My Rewards.. Yippee

Its my reward Saturday for staying on my weight loss plan and losing 9 pounds. Not to mention the reward for exercising daily.. My planks and Cardio/running. 

I'm trying these new running shoes, Adidas Energy boosts. They have the new soles.. it's kind of like foam. Super comfortable and light weight. I usually want Brooks running shoes but it's time to try something new! Plus, I added in a new Garmin watch for not only running but cycling/biking and swimming the Garmin Forerunner 610. I couldn't pass up the discounted price and sale. Super good deal! Not so much on the price of the running shoes. 

KS95 was giving away Cub gift cards at Cub foods today. All we had to do was spin the wheel. Nice! I love free money!

I decided to try a few new products, new cover-up, blue eye liner, low eye lash mascara-waterproof and lip gloss.. I'm not so sure about the blue eye liner but Steve said it looked nice. 

I had a unmotivated to workout morning. I still went to the gym but decided to read and bike.. 30 minutes later I was at 6.5 miles on the bike then decided to move on to the cross ramp and finish up another 30 minutes or 3 miles. It was a tough 3 miles and I wanted to quit. I just wanted to go home and lay on the couch and eat. I some how talked myself into just doing 3 miles and then I even lifted weights for 30 minutes. I need to get in 2x's this week since I only have 2 days left in my workout week.. it had to be today and I have 30 minutes of weights tomorrow. 

Time for a snack then off to do our yearly taxes. 

I should have thought of this!

We get really good ideas of things to make when we eat out. Steve and I ordered up the Guacamole at Barrios last night and it came out looking delicious with slices of jalapenos and radishes. We really need to do this when we make guac. Presentation really does make food that much tastier!

We didn't share food since portion size was for one person, just small plates. 

Pork taco and chicken in a corn flat taco.

Day 18 of my 1500 calorie a day diet plan to lose 5 to 10 more pounds. Yes, I still want to lose a few more pounds. I've already lost 8 pounds and am stuck at the same weight. This is usually when the going gets tough dieting. I start slipping back into bad habits. It's the weekend and slips up will happen and I know this. Like the glass of wine and popover with honey butter on Friday night. This is all part of the ups and downs of dieting. Staying focused on my goals will help keep me motivated. Just knowing that I'm stuck at the same weight is completely normal. I can't expect major weight loss just by cutting back a little each day on calories. It's working and it's been a fairly easy diet plan. Just keep going.. 

I'm running shoe shopping today. These shoes have seen far more miles then 500 and it's time. 

Fitness Friday.. It is fitness every day!

Friday.. and its another day for all around get fit! Every day is a get fit day even if I don't notice changes from day to day. I did notice a few changes... 

I decided to bite the bullet and weight myself. Plus, take all my other measurements once again.

 Day 17 of my 1500 calories healthy eating plan.

I took my BMI and % Fat on the 18th, 12 days ago. My BMI only went down .6%

I'm happy to report my % fat went down 3% from my starting point. 

My waist is shrinking.. 3 whole inches! 
Thighs - 1.5 inches, 
Arms = same/no change, 
Hips -1inch. 

In all, not bad for just cutting back on calories a little each day and eating healthy. 

I've been eating on a red plate. Studies show that eating on a red plate makes you feel full faster? Is that really true? 
My plate is only 6" not the big dinner plate. Smaller looks more full with food then a larger plate, less to fill up. I load up the veggies. 

I save my big meal for dinner. I always load up on salad first and eat all my veggies before eating the rest of my food for dinner. 

We have a new chef in the house. Logan is all about making his own food. His chicken looked really good! The chicken was in a lemon, garlic, fresh rosemary sauce and pan fried. 

I purchased a can of Cashews because nuts are suppose to be a good healthy snack. All in moderation! They add up in calories really fast. I limited myself to about 10 yesterday. 

I've been eating Edamome for lunch the past two days and am not sick of it yet. This is one of those foods where I just can't eat it every day.. 

We never have made Brussels sprouts with Bacon because Kendra doesn't eat meat. We had leftover bacon and Steve added it, delicious! Good thing we have leftovers for my lunch today!

Another packed to the Max Day

I have another super busy work day ahead. I'm not complaining because being self employed you want to be busy. Busy is a very good thing! 

