It's summer....

The weather is warm and I am miserable. My allergies are so bad this year. Today I could not breath I used my inhaler as much as I possibly could just to breath.....inside the house even. I feel a bit better tonight. I'm hoping I can get to class to work out tomorrow. I went on Monday and found out that they have canceled the second class that I like to do back to back with my first one, so now I will have to find another time or have less classes to attend. The most activity I got today was taking a nap and then tonight I played Guitar Hero with the boys and Hubby. I read a lot of blogs this morning and was very inspired by them....I miss having the time to get on here and read what people are up to.
Well, for my weight I am up .6 lb since I was on last. I am still trying to eat healthy and made it through a family BBQ Sunday without get into the chips. I made a grilled chicken sanwich....no mayo or dressing....lots of lettuce, tomatoe, and red onion though. I had a green salad with a small amount of raspberry dressing. I did try the potato salad made with reduced fat mayo....it was ok....but I would have seasoned it up with garlic and onion powder and some pepper. I had a piece of cake too. I scraped all the frosting off of it and ate about 3/4 of the piece. Drank lots of water too......no pop....I'm not a pop drinker. Oh and I snacked on some cucumber slices. Over all I ate pretty good and felt good about the choices I made when faced with all the junk food that was there.
Hope everyone is doing good this week...it looked like it this morning when I was reading....keep it up!!

Weigh-in Day...

I had a great week this week.
First off I have to tell you I lost 2.2 pounds. I am so happy to share this because I had lost it a couple of weeks ago and then gained it back because of stressful times in my life. I can now feel good again about having my "35 pounds gone" badge.
I still have some stress but I am dealing with it better than ever before! I am trying to take care of me in all this mess. I ate well this week even though we went camping I did try to not pig out on junk food. I walked a lot when I was there and had a great time over all.
My mom is back in the hospital, oh wait, not now she was moved today......let me change that......she is now over in a nursing home for a couple of weeks this time till they can figure out if she is strong enough from her heart attack to withstand a back surgery. Crazy....no one seems to know any details and I am just staying out of it as much as I can to keep my sanity. Don't get me wrong...I love my mom and my family and I would be the first one down there finding out information and getting things done right for her but, you have to understand that's not what she wants....she loves the sympathy and attention so I back off and join the never ending circle of catch 22s.....if I do this, I'm wrong......if I don't do that, I'm wrong! So I am trying to keep my distance to take care of myself. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh.
More news...my friend with cancer is doing well. She has gotten herself a couple of really cute wigs and is moving on with life and dealing with things as they come....I'm so proud of her and how she is handling everything.
I have been real busy working out this week....we have a test tomorrow. I have been working hard at everything on it and I think I will be able to do it all and pass with good scores. I'm so excited that my friend is moving up to my class next week too. I think we will have a good summer working out together. Well, I better get off to bed to rest up for tomorrow's test. Wish me luck! :)

Weigh-in Day...

I did weigh in on thursday but didn't have time to post. I'm sitting up in the middle of the night because My sister just called me to tell me that my mom is back in the hospital sooooo.......I thought I would at least post my weight-in.
I lost .8 of a pound. A loss is a loss. I had hoped for more but I can see where I could improve to get better results.
Ok....off to bed now I can't think straight.

Things are looking brighter.....

