Fitness Friday

I had this great post (at least it was in my head) & some how lost where I was going with it. I was doing great on keeping my gaols until Friday evening when BigC brought home a half gallon of ice cream, a 3liter root beer, & Oreo cookies. :) Then add to the chaos of the week that the boys only went to school one day this week. My whole routine was shot. Yet I'm proud to report that some how my weight held steady.
Moving on to the assignment: Brenda must have heard all those voices in my head this week that just kept telling me "get a plan, find some focus, just do something!!!". This week we were to reexamine our fitness goals. Also most of are learning that this is about so much more than than food & exercise. This week I was reminded that I'm striving for total fitness (mind, body, & spirit). I wanted my goals to reflect this. So here are my new & not so new fitness gaols

• Spirit - Spend time in the word this week.
  

I need to recenter my life. I've been very passive in my relationship w/ Christ lately. I just feel the need for a fresh start. You can't live your life in light of scripture when you don't read it.

• Mind-Read at least a chapter this week. Work on FireMan's quilt. Memorize scripture

When I homeschooled I believed it was a good day if we read something good, wrote something well, did something to make us think, & it was always a bonus to create something of beauty. So if that is good for my children then shouldn't the same be true of me? For my reading I'm starting Mere Christianity by: C.S. Lewis.

• Body- Food/exercise/appearance
  

Food- Be aware of what I eat. WW points just works best for me in this area. It is just to easy for me to mindlessly eat or make really dumb food choices. (come on ice cream floats Oreos, & pizza on the same night, I know better)
Exercise- Do something (anything)
Appearence- Continue the basic beauty routine(hair, light makeup, dressed to my shoes) everyday. Wear clothes that I like. (look nice on Friday evening when I spend time w/ my family)

Well that my somewhat late Fitness Friday post. I'm off to see how the other ladies completed the assignment.

Fitness Friday

Man is it Friday already? Time to check in with Brenda & all the ladies at Fitness Friday.
Here's my progress. I walked for 30min. during FM's practice. (I would have walked longer but W's got some breathing issues lately & he was starting to wheeze) I also used the gazelle for 30 min this week. The cool thing is I did 2 miles in that 3omin. I'm going to start pulling it out more often. I drank at least 1 bottle of water everyday. All this resulted in:

the loss of 1lbs (Which puts me at 8lbs from my first goal)

Not exactly where I want to be but going in the right direction again.
Goals for next week are the same. Now I want to increase volume.
Now for the assignment for the week. Most of us noted that we feel good when we dress better. So this week were were supposed to tweak our wardrobe in some way. I have to say that I wasn't thrilled about this assignment. After all I'm not where I want to be to really tweak my wardrobe. You see I don't want to buy clothes that look good at this size because I 'm afraid that I would start in w/ the excuses. (You know I have clothes that look good so this isn't really that bad & I really don't have to change.)But I decided to dothe best I could with what I had. I decided to retire a few shirts that were about this size on me.

Then start wearing more shirts like this.

(Please ignore that I'm swatting the dog out of the picture & that I'm dressed for a day around the house. FM took these just before they announced that school was closed for the day)
Again I think it's a step in the right direction. The more weight I lose the more I'm going to like this style of shirt. Another thing that I tweaked was getting myself more together. I fixed my hair & did light make up everyday this week. So what about you what can you tweak that will make you look better & feel better about you?

Fitness Friday: The I Feel Good Edition

It's time to jump back on the wagon. I took a pretty bad attitude about fitness over the holidays. So I gained quite a bit back. (but not all so that makes me feel good) I'm still plugging away at my first goal of 20 lbs. I still have 9 lbs to go,I was at the 5lbs mark. (so close & yet so hard to get there ) So for right now that's my fitness focus. Gaols for the week : 1) drink more water 2)walk the track while FireMan practices B-Ball.

Now our assignment:

Things That Make You Feel Good

1. Making better food choices
2. Exercise
   
3. Getting a good night's sleep(OK I know those should be givens but sometimes I still have to remind myself of this fact.)
4. Dressing up (I don't mean anything fancy just putting my favorite clothes & looking nice)
5. BigC telling me that I look pretty
   
6. Playing w/ my children.
7. Music (I've always got a grove going on in my head)
8. Laughing.
9. Sunshine
10. Sewing

Wow that was harder than I thought it would be. I guess in my upside down thinking I'm too busy taking care of others to take care of me. But in reality I take better care of them when I take care of me. What a light bulb moment. Wonder what the other ladies thought about this assignment. I'm going here to find out.

Fitness Friday

First I need to say thank you so much for all the encouragement. I've never said out loud how I saw myself because I didn't think people would understand. It meant so much to me when others said they understood my thoughts. The weekend was hard but I think I still tried to make the best choices I could in those situations (we ate out on Saturday & Sunday was our Fall Fiesta at church). Things like having soup & salad as opposed to the grand buffet or only having one cookie from the desert table.

So here's how I did this week.

