Round 2

I started round 2 of the 3-day military diet today.  I have been able to keep off the 4 pounds I lost the first round (yay!), even though I'm not quite sure how because I had cookies, cake, ice cream, lots of stuff I shouldn't have, but hey, it still stayed off.  So, not so hungry this time around which is great.  Drinking lots of water and staying busy definitely help!  I'll let you know how I do.

Chair Cardio Videos

Hi Ladies,

So I did one of the chair cardio videos and it was actually pretty good.  I was actually sweating.  They are no impact so it's not a problem with my foot.  So, my goal for next week is to do two of these videos every day Monday through Saturday.  Who wants to join me?

And the Winner Is...

4 pounds!  I lost 4 pounds in 3 days.  Yay!  Now not to turn psychotic and gain it all back!  Wish me luck!  I am going to break down and actually keep a food journal.  We'll see how that goes.

War is Heck!

Hello Ladies,
Well, I decided it was time to take control and quit making excuses.  I'm doing this all to myself, so it's time to say "No more!!"  On Wednesday I started the 3-Day Military Diet.  Yes, I saw it on Pinterest.  I also looked at some other blogs where people did try it.  The food was all something I would eat and easy to get and prepare.  It's actually super simple to follow.  Here's what I ate on Wed:

Breakfast- 1/2 pink grapefruit, 1 slice whole wheat toast, 2 tbs peanut butter
Lunch - 1/2 cup tuna on 1 slice whole wheat toast
Dinner - 3 ounces turkey, 1 cup green beans, 1/2 banana, 1 small apple, and 1 cup Breyer's vanilla ice cream

I weighed myself Thursday morning and lost 1-1/2 pounds!  Yay!  It was not too bad getting through the day.  Was a little hungry waiting for dinner, but not bad.  There is NO snacking.  I exercised for 1/2 hour on the balance ball doing boxing (since I am still in the boot).

Here's what I ate on Thursday:

Breakfast- 1 egg fried in Pam and put on 1 slice whole wheat toast and 1/2 banana
Lunch - 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 hard-boiled egg, and 5 saltine crackers
Dinner - 2 all beef hot dogs, 1 cup broccoli, 1/2 cup carrots, 1/2 banana, and 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

I weighed myself Friday morning and have lost a total of 3 pounds!  I have to admit I was hungry all day.  Lunch was boring and not very tasty.  By mid-afternoon I was so exhausted I had to take a nap (but I figured it kept me from eating).  At 9:00 PM I cheated and ate one chocolate chip cookie.  I exercised for 1/2 hour like the day before.

So far today (Friday), here's what I have eaten:

Breakfast - 5 saltine crackers, 1 slice cheddar cheese, and 1 small apple
Lunch-1 hard-boiled egg and 1 slice of toast (I sliced the egg onto the toast)
Dinner - 1/2 cup tuna, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1 cup broccoli, and 1 cup vanilla ice cram

It was supposed to be 1 cup tuna, but who can eat that much dry tuna?  Yuck, so I substituted 1/2 cup with cottage cheese (similar in nutritional makeup).  I also added the broccoli because I was STARVING!  Tough day, have hunger headache.  I also cheated around 3:00 PM and had 1 chocolate chip cookie (Dang Covel for making a batch on Thursday while I was trying this diet).  I also ate about 6 baby carrots at lunch.  So I have cheated, but not too bad.  I can be sooo much worse :)  I was really tired all day, but made myself stay awake.  Keeping busy is the best antidote for this diet I think.  I found some videos online for chair cardio exercises which were actually pretty good so I did 1/2 hour of those (see my Fit Inside and Out Board on Pinterest).

Also, I've drunk at least 10 glasses of water every day during these three days (anything to try to keep my stomach full with something!).  I pee all night, which maybe why I'm so tired as well as the lack of calories.  This is between 850 and 1100 calories per day. 

