Reflecting on 20*13

2013 held lots of good things for my family and myself! 2013 also held lots of sad memories for us as well!

This year we lost the greatest dad/grandfather ever in the history of the world-no joke!
Ok, apparently we are going to do this post without pictures. SIGH

In 2013 we lost my Dad, Uncle, Great Aunt, and 3 pets! My dad's dog (literally grieved herself to death), our family pet, and my inlaws family Pet! That's alot to deal with and explain to my lil tots!

Even thru all the grief, lots of great things happened in 20*13

*I got to spend a ton of time with my dad, a big/huge thanks to my husband
*We bought our dream home & my dad got to see it right before we closed on it and approved of it :-)
*We celebrated our boys birthdays (thankfully) every year their big day is soooo special to me!
*We had one of the boys start 2nd grade, which is a HUGE deal-big transition from 1st!
*We had one child start the K4 class-his last year of pre-school at the Christian Academy
*We were able to go on 2 vacations-1 to Jelly Stone Campground, and 1 to Wilderness of the Smokies
*We bought a new minivan for this momma
*We were able to purchase new things for our home!
*I got a promotion at work
*The boys got to go to Neyland Stadium for a game-huge deal for the boys
*One of the boys is playing indoor winter baseball-huge step for him, playing with other kids he had never        met before
*We celebrated Christmas and the REAL meaning of the Season-Jesus' Birthday
*I got to Scrapbook with some friends this year, and I absolutely LOVE every minute of it!
*My photography business was very successful this year, and we are very thankful!
*Our family, stayed healthy, happy, and safe!-This is mine and the boys prayers everyday!
*My hubs was able to work OT-which is always nice, and very much so appreciated!
*All my prayers were answered for daddy to have a safe shift at work, he is a fireman, and I worry                 everytime he leaves the house for work. I know most of the time his job is safe, however, he was shot at       this year while on an EMS run, luckily the bullet hit the ambulance and not him. I do know it takes one bad   run to go to crap very easily and someone is hurt or dead. VERY THANKFUL for him!
*The hubs and I celebrated 8 years of marriage! I can't wait to celebrate another 80 years with that                  wonderful man! :)
*One kiddo played soccer for the 2nd season and had a great time!
*I lost weight, I've been so up and down, I don't exactly know how many lbs I've lost total this year, I will       document better in 20*14, but I have lost 34.5 lbs total.
*This year I have gone down 2 sizes in pants-I will take that!
*This year I added 2 more 5 K's to my "Run like a girl plaque", I typically do 1-5K race a year, this year I      added 2 more.
*Nana has spent alot of time with us, and my boys fell in love with her even more this year! To have a very     involved grandparent is priceless!

I know this can't be all of the great things that happened in 20*13 but it's a great list. There is always more good then bad, and I like to focus on the good!

Today happens to be my great Aunt Eleanor's birthday! I know she and my dad are having a great time in Heaven and are awaiting our arrival!

We are ending our year, healthy, happy, and safe! For that I'm very thankful!

Updates

I was hoping to do a reflection on 2013, but it won't let me upload pictures for some reason, so I will go with plan B!

I fell off the diet band wagon one week before the final weigh-in, I did great, I lost 8 lbs, any loss to me is great, but I know had I not screwed up the week prior, I would have won 2nd place. Lots of people quit the challenge after Thanksgiving, and I did great thru Thanksgiving, then Christmas parties and such hit, and life got busy with shopping, wrapping, cooking, and planning, that I didn't even go to the gym!

So now I'm making up for that 5 lbs weight gain, I've lost 34.5 total pounds, so if I fluctuate between up 5 and down 5, I'm really ok with that.
I've lost 4 pants sizes, and plan to lose 1.5 more sizes, so I'm good with that!

The next weight loss challenge at work is to lose 10% of your body weight in 12 weeks, which is really hard to do, but a very attainable goal. So that's what I'm shooting for! The initial weigh-in is Jan 8th, but I have already started my diet and exercise plan today. I ate around 1550 calories today, that's a little more then I want to eat each day, I'd like to see each day around 1300 total calories, but being the first day back on, I will take the 1550. My fridge is stocked and I'm ready for this week, lots of veggies and fruits, and low cal things!

I'm excited to get our house back in order from Christmas, I hope to work on that tomorrow. I did go thru some of the boys clothes, and I have 3 bags of stuff to donate, which is nice to help clear out the clutter, and I know a family that could use them, so a win win situation for all of us!

Tomorrow is a special day, it's my Aunt Eleanor's Birthday, this year she will celebrate in Heaven with my dad, and lots of other special people! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELEANOR!!!
I will be thinking of my cousins tomorrow too, I'm sure it will be a hard day for them, reflecting and thinking about their mom!

Tomorrow is also Ashley's Bday, which we will celebrate on Wed, with spaghetti dinner at the in-laws!

I'm looking forward to 2014 and more so looking forward to losing an additional 20 lbs!

I hear there may be a wedding announcement on my husband's side of the family in 2014, and I want to bust out a super cute dress for the wedding, 2 sizes smaller then what I wear right now! Wish me luck!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIENDS...................

I am super blessed with these 3 ladies in my life! Ali Ray and I have been friends for around 12 years now, Rachel and I are cousins and we have been close for years, and Crane is my newest of the three friends, who I see the most, everyday Mon-Fri!

I missed Ali Ray's bday celebration, and I'm sad about that, always a good time, but I'm sure we can make up for it soon!
Crane's bday lunch is tomorrow, so I'm excited to take her to Mexican for lunch, (hey it was her pick) we have agreed to share the nachos, no side dishes and have limited ourselves to 15-20 chips a piece, that should put us around 700 calories. So tomorrow I have a date with the elliptical until I burn 400 calories on that bad boy!
Rachel's bday is Friday, and I don't think we are going to get to meet up, but possibly on Sat. we shall see!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL 3 OF YOU!!!!!!

I'm blessed far beyond what I deserve to be for sure!

Just a lil update, our weigh-in is over Tuesday, so I may have plans to hit the gym a couple times a day this weekend, I really want to be able to drop another 4 lbs, but we shall see! The reward in my clothes is awesome and the cash reward will come in handy for Christmas!

I will post results as soon as the final weigh-in gets here! Right now I have lost 5% of my body weight, so I really can't complain!

Tonight was a hard night, my boys chose pizza night, so I ate a Mcdees salad and one piece of pizza, followed by a Miller Lite, I call that an awesome night! :-)

Now it's time for the WILDCATS to come on! I'm ready to watch some basketball with my boys, make popcorn, and watch the season finale of Chicago Fire!

Weightloss update for December

Has it really been a month? Gosh, time really does fly when you are having fun, huh?

So, I need to do a little catch up post! I was doing great up until the week of Thanksgiving, then I hosted a party at my house, just a lil girls night out of shopping. It was an Initial Outfitters party and we had a great time, and I got 110.00 bucks worth of free stuff, something at 70% off, and 3 half-off items! Thanks to all that came!

So I ate at the party, and I have been keeping my "free" day on Saturdays, every Sat evening, I'M MISERABLE, I have never been that way before, and when I say free day, I don't eat 4K calories, but I do eat. Here is an example, this past Sat. we went to DQ for breakfast, I had biscuits and gravy and a hashbrown, yes I know fattening! Then I was planning a light lunch and dinner but my mom has been sad with all the holidays so she wanted the local buffet, I got a tablespoon of about 6-8 side items and one piece of cornbread. By the time I got home, I thought I was going to yak, this has happened for the last 3 Sat's in a row. Needless to say, I'm going to re-do my free day! I'm going to allow myself and extra 1K calories to eat whenever, spreading it out throughout the week, or saving it for something like a milkshake, but eating whatever I want all day on Sat is over. It is so not worth it!

So I've been back on track and I now weigh the same as before T-giving, which is great! This week, my plan is to drop 2.5-3.5 pounds, I know I can do it, an plan to! :-)

The Biggest Loser contest is over next week, on Tuesday I think, so I'm hoping to be in the next set of 10 category lost, I'm 3 lbs from dropping into the next set of 10's! So 4 more lbs by the 17th will make me one happy girl! That will put me smaller then when I met my husband, after 13 years and 2 children later, that makes me one happy girl!