• The snacking really helped. Although I realized it wasn't so much snacking as it was spreading my points out over my day instead of eating 1o of my 28 at one time. There were a couple of times this week that I just blew it but those were the days that I didn't snack.
• I stayed close to my target points most of the week. (Monday missed it by one, Tuesday & Wednesday I did really well. Thursday was a very hard day w/ some big emotional challenges & I didn't keep track. Today is so far so good)
• Motivation was really a struggle this week & I didn't walk. (Although there is a voice in my head saying the day isn't over you've still got time) One thing that Big C & I did on Saturday I wanted to share was a simple way to add more steps to your day. We are a 1 car family so all our errands have to be ran on Saturday. We agreed to park at the far end of the parking lot at each stop. It's not much but it's a start.

All this resulted in staying consistently 2 lbs. lighter

My goals for this week:

• Continue working my points. I have to this do to put an end to just mindless eating.
• Drink more water. I really don't drink that much of anything during the day
  
• Exercise (I really believe I'll do it more if I could just start) at least once this week.

This week's question:
If money, time, babysitting, etc. were not an issue...what form of exercise would you choose to participate in?

As you can see in my goals, I really struggle w/ my motivation to exercise. I know I need to do it but it seems that there is always something else calling my name (laundry , dishes , a child). I need to go somewhere to to workout. It's the same reason I had to go to the library to study in college. I'm just too easily sidetracked. So if all the above were true I would join some type exercise group/gym. I've known several ladies that had success w/ programs like Curves. I think that Curves is to exercise what Weight Watchers is to food. I've said in the past that W W is effective for me because of my personality. I know how to lose weight but there are things in my personality that make it harder to do it alone. Here are a few reasons why programs like this work for someone like me. 1) Investment. I'm not going to pay for something I don't use. If it costs me something I'm more likely to follow through. After all I paid for it. 2) Motivation. Because of that mixed up body image I need others to help me see changes even if the scale doesn't move. I mean we all have weeks were we do everything right & it still it doesn't budge. I need to see others sticking w/ it & being successful (it feeds my competitive nature) ;) 3) Accountability. Last year when I lost the weight I met w/ some ladies & we walked 3 times a week. I put it on the schedule & did it. I did it because I told someone I'll meet you here & I knew that they would be there & waiting for me. But unfortunately all those things are not true. So I use my points books that some one gave me & I participate here. Now if one of you ladies could just come over to exercise w/ me that would be great!
To see how the rest of the Fitness Friday ladies did go here .
P.S Fitness Friday Ladies please pray for me next week. I noticed that many of mentioned struggles w/ emotional eating. I got some unexpected medical news yesterday that I may write more about once I've processed it in my own head. I have more test next Friday. Then I'll know more about what it all means. Until then my worries best friend tends to be food. So I know this week will be tough. Thanks

Fitness Friday

Brenda & some of her friends have been doing this for a few weeks now. Each week I read & think next week I'll start (when I can post a positive). Then somewhere around Wednesday I start thinking I've haven't done that great this week, so I'll post next week. See one of my biggest problems in my weight loss journey is getting started. I have a real issue w/ body image. But it's not what you might think. My problem is that the person I see in my head is not really that bad. I'm pretty healthy (meaning I don't have any major health issues). I can be pretty active when I want . In my head I'm a skinny person. Then reality hits. Usually when I hang up a dress & think am I really that big? Or I see a snapshot of me. Like this one snapped at birthday party recently.or this one snapped last night when we took the boys bowling.I see those & I realized it is as bad as the scale says. I realize that I really need to do something. So this week I'm joining in.
I check my weight regularly, So I know that I weigh *** (sorry I just can't say it out loud, but I know what it is). A positive is that # is down 15lbs from this time last year when I loosely followed the Weight Watchers point system.

My goals for the week are simple

• start counting points again. (this really heps me w/ portion control)
• go for a walk at least one this week ( I need to move)
• snack regularly
  

The question for this week:

"What are you snacking on?"

I know that last goal sounds a little strange. But see I don't really snack. I nibble Usually when I make a meal. I noticed this the other day. I got up drank a slim fast shake for breakfast around 6:30am. (I really don't like to eat breakfast so this seemed like a logical meal for me to replace.) Then around 12:30 I thought Gee I'm hungry. I start to fix lunch. I open the fridge to get out the ingredients for my lunch,which would have been a 5 point meal. While I was in the fridge I grabbed about 5 or6 pepperonis & popped them in my mouth. I thought no problem I'll just add them to my points. Those few pepperonis added 4 points to my meal. Same type of thing happened at supper. This got me thinking that if I had a small snack then I wouldn't be so hungry during meal prep. I tried it a few times this week & it seemed to help. At breakfast I ate a piece of toast. Then around 10 I drank my shake . Then I ate my regular 4 point lunch. The boys eat a snack when they get in from school. So I made myself a smaller portion of whatever they had. This helped at supper.
I'll check in next week to let you know how I did. Go here if you want to see what others are doing on their road to fitness.