Busy, Busy, Busy

School has started and I feel like I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off! The first few weeks of school are always total chaos, I get stressed, and I feel exhausted. All three things lead add up to bad news on the health front.

Though I have to say I am proud of myself. Thanks to my mom, I actually had healthy food choices when my family got together on Saturday. We had angel food cake, fresh strawberries, and low fat ice cream to celebrate. Of course the last few days have started out well and ended well but the middle ground was a bit shaky. I have managed to walk for an hour two days in a row but my food choices have not been very desirable. I have been living off of carbs and not good ones.

Now if I can only get my food and exercise to match up again I will be doing good. Though I do have to say I think I made a bit of a break through in mind set. After listening to 4 hours of "What Not to Wear" on TLC, while working on lesson planning, I finally understood that the number in your clothes don't matter. It is okay to need a size 12 in some jeans and wear a size 8 skirt. That sometimes you can buy a medium but other times you are gonna have to get that large so it looks good. It is not about the number it is all about the fit.

I guess I have put alot of faith in a number. For so long I had always imagined that a size 10 would be my perfect size and wearing mostly 12's has about driven me crazy. Being so close and yet so far away. But this weekend I decided that being a 12 is alright as long as I am active, healthy, and look amazing in my clothes. :)

I Did It!!

I am so proud of myself!

I haven't been running in quite a while and yesterday I decided that I was going to start again. My friend Kathy wants me to run in a 10k in November, don't think that is possible, but I told her I would run in a 5k this fall and maybe a 10k this spring if she would run with me. Meaning she would have to slow waaaaaaayyyyy down.

Well I got on the treadmill last night and ran an entire mile. So it took me 18 minutes but still did it without stopping. I am getting ready to get on and do a mile and a quarter tonight.

The plan is I am going to keep it at this slow pace and work my way up to 3.5 miles. Once I can run 3.5 slow and confidently then I will start bumping up the speed a little at a time. I think that is a totally do able plan.

Other good news I dropped the 5 pounds I gained on vacation!! So I have my other 15 that I gained over the summer to lose now.

Dieting Doom

Today I watched a show where they were talking about 3 factors that doom every dieter. First is peer influance. If a dieter is around people who eat more then they tend to give themselves permission to eat more as well. Second was temptation is greater for a dieter than it is for someone who is not a dieter. Dieter's tend to be people who will continue to eat past when they are full just because it is there. The factor was stress. Many people will use food to calm themselves when they are stressed and therefore they will over eat. They said that the only difference between a dieter and a non-dieter is their mindset.

As I watched the program I realized they were talking about me. I face each of these three factors every single day. I have struggled everyday of my life with a dieters mentality. After two years of working so hard to lose the weight I still struggle. I don't know how to change this mentality. How do I allow myself to enjoy what I want but to stop when I have had enough. I am still learning how to make healthy choices and still allow myself to enjoy those things I would normally consider temptations in moderation.

I guess the question becomes what is moderation?

Winning After Losing

Yesterday I was watching Oprah. It was one of those reunion shows where they bring people back that have been on before. Well over the last 20 years she has been following a woman who when they first met her in 1987 was 25 and weight over 500 pounds. I can't remember the woman's name, but over the course of the last 20 years she has struggled over and over again. She finally had gastric bypass and lost over 300 pounds. Since then she has written a book called Winning After Losing. Basically from what I could tell it is her story and the stories of others who have lost big amounts of weight and how they have been able to keep it off.

It is a struggle that is for sure! So I think I am going to buy the book just to see how other people have managed to maintain their weight loss. You know I am grateful to those who have been fit their entire lives and they want to help other people, but I think advice from someone who has walked the path I now walk is so much better. People who have been thin their entire lives have no clue how much of a battle everyday becomes when you use food as your drug of choice.

As for today I did alright but not my best. For some reason I have been craving sweets like crazy and fruit is not cutting it. I probably should have gone without the peanut butter and honey that I ate after dinner tonight but it did get rid of the sweet tooth. I also didn't do any exercise though I did steam clean my carpets and lugging the cleaner around made me break a sweat!