I have ditched the treadmill, I really, really, really wanted to be a Runner, (my mom told someone the other day I was a runner, and it made me proud) I'm really not a Runner, but I do run. All that to say, that as much as I want to be able to consistently run 3 miles per day without stopping, it doesn't burn a ton of calories, I know once I build up the endurance and the miles add up, I will burn more, but 20 mins on the treadmill at a slow jog, I burn 100 calories, 20 mins. on the elliptical I burn 260, so ofcourse do the math, and you will know why I changed to the elliptical. I'm up to 30-35 mins and burn 400 calories, so on the treadmill that would be 250-300 depending on my speed. So for now I'm doing the elliptical 20 days a month, with some bike, and some weights.

I'm excited to weigh-in tomorrow to see if I have lost anything! I've had a great day today, with my total cals around 1320! MFP says I need to be at 1220, but I'm losing weight when I eat between 1200-1450 so that's the range I try to keep it in!

Today I played hide and seek with the boys, so I'm pretty sure I burned quite a bit doing that!

Until next time...........................

WeightLOSS Update

So today was weigh-in day.........................................

I weighed first thing this morning at home,  and my scales are pretty much the exact same as the ones at work, and they said the exact same as I weighed when we went on vacation, which is great because I had gained 4 lbs while I was gone, well maybe 3 on vacation and 1 when we got back home. So that was a 4 lb loss.

When I got to work I was bummed about weighing in because I feel like the lady that records our weight for our competition is wondering why I'm not dropping much or any weight!
So I shed my boots, and............................................I WAS A POUND LESS then when I went on vacation!

So that makes me the smallest I've been in about 10-11 years, I will so take that! I have given up my afternoon Reese's cups, but have replaced them with a Smores in the evening! Cutting about 70 calories! I love smores, can't wait until they are gone though, ha!

Since I don't have any 5K's coming up that I know of, I'm doing less time on the treadmill and more time on the elliptical, which is burning 3 times the amount of calories! And while that is great on the calorie burn, it isn't helping me increase my overall distance. I'm sure its strength building which does help too!

Yesterday I was on the elliptical for about 15 mins. longer then normal and I added the stair master workout too, and I felt it in my legs today, I was super sore! Funny how changing up things can still make me sore, even though I workout 4-5 days a week!

Losing that one extra pound has definitely motivated me for the rest of the week!

On the menu tomorrow is: Oatmeal packet with PB2 and one tablespoon of mini chocolate chips, about 200 cals, lunch is a stouffer's veggie lasagna with white sauce 400 cals, dinner is spaghetti with marinara sauce. My snacks are celery with a 35 calorie wedge of laughing cow cheese, cauliflower, one piece of cheese with 5 saltine crackers, so my snacks will run about 145 calories for the day. Dinner will run about 400 calories. That shows 1145 calories for the day. That leaves room for a 110 calorie smore before bedtime! I walk on my lunch and that burns around 90-110 calories and walk on both breaks and that burns 50 calories each time, for an additional 100 calories.

If it turns out as planned I may skip the gym tomorrow night and have extra love/cuddle time with my boys! I love to snuggle all 3 of them on a chilly night! Plus I will be eating a ton of carbs tomorrow, so I prolly won't feel like going to the gym! That doesn't mean I will plop down on the couch and do nothing. I will most likely do some laundry and pass football with the boys, and that does burn a few calories. I never count that as exercise, more like everyday living.

I hope next Wed, I have a great report, my goal is going to be down 2 more lbs from today, which almost puts me into the next 10 lb weight-loss range.

According to my work competition, I've lost 10.8 lbs since Sept 24th! Not horrible over 6 weeks that included a vacation!

You know what I love?

I love when I have to buy SMALLER clothes! :)

I have always worn an XL in shirts, at my heaviest I remember buying a few 2X shirts, XL's were a lil snug (which I hate in a tee shirt) but 2X was way too big!
Anyway, back in the summer I had bought a sleeveless workout tank, mainly for running, it has reflective emblems and such on it, I bought an XL, which the tag states 16/18, I put it on tonight to go the gym and it is GI-NORMOUS on me! It's the dri-fit material so I thought it would run smaller!

Oh well, it was a great feeling. I think it made me kick it up a notch at the gym, I actually added in 5 mins. of the stair climber tonight, the machine said it was 10 flights of stairs, I'm not sure if that's accurate. We shall see how I feel in the morning!

Speaking of smaller clothes, I'm in between sizes right now, which is a complete bum! I'm not really complaining, but the size I'm in now, is way too big and looks sloppy, I don't even have to un-button the pants to slip them on and off! A size smaller is miserably tight, and causes a muffin top and we don't want any of that! :)

So what is my fix? Crane and I have set small goals for this month, mine is to shed another 7 lbs, and her's is to shed 5 lbs. I think she is on board with me this time, so that helps so much to have a friend to do it with you! If I can shed 2-3 more lbs, then the smaller size pants should fit fine, and I'm praying that will happen by the end of this coming week! Which also means a shopping trip, I have 2 pair of dress pants in that size, so not much to choose from!

Today I made a flat out pizza for lunch and one to take tomorrow to work, I roasted, cauliflower, broccoli, and celery, after what I ate today I have enough for Monday and Tuesday snacks at work as well! I also found dark chocolate covered strawberries, 4 to a pack for 60 calories, can't beat that either! I cut up celery to take to work also! These snacks will replace my afternoon Reese's or a 130 calorie bag of chips, I like to find ways to cut calories during the day to allow for a "heartier" meal at night!

Weigh-ins haven't been going well since Vacation, I always do that, I go off of my diet (lifestyle change) whatev you want to call it, and it's so hard to jump back on, I had gained 3-4 lbs, by weigh-in time the scales only showed a 1 pound gain, not horrible, the following Tuesday showed another 1 lb gain from the previous week, so I'm 2 pounds up since mid-October, the goal by Tuesday is to have those 2 lbs gone, and back to pre-vacation weight!

FINGERS CROSSED!

I will post an update!

Black Cat-Post Race Report & PAR-TAY

Let me first start by saying: I HAD SO MUCH FUN!!!!

My hubs could come to this race, we were having a date night afterwards, Crane and her family were there running, and the crowd was amazing as usual. The only thing I didn't like was, I was running by myself, which is what I wanted, but man when it was time to slow down for a breather, there wasn't anyone to talk to! I just turned up the Ipod and kept going!
At mile two the timer set 17 mins. which ofcourse starts when the first runner crosses the line, and I knew I was a good minute behind the first runners, which meant I was about 16 mins. in the race! Now that couldn't have been correct by any means, that would mean 8 min. mile for this new runner, no way! :)
I took about a 2 min. walk, and a flight medic/nurse that I use to work with saw me and we chatted another min and she suggested we break out into a run, it was a lil sooner that I had planned, but now I'm glad we did it................................because I REACHED MY GOAL! Thanks Melissa! :)
When we ran thru the chute it said: 40:58, and my initial thought was "crap, I didn't make my time" but then realized that was start time, not chip time. I later learned my chip time was 39:35 and that was a 12:46 pace time. I lined up by the 12 minute pacer, and after that was walkers/strollers.

All in all I'm super happy with my time, I shaved off 4 mins from my 5K this past summer on the Cross Country track, and 5 mins from the same race last year! I wanted a sub 40 time, but thought it will most likely be around 41 mins. I'm still smiling! That's not super fast at all, but I will take it, and ofcourse gives me more motivation to keep getting faster!

There is another 5K here in town that supports the local high school basketball team, so I'm planning on doing that one, and possibly the one on Thanksgiving Day, so fingers crossed I can make both races! Those will probably be colder then last night's. It was around 40 degrees, I didn't layer too much and I was fine!

