New Diet Plan

My husband and I started our "healthier living journey" 2012  probably around February.  While I have lost 48.4 pounds I still have 32.6 to go  before I THINK I am where I want to be.  I say THINK because I've never been this weight in my adult life.  I've always been heavy.  I'm the fat one in the family.   Although I don't think I would call myself that anymore.  But I'm still to heavy.  I'm not in my "healthy weight range".  I'm not comfortable naked (not sure I ever will be).  

Throughout this whole thing I haven't really wanted to consider myself on a "diet".  Ive done that before and ended up gaining half the weight back that I lost.  I have really tried to not tell myself that I can't have any certain food, reason being then I'm constantly gonna want that food. That's just how I am.  But since I've been playing around at this back and forth 5 pounds for months now I think its time to stricken it up.  I've been trying to figure out how to do that without being miserable.  I Love food!  And I enjoy eating.  I normally stay within my calories too, but for some reason I' m not losing anymore so here is what I'm going to do for the time being.  No more crackers/chips for the next two weeks at least so I can see what the scale does.  If I really feel the need for something of that nature then I will pop some popcorn with coconut oil.  At least that is "clean".  I was getting a little crazy with the flavored peanut butter also so I'm going to limit myself to only "real" peanut butter or the PB2 for the next little while also.  Also I will be keeping trying to incorporate more veggies into the mix.  I'm finding a lot that I didn't even know I liked!  I am still going to allow myself one "cheat meal" for the week.

As far as exercise I have been rocking it better than ever with that.  I have 2 days left of Jillian Michaels the Shred and then I can move on with my life. LOL   Not stop exercising but just adding new and different things.  I really do enjoy the circuit type workouts though.  I'm defiantly gonna incorporate lots of those in the mix.     I'll keep Ya ll updated!  Here's hoping for big loses!

Mason Jar smoothies

It doesn't take much to get this mama excited.   Someone really should have been here to here the scream that came from me today.  I was minding my own business, killing some time browsing pintrest(which by the way if you haven't discovered yet I highly recommend it!  I came upon this picture,,, showing a mason jar on top of a blender..hmmmmm,,,  I immediately started feeling the excitement and had to get right up and find a mason jar.   I found a regular mouthed one and walked my curious self right over to our blender..   Unscrewed the bottom blade part from the regular container and tried to screw it on the mason jar.   That is when the scream came out... Screams of joy!!!!!!  I really wanted to try it out right then but had to wait until later after my workout when I was going to have my protein shake.. (have to use my calories wisely).

Finally it was time,, first I put my goodies in the mason jar, one frozen banana, one scoop of chocolate whey protein powder, a few ice cubes, and some water.

Then I screwed on the blade part being very careful not to stab myself :)

Sit it right on the blender and tada!!!!!

Yummy!(That would be the arm of my husband in the background wondering why he married such a crazy freak that gets excited about using Mason jars on the blender)  He loves me!

Pure happiness right there... Who doesn't wanna drink right out of the Mason Jar(must be my southern roots showing there),, and I didn't have to dirty up the blender and this jar can easily go right into the dishwasher!  Sorry I look so utterly horrid,, this was after my workout remember and I never look pretty after all that sweaty-ness! Speaking of workouts,, only 6 more left of Jillian Michales Shred! Yay!  This level is a killer!

And in all the excitement Emma kept bugging met to take a picture of her with the lanyard on and with her little bear she found in her toy box today that her brother and sister got her when she was first born in the hospital.  Isn't she the cutest?

Whats the silliest thing you have gotten excited about?  I know I'm not the only one....

For more kitchen tips visit Tammy's website She always has great tips!

Contentment

Contentment.  This is something I have struggled with and worked on my entire life.  As a child it always seems your friends have bigger and better things,, the grass is always greener concept.  Well unfortunately as an adult I still struggle with this.  Lately it has gotten so much better though.  Here's the thing. Most days I am happy.  I am more or less living the life I have always wanted.  I have a husband that loves me, I've got great kids, I am able to be home with them.  There have been quite a few times I have despised my house but I have finally come to terms with the fact that this is where we are meant to be right now.  The payments are right and we can not afford a bigger house payment.  Everyone has there own room,, granted it is only 1000sq feet and there are 5 of us, plus extra littles here through the day but we all fit and its cute and comfortable.  It is our home and will more than likely be our home for quite a while. It could be so much worse.  The main thing I want right now is to get out of debt!!!! I want it so bad! I wish every other thing in life wouldn't keep coming up making it near darn impossible to pay down the credit cards.  All in good time.  If we want something really bad and are willing to work for it we can make it happen eventually right?

The only time I get down about my life is when I'm around other people,, listening to them talk about where they are going or all there grand things,, mostly I'm home though and hardly talk to anyone besides my family. lol   I guess that's something I need to work on.  Jealousy of other people.  I'm sure somewhere out there in the world might be jealous of me.   Like I said my life isn't bad at all!  I'm so lucky to have these great kids and man that would walk to the end of the earth if I asked him to.

What do you do when you feel the jealousy monster creeping in?  Or is it just me that this happens to?

Level 3

Today was day one of level 3 of The shred.. .. I know I've said it at the beginning of every single level but OH man, this one is rough!  Traveling push ups, sumo squat jumps, regular squat jumps, rock star jumps!!  The list goes on.  I am doing things I never thought in my life I would be able to!  I'm so proud of myself, and of Jess.    
 So 9 days left of this and then we will be on to something else.  I'm loving my heart rate monitor that I ordered. Its so nice to see how much I am actually burning and how hard I'm working from day to day.
Its late and I'm tired but I just wanted to check in here..