So tomorrow is another day. I can do this! I am going geocaching in the morning so that will give me some exercise!

Half and Half

So I did pretty good with eating today.
I had my typical yogurt and fruit for breakfast.
A protein bar for snack
Ate at Penguin Ed's BBQ for lunch and had a Poke Salad. I did eat blue cheese dressing but you need a little fat.
Had an apple, protein bar, and sugar free Jello for a snack.
Then a turkey sandwich made on Ezekiel Bread with soy cheese for dinner.
I also had a sugar free Popsicle and another protein bar later.

I didn't exercise though. I came home with a bad headache so I just laid down for a while. Then I got started on house work. I am sooooo behind on that!

So one day at a time that is all I can do!

Vacation Time!

I have been gone for the last 5 days on vacation. It was great and I actually got quite a bit of exercise between hiking, swimming, and digging for diamonds. However the I have found the study that says your friends can make you fat is true. Being around people all weekend who don't eat as healthy as I do tends to cause me to eat really badly. It is always amazing to me that when you are around bad influences you tend to fall in their direction instead of raising them up to your good influence.

Oh well, it was a vacation and I enjoyed myself. So back to the grind tomorrow and now I have a couple more pounds that I have to lose! Okay, I should have been back to the grind today but I kind of messed that up when PTA catered our lunch today! Why is it that when people fix dinner and things for people very rarely is it healthy food?

The Last Two Days

I am not even going to attempt to write about my day at Silver Dollar City. Somewhere between the Salt Water Taffy and the Pecan Pie I did an awful lot of walking and eating. Though I think that riding roller coasters should count as a cardio workout because my heart felt like it was about to beat out of my chest!

Today was actually a good day.

I ate Ezekiel cereal, blueberries and soy milk for breakfast.
Had an yogurt and protein bar for snack
Had sauteed veggies and tofu for lunch and impressed the kids with my chopstick skills!
Had and apple, protein bar, and nutri-grain bar as snacks.
A Lean Cuisine for dinner and a brownie rounded out the day.

So other than the brownie and the fact that I should of had a veggie with dinner I did pretty good.

Exercise for today was chasing little kids with a huge water gun. Not your conventional workout but I had fun and my arms were sure tired from pumping that thing!

So So

Well today was a mixed day. Over all I would say I did okay. Especially working out. I did an hour of cardio/strength training/yoga. I can tell my back side is going to be sore tomorrow!

I had yogurt, blueberries, and Ezekiel Cereal for breakfast.
And apple, protein bar, and a little popcorn for snack.
2 pieces of pizza and a salad for lunch.
Then I went a little crazy and had 3 cookies with icing and candy.
For dinner I had sauteed veggies and chicken
And then a 100 calorie bag of popcorn a little later.

So as I said it was a mixed up day.

I already know that tomorrow is going to be a difficult day. I am going to Silver Dollar City with 60 children so I will have to eat in the park. And I know we are having ham sandwiches for dinner. The good thing is I will be walking ALOT!!!

A Great Day!!

So I did 180 today. My eating was completely different from yesterday to today. I don't feel as tired and I just feel better as compared to yesterday. The thing that surprises me is that I know I feel better when I eat right and exercise and yet it is a struggle for me to do it everyday.

So here is how my day went.

I had a protein bar for breakfast and drank an orange juice.
I ate another small protein bar as a snack.
Had Tuna and mixed greens for lunch
Then another protein bar and orange juice for a snack.
A little later had a nutri-grain bar
Ate Turkey and cucumbers for dinner
Had fresh cherries for dessert
Then later had some cheese because I was hungry.

I also worked out using the MyWorkout program that airs on Lifetime. I recorded it this morning and then did the workout this afternoon. It was great because it incorporated cardio, strength training, and stretching. My muscles were burning but I stuck it out the entire 30 minutes.

So tomorrow is another day. Another chance to make healthy choices for my life.

Here We Go!

So maybe today wasn't the best day to start this whole thing. Or perhaps it is the perfect day. I was far from being healthy today. Here is pretty much how my day went.

