Power of One -- New Challenge Week 1

It's time for the next challenge at the Sisterhood of Shrinking Jeans and it is perfect for this time in my life!! I'm glad that they read my mind and set this up!!


Here we are at the end of 2010 and nearly ready for 2011...I don't know about anyone else but I'm glad this year is almost over! This has been a difficult year for me and my family. One that I never thought we would have to go through. The beginning of the year found my husband without any kind of income...or clients to make that income through. He's an architect and little did we know at the time but architects had (and in some areas still do) an unemployment rate of somewhere around 50%!! That's just craziness!

Thank God he has been able to find some good clients now so he is once again working and "bringing home the bacon". During the first couple of months of 2010 he just couldn't find ANY work (oh wait, yes he did he made $600 in January and $600 in February!!) Because it's kind of impossible for a family of 4 to live on $600 a month I went to work overnights at Walmart just so we could have some steady income....and let me tell you that was difficult!! I went to work right after putting That Other Kid to bed and got home about the time he woke up. I then took a shower and went to bed for a few hours and then I took care of things around the house. I tried to homeschool, cook, clean, and take care of the mom kind of things...I wasn't very good at any of them either! I was just too exhausted to do anything well.

During this time (7 months and 5 days to be exact) I slept when I could and did what I could to stay on my healthy living journey. The one bonus to this job was that it was VERY physical so although I didn't lose weight during this time I did continue getting stronger and I basically maintained. In July I moved to 2nd shift and it wasn't as physically demanding and I started gaining some weight...but only about 10 pounds...it could have been sooooo much worse!! During the 2nd week in September my hubby told me he was busy enough that I could quit working! That was a happy day...I gave my 2 week notice and looked forward to the last day of September. It was at that point that I started getting focused on me again and started trying to lose the weight again.

And so here we are at the end of 2010 where I am looking forward to the new year of 2011 with a new Challenge that will focus on me! I think it's about time to focus on me. During this year I have focused on me more than I ever have in the past but I need to really concentrate on taking care of what is important so that my family will have the best ME they can! Because ultimately if I'm not healthy and fit, neither will my family be that way...This year will bring on some new challenges for me (that I don't want to discuss with everyone yet) and in order to get through this year stronger, healthier and in top physical condition I'm going to need to concentrate on ME.

So...my stats:

March 2009 (which is when I started getting serious about this journey): 226.8




Today, December 29, 2010: 196.0 (which is ALOT better than I thought it would be based on all my indulgences of the past 7 days!)



My long term goal weight: 150 -- which according to the personal trainer at the gym would put me at a REALLY LOW BMI

Short term goal (for this 8 week challenge): 184 (which is what I weighed the day I found out I was pregnant with That Other Kid back in the spring of 2003 and I haven't seen it since)

Some of my healthy living goals:

EXERCISE DAILY -- it doesn't really matter what; running, walking, playing with the numerous Wii games I have...just something to get my body moving. I am happier and less stressed if I do some kind of exercise! I really want to do something for 30 minutes a day...but I know some days I'm not really going to commit to that length of time so I'm just going to say any time as long as I'm EXERCISING - meaning heart rate is elevated!

DRINK MY WATER -- cuz I've found if I'm drinking water, I'm not drinking soda!! Studies show if you drink half your body weight in water daily you will lose weight, so right now that means I need to drink a minimum of 98 ounces of water!

My next goal (and this one will make my hubby happy) is to CLEAN/ORGANIZE something in my apartment everyday for 30 minutes. We live in a 3 bdrm apartment and it is cluttered and disorganized. It is also full of STUFF that needs to find either a new home or be thrown away. Since I homeschool That Other Kid and hubby works at home we are usually all home, which means the place is easily cluttered!! This needs to be changed...We are all tired of clutter!!

My final goal for this challenge and this is strictly for ME (cuz this challenge is for ME, right?) -- READ MY BIBLE and something for FUN (either fiction or non-fiction) EVERY DAY!! I love to read but find I rarely take time to do it unless I specifically set aside time to do so, so I am going to do that during this challenge. It will be good for me and it will get me into some great habits for the new year! It will also help me through some challenges that I will be facing this year that I already know about but can't really talk about right now.

