  Its Yummy and its super easy!  I plan on getting a new George forman grill soon so I can make my own chicken but this has just been a huge help in the midst of craziness!

I eat a lot of turkey bacon, Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie packs, YUM! As well as lots of veggies and meats! I always have Hebrew national all beef hotdogs on hand as well! 

These are some of the random creations I have made in the past week that have helped me lose 10 lbs in 1 week! And btw my kids liked all these meals except the lettuce wraps of course! But they had more nutrition in other things and not just these low cal things so don’t worry!

Calorie and Carb counts are based on my Calorie Count App! Love it!

Turkey Burger Patty cooked in a lil bit of liquid smoke for flavor topped with Wholly Guacamole and Bean Spouts!  Total of 10 carbs and 288 Calories!

Grill Ready Chicken Lettuce wraps with Wholly Guac!  I just get a few leaves of  Romaine lettuce and spread some guac in them and top with a few pieces of grill ready chicken and roll up and enjoy! YUM! Only 173 Calories and 4 carbs!

Last night I julienned an onion, cooked it in a skillet with a TINY bit of smart butter kinda fajita style and then added some bean sprouts, some chicken and some wholly guac and mixed all together! Super yummy too! It is a little higher in carbs then I realized but its all good for you veggie type carbs so those are ok to me... But overall the dinner was 330 calories but a nasty 23 carbs! Next time I know half the onion!

Tonight I had Grill Ready Chicken with Spinach and a little bit of Alfredo Sauce! MMM Only 164 Calories! And 5 Carbs!  I just thawed the spinach and heated it all up together in a pan on the stove and ate! It was great!

Hawaiian Luau Chicken with Squash and Zucchini!  Took a pkt of McCormick Hawaiian Luau Marinade and cooked the veggies in it then added the chicken to warm and then drained off the excess oil mixture and served! 221 Calories and about 8 carbs!

Those are just a few ideas I had this week! Hope to keep coming up with more and give others some good easy ideas!!! J

Weightloss Wednesday report! 10 lbs GONE

So yesterday was too crazy busy to blog about Weight Loss Wednesday but OMG I have to go back and catch up! First off.. I have lost 10, yes TEN lbs in the last week!  I have been eating sooo crazy healthy and I am absolutely loving it!  I have been tracking calories and eating low cal stuff and watching my carb intake as well!  It tends to come off faster when you have a LOT to get rid of!

I have been making healthy decisions, one meal, one craving one temptation at a time!  I have been saying no and LOVING it!  You will never regret turning down bad for you food, but you will regret eating it after if you give in.

Pinterest has been my inspiration the past few days!!! I love Pinterest!

I have decided to stop browsing the desserts and foods and start browsing the fitness section and I have found some serious motivation!  Check out my board for a ridiculous amount of motivating sayings!  I am using these to help me win! Whenever I wanna give in I am praying and reading these motivating pins!

 http://pinterest.com/bensgirl322/motivation/

I can promise you this... The time is NOW, Enough is enough and I am NOT going back… There comes a point in your life when you seriously decide to make a change and you go for it wholeheartedly!  Not that temptation won’t come, because it most definitely will! It will come daily! Sometimes hourly but how you face EACH temptation will be the outcome of your success or failure.  Healthy choices once choice at a time!

Breaking addictions 1 temptation at a time! 

Along with the motivating sayings I have been pining and clinging to… I am working on a list of personal motivators to keep always before me! Be it on the fridge, in my phone, on my forhead, in the car.. EVERYWHERE! Some are pinterest inspired, some are funny, some are serious but all of them are just straight from my heart!

Here is what I have so far (in no particular order)

Reasons why I want to get healthy/loose weight/change my life…

To be proud of myself for having the determination to make a change

Because though it’s as hard as crap now, it will totally be worth it in the end

To prove to myself that I really can do this

To feel and look good when naked!

Because I want to be healthy for my family

Because I don’t want to be remembered as the fat one

To not have constantly hide from photos and be disgusted with ones that come out

Because the fitter I get the sexier I will become

To change my lifestyle and NEVER go back

To be an inspiration for others

Because I feel like a slug when I am lazy

Because I feel disgusting after eating nasty food

To prove to those have doubted me that they were wrong!

Because my body deserves to be treated right

To be able to walk up the hills at the zoo without getting winded!

Because I am tired of always saying I’m gonna do it and the next year being in the same place!