I will weigh myself in the morning and see what happens.  The idea of this diet is to do it for 3 days, take off 4, and then do it again.  We'll see if the weight stays off.  I may try it again with a few modifications.  I think adding more vegetables would be a good thing.  I hope this will kickstart my metabolism and I need to make sure to exercise every day, even if it's only for 1/2 hour.  I'm thrilled to have lost 3 pounds so far because I haven't been able to do that for a long time.  I'll post what my final weight loss is tomorrow.

Good to Remember...

Lost My Mind, Then Found It...Briefly

Ok, Mel and Deb, I'm baaaack!!  Finally figured out my user name and password so I can join in the fun.  Deb, love the February posts.  Such good ideas.  My goal for today was to figure out my user name and password and so...voila!!  mission accomplished.  I am good for the day!  Our lesson in R.S. today was about the Atonement and how we need to remember the Savior is there to help us achieve what we need to achieve and to make up the difference when we've done all we can do.  The youth were taught a parable along these lines to illustrate...

A woman was walking along the road when she suddenly fell in a deep pit.  It was so deep she could not get out.  She waited and waited until finally someone came by and put a ladder down in the pit so she could climb out.  She couldn't do it all by herself and would not have ever been able to get out of the pit by herself.  Thus, it is like that for us.  When we sin, we fall into a pit that without the Atonement of our Savior it would be impossible to repent for.  However, not only does he put the ladder in the pit for us to climb out, he climbs down the ladder and HELPS US UP the ladder. 

We are asked to do so many things as LDS women.  The list is staggering and multi-layered:  tithing, service, callings, raising families, Word of Wisdom, scripture study, prayers, attending church, fast offerings, temple attendance, loving your neighbor, and on and on.  You get the drift.  It is impossible for us to do all  these things to perfection.  Heavenly Father and Jesus know this, that is why they gave us the Atonement.  After we have done all we can do, the Atonment steps in and does the rest for us.  I think it is a beautiful lesson and the good news of the Gospel, one that is so easily forgotten as we struggle to go about our daily living of JUST SURVIVING!!

So, with that in mind, my goal this week (taking a page from Deb's book of ideas) is to pray for myself.  This is something I almost never, ever do.  You pray for everyone else, right?  I need to pray for the motivation to do what I need to do to get healthy, for my foot to heal correctly, for energy to do even a modicum of exercise, and peace that the efforts I make are pleasing unto Him.  Believe me, this is hard for me.  I will make an admission right now...I've never been great with prayer.  I talk to God more in my thoughts throughout the day than actually on my knees in prayer.  Okay, that's out now...don't judge :)  I am very slow at coming to the Lord for help when I'm overwhelmed, but have always felt Him there.  I need to ASK for guidance and help instead of just kind of expecting it to show up.  Do you know what I mean?

Life is overwhelming and in so many ways totally SUCKS!!   The LAST thing I want to do is exercise and eat right.  I deserve that cookie, I deserve that ice cream, right?  Well, all the deserving is going to slowly kill me off.  I deserve better than that.  So, prayer, real prayer, this week, then next week we'll see.  Baby steps, right Deb?

Love you gals!  We can make things better for ourselves, our families, those we come in contact with.  Praying for you too!! 

New Week - New Goal

Okay, last week went great!  My goal was to exercise for 5 minutes Monday - Friday and I did it!  There were a couple days that I didn't want to do it, but I just told myself, "It's only for 5 MINUTES, JUST DO IT!!"  And then I did it.

I've been pondering what goal to do next this whole past week and have had a hard time deciding.  I've changed my mind every other day about what is the most important thing to work on.  It's hard because my list of "self improvements" is just sooo long (:

 But I ultimately decided I would work on getting my sleep schedule in order.  The ultimate goal is to get up at 5 am and go to bed between 9 & 10 pm every night, every day of the week.  It's such a hard one because I love having quiet time to veg at night, but  my days go so much better when I am up early (especially with getting homeschooling done) and I feel like I get so much more accomplished.  I also really need to work on always getting a full 8 hours every night.  I probably wouldn't be so desperate for that quiet time at night if I weren't so grumpy and tired during the day.