We all need to find some way to treat ourselves good and I can't think of a better way to treat ourselves good taking care of myself; body, soul and spirit!

So what are your goals for the new year?? Are you focusing on you?? You should...My motto for the new year is gonna be:

Take Care of yourself, cuz who else is going to?!!

Awesome Christmas...Details to Follow

Well here it is early Wednesday morning after Christmas and I just got the pictures uploaded onto the computer. We had an awesome whirlwind mini-vacation and got to see family and friends to celebrate Christmas. Normally our Christmas plans are made months in advance but this year things didn't work out that way and they were made on Tuesday night before Christmas!! Things went incredibly smooth for such a quick trip, too! No snags...and lots of fun!! Pictures will be uploaded onto Facebook and the ol' blog tomorrow if I have time.

I have to take That Other Kid in for his 7 year Well Child checkup in the morning...and of course he is not feeling well. I'm guessing its just allergies since we were in Kansas without allergy medicine but I have to say I am glad we were already scheduled for a dr visit!

Things are still kind of in a chaotic state of being since That Kid just came home on the 23rd and just threw his stuff down...he has found an apartment to move into for a few months since he has decided that college is not his thing right now, so things are probably going to remain in a state of limbo over the next couple of weeks.

But I am going to get back into a routine of sorts and the first one being is I am going to get moving again! It has been 10 days since I have run and 1 week since I have done any exercising and I am really feeling it. My mood is blah. I am feeling fat. I am more tired than usual...so it's a good thing a new Shrinking Jeans challenge is starting Wednesday! Something to kick me into high gear and get me moving again! I am supposed to run a 5k with my sisters over at Shrinking Jeans on the 8th, too so I need to get moving so I can complete the C25K program and be ready for my 5K. There isn't one local that I want to run so I am going to create my own!

Anyway...I need to get to bed, but I have to leave you with at least 1 picture from our Christmas celebration. This one definitely depicts the joy on Christmas morning...Hope yours was just as good!

It's Officially Christmas Eve....

and we are just hours away from leaving town for a "quick" weekend trip to see family. Just days ago we had not decided what we were doing and now we not only know what we are doing but we are packed and ready to go! All we need to do is pack the toiletry bag, take showers, grab the snacks and head out the door!

I am so excited!! Probably more so than the boys! For some reason it was very important to me to spend Christmas with the family. Maybe because we didn't get to last year. Maybe because this year has been so hard. Maybe because we don't know where That Kid will be next year at this time. But whatever the reason, I am glad that it is happening!! I will also get to spend some time with a bunch of my high school friends this weekend and I am beyond excited at this possibility! Several of them I haven't seen in YEARS...but through the wonders of technology and FaceBook we discovered we will all be in the same town on the same weekend and so we are working on plans!! Don't worry the camera is packed so pictures will follow next week!! One of my childhood friends is now a musician who plays with many different acts in Branson so that will be fun to hang with my friend "the star"!!

Ok..enough of this talk...I need to get some sleep so I can go all weekend with as little sleep as possible so I can cram as much family and friends into the trip as possible! I hope your Christmas is filled with family and friends and all the joy of the Christmas season!!


Recent picture of That Kid and That Other Kid...for our family pictures!

Merry Christmas!!

HoeDown Finale

It's time for the HoeDown Finale with the Sisterhood.This has not been a very successful challenge for me, but it has nothing to do with my wonderful team members or the challenge itself. It has EVERYTHING to do with the follow-through on my goals. I had 4 goals for this challenge...let's see how I did, huh? (or maybe we should just skip this part??!!)

1)continue tracking my food in LoseIt on Ipod Touch, NOT SO MUCH -- in fact I have it set up to send me an email showing how I did each day...for the past 2 weeks it shows I haven't eaten anything nor done any exercise. Um...obviously, that isn't true.

2) eat my fruits/veggies 5 servings a day, NOT SO MUCH here either -- probably 1 or 2 a day (but since I didn't track my food, maybe not even that much)

3)exercise EVERY SINGLE DAY, DID OK on this one, not EVERY day but most but the problem with this one is that most of the time it was done LATE at night when I just didn't have the energy left to put much into it!
This week I did 355 minutes of exercise and last week I did 347 so I did increase the minutes (albeit just a few minutes) so I met that goal from the Sisterhood!

