Day two!

Today was much more successful than yesterday. I think writing on this blog daily helps me stay accountable. I want something good to report at the end of the day. Otherwise I will wait another 6 months before posting again. So the morning started with this delicious smoothie. Seriously, really is delicious. See the recipe below....

Fresh pineapple

1 orange

1/2 banana

Agave to taste

Large handful of spinach

One small slice of lemon with peel

Lots and lots of ice

Protein powder to make a meal. (I used visalus since I have some from last year.) 

I make this smoothie and I only get a little bit cause my kids love it!!! They call it their "monster smoothie". Doesn't the color just look delish? :) 

For snacks while at work I had an apple and a yogurt. For lunch I had the live well menu at work. It was a chicken chimichurri (spelling) with some asparagus and a pineapple spear. Then for dinner I had my almond chocolate milk, visalus, peanut butter banana smoothie. know you don't want to hear about what I had to eat all day but it will help me in the future to go back and remember what was succesful or not. 

For my workout I went to the power x class. I seriously hate hate hate that class. The best part is seriously when it is over. I love the instructor and I love that she pushes me farther than I ever think I can push myself. Just when I think I can't go any farther she tells us to keep going. She works us every one of those 60 minutes. Here is a picture of what she had us do today 

So all in all I think it was a good day. I sure do miss my kids on days like today. They were home with dad today so I didn't feel too bad but I only spent maybe 2 hours with them. But the little time I do have I make sure they are well spent. We watched a little bit of a movie together and read books before bed. It's not much but I hope they know that I love them and I am trying to be healthier to be there for them in the long run. Tomorrow will be a rest day from the gym. Maybe I will take the kids on a walk and do some things at home but as of 4:30 tomorrow after work, my time will be with my family. I am still trying to find the perfect balance, I am sure I will be searching for it my entire life. All I can do is do my best and have no regrets. 

It's been way too long

I downloaded this app on my iPad in hopes that I would start to blog a little more. Not that anyone reads this anymore but for my own personal benefit. Back in August I joined the biggest loser contest at my gym. I lost just over 19 lbs total and met a lot of great people. Now after the holidays and going back to normal life I am only down 14 lbs down. I have really enjoyed the classes at the gym. My favorite now include spin class and circuit. I also was in the top 5 of most % lost. I can tell that I am a lot stronger but my nutrition is down the toilet. Seriously, I don't know why that is the worst part of trying to lose is weight. Even when I was doing the biggest loser I had more cheat days then I should have. So here I am.... Again... Committing once more to get this weight off once and for all. Today, I woke up at the crack of dawn and went to the gym to my circuit class. Good thing I have my good friend Dina to meet me there or else I would never make it there alone. I did good with the nutrition until lunch time. Hehehe but seriously, I didn't eat TOO much junk food at home. But when I went home, it was a whole different story. So some short term goals I have is to move more at work and make sure I drink all my water and eat my fruits and vegetables. I can't say I will completely cut off the sugar because in three days I will just binge and eat the house down. Plus my work constantly has treats and caterings so I need to figure out something that works for me. Baby steps baby steps. 

So an update on the kiddos... Kason is now in the butterflies and loves it. He has he biggest crush on a little girl named Camrie and he tells me on a daily basis that he is going to marry her. We we're at the store the other day and he told me he wanted to get her a valentine and I told him he couldn't because it might make the other girls feel bad the. He said, "well I can just take it to her house." He is the biggest sweetheart and i am so grateful to have him. Last week mark brought the kids to my work for lunch and there is this older guy there I will call "Joe". Well Jason spilled his drink  so joe came over to clean it up. Kason says, "joe is old but he is fast. I know why he is fast, because he doesn't want to lose his job." He has to be the most observant 4 years old I know. Hr just may follow in his mummy's footsteps in a career in HR. :) camryn is doing great. She is still in the bumblebee class and loving every second of it. She especially loves her best friends, Tessa, Harper, Jocelyn, Kyren, and many more. She is the teachers big helper and she is alwys helping the younger kids feel welcome. She is my little mother and I could not be more proud of my little CJ. Wlp I guess that is it for today. I will be back tomorrow to update on my new goals. P.s... Don't mind my typos. I am on the iPad and too tired to proof read it. :) 