I love my job..(s) because

 #1. I get paid to get a workout and burn calories.

 #2. I set my own schedule.

 #3. I work Part-time. 

#4. I determine my salary. 

#5. I get to help others. 

We had a great soccer game last night. Winning the first half 2 to 0 and ended up in a tie. That's a win/win in my teams book. We never have been winning and have lost every game. We'll gladly take a tie and winning the first half was super. Of course I missed my chance to score a goal. I just can't get it all together. Darn foot -ball skills that I'm so very lacking! 

I'm on Day 16 of Healthy eating.. I need to roast more sweet potatoes, so I have a healthy lunch waiting for me. I really am craving Brussels sprouts too. 

What did I eat on Wednesday? 

Breakfast: 2 slices of whole grain bread with chunky Skippy Peanut-butter/Natural. 

Lunch: Edamome - the whole bag 2.5 servings

3/4 Cup Ancient Grain Cheerios 

Dinner: 2 slices of whole grain bread with chunky Skippy Peanut-butter/Natural. (a repeat)

Afternoon Snack:  microwave popcorn (whole bag)

After dinner snack:  microwave popcorn (whole bag)

A few cashews 5

Nothing exciting but just what I needed to eat for the day. 

I also drink a ton of water day and night. 

Negativity brings me down!

I just hate negativity first thing in the morning or anytime during the day, but I too am guilty of it some days. I just like to start my day out positive. Positive thinking and not contributing to starting out anyone's day in the wrong mood. On that note..moving on to more positive thinking! Which is exactly how I like to view each situation. You can look at anything in a positive light, just try it. 

What I do to create a positive morning are:
1. Get up an hour early to stretch and meditate.
2. Look at positive and motivational quotes from Pinterst while I stretch. 
3. Remind anyone in a negative mood to calm down and breathe.. try and think of the positive to the situation instead of going to the dark side. 
4. Be prepared for the day ahead.. and don't stress out of how busy it will be. Just move along.. 

It doesn't always work to stay calm and positive, but it sure helps me out a little.. Life is full of ups and downs and then there are the in between days.. you just have to work through it.. 

I made the decision last night to skip my morning run. I'll be working on speed tonight during soccer. According to my Fitbit, I run about 3 miles. Plus, with a busy work day, I'll get plenty of exercise with out my morning run included. 

The 3rd day in a row we've had breakfast for dinner. A large salad, a small slice of quiche, 1 slice of bacon, 3 slices of Canadian bacon, toasted bread with raspberry jam. My calories added up to 1700 for the day even with my cheater foods. I'm allowing myself to not be perfect on this healthy eating. I won't drop weight as fast as I'd like but I'm losing and seeing the results.

My black jeans are now fitting nice. No more muffin top.. feels great to have them comfortable, just like wearing leggings! I might not see the scale move but I'm seeing improvements in my clothes and I like it. 

I'm still struggling with afternoon/evening food choices. I know my week time of the day and I'm trying to do something about it. I'm just over tired from my day of running and working. I crave junk or just food that's not on my healthy choice list. Its going to take a lot of baby steps to make changes.. 
I'm going to try looking at my Pinterst motivation pins to try and get over the hump of exhaustion eating. I am just reaching for comfort foods but in the end it doesn't make me feel comforted.. just defeated for the moment by not sticking to my diet plan. Looking at those motivation quotes in the morning makes me feel like I can do this.. make good healthy changes that will lead to my goal weight loss. 10 pounds to go and I don't want to give up on me. 

Happy about food!

I'm taking some food cues from this little guy. He eats so healthy and loves it all. I was a little bored with my usual healthy choices and was craving some junk big time. 

I made some chocolate and peanut-butter chip bars yesterday and decided it was okay to eat some cookie dough. Not my best decision, but a tasty one and it cured me of wanting to binge eat. 

I have no one to blame but myself for being stuck.. stuck and not losing more weight. It's the poor food choices I make. It's usually dinner when I'm thinking ..eat anything you want. I need to be happy about all my meals and food choices. I plan for breakfast, lunches and even snacks. Now I have to start planning dinner. I don't need to spend the whole day working hard on my diet to lose control at night. 

I'm just a little bored with healthy foods. Time to branch out and find some other low calorie, delicious foods. I'm craving baked chicken.. I might actually have to start making meals just to stay on my diet plan. 10 more pounds to go.. 5 pounds definitely and the other 5 pounds are a bonus. 