4) lose 10 pounds (186.2), putting me at LESS than what I have been in OVER 7 years.
Um...ok so this is the one I'm most upset about...I only lost a MEASLEY .2 pounds this challenge. But when you look at all the other things that I struggled with I guess its better than gaining 10 pounds which could have happened!

I started this challenge at 196.2 and I'm ending it at 196. I have to admit that I am very disappointed in the lack of dedication and success that I have had in the past month, BUT instead of beating myself up over it for the next 2 weeks and eating even MORE food (cuz of course that would make me feel better, right? NOT!!) I am going to look at what I know I need to do to get back on track and really stay with this. I need to kick up the exercise, eat more fruits/veggies and TRACK my food! These are tried and true things that will work for me, IF I DO THEM!!

I also need to get over my emotional funk that I have been in the past few weeks and just accept the things in my life that I can't change and only concentrate on the things that I can change!

I am so grateful to have been part of the Lean Green Losing Machine and from what I have seen EVERYONE has a had a VERY successful challenge of losing weight and changing this holiday time of little exercise and weight gain and turned it into a time of healthy(ier) eating and losing weight. (Of course I can't really say losing point 2 pounds was successful, but whatever!!) Everyone else did AWESOME and we won the Fitness challenge every week except last week so we are all on the road to great health and fitness!

That being said, I'm looking forward to the next challenge that starts next week because I really do need to focus on ME for a while. I have LOVED being part of the teams and we will be sticking together to build each other up and support each other but I really need to focus on getting my act together. There are some things coming up in my life very soon that are going to test me beyond my wildest imaginations and I need to be focused on taking care of me or I am going to be crashing hard!! So...if you are the praying kind I would definitely appreciate some prayers. As the time gets closer and more sure I will talk about it in more detail but for now I just need to STAY FOCUSED ON MY HEALTH and WELL-BEING so I can handle anything that comes my way!

The way things have been going time wise I probably wont be back on here till after Christmas, so if I don't chat with ya'll again....I pray each of you have a Very Merry Christmas!!

Another Week of Holiday HoeDown

Another week has passed on the Holiday HoeDown and I am surprised that I haven't taken the time to write any posts in the past week. What is up with me?? I wish I had an answer other than just blahs and not really interested in doing much for the past few weeks. But....it's weigh in time and although I haven't had a stellar week and I've had the blahs I have to keep checking in for Weigh-ins. It keeps me "somewhat" on track.

So...here are the numbers

Last week's weigh in: 196.8
This week's weigh in: 196 (at least that's what the Wii board told me and that's what I have to go on this week. Apparently the "lithium batteries" that NEVER DIE...DIED this week because my regular scales aren't working!)

I will take the slight loss and just go with it...cuz that's all I've got, ya know!!

As for the other challenges for the HoeDown with the Sisterhood I did get some minutes in but NOT anywhere close to what I should be doing....it was only 347 minutes. I know for some people that would be considered a great number of minutes but for me my goal was to exercise AT LEAST 60 minutes per day...and I fell WAY short on that.

I have been working through the C25K program (ready for Week 7) and the past week has been extremely difficult to keep up with. My legs are sore, my hips are sore and I'm just plain tired, so that kept my exercise minutes very limited several days. I have been stretching, taking advil, and soaking in espom salt baths and they seem to be helping but I still am hurting when I do much of anything. Last night I just got tired of all the complaining and whining in my head and did the WiiFit Plus Free Step Aerobics while I watched the Biggest Loser Finale. It was nice to be moving instead of sitting on my hiney watching the show....because if I'm sitting there watching tv I'm feeling sorry for myself and probably eating. This way I was moving for 1 1/2 hours!! Nice!!

Another part of this weeks challenge was to "do something new" for exercise....sadly I can't say I did anything new...pretty much all the same stuff. Looking back over the week, I can't say I have any excuses for not trying something new...other than "just cuz I didn't". But this week will be different. I will do something new and I will report on it.

