Slowly Losing

I woke up last week to discover that I finally hit 175 pounds!!  That was a treat for me.  My new goal is to hit 173.  I'm only going a few at a time because it's much easier to achieve (especially since I've not been to the gym for a few weeks).  On top of that, this past week was very stressful and I'm craving carbs like there is no tomorrow!  After I get off of here, I'm going to grab a tomato salad and hope that curbs my desire to overeat for a while.  It's weird, once my body gets in that "stressed must eat" stage, it's hard to pull myself off of it even though the stress is gone.  I'm going to have to keep working on that or it will be my downfall.

This week I'll be trying out chia seeds and coconut oil.  Hopefully they will both aid me in losing all this additional weight.  I do wish it would come off faster, but I'm not doing enough to make that happen.  This will have to do until the hubby is not working as much.

178 and Craving Bad Food

I have finally hit 178. I don't know why that feels like a big milestone.  But I've eaten two slices of pizza and half a sleeve of gingersnap cookies filled with lemon buttercream.  Ughh. This food battle is driving me nuts.

On a more interesting note, I've been reading about coconut oil and it's may help hypothyroid issues.  I don't know that I have hypothyroid, but I do have some of the symptoms.  My thyroid test while I was preggo came back just above the below normal range. I'm going to order some and start using it to see if it helps.

I Made it Below...

I weighed in yesterday and I'm officially at 179 pounds!  I've not stayed below 180 in years!!!  I've changed my eating habits and they will continue to get better as long as Ian has this FPIES stuff.  By then I hope it's a permanent eating lifestyle change. 

On a good note, I don't eat fast food often.  On Wednesday, we did McDonald's because we were strapped for time. Daniel got me a grilled chicken sandwich and fries.  (I would have ordered a salad, but he did good with the grilled portion.) I only had a bite of bread on the sandwich, but nothing else. Not even mayo!  As for the fries, I downed them! Ha!  But on a good note my body now hates a lot of fried foods and I have no desire to eat another batch of fries!  I love it! 

I am struggling with keeping enough veggies in the house and getting used to cooking every meal and trying to spice things up with healthy food. I luck out some because the kids are not big seafood eaters. I can buy a bag of frozen shrimp or fish and eat on them for a while and it keeps costs low.  With Ian's FPIES, I'm going to cut chicken and turkey out of my diet for a while.  It will be replaced with pork tenderloin, seafood and steak!  I also had to cut out green beans and sweet potatoes. Both have been a staple in my diet and are hard to let go.  Especially the green beans.  I love them roasted in the oven with garlic.  Mmmm!  A spinach salad is just not the same!  But I will go to any length to help the little man and I'm willing to do a whole lot of changing to see these pounds melt away.  Granted it's a slow melt, but they are coming off anyway!

My next big change will be going from milk to almond milk.  I love almond milk, but it's expensive!  Since Ian has reacted to me drinking milk before, I'm going to stop almost all dairy in my diet to see if it helps him along.  I also hope that it will keep my weight loss moving forward.

Previous weight - 184 (I was up to 187 but didn't post for a while)
Current weight - 179

Sick Kids and Cravings

I don't want to cook. I don't want to think about eating healthy.  Strangely though, I want to run.  I missed running this past week.  Traveling over 40 hours in 3 days tends to limit one's ability to run.  And then when I came home, Ashton and Brenna came down with some kind of illness.  Ian followed a day later.  I really want a bag of chips right now.  Funyuns.  Yeah, Funyuns.  All the salty, crunchy goodness a food addict could want.  But then I want to run.  I need to run.  My emotions have been all over the place and there has been no outlet.  Right now I need some kind of physical activity to help me deal with them.  Once Daniel is home tomorrow, I plan on going to the gym and having at it.  Week 1 of my C25K plan is on and I aim to run the full 8 minutes each day. After that I don't mind going a bit slower, but this week I really want to be able to run as much as the paper says I should.