So my baby steps towards this goal, are to make sure every night this week I am  in bed by midnight and up at 8 am.  That seems easy enough.  Then I will slowly work the goal up 15 minutes at a time each week.

Since this will be week four and I now have 4 things that I'm working on, I'm going to make the baby steps to my other goals even smaller, so that it doesn't feel like too much.  I'll...

 1) keep listening to my audio thing at night

2) I've been drinking 3 cups of water a day.  I'm now just going to fill my water bottle to the top which is just under 4 cups of water.

3) Exercise 6 minutes a day.  Originally I was going to add more than a minute, but decided to keep it small because the sleeping goal is going to be a hard one for me.  I have such a hard time making myself go to bed at night.


While I work on this new goal I'm going to read an article every day around lunch time about the benefits of  getting a good nights sleep.  Just trying to motivate myself and remember why it's important.  My reward each morning for getting up at 8 is going to be a nice glass of pulpy orange juice in a special fancy glass that I someone just gave to me (:  Also I'm going to find some motivation quotes about getting up early and make it my alarm clock on my phone, so that I wake up to good reasons why I should get out of bed.

One thing the Zen Habits guy talks about on his blog is having simple rewards for accomplishing your goals, and triggers (a trigger is the thing you do right before your goal that reminds you to do it.)

For instance, my trigger for drinking my water each day was that I would get it out of the fridge and start drinking it with my breakfast.  The reward for drinking all my water was that I could then have my can of soda (:  Now the trigger for drinking my water is to get it when I exercise.

My trigger for exercise is to do it first thing when I get out of bed in the morning (after the bathroom and prayers of course).  My reward for exercising is I am not allowed to check fb until I exercise first.

So now my schedule will go like this :  Up at 8.  Change and enjoy PULPY OJ (:  Exercise 6 minutes and get water out to start drinking.  In bed at midnight (and listen to audio book).

That's it.  Are you still doing baby steps Mel?  Or have you decided a different course of action?  I Would love to hear what you are up to.

PS - Tonight I got totally ticked off at Ian, because he was complaining that it takes me 10 minutes to say what could be said in one sentence.  He tells me that I wander off topic, take too long to get to my point, and do too much unnecessary explaining.  Yeah, I was so mad, I haven't talked to him for a couple hours now.

I was only going to get on tonight and write 3 sentences covering what goals I did last week and what goals I plan to do next week.  Instead I wrote out another novel.  I'm beginning to think I have a problem.  Maybe I should give the guy a break for having to listen to my rambling all the time and start talking to him again...

The Tortoise and the Hare

So this past week my kids brought me a handful of books to read at bed time, and in the stack was the well known fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare."  As I was reading it I thought, man this really applies to what I'm trying to do right now.  To be honest, I've always known the morale of the story, but I've never caught on to how I could apply it to my life.  I was excited that it actually meant something to me this time around when I was reading it.

Here is a little excerpt from the story -
                 
'One day the tortoise was going slowly down the road when the hare zoomed along beside him.  When the hare saw the tortoise, he stopped and ran circles around him, laughing as hard as he could.
                   
"Oh, brother, are you ever slow," whooped the hare.  "I could get from here to China and back before you'd moved six feet!"
                     "I
"I'm not so slow," said the tortoise.  For you see, he knew the hare, and he also knew that the hare could never stick to anything for more than a minute or two.'
                   
First I thought about how I am so the rabbit in this fable.  I never stick to anything for very long.  I make huge grand efforts that usually only last a day or two before I'm exhausted or I give up.  If I'm really lucky my grand efforts may last a week or two or maybe even a month or two, but lately it seems I can't get past the first couple of days.

Here's the last part of the fable -

'Off dashed the hare, leaving the tortoise in a cloud of dust.  But the hare had not gone too far when he felt a little tired.  (Maybe because he was exhausted from trying to do too much at one time?)

"I'll take a nap for a few minute,' he said to himself.  "That tortoise will take hours to get to the lake."  And he fell asleep.  (Sometimes we go too fast because little efforts feel like it'll take too long to accomplish our goal, when we want "it" done NOW!)