Hope ya'll are staying focused on the true meaning of Christmas as you are going through the busy-ness of the month of December....and are having a great time with your family and friends. This year I am spending a lot of time reflecting on what this time of the year means to me. Hope you are too!

Holiday HoeDown -- Week 3 Weigh In

Today is Wednesday and so we all know it's time for Weigh In over at the Sisterhood. Once again I didn't feel real confident in how well I did this week, but all I could do was hop on the scale and see what it told me.

Last week's weigh in: 197.6

Today's weigh in: 196.8

So...not a big loss but a loss is a loss at this point in the game for me. I haven't been doing great on the eating plan although I have been trying to be conscience of what I am doing, and I haven't logged my food in several days -- BAD for keeping me "in the know" of what I am doing.

I have been doing pretty well with the exercise and I have started using the EA Sports Active 2 game that I won through the Shrinkvivor challenge as well as continuing with the C25K training program (for the Virtual 5K with the Sisterhood on January 8). I completed my second 5K this weekend so that added a good amount of exercise minutes! My total minutes for the week was 461 which wasn't what I wanted to aim for but it is still a lot of exercise for one week!!

For this week our non-scale related challenge was to do something different that we have never done! Before Saturday I had NEVER, EVER RUN for more than 20 minutes without stopping to walk, but I did it this weekend and even added 2 1/2 extra minutes to that!Not only this, but I did this race with my 20 year old son! It was something that I want to do again! It was awesome!! You can read my full race report on my previous post. It was a big day for me!!

ok...it's been a crazy few days and I'm exhausted so I'm off to go to bed. Hope ya'll are having a good week and a great Holiday season!

Karate and 5K Weekend....

Catchy title, huh??

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to attend That Other Kid's karate belt test! He was testing for his "red belt" in the Little Dragons program (for 6 and under students) and he was stoked! Friday night he practiced his kata for Form 2 and perfected it just in case he was asked to do it for his test. He had been told he would have to know Form 1 and Form 2 in order to get his new belt, but we weren't sure if he would actually have to do it or not. This is the last belt before advancing to "American Karate" for students 7 and older so it was a BIG DEAL!!


Horse Riding Stance


Beginning Form 2


part of Form 2


Finishing up Form 2

I was sooooo proud of him....he did awesome during the belt test and concentrated to the best of his ability for this test. He had some awesome kicks and powerful punches and one of the moms told me "he did great"! Toward the end of the testing session after the entire group was done the lead instructor called him out of the group and said that "since you are the big bad brown belt you get to show us your kata". He was the only brown belt in the test so he had to do this by himself. The instructor asked him which kata he wanted to do and he replied "form 2". So he was told to go ahead. He turned to face the crowd of parents and started. I couldn't believe how well he did. He kicked above his head on some of his kicks. He did every move just as he was supposed to and shocked even the instructor with his performance! It was a proud mommy moment when other parents came up to me and said he did "awesome"!


First sweat to tough your new belt! And yes, there was sweat, especially after the kata!


Congratulations to the newest Red Belt!


Once he received his RED BELT we left the studio and went to breakfast to celebrate. It was a nice way to celebrate his achievement. After breakfast (whole wheat pancakes w/fruit for me) we went home and I started preparing for my 5K race with That Kid.

My friend that was going to watch That Other Kid at the race injured her foot and was not able to attend so That Other Kid had to stay home since dh had to work. He was really bummed out and told me if he "couldn't go then neither could I". I felt bad for him, but I told him there would be other races that he would be able to attend. Once I got to the race location I'm really glad he didn't go...there were sooooo many people there it was crazy. There were 1355 racers for the 5K and before that there was a 1 mile "fun run" for kids. I have no idea how many there were in that race but it was crazy just how many people were there. The park that the race was in is not really that big and there were masses of people EVERYWHERE!! It took more than 5 minutes to get up to the starting line and I wasn't even at the back of the pack!

That Kid got to the race site about 20 minutes before the starting gun went off so we didn't really have time for much of anything other than getting his shirt and the timing chip on him. We had another race participant take our picture together and I had him take mine but that's all we got. I was kind of bummed that I didn't get one of me crossing the finish line but there will be other races!! (I have to keep saying that to make sure it happens!!)