Weight - 184

Running

I did it!  Two days last week, I ran. I really ran.  The first time I made it 6 1/2 minutes.  The second time I did 7 minutes.  It was amazing to know that I could do that at all. I'm doing a Couch to 5k plan and will only advance each week if I can do the recommended schedule for 3 straight runs.  Right now I'm supposed to be doing 8 minutes but halfway through I have to skip a minute to make for a longer recovery.  Yes I could do a longer run time, but I refuse to push myself so hard that I quit.  In February, I want to add in some strength training.  The last time that I worked out regularly, I added everything in at once and could not manage the house, the kids and the sleepless nights (thanks to my sweet baby boy).  This time I'm pacing it.  I only stay on the treadmill for 30 minutes and follow the running schedule as it's written.  I still hate running, but when I did the runs, I felt very successful.  It's empowering to know that my 185 pounds of love can do that much and not collapse!

On a funnier note, I have to help you visualize my first run.  The day before I went on a date night with Daniel and friends.  I wore mascara. I didn't wash it off.  I also wore my new contacts that dried my eyes out. In the morning my eyes were red and had really dark circles under them thanks to the lack of sleep and mascara. Life happened and I still had not washed my face.  I made it to the gym with the kiddos in tow that evening. I forgot to wear my sports bra.  I started running. Thanks to the red eyes with dark circles, I already looked like a druggie. It really was that bad.  Then I started running and my bra straps started falling. Now I'm a druggie with falling bra straps. I refused to stop.  Did I mention I'm running a 5k?  That's what I held on to.  Then as I was going into my 5th one minute run, my underwear started falling.  I'm doing this to lose weight, but after 4 minutes of running I didn't think I would need new drawers!  As I headed into minute six, my bra straps keep trying to fall, my drawers are working their way down and my pants start falling. Add that to my druggie looking eyes and I was a hot mess for my first running session.  While I cleaned the treadmill I realized what I sight I must have made and walked out without making eye contact. Normally this would stop me, but instead of getting discouraged I started laughing!  What a way to start my new venture. It only gets better from here!

Weight  -184

Couch to 5K

Starting in January, I'm going to train for a 5K. My goal is do my first race in April 2012.  I'm going to run 3 days a week until then. Training is going to be key for this little venture.  I wish I could say that I'm going to have a great food diet to go along with my new running prowess, but that will take a little more time to put in place.  I am going to start lowering my portion sizes in January and avoiding pasta as much as possible.  I've given myself the rest of the year as a freebie.  I'm eating what I want and not worrying too much about the consequences.  It will be hard letting that go, but I want to lose this fat that clings to me. It's dragging me down emotionally and is keeping my confidence down.  It's time for me to either accept the weight or do something about.  I think you know my choice.

It's Time To Begin Again!

Six months ago, the little man was born and I got rid of all the weight that I gained carrying him.  That has left me at 182 pounds.  Ugh, I'm fat.  And dont' tell me that I'm not.  I plugged in my stats on the Weight Watchers sight and they are very honest.  Granted they say it a bit nicer.  I'm not fat.  According to them, I'm obese.  Either way, I've got to get healthy and 2012 is the year for that.

I don't think it's going to be easy.  I now have four kiddos.  They take a lot of time and like a lot of things that cause my hips to expand in ways that tend to jiggle when I giggle! Ha!  And I'm a stress eater.  Lately it's gotten worse and I'm not sure how I'm going to work around that. On top of that, Ian has not slept through the night for the last few months. He's been doing a little screaming jags intermittently and we can't figure what is going on.  That leaves me pretty darn tired throughout the day. 

Well, who ever said good things are easy?  Not me. I don't get easy often.  That's okay though. Here are my goals.  I want to get down to 140 pounds. I want to lose at least half of that next year.  I want to stop eating when I'm stressed and replace that with exercise or some other healthy activity.  I want to run a 5k this summer.  I want to lose enough weight to wear my wedding rings again. I refuse to stretch out the rings because that feels like defeat.  I want to wear a size 10 in jeans again.  I want to wear medium or large shirts again.  I want to be comfortable in my own skin. 

So I'm back.  Once I quit breastfeeding in June, I plan on taking hoodia again.  Before I got pregnant, it was the only thing that helped with the stress eating. Until then. I'm not sure how I'm going to make all of the above happen, but I will!

Merry Christmas folks!