Meanwhile, the tortoise plodded along slowly but surely.  Soon, he passed the hare sleeping by the side of the road.  And the tortoise kept right on going.  (the tortoise didn't tire out, because he was taking "baby steps")

As the sun began to sink lower in the sky, the hare woke up.  He rubbed his eyes, and then he remembered the race.  Off he ran as fast as he could go.  But he had slept far too long.  When he got to the lake, the tortoise was sitting there waiting for him.  (Frankly, I think it's impressive the Hare made it to the finish line at all, because I probably would have given up by then.  My grand efforts don't always get me as far as they did him)

"What took you so long?" asked the tortoise, chuckling.  The hare was out of breath, and couldn't answer.  So, as you can see, slow and steady is the way to win the race.'


At one point this week, I had one of those moments when I looked in the mirror, got a little depressed and thought, man I need to do something drastic and get my act together.  Then I remembered the fable and thought, "slow and steady wins the race."  Somehow over the past 6ish years I started letting bad habits take over, it seemed like it was over night, but maybe it wasn't.  Who knows.  Bad habits are so much easier to live by than enforcing good habits.

I also had a point this week when I thought, what if the baby steps theory doesn't work?  Or what if I develop a bunch of good habits and then after a year or two lose them all again, and once more, I'll have to start all over?  I'm hoping that won't happen, because I'm at a point right now that I really hate, so hopefully I'll remember what I don't want to go back to.  But "baby steps" and "slow and steady" is what's got to work this time right?  I'm pretty sure my grand efforts aren't getting me where I need to be, so it's time to be patient and do a little at a time.


So two weeks ago I made the goal to listen to my hypnosis thing every night at bed time.  I've actually stuck to it for two weeks now, and it's been easy because I haven't been focusing on twenty other things along with it.  Last week I added the goal of drinking two cups of water a day, and I don't let myself drink any soda until it's done.  Soda is my "reward" if you will, for drinking my water.  Wonder what my reward will be when I eventually give up drinking soda?  Hmmm...

Next week I'm going to 1)  Keep listening to my hypnosis every night  2) drink  3 cups of water every day, instead of two  and 3) I'm going to exercise for five minutes Monday - Friday, first thing when I wake up.

I plan on just picking out 5 different exercises I can do with either my weights, ball, or body weight (ie. lunges) and do each exercise for one minute.  The old me would think this is ridiculous and not even worth the effort, but it will be 25 more minutes of exercise than I did last week, and the point is I'm starting out slow and steady so that I can develop the habit.  If I don't feel like doing it one day all I have to tell myself is, "it's only 5 minutes, how hard is that?"  Also hopefully by the time I work up to my goal of 45-60 minutes, five days a week, it won't be so painful for my body.

These past two weeks I have felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I have stuck to something for two whole weeks.  Sure they were super easy goals, but still, I did it!  And hopefully by adding on just a little at a time it will always be easy and never hard or tiring.


C.S. Lewis said, " What saves a man, is to take a step; then another step."   That is my favorite quote these past couple of weeks.  I keep repeating it to myself when I wonder if these little efforts will work.  Notice he didn't say, what saves a man is to take one GIANT leap.

Does this work?

Just checking if I could still post.
Can't figure out why Gretchen can't.
Love you ladies.
-Mel

Just keep swimming. . .

I just wanted to take a moment and own up to the fact that I've been LAZY. I haven't felt well and needed a few days off exercising, but that was no excuse for the crap I've been eating. So I'm back on the bandwagon. It feels better to exercise, eat well, and be productive. I've had years of bad habits, so it will take a long time to break them, I'm not going to freak out over one stumble! How is everyone else doing?
-Mel

Yuck ;(

I just ate some Halloween candy and I feel gross. I write this down to help me remember that we are what we eat. I just ate some crap and now I feel like crap! It wasn't worth it!

Another question-I need your help/input!

Can I just say really quick how much I am loving this blog?  It definitely is motivating me/keeping me accountable just knowing that I'm going to check in with you.  Plus I feel like I'm getting to talk with you guys more than normal.  I get so excited when I see your posts and comments.