First of all I have to thank you all for all of your prayers and concern it really means a lot to me.
The day before I last posted I had just got a call from my best friend telling me she has 3rd stage breast cancer. I was in shock and really could not think straight for a week. She was just told a few weeks earlier that every thing was fine and she only had fluid filled cysts. Then the doctor calls her out of the blue and tells her they were wrong and she has 3rd stage cancer. How can this be??? She is taking it very well and is well on her way to treatment. She has had several procedures done already and has already had her first dose of chemotherapy in just these two weeks since she found out. I got a call from my doctor saying I missed my suggested mammogram recheck 6 months ago.....thats nice to hear.....I wish they would have let me know I was suppose to go in at 6 months.....I scheduled it for 1 year like they told me to. Now I am stressing out about missing my check up and wondering what they are going to tell me when I go in. I have to call tomorrow to get an appointment.
Last week I found out my Mother was in the hospital........guess how I found out......her neighbor called me to say she thought I might want to know that she was in the hospital. What kind of family does that??? No one called me......they said it was no big deal and they were just running tests on her and didn't know what was wrong with her but, still I would have liked to know that she was there in the first place....I guess that would be too logical for my family. They are not capable of thinking the obvious.(or maybe even thinking at all)
Ok..... enough ranting.
Good things that have happened since I last posted......I got my bike out a couple of weeks ago and have been riding around the driveway. One day I rode 2 miles (50 laps around the drive way...I clocked it on my car once for fun with my kids). Mostly I have been helping my daughter to learn how to ride her bike though and not getting in the riding time I had hoped for. I'm hoping she will start riding with me sooooooon!!!! I have been going to workout on Mon. and Wed. and last week I went, for a third time that week, to thursday morning class with another lady from my class. The instructor/owner even asked me.....me, like I am good enough...to teach a few moves to a young guy that was there. I couldn't believe it! We are coming up for another test real soon here too. This term has been so full of new stuff and not a lot of time to practice. I'm sure it will go just fine though. I can't get too nervous about it, I just have to do my best. I have been choosing fruit for snacking and eating more veggies with dinner. The scales have not showed anything good....I have gained 3 pounds over the last 3 weeks ( and that means I don't really deserve to have the badge that I have posted right now).
Oh...I have to tell you this....it is not good but weird....one day last week I woke up with these huge water pockets on my eyelids I could barely see......it was the strangest thing!!!! One day I wake up all puffy and the next day I'm not....I can't figure this out...even when I am drinking my water I struggle with this.

Struggling.....

I haven't had a very good week this week. Lots going on....some really bad news.....emotional. Not much sleep. Not drinking my water and just mindless eating....when I do eat. Hanging in there!!!!!

Weigh-in Day...

Woo Hoo....I got to add a new badge today!!!! I made it to 35 pounds lost (actually 36 as of today). I lost 2.8 pounds this week and feeling really good about it! I just realized that I am half way to my first big goal too.

As I posting this wonderful news of the week I am listening to a song and I have to post the lyrics...they are so fitting to my day.

This is my brand new day in the light
Trouble rising up on the left and the right
I keep my eyes fixed on where I want to go
The rest will follow this is my prayer without ceasing

The rocks of life won’t pull me down, rising above the storms of life
To live and love

This is my brand new day starting now
Letting go of the ways that I fall down
The old can be made new
And as I rise above my burden is easing

Just wanted to share that with you....it is so true....if we just would focus on where we want to go and not worry all the storms of life that come and go and learn to let go of those things and move on.

Anyway I am so happy. I thought I was going to have to do a bit of confessing today and tell you what I did last night, the night before weigh-in. I just knew I was going to have a gain. Ok....I'll confess anyway. I went to Baskin Robbins at 9:00pm for ice cream (after I went to Starbucks with my husband too). Not just a scoop of ice cream.......I had THREE scoops of ice cream!!!! I can't believe I am telling everyone this. Well, they had a sale yesterday....1 scoop for .31 cents, limit 3 scoops per person. So I got 3 scoops....good thing they had a limit who knows what I would have done. :) We never go out for ice cream because of the cost for 5 people, you might as well get a half gallon at the grocery store and take it home and dish it up......and we do this every Friday......but we never go out for ice cream. So I let all the kids get the limit too.....they were so thrilled they got to choose 3 different flavors and all the ones that we never buy...It was so much fun! I was ready and willing to take the punishment of a gain even though I had worked so hard the rest of the week....I really had to think about it and decide if it was worth it because I really wanted that 35 pounds lost badge. Well, I had a great time with my family and it was worth it just for that and I thank God that I still had a loss for the week!

Hope everyone is doing good this week. I better get going to visit my friend today.

Brick in my stomach!....

I had a really messy day on Saturday. I ate so many carbs and fat. I don't think I can have another carb for the whole week.......not gonna happen but, I ate way too many! I felt so good after having a loss on vacation.....it was so motivating.....I was on a roll, then Saturday hit me like a brick in my stomach! I don't know what happened, I just did not control myself. I even gave in to chips for lunch, coffee cake in between meals and not just once. I had a bread bowl full of clam chowder for dinner with fried fish and tarter sauce.....what was I thinking??? Well, I recovered on Sunday with lots of water and not much to eat at all...my stomach felt like it had a brick in it all day and a bit of today. I exercised today and was so sluggish.......ugggggg! I'm back to eating healthy today and hoping to make good choices the rest of the week. Please pray for me to get back on a losing roll. Working on getting 5 pounds off at a time!
Hope everyone is doing better than me out there and if you aren't pick yourself up and start again! You can do this! It's never too late.