Here is a post race photo:

I have the cutest hubs for sure! He got a fresh new haircut, which I love :) I'm such a lucky girl!
We went to an awesome Halloween Costume Party, here is a pic of me and the hubs:

Thankfully in this picture, he didn't have his mask on, it was pretty scary looking. I told him to hide it from the kids. I don't need them to start having nightmares, LOL!
This party didn't disappoint, Jacque you are the best hostess! The food table was unbelievable, she is a great cook, but she went all out with the Halloween theme, check this stuff out!

That is a homemade coffin, that is full of Jell-O-shots! 600 to be exact! In syringes, which totally cracked me up! The coffin was lined to keep them cold!
The 2nd picture is a Skeleton with Taco dip in him, she also had her awesome cookies, and a cheese ball that was a "mummy"
If I had the money, I would pay her to do the food at our party, she did a fantastic job and I hope she post them on pinterest, because if you are hosting a party or going to one, you will for sure want to make these super cute things!

We had a lot of fun, and hope to make next year's! We didn't get to stay long at all, and it was after the 5K, and we had to get home to the kiddos!

JUST.KEEP.GOING.

I decided tonight that I should run outside in the 40-50 degree weather because that's what I will be running in on Friday for my next 5K, more like high 30's!

Not even going to lie! I'd RATHER be at the gym, (I think), the treadmill gets boring for sure, but I have a huge big screen TV in front of me, zero incline, and the perfect temperature, when running a 5K you have none of those luxuries, so I really wanted to have the same conditions as the race will be.

I love our new neighborhood, it has a huge circle so that is great, especially since I'm not a great out and back runner, hate to run 1.5 miles then turn around and come back, don't ask me why, I've been that way since high school, ha!
The run was nice, it was cold, but I dressed for it, and layered but not too much, even tried out my new headband to keep my bangs back and out of my way. There are inclines/hills either way I turn out of our driveway, so I took the smaller hill route, but has a huge downhill on the other side.
I ended up doing 2.31 miles tonight, which was great, I normally stop at 2  miles but when I passed our house I was only at 1.93, and just did another loop around!

I kept telling myself during my run to JUST.KEEP.GOING

Running for me is a mental game/battle with myself, when I'm done, I'm hot, sweaty, but feel great, like I could seriously have done that twice. Which I'm hoping means my endurance is building up for some longer runs.

My lowest 5K time was 42 mins, when I signed up for this race it asked my estimated finish time? WHAT? I've never had to "guess" that before, but I really want to finish in 40 mins or under! the 42 min. 5K was the Tiki Trot that was on the Cross Country Course, I figure if I can do that in 42 with hills, dirt, and grass, in the 90 degree weather, surely I can beat that time by 2 mins? WISH ME LUCK!!!!

After the race we are heading to an Adult Halloween Party, so maybe that will be motivation to run faster, so we can get to the Party! Remember me and the hubs never get a date night, so I'm excited, that we don't have to "rush" right home, we aren't staying long, but long enough to have some fun!

I'm VERY EXCITED to add another race bib to my running plaque that the hubs made for me!

I'm hoping this isn't my last race of the year, fingers crossed I can find another one in Nov to participate in!

Vacation and THE 911 call

Oh boy, where to start?

It was Fall Break this week for the kiddos, so we decided to take a 4 night/5 day stay in Pigeon Forge Area,  the boys had a great time, and so did the hubs and I! If you're kids love the pool and water, this is a great place to stay, you really don't have to leave the property for anything, 4 big slides, wave pool, indoor/outdoor hot tub, (hot tub was the biggest I've ever seen, I think it said it held 113 people?) It was half indoor and half outdoor, so cool! Also had a regular pool, again half inside half outdoor! An arcade, candy store, several snacky type food bars, and a restaurant or two, and a arcade, with laser tag, indoor black light putt putt golf, and etc!
It also had a "gym" it wasn't very luxurious and it closed at 11:00, I'm so spoiled when it comes to my gym here at home, everything is top of the line (just how I like it) when I went in to workout, there was a young girl in there on the elliptical, and I felt very sorry for her, she may have only been in there "playing" like kids do, but I was thinking to myself, she would much rather be out playing with kids her age, her brother was also in there working out too, I would guess them to be 14-16 years old. They were watching the Disney Chanel!
I didn't really "diet" while I was there, but everytime I ate something fattening or greasy I got sick! The first night there we ate at Logan's, the hubs and I split the appetizer that comes with 3 items, we got potato skins without bacon for me, cheese sticks, and wings, I ate one potato skin and one cheese stick, and had that "grease headache" I ate one roll, diet coke, and a bite of my mom's salad! That's really not alot of food, but guarantee it was well over 700 calories including the peanuts, which is crazy! So I tried to eat better stuff for me, kind of hard on vacation, but I did try! We really didn't have any food, that was over the top great!

It was fun, and oh the slides, yea you climb like 4 flights of stairs to get to them, so I definitely burned some calories, doing that over and over!

The room was huge, 2 queen size beds, a twin sleeper love seat, our room had all the normal stuff, plus bottled water (for a fee), 20 foot ceilings, table for 2, stove with 2 burners, so they had a few things that were nice and unexpected, very spacious for sure, but we did pay almost $200.00 a night to be there!

The hubs and EE got to go to the UT game on Sat., I bought the hubs tickets for his bday back in Sept. they had a great time, and got back safely! Daddy came back bearing gifts and Bre stayed with me! At 80 bucks a ticket we weren't taking him or myself, so we stayed and played at the water park!

Now onto this lil guy/story! Bre wants to be a Ninja Turtle for Halloween, so his costume is ready to go, he is so very into the Turtles now, clothes, movies, and etc. I didn't buy him any of the ninja stuff other then the costume, well he has begged for the nun-chucks (not sure how to spell that) and I've said no, because I know what will happen to big brother if we bought those! :) So the boys went to the arcade and racked up points, and they had to split their points so each had just enough for nun-chucks, (yay us) so this morning while I was out getting Dunkin' Donuts, Bre had hit his brother or dad one with them (they don't hurt, they are foam, but trying to teach a lesson about not hitting) so dad put them up, I kind of laughed, was sitting in the bed drinking my diet coke, he stomped off and said I'm mad at you, he picks up the phone, like he did 100 times prior to this morning, and says I'm calling the police! He starts punching numbers and says "yes, come get Brandon (middle name) (last name), he just put up my nun-chucks and he is a big meanie, we laughed, and about 2 mins. later the phone rang, it was the POLICE DEPT.
They said the got a 911 call from our room number, so he really did call 911, I didn't even know he knew how, he is only 4! Then after we said sorry, that was our pre-schooler, we get a knock on the hotel door, it's security, saying they were informed we had an accidental 911 call, and they needed to make sure we are all ok! Needless to say he learned a lesson today, it was kind of funny, but he did learn a lesson!

Never a dull moment at our house with either boy! I'm pretty sure we won't forget this vacation for many reasons, but the 911 call probably tops them all!

Gotta love these boys!

We are refreshed now and ready to get back to school and work (I guess)

I'm not weighing in on Tuesday this week, I'm waiting until Friday! ha! I need a few days to get the vacation pounds off! :)

The weigh-in & fire pit night

My second weigh-in went well, but I had only lost 4 ounces, the first week I had lost 4 lbs from the initial weigh-in! Not bad, but 4 ounces is nothing, really! I was somewhat bummed, but my body does hold the "weight" as long as it possibly can, then I have a nice drop, so I've been weighing everyday to see how it is fluctuating, and I've had a steady drop everyday since. I weigh-in on Tuesdays, that's when I lost the 4 ounces, but when I weighed in on Wed, I lost another pound, and again today another pound, so looks like it's around 2.4 lbs for the week, which doesn't count for this week, but will count for next week, so that's pretty awesome!

Running is becoming easier, I do 2 miles now, mostly running the whole 2 miles, I'd guess I walk a .5 miles during the whole time I'm on the treadmill! If I get a chance I try to get in 10 mins on the bike too, for an additional 4-5 miles!