Keeping it Real

In reading through my last few post I notice I sound pretty darn happy. Happy, healthy, fit and active. What a great life I must have. Lol. No really my life is just fine but it is defiantly not all those things. Honestly in the last 4 days I have had two major meltdowns where I was bawling and feeling life life couldn't get much worse. I also get teary eyed quite often during my workouts. Sounds silly doesn't it? I don't know what it is but sometimes it just seems so hard and makes me wonder if I will ever look like what I want to look like. Idk but i keep pushing right through the tears because the only way I will ever find out is if I keep on going.

Ben and I the opposite of a perfect relationship, but we try, we push through all these roadblocks life keeps throwing at us. Some days I wonder why did I ever marry this man, he is so unlike me, but i did marry him and I had 3 kids with him. He provides the best he can for me and them. He tries. He would give me the moon if he was able so I have to keep looking past faults.

My kids, I love them so much. I would die for them. They are great, get great grades, but they arnt perfect either. They are just like any other kid. They are mouthy, tend to not listen. Gary keeps disobeying like crazy! For two years Ive told the kid do not get breakfast at school. I feed him here. I cant afford to buy school breakfasts. He continues to eat breakfast at school every chance he gets. SMH. I don't get it. We punish him. He still does it. I told him dont download anything on the ipod without asking me first. He still downloads stuff. We know cuz whatever he downloads automatically goes to Ben's phone. He knew this. But still did it anyways!!! I just dont get it!
I could go on and on with the woes thats is me, but I wont. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't giving anyone the wrong impression. Actually I dont even know if anyone is reading this!
I just keep going, doing the best I can with what I have. Im reading this book right now. Hoping I can learn a thing or two.

A fit family and our menu.

Another weekend come and gone,, almost half way through Feb!!  It really is true that as you get older life just moves on faster.  And the weekends sure do fly by.  Through the week our days are pretty much the same,, get up kids go to school Ben is at work, I babysit until 5:30 every night which then we have dinner, clean up dinner, workout, get kids ready for bed, watch a little TV, wait for 3rd shift babysitting girl to come and then go to bed to get up and do it all over again.  The weekends are always a little different and as of lately working out is part of those also.  I am really happy that fitness has taken over our household.  I cant believe I'm saying this but I am loving being active.  I really cant  wait until the weather warms up some I we can get outside more often and take walks and I"m dieing to go hiking somewhere.  Tennessee and all those hills are really calling my name.  I bet we could tackle them a lot better now than we did a few years ago! 

Jess and I right before doing The Shred.

 

We took a little sneak peak at level 3 of the Shred and since the mats were open Emma decided to do some of the stretches with Evil Jillian.

Saturday the sun was out and even though it wasn't really warm we took advantage of it and the whole family went for a walk. Gary wanted to ride his bike.  We went for 2 miles!  Our ears and cheeks were frozen but its all good.  I loved getting some fresh air. Emma was whining on the way home about being cold and tired but hopefully this summer when its not freezing she will be more into it. 

I really wasn't this far behind everyone, my shoe was untied so I stopped to tie it and snapped a pic while I was back there. 

 

Ive decided to start posting our menus again like I used to.  Keep in mind that lunches are always subject to change, just depends if we have leftovers or not and what the kids and I are in the mood for..I also don't always eat the same thing as the kids in the mornings and lunches,,if you want to see exactly what I eat find and add me at myfitnesspal.com  my user name is everydaymom. 

 

I also always have a veggie or two at dinner but dont always right then down on the menu plan because we just have whatever one sounds good that day. :)   More or less nothing is written in stone,I just like to have a basic plan.  This little markerboard came with a calander set my mom got me for Christmas,, I love it for posting our menus on the fridge. 

If you need some dinner inspiration check outhttp://orgjunkie.com/ There are tons of menu plans there every Monday morning

Saturday happenings

Oh lovely Saturday.. I love them.  No extra kids here besides my own.  Ben worked this morning, and he has to work tomorrow.  He's bummed, but it sure helps out with money.  This morning the kids and I slept in , had breakfast, then Jess and I did the Shred.  Shes been doing it with me, which helps out.  Its always more fun to have someone suffer along beside me :)  Then we all took showers(cuz we were sweaty and stinky), and then Ben came home.  We had lunch, cleaned up, then made our grocery shopping list.  Tomorrow is super bowl Sunday we planned out a fun and fattening filled day for that, then made the menu plan for the rest of the week.  

All our lovely fruit, I love when we get home from the store and have a overflowing fruit basket,, although it wont look like that for long,, This wont even last until next weekends shopping trip.

 Shopping took forever!! The stores were packed,, guess people were stocking up for super bowl?? When we came home we had dinner, then decided we needed desert.  So Jess was looking online for a recipe and I suggested we look at momto9's blog.  She has yummy deserts  We found this recipe for heavenly bars.. 

Cooking at home makes for lots of dirty dishes

 The bars turned out just as heavenly as promised!  Jess did a great job as always.  I don't even want to know how many calories were in that little square I ate. Good thing we exercised this morning!  

My nice clean shiny sink! (wanted to make sure everyone knows I don't leave a  messy kitchen for to long!)

PS..   For the whole entire time I've been typing this Miss Jessica has been sitting beside me making fun of me and the way I type and write and spell and talk,, and shes laughing right now..  Good thing I know she loves me deep down.