So I won’t EVER have to take another nasty before picture!

To be able to say I used to be fat!

To not have to feel constant regret

Because its way past time for a change

To be able to wear a cute swim suit without a big ole pair of shorts covering most of my fat legs!

To go to an amusement park and not have to worry if the seat belt is gonna fit!

To go to a place with little chairs and not feel my hips brushing each side!

To be able to walk into any store and get the outfit I want without looking for the biggest size!

Because I want my husband to be proud of me

Because I don’t want my daughter to go through the same weight and health struggles that I have gone through my whole life

Because though Starbucks tastes ridiculously amazing it isn’t worth the 65 carbs nor is it worth $5! 

Just because Chic Fil A is Christian owned doesn’t mean that their oh so yummy chicken is healthy.. Its super fattening and deep fried! STAY AWAY!

Because I deserve it

I am doing it for me, for my husband and for my kids! It’s not just about losing weight it’s about changing my life. 

More to come…

The light at the end of the tunnel is peaking through!!!!

We are getting so close to this dang deployment being over its scary! We are seriously on the downhill slide! 10 months down and 3 months (at the most) to go!!!

I can finally start to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel!  Motivation has set it and this day was such an awesome day! If every day could be like today life would be to easy!  The only thing that would have made this day better would have been to be able to talk to my hubs! Suckily he is in a place for a few weeks with limited communication! BOO!  I had been used to getting to talk to him pretty much every day for quite a while and now I’m lucky if I get a quick email. Ugh!

I had a perfect day in the eating category!  I am very VERY proud of myself!  I made a crazy healthy and yummy dinner of squash, zucchini and chicken breast and not only did I love it, my kids chowed down! Monkey kept asking for more chini!  I got a Dancing with the Stars latin work out video, in hopes I can learn some salsa moves while getting some exercise!

All 3 of my babies took a nap at the same time and for 2 hours, in which time I did crazy amounts of house cleaning! None of them had serious meltdowns, (well princess did have one huge one but it wasn’t too bad, she is terribly jealous of new lil brother) peanut napped in his crib twice & princess is doing great with no bottle.  Ahhh sigh of relief!

I actually feel like a normal, non prego woman for the first time in a ridiculously long time!  Yay for having the tubes tied! Love my babies but 3 all a year or less apart is more than plenty!!!!

I could go on and on about todays accomplishments, and would love to just because I feel so proud of me for once, but I am gonna take advantage of the fact that I can be in bed before 10, with a clean house and even a clean me! Yay

Counting down the weeks!

Green Straw Addictions

Last night while sipping a Grande Peppermint Mocha Frap through that oh so infamous Green Straw I had a realization.. Im addicted!  I woulda thought that the startling fact that it holds 65 carbs per cup would have been enough to scare me away forever… but I was stressed out and it seems to be my go to for stress relief and before I knew what hit me there I was..  Sipping deviously on that beloved green straw!  When I have had a rough day I somehow always talk myself into being deserving of the sugar filled sinful delight. 

Three back to back pregnancies have caused a horrid side effect.. Fatness!  Not to mention barely having 2-3 months between each has played a serious toll.  I lost all of my ‘princess’ weight within a few weeks and have almost lost all the peanut weight but my first pregnancy had lots of complications, depression, missing my new hubs who was in basic and AIT all added up to significant weight gain that I am now fighting to loose!

I realized that I can make all these lofty plans and goals but instead of just looking at the end result and sometimes getting overwhelmed and giving up for the day, I have to look at each meal, snack etc individually and make a choice.  For me if I have had a bad day and made some slip ups I end up saying, screw it ill start over tomorrow.  WRONG ANSWER!  Daily choices (heck sometimes hourly choices) are the key to my success. 

Today I had a good day, I ate healthy all day and made smart choices most of the day and when faced with the overwhelming desire to give into the green straw, I won!  One victory at a time, one day at a time, one meal/snack at a time!  

I can do this!!!

Time for a Change!

With R&R and Baby #3 coming VERY soon my mind is flooded with all the things that I need to do before either one of those can happen and all the changes that need to start to happen after baby and r&r to end of deployment!  I like to think that I am a planner.  Not that I always follow through with my plans but I like to make them and ‘feel’ prepared!

The biggest change that needs to start to unfold is eating patterns!  Before I had baby #1 I was diagnosed with Cronhs Disease and had a pretty tough couple of months health wise in 2008.  Luckily for me pregnancy hormones have pretty much suppressed any and all symptoms!