After the gym on Monday, I came home to this:

There is NOTHING better then coming home to a fire pit and snuggling up by it, with my boys and the Hubs! We had mentioned we might light the fire pit, so I stopped by walmart to get Smore's stuff!
We all loved it!

Thanks B for making such a fun family night for all of us!

If it were up to me I'd be having a fire pit every night! :) I located a pile of wood that needs to be burned tonight behind our shed, so maybe, just maybe we can use that this weekend!

I'm now one pound away from being the smallest I've been in 13 years, and that's very exciting.

We are heading on vacation soon, and our hotel has a gym, so I plan to utilize that while we are there, I've worked way too hard to not keep it up, or lose it on vacation! The compression pants I have on in the above picture actually started sliding down on me during my run yesterday, not real bad, but enough that I noticed, and while they are expensive, I did smile about it!

Yesterday EE's class went on a field trip and I was able to wear my new jeans that I bought 2 weeks ago, that are a smaller size then I had been wearing, and they fit great! I got two compliments just in the drop off line at school, then several from mom's on the field trip, it does make all the hard work worth every minute!

A Fun Weekend-Recap with Pics

Can't believe it's already Sunday night, the weekend flew by, but we got to do some really fun stuff!

Friday night I had the privilege of teaching Bre's school teachers and staff CPR, that is my 3rd job, I'm an CPR & First Aid Instructor, if you've ever had a CPR class then you know the class is long and boring, even though it's interesting and I do my best to break up the "boring parts" its a very long class, Friday night I put in 13.5 hours, I'm not complaining it's a lil extra money, not much but a lil!
I did have a great group of students to work with that fed me lasagna, bread, salad and cake with a homemade icing, oh my it was to DIE.FOR! I also got to let Bre tag along as he could play while I taught, he stayed for half, he was great and quiet and played with two others! I hate being away from either of my kids, so nice to have him with me!

We had our small town festival this weekend, we went, had a great lunch, bought a cute Chevron plaque for the house, bought a Tickin' Tater, which is a fun game that holds a water balloon, kind of like hot potato, and whoever is holding it when the timer is up, gets wet! :) We played that tonight and it was super fun! I went to a wedding with EE, he was my date, it was in the middle of nap time, so the hubs stayed home with Bre!
Look how handsome my date was!

There was a photo booth, I have seen pictures of these, but never attended a wedding that had one, so we were excited to try it out! I know we look super goofy, but we had a blast, he didn't want to leave! Might have helped that Carly and Annie Sue were there, he took pics with Carly in the photo booth too, he thought it was too much fun!

After the wedding we went back to the festival to let the kids do the trampoline, jumpy thing, it was an extra long wait, and so not worth it, but hey we were cool parents for trying! Super thanks to the HUBS for going with me, twice, I like to shop there, so that's no easy task with two wild kiddos! :)

Today has mainly been a chill day other then cleaning and laundry! Here is a picture I took of my dinning room, we are trying to decorate for Fall around here, but I can't find my tote of fall stuff, the hubs said he would locate it tomorrow, here is my dinning room, the candles must go, and I need a couple of small real pumpkins for the middle of the table!

We don't have mix-matched chairs, this table seats up to 6, we only bought the 4 chairs, I'm going to get the other two now, they have to be ordered which is fine, but since mom has been eating with us a lot, we moved one of the kitchen chairs to the DR for now! The orange thing on the one chair is a pumpkin cover, found it at the Dollar Tree, but it's cute for the boys' chairs!

We also had a fun Birthday celebration to attend today, the Interstate was closed due to a bad wreck, so we took the back roads and so did everyone else, the party we were going to was 45 mins. away from our home, and with all the traffic it took 2 hours and 36 mins, the boys were great, they were watching the Ninja Turtles, I called about 3 mins out to find the park, and Braden's dad told me they were headed to the ER because Braden had fell and had a huge knot on the back of his head, so we went ahead to the park, everyone was leaving, I let the boys out to play and ofcourse stretch their legs! They played for a bit, then we headed to ER to drop off our present! Braden will be fine, so that's good news!

We got back into town and picked Nana up, she had lots of goodies for the kids, she had bought donuts, and Uncrustables, and snacks! She is always buying them something! We cooked a healthy dinner, it has about 150 cals total. Can't beat that! I thought I uploaded a pic, but can't find it now!
I had half a baked potato loaded with salsa, and Pico, a side of steamed broccoli, and sautéed mushrooms, in zero calorie butter! So I ofcourse ate a donut Nana sent! Which is exactly why I don't buy them, the kids aren't deprived we live one mile from the donut shop, and they get them about once a week! That way I only buy one for them, and none for me!

The running plaque I mentioned that the hubs made is awesome, he really can surprise me when I least expect it! I LOVE IT! I hope to fill it up with lots of running bibs! I will have one next month and I found another run that is two days after the Black Cat, I'm contemplating running that one too, it's for a good cause, the hubs is off work, so seems meant to be!

He is so creative, I love it, and can't wait to find the perfect spot in the house to hang it!

 

 

Great weekend, great family, and great friends, you just can't ask for any better!

 

So blessed!

3 more pounds gone and pics-Toby update

I have lost an additional 3 more pounds, and I couldn't be happier, I am now 3 lbs away from being the smallest I've been in 10 years, I will so take that after 2 kids! :)
I was trying to find some pics to compare, and before I started my weight loss journey, I never took any "before" pics, so we have to make do with what I can find!
Here they are:

The first picture I was at my heaviest and the picture in the purple shirt I'm 3 lbs away from my lowest weight, in 2 years for sure, but I only stayed that weight for a few weeks until my dad's cancer diagnosis. The weight loss difference between the two pictures is 25 pounds. As of right now I'm down 33 lbs.

I'm still using MFP and counting calories, not really very hard, I eat ALL.DAY.LONG!!! I've been running, now I have increased my distance to 2 miles, still doing 2 miles, 5 days a week! Starting 10/1/13, I will be doing 3 miles, so that I can train for the Black Cat! I'm super excited about that for sure!

Speaking of a race, my super awesome hubs, made me a running plaque, I showed him pics of one that I wanted, and he surprised me with one, I LOVE IT, thanks hubs, YOU'RE the BEST! :) He is almost finished with it, I can't wait to take pics of it to, so that I can post it!

Tonight I did 14 mins. of  Tae-bo, it's really my rest night from exercise, but I was a lil over on cals.

I did sign up for the Biggest Loser at work, so I love me a good competition, I can't wait to see how I do, it's for 12 weeks and is over the first part of Dec! 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, place win money! Free money in Dec, I'm totally in for that! We have to weigh-in weekly, so be looking for my weight loss post, I think we weigh in on Tuesdays!

This lil guy here went to Heaven on Tuesday, we are all super sad, but the Vet found a baseball size tumor on his spleen, and said his liver was 100% full of tumors, so very sad for sure, but I'm glad he isn't in anymore pain! We miss him soooo much!

Half a Year and Toby Starbucks

How in the world has it been six months since my dad died? He died on the 23rd of March, 2 days before his Birthday! We are a very close family, I use to call my dad every night before I would go to sleep, my routine was to watch the 11:00 news, turn off TV and call Poc! Every morning, driving the kids to school, we would call Poc and tell him good morning, for two years I went to their house everyday on my lunch hour!
Dad was my very best friend and my biggest cheerleader! I miss him soooo soooo soooo much!
He was a great man, and is in Heaven, he couldn't be happier!
Here are a few pics from my Wedding, which he made wonderful, he said he would let me have the most lavish, beautiful wedding I wanted, and he did that for sure! He wrote check after check for that Wedding!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I think they were scanned into our computer! These were taken by my friend, and I'm so glad she got a couple of great shots! :-)

I miss Poc more then anything!

Well some more bad news, Toby has been with us for almost 10 years, his Birthday is next month, in Oct. When we first got him he looked like this!

