What if...

I some times think.. pretty much every morning..what if I just stopped doing my morning exercises?.. my planks, superman, bridge, twists and triceps?  I need to keep thinking.. there is a reason I do these exercises every day..to stay fit! I won't be fit without them. Sure, I don't see changes.. I'm not getting that 6 pack, but I feel strong for just doing those simple exercises every day. I certainly don't want to lose what I've gained from the last year of doing these exercises pretty much every single day! Its just not easy to doing exercises..that's the difficult part. The "Doing", when all you want to do is lay on the floor and rest. 

What if I stopped.. complaining about my food issues? Far too many times I've been on this cycle of poor eating. Every morning I start off thinking that I need to eat healthy. Only veggies and fruit, good food choices. I just quit throughout the day. I work so hard to burn calories by doing all this cardio and I blow it on crap foods and eating far too many calories to lose a few pounds. I know if I don't lose these few pounds it will keep adding up and I'll be right back to gaining it all back. I can't let that happen. 

I'm doing all the suggestions that I've read about.

1. Drink lots of water throughout the day. 

2. Don't drink your calories. (mostly with the exception of a glass of wine once in a while).

3. Write down what you eat and the time. 

4. Have healthy foods available. (need to pre-make more healthy lunches/snacks)

 5. Don't buy the crap food.. keep it at the store. (still working on this)

6. Know my difficult times of the day when I'm likely to eat crap foods. (afternoons)

7. Substitute unhealthy choices for healthy alternatives. (instead of nightly ice cream I'm having Greek yogurt with frozen raspberries

8. Get plenty of rest.. If I don't sleep well at night, I'll take a nap

9. Distract myself from eating. Get up and move, clean, bike, read or I go to bed early.

10. Do some yoga to relax.. and re-think.. 

What if I could just give up crap foods for just one day? It shouldn't be that hard to only eat healthy today? I'm going to do one day at a time.. just think about today and not tomorrow.. Think about this meal, this snack and pre-think my foods to make healthy choices.

What's your "What if.....?"

Start your day off early... start it off right!

You won't see the fantastic sunrises unless your up early. Up early and off to workout. I had to cut my workout short since I have my Monday with Evan. He comes over early so I have to workout even earlier then usual. I decided to run only on the Elliptical today. 30 minutes=3 miles done and then spent 10 minutes doing some ab exercises. I would like to get in another 3 miles.. not sure it will happen? 

My new yellow/clear glasses might look a little funny. I purchased them for bike riding. I wanted something clear for cloudy days. The yellow makes even a gloomy day look really nice and bright. I'll take funny looking any day it's nice enough for a bike ride. 

I have the most delicious recipe for banana bread. Most of my great recipes come from looking at cook books when I was a kid.  This banana bread recipe was found while I was babysitting after the kids went to bed. 

We are going to have a fun Evan day.. 

Didn't we just do this.. like 15 minutes ago?

As Celina and I were pulling into the gym's parking lot, I said.. "It feels like we were just here". Celina added.. "yeah, 15 minutes ago!" It sometimes feels like the workouts never end and it's a do-over. 

We have this system of starting off easy and save the hard stuff for our last 15 minutes of everything workout. We start on the elliptical. It feels the easiest and it sure helps that the TV is right in front of my face. I'm sort of feeling good when I finish up those Elliptical miles, so we go right to the cross ramp. It gets harder the next 15 minutes because I starting to get tired and want to be done.. I vary what I do on the cross ramp, 5 minutes forward then switch and go 5 minutes in reverse/backwards direction and then forward again.. 15 minutes done! We take a little break by biking for 15 minutes and I end up going at least 3.5 miles or more. This is where it now gets tough, the Treadmill.. ugh! Need I say more? I have such a hard time keeping my legs moving. I want to just walk the entire 15 minutes. I have to play a mind game with myself.. it's just 1.5 easy miles, only 7 minutes to go.. 5 minutes... one minute and you can stop. Before you know it.. we are done with cardio.. On to weights. 15 minutes and time flew by.. we are DONE! Feeling good and glad to be sweaty and driving home till tomorrow when we do it all over again! 