So I did pretty good last week.  Not perfect, but I'm not going to let that get me down.  I exercised every day last week except for Saturday and I only ate when hungry, except I didn't do so great with that on the weekend.  But tomorrow starts a new week and I'm determined to do better. 

I do have one question though.  I was not going to limit my sweets, but after I ate my meals last week (when hungry of course) I followed them up with a huge dessert.  And the times this week that I ate when not hungry, I ate sweets.  So today I was thinking maybe I should step up my game a little bit.  There's no way I can do something like lean for life or weight watchers right now, it's too much, but I should maybe push myself a little harder right?  Anything that is worth doing is usually hard right?  So should I only give myself one day a week to eat sweets, or should I start with more baby steps and say one sweet a day?  Part of me says to take baby steps and the other part of me says, there is no reason to eat that much sweets and I have over 100 pounds to loose.  I need to do something more drastic if I want some results, yes?

By the way, I kept trying to leave comments on the last couple of posts and blogger kept kicking me off for some reason, so I want to tell you good job Mel for doing something hard, and good job Gretchen for inspiring her to do it.  I enjoyed reading that post because Ian and I have been talking about making "we do hard things" our family motto lately.  But I'm proud of you guys!  Keep it up!  We can do this.

I'm off to bed now.  Instead of asking questions tomorrow, I'll post something inspirational instead.

It feels good to work hard!

I didn't really feel like exercising today at all.  I admit it.  I did drag myself to the gym for some volleyball, but just wasn't feeling like doing anything more.  Thank you to Gretchen who helped get my butt to the treadmill for some interval running.  It was great!  It was challenging, we pushed ourselves, it really got my heart going, and I was so proud of us afterward!  It reminded me that my workouts really need to go up a notch in intensity so I can enjoy better results!  When Maxine tells me something is too hard to do (like cleaning her room), I always tell her, "We can do hard things!"  So that was what I needed to be reminded of today.  We CAN do hard things!

As for Friday weight-in, I'm down 2 pounds this week.  Going the right direction!
-Mel

Zucchini Parmesan

Here's a recipe that Heather made for the family. Everyone really liked it and it's meat-free, so it's cheap!

Zucchini Parmesan

1/2 cup flour
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups seasoned bread crumbs
3 large zucchini, about 2 pounds, cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1/2 cup canola oil (we used olive oil)
1 jar (25 ounces) prepared marinara sauce (or you can make your own as we did)
2 cups shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
1 cup basic leaves
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Place flour, eggs, and bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls. lightly coat zucchini slices with flour. Dip in egg and coat with bread crumbs. Set aside.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook zucchini 1-1/2 to 2 minutes per side until golden brown. Cook in three batches, adding more oil as needed.

4. Spoon 1/2 cup of sauce in bottom of prepared baking dish. Evenly place 1/3 of the zucchini in dish; top with 3/4 cup of sauce and 2/3 cup mozzarella cheese. Repeat layering twice, adding basil between second and third layers.

5. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top and loosely cover with nonstick foil. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes; remove foil and bak for an additional 10 minutes.

6. Cool slightly before slicing. Serve with a green salad if desired.

PER SERVING: 304 Cal; 15 g fat (5g SAT); 17 g Protein; 27 g CARB; 5 g fiber; 762 mg sodium; 100 mg CHOL

"Skinny Ten"

Hello Ladies! Here are my "Skinny Ten" weight loss/self-improvement goals for the rest of 2011:

1. Lose 20 pounds by 1/1/12. Focus on losing 2-3 lbs. per week.

2. Exercise at least one hour six days per week (must be a fitness class or video). Make sure to sweat, sweat, sweat (that's sweat dripping of my nose sweating). If I'm going to spend the time exercising, I'm going to make it count.

3. Limit sugar/sweets (if I have something unhealthy, add 1/2 hour of exercise that day) Let's face it, I'm going to want to have something sweet, but now there's a consequence.