Haircuts

Both of my kids got haircuts the last couple of weeks so I just had to share how cute they are. I cut C.J.'s hair and this morning she let me round brush it. We took K man to the barber shop and got a really slick haircut. So dang cute! :)



Exercise

Are you one of those people who say, "I love to exercise, it makes me feel so good"? In the words of Matthew Mcconaughey, "I call b.s." :)

 I was in great shape in high school mostly because I played volleyball. Conditioning was part of the game. You do it because you have to. Well over the years I have not done any sort of exercise which is what got me in this mess to begin with. That and eating anything I want anytime I want. Obviously, part of this journey, I need to face my hate relationship with exercise. I have started off slow in hopes that I will love it a little bit more over time. I am trying to incorporate things I can do with my kids, which has helped a little. Part of the reason I don't work out is because when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is leave them to go to the gym. So the last few days I have taken them on a bike ride and they LOVE it! They ask me when I drop them off at school, "Can we go on a bike ride tonight?" I know it has only been a couple of days but it is such a great feeling knowing we have this time together. 

Kason looks a little cramped in there but he still loves it. :) I drove them over to the "Ghost Park" which is kind of far away from our house. They love this park so of course they were in heaven.. 

They were in heaven at this little park and no one was there so it was awesome. I also got to see these amazing views.. 

I love this plant 

 I gave Kason my phone on the way home and he managed to take pictures of this... 

P.s.. the ride home was uphill and I thought I was going to die. The kids kept saying, "Why are we going so slow?" haha

He was pretty proud of himself. :)

One last thing before I hit the sack, I wanted to talk about my awesome food find. hehe 

Remember how I said I wanted to find easy things to fix for dinner since I work all day and the last thing I want to do is come home and cook? Well I found these chicken skewers at costco and they are delicious. I had 2 skewers (8 pts) a half of a sweet potato (2-3 pts) a salad with cucumbers and light raspberry vinagarette salad (1pt for the dressing) so a total of 12 points! That is a lot of food for 12 points. In fact, it took me a long time to eat and I was so sick of sitting there! Then the hubs made a delicious fruit smoothie with light vanilla yogurt so a total of 2 pts. I am loving this so far, I do not feel deprived at all!

Day 3

Today is my 3rd day of Weight Watchers and am REALLY enjoying it and look forward to posting how my day went. I never thought I would say that! So I work for the local hospital here in town and they are huge on living well. The last couple of years they have completely revamped our cafeteria. They did a remodel a few weeks ago and if you didn't know it, you would never guess you were in a hospital. They have a LiVe Well Entree everyday and usually will have display cooking. Today they had stir fry and it was sooooo yummy!!!

I chose to have chicken and imitation crab for the protein then I just told them all the veggies. Then you had the choice between whole wheat pasta or red wheat berries. I had never had the wheat berries before so I tried them and they were pretty good. Then you had the choice between teriyaki sauce or a sweet red pepper sauce; I went with the sweet red pepper sauce. It was a little spicy but it was pretty good. I am sure it was less calories then the teriyaki but I could be wrong. Then it had a side of spinach with a few berries. Seriously people, tt was awesomely delicious. I would have ordered this at a restaurant and I am sure would have spent at least $10 and it would have been 20+ pts. I paid $4.40 and it was 9 pts! I also think this would be an amazing thing to make at home for my kids. I am on a quest to find meals for my kids that they will actually eat that doesn't take me 10 years to prep. I think this will be worth a try. 

Speaking of quick prep dinners. Yesterday I made a healthy chicken alfredo for the kids and had some extra chicken. I put it in a pyrex dish and lightly coated it with Famous Daves Sweet and Sassy Sauce, covered it and let it sit overnight. When I got home from work tonight, I threw it on the grill (make sure you get the thin chicken, it cooks more evenly), added a slice of cheese for the kids, and put it on an extra bun we had from last night's hamburgers. I kind of feel bad for feeding my kids something in a bun two nights in a row but what do you do? They eat it and that is all I can ask! They took one bite of this sandwich and the looks on their faces was priceless! They also had a side of watermelon and some milk. It is such a good feeling when you make something healthy for your kids and they actually eat it better than they eat pizza/takeout etc. 