It was LOVE AT FIRST SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He loved that Dalmatian quilt, it would fall off the bed some and we would find him laying on it, so stinkin' cute!
He started vomiting last week, we took him to the Vet and the Dr. seemed concerned but not as much as me and the hubs, I knew something was wrong, he wasn't acting like himself, the Vet put him on 3 meds, liver pill, acid reflux pill, and a antibiotic.
Over the weekend his belly was swollen twice the normal size, so I took him back in this morning for fluids and pain meds, they gave him all of that at the Vet and decided to keep him, he was so dehydrated, the Dr. is pretty sure he has a tumor on his liver and is in-operable, they are going to do exploratory surgery in the morning. The prognosis is grim, we will do all we can to keep him alive, but the Vet said if its a tumor like they think, that we need to put him down, I have a super hard time with this, so lot's of prayers please!
Boston's have a life expectancy of about 16 years, so as you can imagine we are all super shocked and sad, as all the blood work and xrays lead us to believe that it is indeed a tumor!
Toby needs a miracle from God, I know with all my heart it can happen!
We will be praying like crazy tonight!

Here is a picture of Toby that was taken about 4 years ago, he ofcourse still looks like this, he is 14 lbs, and is one of the smallest Bostons I have seen!

Don't forget that I'm a photographer, and I most certainly took his picture and made us some wallets, I mean how cute is he?
Say a prayer for the boys too, they are extremely sad, my mom just lost my "dads" dog at 8 years old just 2 months ago, and now Toby is super sick. It's hard to lose a family member! Toby is just that! We love him to pieces!

Sorry for the sad post tonight! I've been an emotional wreck all day!

What I was doing..........................WRONG!!!!!!

Great title huh? NOT! More on that in a minute!

So the 5K went great! Nice, cool morning! Sitters worked out nicely for the kiddos so that I could go! Alison and I got to ride together, so yay for some girl time, the race started at the bottom of a hill!
We walked most of the race! We got to catch up on girl time, which is super rare for me!

I'm disappointed I didn't run anymore then I did, but there is always next year! :)

So I FINALLY figured out what I THINK I'm doing wrong, when it comes to running! I've been training around 10-11 weeks and I thought by now I would be jogging the entire 5K, which I'm a far cry from.
The longest I have jogged without stopping is 1.5 miles, which is great for me, but I thought I would have worked up to a longer distance by now!

So my new method is going to be to stay on the treadmill for 3 miles, 20 days a month! Normally I would run my 1.0-1.5 miles then get off and do weights, or bike or the elliptical! So now I will stay on the bike until it reaches 3 miles and jog as much of that as possible, until I build up my endurance!

Oh the race shirts were cool, they are long sleeve which was nice! I was able to buy an extra for the hubs which was nice!

I'm looking forward to signing up for that race again next year!

Next up is the Black Cat, then the Biggest Loser 5K also! I'm excited for sure!

My work is hosting a Biggest Loser Contest again this fall, last fall I won 3rd place, so not bad, I'm down 30 lbs from my heaviest already, but I'm hoping to lose 25-30 more! Wish me luck, the winners get money, and free trips to Ky Parks! Very exciting for sure!

I'm weighing in on Friday of this week, I will be sure to post my results!

An UNEXPECTED 5K

I searched Google for some local 5K's and found one in the town I grew up in, just one county over from where I live now. Who knew this race even existed? The website said 7th annual?

It's a race to Honor Fallen Firefighters? My husband is a Fireman, I had no idea about this race, but was super excited to find it, at the very last minute and register for it!

Since the Cross-Country 5K was in the 90 degree weather and on rough terrain, and I beat my previous 5K that was in Oct. on pavement, I'm hoping to do even better, this race is in the morning with the weather in the 50's and we are running in a very shaded neighborhood! EXCITED!!!!

I think I've said it before, I have done the Black Cat for the past 2 years, this year will make race #3, and I would always wait for it to come around, then I started thinking to myself, that I wasn't going to wait to run one race all year long!

With my husband working shift work, it's hard to find a sitter and hard to justify babysitting money for me to run! Right now I'm trying to do as many as I can within reason!

There is a Biggest Loser 5K coming up and a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, so I will do one of those for sure, I typically host T-giving at our home, so that might be harder to do, but we shall see! :) They are both in Nov. and I have Black Cat in Oct. so not bad!

I feel in love with a "Run like a Girl" running plaque that holds your race bibs, I want to recreate one, so wish me luck, I have 2 bibs that I have saved for now, so that's exciting too, I think it will be an Oct. project for me and the hubs to do together! :)

Speaking of the hubs, who has always been fit and doesn't need to lose a pound, he has been running some now too, he wants to be heart healthy, which is awesome and a great example for the boys! I'm excited, he said he might run a race with me, but he would leave me in the dust, he is way faster then me.
Would be so fun to run a race together though!

The race is Sat., I will post about it for sure! A big thanks to Ali for running it with me, she is a ton of fun, and we don't get to do much anymore, so will be a fun morning! Fingers crossed Melanie decides to run it too!

Here's to hoping the shirts are cool..................

2.6

YES, you read that right, 2.6 lbs is what I lost this week, and I'm stoked! Hard work pays off!

I did well over the Holiday weekend, and even passed up cake at Alison's (I was secretly dying to dive into it)  ha ha ha! It looked yummy! We had cake at the inlaws that I took over and I used the 3 bite rule, and I left the cake at their house! (I made it, and didn't want it in the house all weekend)!
It's getting easier and easier to stay on track on the weekends, I don't want to "cheat" because I think of all the hard work I put into the gym!

This weekend I worked on ABS, and boy I can tell mine are under this tummy somewhere, I was soooooo sore from just one workout! Like sore if I coughed, laughed, or just getting in/out of bed! I decided to give it a few days to rest the ABS because I'm sure I tore lots of muscle fibers, they never get a workout!
I went back to working on Abs yesterday at the gym, and feel fine now, so I really want to make Abs a part of my routine.
My gym time is limited, I have extremely bad mommy guilt as well as wife guilt, I HATE to leave my family, I know that working out will hopefully prolong my life, and show the kids how to be a great example!

I weighed on Tuesday (I always weigh at the dr.'s office inside my work) and it showed a 2 ounce loss, I was bummed but I know that I'm not going to be dropping the numbers like crazy each week, so I figured by this Friday it would be down a whole pound, I weighed again on Wed. and it said another -2.4 loss! So that's a total of -2.6 for this week! I'M STOKED!!! That's a great loss, so my total weight loss from my heaviest until now is 29 lbs, my bestie said I can't count being pregnant as my highest weight, but I only gained 9 pounds the whole pregnancy! I am now 6 pounds from being the smallest I've been since Oct 2011, so I will hit that goal again very soon, hopefully by Oct. 1!

So I have been jogging around 8-9 weeks now on the treadmill at the gym, I thought for sure after 3-4 weeks I could up my mileage, around week 2, I was able to jog a mile, and had got up to jogging 18 mins. straight, then it seemed like my body shut down, I know it's a mental, but I surely couldn't run more then my one mile, so I was mad on Tuesday night, so I thought to myself, I'm going to push it tonight and get in 1.5 miles, and I did!

I'm going to have to buy myself a few magazines, I've been a member at this gym for over a year and they have the same ones, and I'm sick of them! I think if I can read something good, it will distract me from getting bored!

See for yourself....

I know it says 1.46 but I assure I started it again and ran the .04 to make it 1.5! The treadmill messed up when I started it, and I just put in the 22 mins. knowing I'd stop around 16 mins, so I didn't care it made me set the time, typically I just turn it on manual and go with it, but I couldn't this time!

And that's the hot mess I looked like when I jumped off the treadmill, I'm not going to lie, it felt good, I had that "runner's high" I really did, that's the 2nd time I've felt that!

It has taken me 8 weeks to be able to go from 1 mile to 1.5 miles, I know it's crazy, but that's just how it is for me! And it's working with my exercise, so the numbers are going down!

The MFP congratulated me when I typed in my -2.6 weight loss this week then it said it would re-program my fitness plan, it dropped me from 1300 calories to 1220! Sheesh, I wasn't expecting that!