Logan is getting good at making dinner. He loves chicken and wanted to do an Asian meal. Lo mein noodles, veggies and rice, Delicious! Best part, he does all the cooking with a little help. We have leftovers and I know what will be my lunch today! 

I'm excited to see the weather forecast this week will be in the 50's and 60's.. I'll be back outside running! No more didn't I just do this?? A fresh new week ahead! 

Don't start acting your age!

This just makes me laugh.. It was a birthday card to Steve's 70+ year old dad. 

Why do we have to start acting our age if we are fit and can do the same things as a 20 year old? 
I feel 20 thanks to running, so why act all 40 +. 

I had a little cake fail.. The cake/frosting tasted amazing, but the decorating.. wow.. major mess! I completely forgot I was only going to add Raspberries to the filling not the entire cake. My chocolate gnash was a bit clumpy and melted my frosting since it was still hot. I had to add strawberries on top to cover up the gloppy mess. I did the best I could to try and salvage the cake and make it look as good as it was going to get. 

Birthday dinner at Doolittles, and cake after. I forgot to take photos of the ribs, chicken wings and flat bread. All inhaled and very delicious!

This morning Logan scored the only goal. I happened to be talking to another parent and missed seeing it. Figures the only time I'm not paying attention! 

Friday, Friday.. your finally here!

Happy, Friday! We made it.. The weekend is sooo close! 

I have to confess, I did a oops yesterday. I completely forgot about Logan having soccer practice. A bad mom moment. Then again, he didn't come remind me either. Guess its all due to spring week brain? 

I've had a lot of the laziness this week especially since I haven't worked much either. At least I did accomplish cleaning/organizing the game closet. 

 Our front closet only has games, no jackets or shoes. The kids slowly were messing it up and I of course would rather run then organize my own house. I've let a lot go in the last 4 years for my running obsession!

I multi-task while running in the gym. I was doing my 15 minutes of the cross ramp and saw this recipe for spaghetti baked in a roasted tomato in a gym magazine. I'm going to have to make this or Steve will.. who am I kidding! A great vegetarian Sunday family dinner. 

It's Steve's father's birthday and I offered to make a cake. I have big plans to start making some of my Pinterest finds. I'll turn this white cake into a raspberry cream cheese frosted cake with drizzled on chocolate gnash. I think that's about as creative as I can get today. 

It's been really nice having Celina work out with me this week. She came to the gym and I had her try my 15 minutes of everything workout. 

15 minutes elliptical
15 minutes cross ramp
15 minutes bike
15 minutes treadmill (run or walk)
15 minutes weights. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting any where. I know it's all because of my diet. It's hard to be tone and fit when you want to eat crap all the time. Sure I burn around 700 calories, but I sure can eat that fast in candy, ice cream and cookies. I like to complain a lot and not do anything to change my poor habits because that is hard to do. Exercise... not easy but easier then eating good foods. Ugh!!!!!!!!!! 

Speed and racing mind.

I don't know about you, but I can't just go to sleep after an exciting soccer game. It wakes me up from all that quick, hard speed work. I wish it would tire me out so much that I'd fall fast asleep but my mind keeps racing too.

The kids came to watch me. I got a lot of advice on what I need to do better. I'm okay with direction in a sport I'm learning. Any advice is welcome! Our team got in a loud discussion with the Ref after the game. I was only refereed to 2 times.. when he didn't call out the other team for basically the goalie tackling me when I was going for the ball to try and score a goal. The other time, a big guy pushed me to get to the ball. I was not happy about either but that's part of the game. It can get rough. Which is why my mind was racing after. I always want to play more after I'm done with the game. An hour just isn't long enough. I'm just getting warmed up and before you know it, the game is over. 