 Part of what they talk about in WW is making a routine for yourself. At Saturday's meeting they had us make one goal for the week. I have wanted to give up soda for a really long time and I am finally going to do it! I have not had a soda for 4 days and that is a VERY long time for me! I have gone several years before without drinking it but ever since I had my kids, it has been my saving grace. We all know how tired you are as a new mom and that little bit (or a lot depending on the day) of caffeine was/is like a drug to me. For me, it is all or nothing. If I allow myself to have a little bit once in a while, I am like an addict, I can't stop. So, for now, I am going to give it up. I will keep you posted on the headaches and mood swings. :)

Wish me luck! Day 4 here we come!

Welcome and new finds

Well there is no turning back. I have joined WW again. The leader at the Saturdays meeting was AWESOME, I am really getting excited to start this again. Hopefully it will be my last time. It has only been 2 days but I love taking the challenge of getting the most food out of my daily points. 

I went shopping after the meeting yesterday and found these beauties. They are delicious tortilla shells and only 1 point!! I think this might be one of my saving graces through this journey. 

Camryn kept telling me that she wanted "hangabers" for dinner and I knew we had some frozen pattys but didn't want to use 20 pts on a hamburger. So I went to the store yesterday and found these AWESOME turkey burgers. They are 7 pts and they have a nice kick to them. I did splurge and had a regular bun for 3 pts but 10 pts for a hamburger?? Not bad! I loaded it up with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and ketchup and mustard. It was delicious! In fact, when Mark was done with his regular hamburger, I gave him a bite of mine. He had the most pleasantly surprised look on his face, priceless. I think he will eat these with me in the future. 

In between all this planning we managed to sneak in some fun with frozen yogurt at Yogurtland and a trip to Target I absolutely love Yogurtland. I got a decent size yogurt for 6pts. Which seems like a lot but I still had like 17 by the end of the day so 6 pts was fine by me and I enjoyed every second of it! 

Such a boy playing video games at Target. That was the ONLY thing he wanted to do. 

Such a girl playing with the toys. She had to have the pink purse. 

Awesome weather and new goals

Today we got a welcome break from this brutal heat. A few days last week, it got up to over 120 degrees! Today there was a flash flood warning; it was awesome. The drive which takes me normally 10 minutes to drive home from work, took me 20+. You could barely see in front of you and it was only about 60 degrees. When I got home it was a downpour and my kids and I loved it.  

I have been thinking about making new goals recently and I came to the conclusion that nothing is going to happen unless I write it down and make it happen. Of course my big goal is just like the rest of the worlds and it is to be more healthy. I am hoping of course that this will in turn help me lose a few lbs. Ever since I got my thyroid out, the weight has slowly crept on. Of course I have not been making the choices that I should but it seems like the results of those choices sneak up on me faster than they used to. Now whether that is from my lack of thyroid or me getting closer to 30, I am not sure. I try not to complain about it too much because honestly, I have not done a single thing to help. So starting tomorrow, I am going back to Weight Watchers. I normally don't tell people when I do this but I think its about time I start putting my goals out there so I have a little accountability. I did WW a few years ago when I put on a little weight after getting married and was very successful. I have dabbled in it a little over the years after my kids but have never had the motivation to follow through. This will be the last time I join. In fact, this quote has never been so true.

So if you are one of the 5 people who read this blog, be prepared for me to update frequently about how this journey is going. Mark is so sweet and will support me in anything I do. In fact, I have had my eye on this beauty at Costco for a while and when he was there the other day, it was almost 1/2 off so he got it for me/the kids. He is hooking it up right now so we can go for a bike ride tonight. Don't worry the flash flooding has stopped. 

Don't mind the toilet paper in the corner. ;)