In the picture above I'm wearing the hubs size L tee shirt, I hate size larges, they are too tight and clingy, so I always buy a XL for shirts, and now they look sloppy, ha! I'm pretty sure he isn't going to like me wearing his shirts all the time! Sorry babe, I apologize in advance!

My clothes are starting to look sloppy, but I'm not really able to buy a size down either, so I guess I have to wear them sloppy for awhile, my pants today were big all over, which is great, but I hate to look sloppy for sure!

Excited to see where I'm at on the scale at the end of the month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE!!!!!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and daddy ever! :-)

The hubs is 37 today, and we pretty much love him to pieces!

We celebrated one day last week, because he was snooping, and I didn't think I could keep the secret much longer!

A lil back story, he has always wanted to go to a UT game at Neyland Stadium, and I've been trying to coordinate that to happen for what seems like the entire time we've been married, he works shift work so to be able to find a game on his day off and to be able to stay the night and actually enjoy the evening has been hard.

It just so happens that we will be coming thru Knoxville during one of the games, so it worked out perfectly.

I've learned one thing for sure, life is too short, not to enjoy it when you can. 

He is so excited and so is EE, they are going together, while me and Bre stay at the hotel and have some fun and one on one time! Such a great experience for the both of them, EE is old enough to remember it, and the hubs will take pictures so I can scrapbook about it! I'm thrilled for them and slightly jealous! I love all sports, but I know they will have a great time, and Bre and need some one on one time!

Since EE gets to go to this and got to go to a Cubs game with daddy, I booked Elmo Live, for me and Bre! So we will have a fun night together too! :-)

Back to the Birthday we celebrated with Pizza Buffet and that cake, I had mentioned last week, it was so good, and look how cute it was!!!

Leora did a great job on the cake, and it was soooo good. I was able to freeze 4 big pieces for later!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY B MAN!!! WE LOVE YOU BUNCHES!!!

50 Mile Challenge?????

So it's the end of August and I had posted on 8/1/13 that I wanted to set a goal of 50 miles this month, whether it was jogging, biking, or the elliptical, as long as I hit my goal.

I had seen several other blogs posting about the 50 miles challenge and my initial reaction to all of it, was wow I'm really proud of that person, what an accomplishment, and then I had the thought that maybe someday I could do that. Maybe after I lose 10 more lbs, or maybe after jogging another 6 weeks, I will be "up to it" 50 Miles is alot of miles..................................

Another reason I didn't think that I could actually complete 50 miles is that school started back this month, and fall baseball started back, and I'm coaching again this year. So those are two big commitments, which take time and planning on my end, which leaves less time for the gym!

So, the end result.......................................................57.97 miles!!!!!!!

Those are actual miles from the machines at the gym! Crane and I walk atleast once a week on our lunch for 20-25 mins, and we walk twice a day for 11 mins. on our 15 min. breaks. I'd say most days I get a mile in at work, but it's broke up during the day, so I didn't count it for the challenge, but if I added it up, I'd say my best guess would be 3.5 miles per week at work which would make a monthly total of 71.97 miles!

I move way more then I thought I did, yet the pounds don't come off easy! I'm a very strict calorie counter Mon-Fri, I let up some on the weekends, but Mon-Fri, I keep the calorie count to 1300, if I exercise then I typically eat those calories back too, but I like going to bed with the MFP app in the "green" not red!
Tonight's results are this on MFP..................Goal 1300, Food 2152, Exercise 428, Net 1724, Remaining Cals -424.

So I'm in the red which means I ate 424 calories more then I should have! I had a lunch date with my oldest and the Brock Family! Thanks Steph for buying our lunch, so nice of you guys! We enjoyed the company too! :-)

I lost one pound last week and one pound the week before, yes I'd like for that to average 2-3 pounds a week. I'm not going to complain, last week we celebrated the hubs birthday with a Pizza Buffet and a wonderful cake! :) And then we had a dinner to honor my Aunt Eleanor, so I had two days of not counting cals, so I will take the one pound weight loss!

My husband weighs about 25 pounds less then me, which just plain SUCKS, so my new goal is to lose 25 more pounds by Nov. it's very doable that's about 8 pounds a month, 2 pounds a week. Should be no problem! :)

I am now about 10 pounds away from the weight I was when he and I met! So I'm feeling pretty good right now, but even when I lose the 25 pounds, I will still be in the "over weight" category! When I hit that "goal" I'm going on a shopping spree. I'm already noticing the 13 lbs I've lost has made a huge difference in my clothes and most everything I wear to work is super big on me! It's a good thing, but looks tacky :(

My mom did buy me a super cute dress the other day, it's red/white stripe and form fitting, I'm hoping to pair it with my jean jacket and wear it to work on Tuesday, I will post pics! It's too cute!

Here is a tip I read, I thought once I was consistently running one mile 4-5 days a week that I would "drop the weight" I knew it wouldn't go down drastically, but I thought it would add one pound weight loss every week. So after reading, I found this: if you run everyday for 31 days, you basically burn 100 cals per mile ran, so that's 3100 calories, and it takes 3500 cals to lose one pound. That's alot, now I know that I need to pair the exercise with cutting calories to make a deficit large enough to actually lose weight! Still doesn't make it easy, but no one promised easy! :-)

Here is a picture comparison, purple tank top was about 6 weeks ago at the gym, the navy shirt is tonight at the gym!

It's not a great comparison since one is alot further back! I will try to find a better to post!

I'm going to stay on track an keep on going to the gym until I can get those last stinky 25 pounds off! I do know I'm losing alot of inches, because I tried on a pair of jeans 6 weeks ago and called them my "goal jeans' they were 2 inches from buttoning and now the button so that's a good sign!

I will be thrilled to buy some size 12 jeans for this winter! :-)

Aunt Ella-Our Fav!

Cancer has struck our family again! I'm so very sad to say we lost one of the greatest family members we had! You know you always have that "one" in the family, who is just a Saint, everyone looks up to them, and loves to be around them! That was Aunt Ella for us!

Here she is with my dad at our last family reunion!

 

You can just see the sweetness on her! So lovable!

 

She is Aunt Eleanor to everyone, except my boys, from day one they called her Aunt Ella, and I love that!

 

She was my mom's favorite person, my dad's favorite, and mine too! My boys loved her and would ask to go see her!

 

We prayed for her to be healed, but God had other plans for her!

 

We love her and are sad, but we know she is rejoicing and reaping the benefits of a life well lived!

 

What an example she was to all of us!

 

This is the 3rd family member we have lost to cancer in 6 months.

 

Praying for all of us to get thru this difficult time.

 

 

Eating Out & Weight Loss

I want to start by saying, I'm still on the 50 miles challenge and I got in 10 miles tonight, 8.80 miles on the bike and 1.20 on the treadmill!
I call that a win-win for tonight!

I lost 1.2 lbs this week, while I'm happy with any loss on the scale, it could have been better, but sometimes life just happens, like crazy schedules and 2nd and 3rd jobs getting more busy.

I ate Pizza Buffet twice this past week, and Cracker Barrel and I managed to lose. I don't want people to think you can eat out and show weight loss all the time, but I'm managing to do so. When I say pizza buffet, one plate of the lowest cal pizza which is Taco Pizza for me, I eat 3 slices, I scrape off all the meat and cheese and replace the lettuce, tom. onion, I add in some red pepper, and about a teaspoon of marinara, hey it's still pizza buffet :) my salad has one scoop of dressing, everything else is calorie free veggies, no dessert pizzas, puddings, or potato salad. That meal weighs in at around 660 calories, while it isn't ideal, it's a nice "break" from work and counting cals for a moment. It's do-able especially if I go to the gym and have reasonable other meals that day. It's all about the planning!

My Cracker Barrel meal use to be the veggie plate of 6 veggies, (I could justify 6 because it was too hard to only pick 4, plus one or both toddlers were eating off my plate) I realize now that was just an excuse. 3 years ago, my order would have been: dumplings, mashed potatoes, hashbrown casserole, maybe even two servings of HB casserole, corn, green beans, biscuits and corn muffins, I like both so it was always a toss up, but typically I liked the corn bread better, that is until I read the cals in those bad boys, like almost double what a biscuit has in it! So now I don't eat them. My meal the other night went like this: veggie plate of 4: green beans, carrots, brown beans, and dumplings (I shared dumplings with Bre) I did eat a biscuit and a corn muffin. I called that my splurge meal of the weekend!