Thankful for well water....

Two things that came to my attention this last week .
1. I appreciate our well water! It tastes sooooo good and I have no problem drinking it all. It is even better than some bottled water I have tasted. I drank L.A. tap water all last week and it was terrible!!! I felt like I had to force myself to drink it. It was better with ice....I guess it froze my taste buds or something. I felt so bad thinking about people that have this to drink all the time.
2. I was so glad to be home and have fresh food to make and eat. Fast food and restaurant food just does not compare to the food that you make yourself and know what is in it. And you never have to remember to ask for food without all the dressings and mayo and cheese and all the extra fat stuff.
Happy to be able to fix my own salad with no dressing and toast a bagel and not worry that someone has smothered it in butter without me asking them to.
I'm off to work at church tonight I better get packing some food so I will be prepared and not have to stop at one of the fast food drive ups.

Weigh-in Day...

I can't believe it!!! I lost 3 pounds over vacation! I had to weigh myself several times just to get it to register in my head....how is this possible....I could never LOSE weight on vacation. I even had the kids weigh to see if the scale was working right...they all gained 6-8 pounds and were not happy with me then. I was hoping to at least stay the same but, a 3 pound loss is so exciting!!! Now I know it was over 2 weeks but still....3 pounds lost....I just can't believe it. Life is full of surprises!

I have really been down on myself for not losing more weight lately and feeling like a failure. Well, I took some clothes on vacation that I had not wore since last summer and they were tight on me then so I figured they would be just fine to take, maybe a little loser by now. One of the tops I took I could not wear because it was hanging off my shoulders and showing my bra strap and showing my bra in the arm pit area....it is a sleeveless top. And one of the capris I took were so lose I dare not wear them to the airport where I had to take off my belt. After seeing this it really made me rethink how I was feeling about the weight that I had lost and not worry about the weight that I haven't.

Vacation challenges......

We're home. We had a wonderful vacation. We went to Disneyland to celebrate our 23rd anniversary and have a second honeymoon with our family. When we got married 23 years ago my husband took me to Disneyland......I had always wanted to go there as a kid and he fulfilled a lot of my "childhood desires" over the 6 years of dating so this fit in so perfectly. I grew up in a family with very little money and our big outing was to go to McDonalds every few months after church for a hamburger. For vacations we pitched the tent and camped out for a couple days, when all the other families were going to Disneyland or other big resorts.

Anyway....we had a GREAT time and the kids loved it! It was their first time to go, as we don't have much money either since I stay at home with the kids and don't work outside the home. We have saved for several years to do this. We had hoped to go for our 20th anniversary but it didn't work out for various reasons till now.

I was really nervous about what I was going to eat. In the past I have always seen trips or vacations as a time to eat whatever I wanted and to go out to eat and not worry about anything. Now that I have been trying to get healthy I had a new challenge. I was going to try to eat healthy on vacation. I didn't know how I was going to do it but that was my goal.

We stayed in a hotel that served a full breakfast buffet and I thought "oh, no can I do this, can I limit myself?" all the food that I could have ever wanted was right there staring me in the face.....pancakes, bacon, sausage, toast of all kinds, muffins, doughnuts, cereals, chocolate milk, fresh made omelets of any kind, french toast and hot syrup, and fried potatoes. This was overwhelming to me and was not sure I could limit myself. The first day I told myself all the way down the elevator, "I can make healthy choices, I can do this, I can limit myself, I am worth it!" O.k......I got in line and ordered an omelet with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, and then he put a spoonful of vegitarian mix on it too, I did have a small amount of cheese inside it but skipped the extra cheese on the outside. I put two big spoons of fresh salsa on the top instead. I was doing pretty good, then I got a small spoon of the fried potatoes, some sausage, two pieces of bacon, a couple of pancakes and french toast, then a doughnut, a couple of mini muffins...then I grabbed a couple of yogurts and a couple of bananas and.......oh, no I was not doing so good any more. So we got in the elevator to go back to our room to eat. I was not feeling so good about my choices anymore....I gave in and took the things I told myself I was not going to take. When I sat down to eat I decided that just because I took all these things didn't mean I had to eat them, so I got a plate and took all the things back off my plate that I wasn't going to eat in the first place and put them on the counter. I ended up eating 1/2 of my omelet....it was really good!, 2 links of sausage, one piece of bacon, and about 8 pieces of small potato cubes, one bite of french toast with syrup. I saved the bananas and yogurt and took them into the park with me along with some trail mix and an odwalla bar. I did eat more than I had planned but I didn't stuff myself with all the food I could. I felt good about it after all and was so glad to have the bananas and yogurt later that day for lunch.