4. Spend 1/2 hour each day cleaning something in the house. (Hopefully, this will help me feel calmer if my house is neater.)

5. Eat at least one serving of fruit and two servings of vegetables each day.

6. When watching T.V., lift hand weights, do balance ball exercises, and stretching exercises. (no more sedentary T.V. watching).

7. When fibro pain is high, make sure to do extra stretching exercises.

8. Go for a walk at least three evenings per week and try to take family members with me (and the fat dog).

9. Cook better, healthier meals at least four times per week. Take over the grocery shopping and buy healthier foods.

10. Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.

Okay, these are my goals. I am inspired by you ladies! Let's stick together and accomplish all that we set out to and much more!

Daily Report & a question

I am happy to report I am able to check off all of my goals for the day.  I got up at 6, exercised, only ate when hungry (I ate crap, but hey I ONLY DID IT WHEN HUNGRY which means no emotional eating!)I only had one soda and I'm about to head to bed here in a minute.

I just have one goal I'm thinking about tweaking and here's why...between homeschooling, my calling (& Ian's calling and him working longer hours lately) and just keeping up house and attending scouts etc.  I'm feeling so stressed ALL THE TIME.  I can't seem to get enough done in a day.  Earlier today I had the thought that maybe I just need to start staying up late and trying to function on 6-7 hours sleep, but deep down I know that's not the answer.  I'll always be grumpy and I won't be as productive during the daytime hours. 

SO - I'm thinking maybe I'll try changing my schedule for a week and see how that goes and if maybe I'll get more done.  It keeps me up later, but I get more quiet time.  The trick is making sure I get things done at night since it's so tempting to just curl up on the couch at the end of the day.  But here's what my new schedule would look like, tell me what you think-

7:00 am - wake up eat something, work out at 8:00 after I drop Morgan off at school.  Normally I don't like exercising while kids are awake, but I think I can handle it if it since it is just for 1/2 hour.  Then spend the morning doing things like phone calls, doctor appointments, library, errands, mail etc.

12:30-4:00 pm - school work

Then after putting the kids to bed at 8:00 I would stay up until 11:00 giving myself three hours to get things done.  1 hour to read scriptures, blog, read books "me time". Then 1 hour to work on my calling. And 1 hour to work on housework or prepping kids school work with out interruptions.

It will keep me up later, but maybe I'll get more done with kids sleeping.  I just have to make myself do it, since usually I'm tired at night.  I'm going to give that schedule a go starting tomorrow, I think.  The most important thing is that I get 8 hours sleep right?

I can't believe I just rambled all of this to you, like you actually care about my life in that much detail.  Oh well, I'm not erasing it now.  And sometimes it's good to think out loud.  Okay really enough rambling.  AHHH.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox - Deb

My Weight loss goals for 30 days (in baby steps)!

Okay all, here are my goals.  They are little ones, but I'm focusing right now on changing some habits and doing it in little chunks.  I weighed myself today and will do it again when my 30 days is over.

Goal #1 Only Eat When Hungry-  I'm going to really really focus on waiting for a hungry feeling or a small growl before I eat ANY food.  I'm not going to wait until I'm ravenous, but I need to listen to my body tell me that I'm hungry before I put food in my face.  I'm not going to worry what that food is for now.  If I'm hungry and I want to eat a doughnut, I'll eat a doughnut, or a hot dog or whatever.  It doesn't have to be health food, but I do have to be hungry.  I was going to set a limit to how many sweets I eat a day, but I think I will do that next month.  For now, I'm just going to tell myself, if I want cake and ice cream that's fine, I just need to wait until I'm hungry to eat it.  Next month I'll work on stopping when I'm full.  If I can get rid of emotional eating then I'll get rid of probably 40% of what I eat in a day.

Goal #2 Exercise 30 minutes a day / 6 days a week - That's all I have time for and it's better than nothing.  I'm just going to do weights videos for now because my feet are really bothering me these days and any jumping around aerobic type activity really hurts my feet, and discourages me from exercise.

Goal #3 1 Diet Soda per day - Eventually I'll get rid of it all together.