 The kids and I went to the Como zoo yesterday. We needed a little green with tropical temperatures. Celina and I both took a lot of the same photos. 

Logan decided to re-decorate his room. He's tired of Red and white.. so we went to Ikea to pick out a new duvet cover for his bed and then we will pick out wall colors. 

The Ikea inspiration room. He liked aqua blue pillows instead of all gray or white so we got those too. Now to paint the walls gray and switch around some furniture. I'll be painting his night table since it's natural maple and he wants it white like the one in the photo. 

I'm really liking my gym variety.. 15 minutes/1.5 miles of elliptical, 15 minutes/1.5 miles cross ramp, 3.5 miles /15 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes and 1.5  miles on the treadmill (run 5.5-6.0mph and walk to cool down). 

Just 15 minutes.. that's all.

You can do anything for 15 minutes.. right? 

I've been disliking being suck inside with the new spring snow we've been getting. Another morning at the gym was not what I wanted to do.  I just told myself its just 15 minutes, that's all. 

It's easier to warm up on the stationary bike. I brought along the news paper to read while I peddled away. 3.5 miles done. Too bad my Fitbit doesn't record miles of biking. I did read that they are working on it! 

The music and all the TV's were all down at the gym, so it was VERY Quiet the first 30 minutes of my workout. Just when I finished my 15 minutes on the Elliptical, all came back on. 1.5 miles done then I moved on to the Cross ramp. It keeps getting harder.. 

I had TV to watch,  and I a grabbed a new magazine to read and there was music. All the right things to keep me distracted and running on the cross ramp for 15 minutes, 1.5 miles done!

I even lifted weights for 15 minutes. That was all I wanted  to do! Done, and it wasn't so bad with just 15 minutes of everything.  I just couldn't do an hour on one machine. I need variety. 

I have soccer tonight. I'll be doing my speed running 3 miles. A neighbor who's kids also play soccer, sounded shocked that I was playing soccer on a team. Maybe shocked wasn't the right choice of words. I won't let someone's disapproval of me doing something I like and want to do stop me. Why should it. I'm making me happy. And NO, your never to old to do something. I'm not going to let anyone take me down! Who gave them the right to live my life and decided what is and what is not appropriate? I never let anyone tell me how to live my life! It's mine to live and I'll do it how I want, not according to what anyone decides for me. I've had too many people in my past life try and control me. Tell me what I should or should not be doing. What is and what is not appropriate. I stopped listening and letting anyone try and control me. I'm my own person and you should be too. Do what you want.. and take back your life! 

It has to be time..

I made some delicious lemon bars. Extra lemon filling with a cookie crust. I like more lemon then crust. 

I used the left over short bread cookies and dipped them in  Almond bark  and topped them with pink sprinkles. 

Logan wanted to go to the Peep store at the MOA. We had to try every new flavor of peeps. 

I'm most excited about trying the lemon Peeps. 

I saw this piggy grill at the MOA. How fun would that be? Who said all grills must be the same looking? 

Monday with Evan.. I found a smaller kid size guitar. He just loves playing the guitar and key boards. I have a feeling he's going to be musical. 

You know when you try on clothes and it fits but you aren't happy with the fit? I think it has to be time to get back to eating less and actually losing weight! 

I probably could have done an outdoor run but I wasn't sure the path would be clear of ice. I opted for the gym. 15 minutes of stationary biking 3.5 miles, 15 minutes on the elliptical 1.5 miles. I almost stayed on the elliptical because a movie that looked really good just started and I really wanted to just sit down and watch the whole movie. I didn't.. instead walked over to the cross ramps and ran another 15 minutes or 1.5 miles. Done! We got a late start and I'll be back later with Celina to finish up 3 miles and lift weights!

Time to put more thought into what goes into my mouth! Less is best and healthy choices! It's always tough trying to lose weight. I've got the exercise down.. now just to lose a few more pounds! It just has to be time to do it now!