We did not buy any food inside the park, we all took yogurt, fruit and trail mix, the kids took a few pancakes to munch too. We ended up going to Jack-in-the-box for dinner and I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich without mayo and some water. I did eat a few of the kids fries too. The next day had an egg white omelet with all the veggies and salsa, 2 sausages and 4 pieces of potatoes, yogurt and fruit for lunch and lots of water, for dinner a salad, 1/2 of a grilled chicken strip, and about 1/2 cup fettuccinie alfredo. I had the same for the next day breakfast and lunch but then had another grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad for dinner. We did make a mistake of ordering some onion rings from the hotel (because I forgot to order them of my husband at Carls Jr.) and I ate about 5 of them with bleu cheese dressing dip. I had a smoothie one night and icecream another night and drank lots of water everyday and walked a lot ( I took my pedometer to track the walking but it gave out on me on the first day after about 2.1 miles).

The last 2 days we drove to San Diego to visit family and she had made a full buffet of mexican food.....it was sooo good but the weather was so hot for me that I really didn't feel like eating too much, and she had a lot of fresh healthy choices so it wasn't too hard there. Over all I think I didn't do all that bad, of course I could have done better if I was really strict but felt pretty good about it in the end. One thing I forgot to do was ask for no butter on my bagel the last day for breakfast, I had a fruit plate with it. On thursday I will step on the scale and see what it says!!!

Weigh-in Day...

Yesterday was weigh -in day. I lost .6 of a pound.......well it's a loss and not a gain! I guess I will have to just keep at it and work harder. This next week is going to be tough.....I'm going on vacation for a week. I will not weigh-in next Thursday because I will not be home but as soon as I get back I will check to see the damage and then report in.
I waited too long to eat yesterday. I got up and did some exercise and then took a shower and got busy helping my daughter with school work and didn't eat till 1:00 pm!! I was so hungry.....I was shaking. I know better than to do that and it only leads to overeating for me because I feel like I am starving. Not fun...I don't want to do that again.
My hubby came home from work yesterday and took me to a movie. It just amazes me at the changes I have made going to the movies. I no longer have to load up on candy and eat it in the dark. Oh....don't get me wrong about the candy, I did have a few melt away mints (5) and a bit of mini malted easter eggs (10) but, only a small amount......before I would have eaten the whole bag or close to it. The best thing I have ever taken to the movies to eat is a small bag of cherries! That was the best treat ever!! A good habit I have picked up is trying to drink a full water bottle while I am in there......nothing else to do and I have it right by my side I can sip on it till it is gone and there you have it 32 oz. of water drank while watching a movie. It's a great way to get in some water.

Getting caught up....

I'm off to workout this morning and hoping my brain is intact today so I can remember what I need to. They talk about muscle memory kicking in but what about brain memory to remember the the first move ??? Besides my muscles are so sore they can't think about anything but the pain right now! They are mostly all very young and no kids, everyone is thin...and have no idea what it is like to be my age.....brain and body!! :) (There is one other mom my age with 2 kids but she is very thin and in GREAT shape...like...... she does triathalons all the time and is always in training for something) I'm praying for a great day in class today...God is my strength! (and memory) :)
I have been on track with my eating and exercise this week but, the scale is not showing it yet.......need to work on getting enough water too I think.
I have to say I felt so good after getting on hear and reading a few blogs and getting caught up, leaving a few comments yesterday. You are all my inspiration and encouragement....I miss getting on hear!
Hope everyone is having a great week and keep looking forward, never look back. We can do this!