I am loving Logan's Roadhouse right now, I get the broccoli and a veggie skewer and a mushroom skewer, I eat one roll, and wipe off all excess butter that is on it, next time I'm going to ask for some with no butter. That meal is about 600 cals also, not horrible for a night out! here is what my plate looks like:

I'm learning on this journey of mine, things I would have never done without, insert cheese on everything, is that if you can't taste it when it's on a sandwich or on a taco salad or a coney dog, then why spend the cals on it? I've been coming up with ways to cut 100-300 cals a day and it's working.

I know I can do better, but am happy with the way things are going, I'd love to get where I'm consistently losing two pounds a week, but I know that means a much more strict diet, so we shall see.

I'm feeling great, and excited to see where I'm at by Halloween, I'm gonna guess I will have lost another 14 lbs by then!

August Goals

So far so good!

I'm right on track with tracking my miles for the 50 mile challenge!

I just didn't feel it on my jog last night, it could have been I had just played softball, I didn't push myself too hard, I just gave blood Friday, so I just listened to my body! I jogged .75 miles and I finshed up by walking 1.20, and then I did 3.38 on the bike!

Tracking my food has also gone well this week too! I bought some Nutella and have been spreading that on my 35 bread, I use one tablespoon total for breakfast, it is quite high in cals, but sure taste great and does keep me full until lunch time! ** I'm wondering if I'm somewhat allergic** I've been very itchy yesterday and today both, so I'm keeping an eye on that!

Tonight was Nini's Bday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINI, so we celebrated with her tonight, and had her over for dinner, and I did eat one cupcake, not horrible.

WEIGH IN RESULTS......................................... -2.0 lbs, yay, yay, yay! I was doing the happy dance at work on Monday, love to see the scales go down, so rewarding!

I was hoping for 4 more lbs off by Sat. for the hubs work Family Fun Swim Night, so we shall see, it's do-able, with lots of hard work!

I took the kiddos to the Church garden tonight to pull weeds and help out, however, I wasn't much help at all, I didn't know the weeds were going to be nearly as tall as myself. I'm also very sore, I think I've pulled muscles in both shoulders playing ball last night and just playing around with both boys, or could have been when they both tackled me to the ground,..............who knows!
It was fun for the boys to see a large garden and get to help pick, made my heart happy, I grew up on a farm and learned so much from it!

Right before we left, Bre man got sick, and threw-up everywhere :-( Bless his heart! We came home and he has been fine, he did that yesterday too, I told him to lay down and rest and he has been such an angel all evening! I just hate when they don't feel good, he doesn't act sick, so not sure what is going on!

Lot's of fun stuff this week with the Hubs work family fun night, and we have a big weekend planned!

Goals for August-50 mile Challenge

I'm actually doing a post on the first day of the month! --YAY for progress!

So here are my goals for August:

*I'm taking the 50 mile challenge-more on this in a minute.
*lose an additional 10 lbs
*continue working out 20 days a month
*have less cheat days on the diet
*work more on arms and upper body strength
*continue to drink more water and less diet coke

These goals are definitely do-able, but the boys are getting ready to start fall baseball, and school starts next week, so will be a bit more challenging getting to the gym. Going to have to revamp my workout schedule.

So I saw one blogger post about a 50 mile challenge, while her challenge is over, I thought it would be great to do one on my own for the month of August. The 50 miles can be a combo of stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical machine at the gym.

I'm starting off great, I got in 6.50 miles on the bike tonight and 1.20 on the treadmill! This is usually what I do at the gym every night, so doing a lil over 7 miles a day, should be very easy to get this in. Would mean I'd have to work out about 7 days this month, and I typically get in 20 per month, because I'm trying to train to jog an entire 5K, I still have plenty of time to train for the Black Cat.

A huge thanks to the hubs for getting the Ipod loaded with some of my favorite songs, that definitely helps to keep me going!

I'm still wondering when the weight is going to start coming off at a regular rate, I've lost 2 pounds, and the scale is still moving down, so that's good!

I love a good challenge, wish me luck!

I DID IT!!!!

Last night was the Tiki Trot 5K and I did it! I wanted to have a time of sub 44 mins, but wasn't sure, since this race was on a cross country track, and to quote their website said, One of the toughest cross country tracks in the state. I'm not sure why that didn't send red flags up, or even let me doubt myself, but WOW........................is all I can say...........................WOW.

When I started out running and saw hills that were straight up, (no joke) I was thinking to myself, ok I will just deal with a time of 50 mins, because I can't try to beat my prior 5K times that were all on pavement and on 65 degree nights, this run was 80 degrees with rough terrain!

So my time.....................................drum roll please................................43 something mins! woot woot!

I will take it! I was also the last runner to finish, everyone behind me were walkers, the race only had about 150-200 participants, and the one I normally do has two thousand people, so it played tricks on my mind!

I surely did pray that dad was right there running with me, he was always proud of me when I'd run, he was the fastest runner in his high school, very athletic. I get the athletic part from him but not running! After he was diagnosed with cancer, he said to me "want to race? I can still beat you with cancer" no joke, we raced, he won. The old man beat me at age 64, sad for sure! :)

Melanie's family came to the race as well as my hubs and boys, I was so glad my family was there,  Melanie's son, Logan ran the 5K as well, he finished in 36 ish mins. and he knew I wanted to beat 44 mins. so he came and ran with me about 300 yards before the finish line, he was so encouraging, telling me to come on we are at 41 mins, come on and ran to the finish line with me, so so sweet of him! :)

My hubs took pics and my boys were clapping and wanted to run in with me, but they were also writing down times and asked for no one but the participants to run thru the finish line, I was so excited my family got to come, and hope they can come to future races too.

We all ate free pizza after it was over and plenty of water, then headed to the pool to take a swim, it was chilly water but felt so good.

Here are our pictures! :)

race bib

pre race-still thinking this will be easy

glad to see family and finish line

 

post race, praising God I finished without dying!

Jogging, jogging and more jogging

Ok, so I've been jogging, we won't call it running just yet! But I WILL get there! It's getting some easier, but I wouldn't call it easy by any stretch of the means! :) The first 4-5 jogs I was extremely sore, like taking ibuprofen like candy sore! My lower body is pretty fit, from coaching baseball, and playing softball, however jogging for a mile at a time must just work different muscles.
I've jogged about 12-13 miles this month, that is huge for me! I have also seen some definition in my thighs, the outside of my thighs, my problem area is the inside of my thighs, so boo on that one.

I haven't seen any weight loss, but clothes are fitting better, so I must be losing inches versus pounds. I'm still tracking everything in MFP, and I'm shooting for losing another 30 lbs like I did in the past! I've only gained back 17 of those, sheesh!

I've signed up to run jog this 5K, excited for sure!

picture from FS website

 

 

Melanie is going to jog this with me! I'm super excited to have a friend to jog with! That being said, when the Black Cat Chase 5K comes up, I'm hoping to run the entire thing and beat my time, so not going to hang with any friends on that race, so maybe we can all meet for Pizza afterwards downtown, the last two races I did for fun, not for time, so I enjoyed jogging with a friend, neither held me back, but I just want to be on my own, and by that time, I should be able to do a 10-11 min mile pace!

I've also signed up to do a Tough Mudder in Sept! Black Cat is in Oct. My Aug. race I had to cancel because the hubs work is having a pool party family fun night, and I don't want to miss that. Although I'm sad to miss the Midsummer's night run, I love to run at night, but oh well, maybe next year!