Slept till 11:30.
Ate yogurt, Ezekiel bread, and cherries for breakfast (not a bad start)
Ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things and bought gummy worms.
Ate some of the gummy worms and then threw them in the trash so I wouldn't eat any more.
Ate Lean Cuisine Panini and some pickled cucumbers(Still not to bad)
Then came the rest of the day.
I baked cookies for church tonight and managed to eat about 10 in the process.
Ate some turkey and cheese thinking I at least need some protein for dinner.
Then went to church and ate a lot of crackers and hummus.
I had intentions of coming home and working out but that didn't happen.

Needless to say it was not a very balanced day.

So tomorrow is a new day. I choose to live moment by moment and make healthy choices in those moments.

My Story and Purpose!

My entire childhood I was obese. I was always that kids who was the biggest one in there class. I really didn't get much teasing. I guess it was because I had so many friends who would stick up for me. I never even really realized how big I had gotten.

By the time I graduated High School I weight 250 pounds. With the freshman 15 I hit 265 by the end of my first year of college. My Junior year I really had no idea how much I weighed. I was afraid to get on the scale. I was quickly growing out of my size 22 clothes. The Doctor put me on a strict 1200 calorie diet. I managed to stick with it for a semester, which is hard to do eating in a cafeteria all of the time. I managed to lose 30 pounds but gained it all back that summer.

In the Spring of '04 I had moved in with another girl who was over weight. We talked several times about wanting to lose weight. We would start a random diet plan and then end up crashing a few weeks later. We managed to stick to the South Beach Diet for about 3 months. I lost about 20 pounds but then turned around and put it right back on. We Yo-Yoed together for that year.

In February of '05 my mindset changed. I had grown tired of being over weight. My weight was holding me back from doing so many things I wanted to do and it was also interfering with me being a great teacher. In January my lower back had started hurting and I figured it was because of my weight. I had made up my mind that no matter what it took I was going to get the weight off this time.

On February 9th, I received a phone call from my roommate. She had gone down to the LA Weight loss centers and wanted me to come down and join with her. They gave us an amazing deal for signing up together. Though it was quite expensive for a college student and a first year teacher we took the plunge together.

Over the next few months we were losing weight quite quickly. It helped that we were doing it together. It made our house a "safe place" with no unhealthy food choices around. It also helped that we ran in the same circle of friends. When we were all out together we weren't as tempted to stray from our plan because we were there to support each other.

However, in the midst of losing weight I also lost my friend. My roommate started dating someone in March, by May they were engaged, and by August she and I were no longer speaking to each other. It is a long story about how all that came about, however being angry with her actually kept me going. I was bound and determined to reach my goal without her! Plus, I knew she had already slid back into her old lifestyle habits so the fact that she wasn't losing any more weight was a motivation as well.


So for the next year and a half I kept plugging away. I had changed so many things about my life. I would come home and walk the dogs instead of watching TV. I was making healthier choices in my food. I would crave fruits and veggies if I hadn't eaten them all day. I could tell that I was healthier.

In the winter of '06 I decided that I wanted to train to run in a 5k. I managed to make it to running 2 miles by February. In February my life began to change again. After having 2 years of a pretty consistent schedule, my evenings had been rocked by dating.

It is amazing how you can lose sight of things when you start focusing elsewhere. All of the time and energy I had put into getting healthy had quickly shifted. Instead of working the guys in around my exercise schedule I just plugged them in instead of exercise. I didn't run my 5k as I had intended and I was eating out alot more. In 4 months time I had dated several different guys and managed to gain 10 pounds in the process.

Then June and July are insanely busy as always and I have been out of town a ton. Being out of town and having my schedule yet again flipped around I have gained another 5 pounds. I have have had enough!

I have decided that in order to help keep me accountable I am going to write my daily accomplishments and defeats right here for everyone to see. This isn't just about losing weight it is about being healthy and happy with who I am. Hopefully this can give others encouragement and hope to step out and make healthier life choices. I am far from being an expert at all of this. I am just a girl that has decided to make a change!