Goal #4 Go to bed between 9-10 pm & rise between 5-6 am - I am a much nicer person and I function so much better during the day when I get 7-8 hours of sleep.  I know I'll get more accomplished during the day if I get the rest my body needs.  And I'll be better able to focus on my goals too.

Goal #5 "Return and Report - I made a chart that has these 5 goals listed and a place where I can mark off that I did each goal, each day, for 30 days.  I'm going to return to this chart every night before I go to bed to report how my day was.  I'm also going to do a quick post each night before bed to let you guys know if I was able to mark each one off.  This makes me accountable to you for my actions and if you could just leave a little comment each night or morning saying, "good job, you did it" or "tomorrow's another day, you'll get it then" etc.  That will help encourage me on the way!  Thanks so much.

I know it took me a whole week to post, but lets use this blog up and make it really work for our motivation and for helping each other out. 

Talk to you tomorrow.

Love ya
Deb
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Food Stuff

Well,
I've been doing okay in my eating.  I'm not super-strict and that's okay for now.  I've been trying to focus on getting lots of good things in, rather than just keeping bad stuff out.  My 5-a-day goal went well today.  I was low on the veggie count so I added steamed asparagus and cold cucumbers to my lunch.  Dinner was lasagna with layers of both meat and veggies (spinach, onion, broccoli, mushroom). 
Yummy surprise of the night was a tomato salad made with:

• Chopped tomatoes (I used romas)
• Fresh, cut up basil (have a small, potted plant of it on my kitchen table-YUMMY!)
• 1 stick of light string cheese mozzarella chopped

Drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled dried Italian herb blend on it and called it good.

Also, I will take a moment to talk about my new friend, Greek yogurt.  I recently learned that Greek yogurt has TWICE the protein of regular and so I've been plopping a spoonful in my family smoothies.  I also made a dipping sauce for some baked tilapia by adding lemon juice, lemon zest, and garlic to Greek yogurt.  The recipe called for dill, but I was out.  It was tangy and I only needed a spoonful.

Happy Eating!
-Mel

Mel's Goals

Okay Ladies!  Time to get some goals up on here!

Since Gretchen and I are both doing weight loss we decided to weigh ourselves every Friday in front of each other.  We're not putting our starting weights on the blog, but will report our progress as pounds lost.  

My goals are:

• 20 lbs down by the end of the year.

• Get in my 5-a-day (fruits and veggies)

• One completely "free" meal a week.  It will probably often happen on Saturday and will often involve Mexican food!

• Exercise at least 3 times a week.  Volleyball will not count.  There is too much rest time.

• Go to bed with a clean kitchen every night so I wake up less stressed. 

• Cook dinner at least 4 times a week. 

• Complete a Sprint Triathalon in the Spring.  I already looked it up and there is one in March on a Saturday that looks reasonable.  

• Spend at least 1 hour a day on my spiritual health.  This will include scripture time, journal writing, Ensign reading, etc.  Book reading will not count even if it's a church related book because even though they are good, nothing brings the Spirit into our lives like reading the scriptures.  I will, of course, continue to read a variety of things as I enjoy it. 

• Do at least one thing a day that I've been putting off or that I don't enjoy doing.  It doesn't have to take a long time.  Changing a lightbulb that's been out for a month, or cleaning off my desk, going through the mail, responding to a letter, etc.  I know I'll be very satisfied if I get these things done on a more regular basis and stop being annoyed every time I think of them. 

That's where I'm starting!  I share this long list so you can all help hold me accountable.  You can see I have more than just weight loss goals.  More like working on my overall health and making positive changes.  I will reevaluate at the New Year and likely tweak things a bit.  I thought about having a bedtime goal, but the grieving process does not allow for that right now as most of my emotions surface at night.  For my overall health I'm not putting any restrictions on grief related things.  That just needs to flow naturally.

So here's to the courage to change the things we can!!!

I'm excited to hear about all your goals no matter how big or small!  And let's get some healthy/yummy/easy recipes up on here!

-Mel