In the months of my flare-ups the only thing that helped was completely changing my diet to no diary, refined sugars or white flour! Anytime I had a little bit of dairy I felt it immensely! In the process of those 7 months my diet completely changed to pretty much eating Fruits, Veggies and Meat. I had no dairy whatsoever, having to check every single label because you can’t even begin to imagine how many things have dairy in them! It’s unreal!  And over the course of that revolutionary change in eating habits I lost a great deal of weight!  The last thing I want or need after baby 3 comes is to continue my present patters and start having flare-ups again.  They are very painful and the steroids that I would have to take to help control make me a very mean person!  So I need to start working, NOW, to start making some serious changes.  Hoping that making small changes over the course of the next few months will help ease the process that needs to happen after the baby comes!  If I can quit one thing a week now then by the time the baby comes things will be much easier!

I joined weight watchers about a month ago and though I haven’t really lost any weight, I am 31 weeks pregnant and haven’t really gained any weight since I started weight watchers.  However, I’m still not totally sure how I feel about.  Some things I like, like the fact that it helps me keep track and keep somewhat accountable but I don’t like that I can pretty much eat any unhealthy thing I want as long as it fits into the daily points value. (with me Id think oh I can starve all day and have something awful for dinner, that’s not that answer!)  I know it’s good, but it’s also bad.  Not that I wanna never have bad stuff but I really do want to completely revolutionize my eating habits.

Over the course of this pregnancy, coupled with the deployment blues I have been eating TOTAL crap!  Drinking TONS of Dr. Pepper (aka caffeine I need for energy but total waste of calories and carbs) eating crap like McDonalds Breakfast, Chic Fil A Lunch and all around a lot of crap that I don’t need to be eating. 

I have used pregnancy and deployment as an excuse and used the excessive heat outside as a reason not to exercise AT ALL!  It’s a miracle I haven’t gained TONS of weight throughout this past 31 weeks!

The things I need to do to start to cut in order to be able to go back to strict Cronhs friendly eating are:

Dr Pepper (I need to go back to green tea for caffeine or maybe iced coffee?)

Fast Food (This is going to be my first thing to go! Starting NOW!)

Dairy (which is everything lol! Go back to Goats Cheese/Milk etc) This can be an easy gradual thing over the next few weeks, simply by changing milks, cheeses and starting to watch labels again while shopping. My biggest dairy obsession is ranch but I learned I can get the packets and make it at home with soy milk or another milk substitute.  I actually did a lot of soy milk last time and now it grosses me out (could be pregnancy?) I think Im going to try rice milk or almond milk or even goats milk? I love goats cheese so…?

Sweets (There are some sweets that I did have before but they were rare and bought only at the health food store)  Luckily I really don’t eat a lot of sweets anyway but one thing I did last time was buy pudding mix which doesn’t have dairy and make it with soy milk! There are lots of creative alternatives!

Luckily I don’t really have many white flours, any time I have pasta its whole wheat, same with bread and even the flour I have etc.

Once all these things are eliminated, it seems kind of drastic, but its what I need to stay healthy and I need to be healthy for me and for my hubs and kids!  I can tell (and my family can tell) the total difference in me when I am not eating dairy, sugars, flours etc… Its dramatic and it affects so many areas for good! Not only is it a great way to lose all this baby weight (I have been pregnant for most of the past 3 years!) Last time on top of losing over 70 lbs it completely eliminated my severe allergies, I had an insane amount of energy and I just felt all around better.

I am pretty sure over the course of the past few months I have had several blogs about my dissatisfaction with my health and choices I have been making and it really is time to make the change!  We have 8 ½ -9 weeks till Jaxsen comes.  I need to spend the next 8 weeks eliminating things slowly so I don’t have to go cold turkey all at once. It really is time for no more excuses.  I need to find some health nuts to become friends with! I have learned that if you want to do something its best to surround yourself with people who want the same things. 

I plan to start a serious Meal Planner and keep serious track of what I am eating/eliminating and how it affects me.  I have tried meal plans in the past and really have failed miserably but the time has come to get serious about things like this!  So here we go.. We won’t mention what I had for breakfast but from this point on I am going to start keeping track, planning and working on it.

Here we go…. I can do this!

Heres my motivation...

My Sweet Princess

My precious Monkey

My Sexy Brave Handsome Super Amazing Hubs!