Anyway...here are some of the details from the race!

Saturday was C25K Wk5D3 -- walk 5 minute for warmup, run 20 minutes, walk 5 minute for cool down, so my goal was to do my training for this race and then walk and "maybe" run some afterwards. We started the race at a sllllllooooooowwwww walk to get up to the starting line and I had already decided I would start running when I crossed the line, so I did. I started my run at 2:27 into my "warmup" and kept running until the podcast said, "cool down" !!! At that point I started walking and took off my long sleep t-shirt!! I was HOT!! It was only 50 degrees and already close to 5p.m. but I had worked up a sweat running for 22 1/2 minutes!! I was about 1 minute away from the 20 minute run session being complete when I looked down at the IPod and saw that I had already RUN 20 full minutes!! I almost started crying I was so shocked and happy! I asked That Kid if he thought I could do this well and he said, "Yeah, I knew you could do it"!! I can't tell you how happy that made me!! Another proud mommy moment!

At that point, after I had shed my t-shirt and did my "cool down" I told That Kid I wanted to finish off the race by running 1 minute/walking 1 minute intervals so he started timing me and encouraging me to keep it up! I was going slow but I was keeping up with the intervals. Toward the end of the race we had to go up a hill and I had to take a walk break on that one, but then I ran extra on another of the intervals. A couple of times as we were running he started running backwards and had me do short sprints to "tag" him in order to start walking again! He made it fun to keep pushing myself harder even though I was tired at that point! One time he was running backwards and I passed a lady and she said, "show off!" and I said, "yeah, it must be rough to be able to show off like that so far into the race"!

Btw, I was passing people all through out the race and I can't tell you how good that felt! Yes, lots of them were walking or with dogs but I was still passing people even some RUNNERS (or woggers)!!

I finished the race with a burst of UPHILL energy (what is it with putting the finish line at the top of a hill???) with an official time of 46:19 and 58th out of 83 in the 45-49 year old females!! That time is 2:09 faster than my first 5K that I did with my brother in October and I can assure you I ran A LOT MORE during this race!

The C25K program is slated to be complete on January 8th and the Sisterhood of Shrinking Jeans is holding a virtual 5K that day. I'm hoping to find a "real" 5K to run here the metroplex. I've already told That Kid I'm planning to run on January 8th if he wants to run again with me! He didn't say yes or no, but I think he's at least thinking about it!

It was a great Saturday!!

The I Lost Weight This Week!!! Weigh In

Today's weigh in for the Sisterhood was one I wasn't really looking forward to. Over Thanksgiving I really threw caution to the wind and ate a lot of crap I don't usually eat and I ate ALOT of it, too! So this morning when I got on the scales I didn't know what to expect. I did know that the past 2 days I had eaten well within my calorie allotment and I had drank ALOT of water. I also stayed on track with my exercising at least 1 hr a day. The rest of the week I was lacking in many of these areas...ok how 'bout all of them?? if I'm going to be honest!

So..onto the scale:

Last week's weigh in: 197.6
Today's week's weigh in: 196.6

I could hardly believe my eyes!! But I was happy to see that I had lost! This told me that I can lose weight any time....all I have to do is be dedicated to working out and eating right and even if I blow it for a few days I can recover quickly!

YAY!!

A couple other victories for me this week...my hubby told me it looks like my stomach is getting smaller now that I am running so much! That really made my day!! He's told me that several times this week so that tells me that it really is happening!! My stomach seems to be the one area of my body that (to me) is staying the same or at least getting smaller slower! and I have been keeping on track with my C25K training and ran 5 minutes in 3 different sessions on Monday. I'm about to head out to run for Wk5D2 now and I'm supposed to run 8 minutes twice! I'm a little nervious about that but I know if I just decide I can, then I will! My true test of how far I have come with the running will be Saturday when I am supposed to run for 20 minutes without walk breaks! This will be during my 5K with That Kid, too so that will make it even more special!!!

Ok...off to run...and all the other mom stuff slated for today. Hope ya'll had successes this week!