I made more roasted veggies for lunch and added parsnips to my sweet potatoes. Very delicious and low calorie. Just a touch of lite olive oil, with a dash of salt and pepper, roasted at 350 for 30 minutes. 

While the east coast  is getting a ton of snow.. we are melting at a fast rate. I don't have enough snow to cross country ski and there is no snow in the forecast. I'd be skiing this afternoon for sure if we had snow! Now to wait it out... until I can ski again. 

I still have to go to the gym three times this week to get in my resistance training. It's a lot easier to just lift weights right after running but I don't have enough time and Celina wants to go to the gym tonight. Might as well save it for later! Tone up for summer! It will be here soon enough! 

That's Rude!

It was one of those times in the gym... you know where a person is completely Rude! There is the Rude person who has really bad body odor that runs in the fan.. blowing the stench all over the place. Or the guy like today who snorted and made all kinds of disgusting noises next to me. All vomit producing rude-ness! I could only take so much and I had to move away. So Rude!

Back to wearing jeans and a normal, non-workout top! Comfortable once again to wear now that I've lost a few pounds. I've been at a stalled weight for a week. It's of course 100% due to my weekend eating. I'm just going to say that I needed to eat normal foods and have around 2000 - 2200 calories for a few days to jump start my metabolism again and trick it into not thinking I'm starving myself with reduced calories of 1000 to 1700 per day. 

I got up extra early just so I could fit in an hour cardio workout. It's my Monday Evan day. I wanted to make sure after Sundays rest day I worked out today. I was up early enough to stretch for an hour.. can't miss out on that! 

I didn't take any photos of my Sunday night breakfast dinner last night but I did take a photo of my favorite fruit. Cuties. I had at least 3 yesterday for my healthy choice snack. Oh and the food was pretty good, crepes, quiche, hash browns and bacon. I just skipped eating any bacon. 

I'm starving.. off to have breakfast! 

Ah.. Fresh, Crisp Air..

A nice crisp day to get out and Cross Country Ski. I decided to just look around and take the time to enjoy myself instead of trying to go as fast as I can. 

Skiing only took 1 hour and 20 minutes to ski the 4.5 miles. 10 minutes extra for my go at an easy pace and stop to take photos. 

I didn't see anyone out on the trails. I wasn't really expecting to see anyone since it's a work day. 

I did buy a season ski pass. I have no reasons not to ski every day I can before the snow all melts away. The trails were in pretty good condition considering we haven't had a whole lot of snow. I'm hoping the warm up in the next few days won't melt it all away. 

It felt good to get back to the car. A great change to ski instead of run. I like how skiing makes you do a lot of balancing with all the turns, plus works your arms. I always finish feeling like I had a whole body workout, not just my legs and lungs. 

I haven't been using my heart rate monitor much lately, but decided I'd use it today during skiing. I just wanted to see how much effort I was using to ski. I usually have my HR around 131 - 135 while running and wanted to compare it to skiing effort. 

Up to 130 max. Guess next ski time I'll try going faster.

Just waiting and watching...

Logan and Celina wanted to try taking snow boarding lessons. Logan loved it and Celina said it was hard. We might only have one snowboarder in the family. Skiing is a lot easier! 

Steve and I just waited during their lesson, watching from an inside window. The ski restaurant opened at 11 am so we watched while we ate wings and onion rings. Not great food to stay on a diet but I was hungry. I did skip the hot chocolate to avoid adding even more calories. 

Thankfully, it's Sunday night family dinner and I get to see my favorite little person. It's been almost 2 weeks since I last spent the day with Evan and it's been far too long! 

I'm taking a day off from Cardio. I was going to cross country ski but we stood outside far too long so I am too cold to think about skiing. It's time to start cooking for dinner. I'm making a quiche, waffles.. breakfast for dinner. I'll have photos later of all the food. 

I'm taking full advantage of my no workout day.. off to do a 30 minute power nap before I need to start baking and cleaning our house!

Run My Butt OFF!

Shrinkage is what I want.. this is why I keep running my buns off! Funny how I found this book when looking at the book store. 

I'm skiing my butt off lately since I need a break from running. 

 Off to do the butts burn..