 

The Tiki Trot is on a cross country track, all grass, no pavement, so I think it will be a much tougher run for me, but again I'm not worried about time on this one! It's a family event, with free swimming afterwards, so I'm super stoked this will be the first run with my boys and hubs there to cheer me on. I really wanted them to come to the BC race last year, but it was cold and pouring down rain, they wouldn't have had fun at all, they are excited to come watch me! :)

 

 

I hope that I can report back a time of sub 44 mins. for the TT 5K this weekend, wish me luck!





Learning to become a RUNNER!

I have always wanted to be a runner! I mean always, even back in high school in my thinner days. I loved to run. I would run half mile or so every night. A big thanks to my dad who would follow me and pick me up, because I hated to run back the same direction. Gosh that man really loved me! ;)

I tried couch to 5k and it was just ok. I had a free trial version and when it was up I didn't purchase it. I had gotten to week 4 and that was it. The problem I had with it was when it was time to jog I would jog so fast that I would tire before it was time to walk again. So I read a blog about a runner and she said she jogged a very slow jog, which would be a fast walk to some! For as long as she could, and then built up her time not speed. After you get the distance built up you can work on speed. So that is my plan and guess what?........I'm up to jogging 22 mins without stopping. At first I thought the people at the gym were probably wanting to laugh at how slow I was jogging, but if the end result is me getting to jog a full 5k without stopping I will be thrilled.
I've had good/bad days on my diet as far as food goes. We had moms bday and a good day at work. We had a date night to Mexican and a lunch date to pizza inn. So pantry is stoked and ready for hopefully a good weekend.

Oh and our computer crashed. So the new one just got setup. I will be back to posting pictures hopefully by the weekend

The weigh-in

I was super stoked to weigh-in on Monday, I got to work super late and decided to heat the the doctor's office within my building to weigh in before I headed upstairs!
And when I stepped on that scale.................................ZERO weightlosss!!! I was shocked to say the least and disappointed.
I mean I had dodged fair food, and fast food, and eating out, and 2-12 hour EMT classes where everyone was going out with the other students for lunch, while I ran out and grabbed a salad!

So I contacted my trainer and asked what was up with that, I had tracked every morsel I put in my mouth! He said, that since I had just been dieting and took a break, it's gonna take my body a lil longer this time to drop the weight! Fine with me, I will win this fight against fat! ha! I'm strong-willed like that!

I don't pay for a personal trainer, but there is one in my family, so I drive him batty, ask him lots of questions when i'm fighting the scale! :-)

I went to the gym tonight, then came home and walked the neighborhood with the boys, so that they could get their exercise too, it was a great night!

I'm meeting Crane in the morning at the gym, so we can burn some cals before our day officially starts! I'm so glad she has teamed up with me to kick that scales butt! Her hubs promised her a trip to Hawaii, I'm slightly jealous, no trips planned for me, but I can change that very quickly! I'm anxious to see where we are by the end of August.

I'm also considering signning up to run a half marathon! One part of my brain is like, "seriously?? you can't be serious about this?" then the other part, has me super stoked! I'm thinking Spring of 2014, I won't be ready to run one by fall, I would like to have lost 35+ pounds before I run one, I don't care if I have to walk some of it, I'm just motivated to do it!

Update on eating healthy

Soooo.................I wanted to do an update on some foods I ate last week that has helped me to stay on track with eating 1300 cals per day! I logged in all my info into MFP app, and it calculates how many cals I need to eat to lose 2 lbs per week, so 1300 is the magic number for me!

I did great all week, cheated one day and ate about 1900, but the next day I was under by 400, so I think it nearly equaled out! I went to the gym twice last week, played a softball game, and walked the neighborhood. I thought for sure I would lose another 2 lbs this past week, but guess what???????? I didn't lose a single solitary ounce! I lost 8 lbs last week, so I guess my body wasn't ready to let go of anymore weight!

This past week was the Fair week, I typically will grab fair food........but not this time, wasn't going to let that ruin the great week I just had! Sometimes I eat great all week long, to only ruin it over the weekend, would lose 2 lbs Mon-fri, then weigh again on Monday, only to gain those two pounds back, viscious cycle for sure, I hope I'm not the only one that has done that over and over again!

Some of my items I love to eat are the cinnamon and raisin bagel thins, with fat free raspberry cream cheese spread, it's great and is very filling and only 150 calories, I typically pair that with apples, or grapes, for my mid-morning break along with a 12 minute walk, I'd guess we are walking a 1/4 to half mile on our breaks....keep in mind dress clothes, and sandals, so it's by no means a fast walk, just moving some!
My other breakfast go to is a tablespoon of peanut butter on 5 ritz crackers with 5 tops, so 10 crackers total, that puts my total cals around 255, still not horrible! I use to call that my cheat meal, but doesn't have to be if I measure out the peanut butter.

Breakfast is my hardest meal, because I'm a vegetarian. But I have a few "go to" items that I like!

2 of my other favorites are these:

They look very similiar the first photo is a taco salad! I used 11 chips for 140 cals, 1/4 cup of black beans, I'm guessing around 70 calories and sour cream that was 40 calories, for a total of 250 cals, I'm totally aware the salsa has a few cals in it, but not enough to count for me! I also had cayenne pepper to mine, because the hotter the better! :-)

The second photo is a grilled cheese sandwich, with a ton of lettuce, tomato, and onion! That was 2 pieces of 35 bread and 2 pieces of cheese for a grand total of 190 calories, very filling, I also added ketchup and mustard to it, once it was made sandwich style it was just too big to grab and eat!

It's hard to document everything you ate and eat so healthy to not see the scale drop, however when I lost the prior 30 lbs, that was typical for me, I wouldn't lose a pound for 4 straight days, then on the 5th day, I'd drop 2-3 pounds, it's kind of odd to me how that works, but I will take it, so that's what I'm hoping happens on Monday when I weigh in!

This week was great! Today I had my EMT refresher course and since I'm not in my own environment and I can't control lunches and breaks I thought I would do terrible, but I didn't! Thanks to Ali Ray and J for buying my lunch at the good Ol' Mcdees, I ate the Southwest Salad! It was yummy and a nice break away to have adult conversation! On a side note, I felt like an idiot in class................it's so hard to remember all of that medical jive when you don't do it everyday! I remembered all my skills, but textbook was different, the instructor wanted us to take a test on all the bones in the body and label the skeleton, I didn't review a thing because I didn't know we were testing on anything, I only missed 4 which isn't bad I didn't think, but i'm the oldest in the class, with a bunch of younger students! I don't like this getting old stuff! ha!

I hope I can report back in on Monday with great news from the scale!

WEIGHTLOSS

The lovely topic, I deal with daily :)

So after eating bad for Father's Day, my bday, and vacation and feeling like poo, I decided I have had enough! It was time to get back to my heathly eating habits, not to mention that I gained 23 lbs since Fall, ridiculous for sure!

I was using the excuse of the holidays and my dad being sick, I was out of a routine, and it just wasn't working for me, I'd try to do good, but after sitting in the ER with him for 6+ hours, I'd grab a snickers from the vending machine, or whatever!

On Sunday I went to the grocery to prepare for the week ahead, I did great, I took lots of roasted veggies for snacks, lots of cut up fruits, and had a great week!

THE RESULTS..........................I lost 8 lbs as of Friday! Friday was also another hard day, it was Relay for Life, the place is loaded full of food booths, I did grab a bean burrito on the way there because they are good, and filling, usually one does the trick! Once I got to Relay I had 2 brownies, and got a small fry on the way home, that dinner cost me about 900 calories! I did exercise alot that day, so I had Friday as my cheat day.

Today I've done great, so great that I had 400 cals left once I finished logging my food into MFP, (my fitness pal app) It said I ate too few cals today but for some reason I'm stuffed. After it said that I ate a handful of strawberries and blueberries and now I'm miserable! being under 400 cals today, just balances out yesterday!

I found a great BEFORE picture I thought I'd post, the first picture I was at my heaviest!

The second picture I had lost about 25 lbs! These pictures are 4 years apart!

I would like to lose around 50 lbs total from my heaviest! We shall see, I will keep you all posted!

I'm hoping to share some great recipes and ofcourse do a Recap of Relay this week!