The famous pie

I made a post on my other blog about the pie and its recipe if you are interested. You can make it and see for yourself how awesome it is. Check it out at this link.

The results of turning 40!

Just checking in with an update. For those of you who don't know... I turned 40 a week ago-woohoo! I say that to explain why I haven't quite been seeing the progress I'd wanted (a wee bit of celebrating). My husband and I went to Aspen CO with our friends for my birthday weekend and had a glorious time. Albeit there was no restraint. I ordered gourmet food I've never had before (yum!), and also consumed $50 worth of chocolates almost all by myself! Then add to that a lot of raw cookie dough and cooked cookies that my friend Jen and I made together to celebrate my birthday, and u can see that I probably wouldn't be losing any pounds this week. Therefore, I am not unhappy with the 2 pounds I gained. It had to be expected, I'm just glad it wasn't 5! Two is a lot easier to get off than 5! We also went camping this weekend which wasn't so bad, but yes there were treats there too (ice cream on the patio). Now I'd like to say this has all come to an end and I am back on track... but I still have a candy bar (that my daughter's thoughtfully bought for me for my birthday) to eat, and I have a pie (to make) and eat. I haven't made it yet, but just because my bday was a week ago doesn't mean I'm not going to-ha ha. (It's my favorite pie, and we make it for every birthday in our family) Its the BEST! Maybe I'll post a recipe and pix when I DO make it :) But after my pie is gone, u will see some improving posts from me I guarantee it! Also, my jean shorts are wearable again :)

P.S. I would like to point out, that even though I was indulging a bit in the food, I still had some great exercise... when Marlenes and I went for our massages at the Aspen Club, we also took a pump class, plus we went on a couple hikes, plus while we were camping I rode my bike, ran with the dog, and hiked up the foothills of the mountains. So even though I had a few splurges, I was still staying active :)

probably not making the goal

Remember I wanted to be at 140 or 139 by Monday (my birthday)? Well, it probably won't happen. I appear to be on a plateau right now at 145 and I'm heading out Fri for a weekend birthday celebration trip (which means... not much restraint is planned in the eating department). i.e. Probably not going to lose any weight over the weekend, and therefore won't reach my goal. Bummer.
But I will enjoy my birthday with friends, and I will enjoy my favorite birthday pie Monday (even if I have to make it myself-I already bought the ingredients) :) so after Monday, I'll get back on my stricter plan to continue my weightloss journey. I'll keep u posted.

making progress, taking the plunge

Well, I've made some progress lately, so I took the plunge...
I wore my purple shorts with the black stripes to the gym today.
Of course before I put them on I spent a full five minutes trying to pull them in every direction possible to stretch them out as much as I could LOL (but very true).
They clung a tiny bit under my butt which I don't like, but the rest fit perfect. I even got compliments from my girlfriends, so even though I still think they would look better in another 5 pounds, evidently everyone else thinks they are ok. Even my husband seemed to think so ;)

Those measurements I promised

Finally getting around to posting this... the measurements!
If you'll recall I promised I'd post the ugly numbers so that ideally someday I could compare them to improved numbers and revel in the glory of that progress with you. Well, today is the day. Here they are...

I took these measurements:
Date: 7/15---> 8/13
weight 155---> 145
diameter of widest thigh area 24.5"---> 24"
diameter around body at widest
butt area 40.5" --->39.75"
diameter at my panty waistline 34" --->33.25"
diameter at belly button 31" --->30"

There u have it. I've seen some improvement and I hope to keep improving. But I must admit I am starting to think/dream about cookies and snacks. I need to make sure I don't succumb, yet also don't feel deprived. Because the deprivation will cause me to fail. I'll keep u posted.
p.s. I DID eat a few chips and queso recently, but wasn't that satisfied by it (yippee) and didn't eat too much of it.

More progress

Things are still going well. Been eating good (ok, a few chips with a few dips of queso at the restaurant on Sunday), and I'm down to almost 145. Its hovering just a hair over it , so its probably 145.5, which means I've lost 9.5 pounds so far. My clothes are already fitting better (yippee) in fact I'm wearing my chino shorts again and totally enjoying the way they fit-Yay! Now I did succumb to the temptation when my friend Jen brought over homemade cookies today (darn those cookies!) Don't know how many I ate but probably about 5. I TOLD you I like cookies! I'm secretly hoping to be at 140 (or 139 fingers crossed) by my birthday at the end of the month. I turn 40, and I'd like to be able to say and feel like "look at 40, pretty good", instead of feeling old and fat. Hopefully, I'll be at my goal so I can feel hip and healthy and 'young at heart', even if my age does say 40. Which by the way, my husband and I were discussing recently how fast the first 20 years went by (since h.s.), and at this rate, the next 20 could go fast too, and that means in a blink of an eye I'll be celebrating 60 (!!!) Yikes! Our parents are celebrating 60's, not us! Anyway we also came to realize that in 13 years BOTH our kids will be out of h.s.---wow! that is too fast, especially since our youngest is just starting school this year! Time better not go as fast as it has up to this point over the next 20 years because that will just be TOO fast! Anyway, enough of this, have a great night!

progress continuing...

Still on vacation. Getting lots of walking and sweating in while at SeaWorld (ha ha), have also used the treadmill here at the hotel. Have eaten pretty good (ok, 3 shortbread Shamu cookies), and the gourmet mac and cheese at lunch today was probably alot more calories than the shrimp skewers I also ate. But if u are at new restaurants, sometimes u have to try new things, and it looked tasty. Even though I love salads, I don't want to eat them for EVERY meal!
They did have the most amazing looking dessert though -don't fret, I didn't get it- its my favorite, hot cookies and ice cream, mmmmmm! I was certainly contemplating it. But by the time I was done with lunch I was too full anyway. Thankfully. Remember Rene'-may taste good for moments on my lips, but will look horrible for TOO long on my butt!

Progress report

I'm on my second day of vacation, and I'm still doing good. Today I actually REALLY wanted some ice cream -because it was so hot and because I couldn't eat much of anything (I'll explain later) and ice cream always go down really easy for me. But I didn't. Instead I grabbed a peach and 2 pieces of string cheese. Was very satisfying too so I'm glad I refrained. I haven't told anybody this, and I haven't really made a 'bet' with myself, but I'm sort of trying to see how long I can go with NO junk. Its going good so far :)

So to explain last night, yesterday we ate at a really great authentic mexican restaurant. I ate the most delicious shredded beef tacos ever. Very flavorful :) But they didn't bode so well with me (probably because my body was already kind of wacked out from the long bumpy (love these roads) ride here. I've come to realize that long car bumpy car rides sort of make me sick. Well combine that with these spicy tacos... oh it was a very long no-sleep filled night. I literally slept only a few hours and was in the bathroom on the toilet and trying to puke the rest of the night and early morning. I never did puke (I wish I had, because I know I would have felt better if I had) but was still very queasy with a sensitive stomach all day today, which means I ate only bland/healthy food and very little of it. Fortunately I feel better now so when we head to Sea World tomorrow I hope to be a peak form and have full energy and stamina for the day's events.

Best (and very healthy) meal I ever made!

A few weeks ago my husband taught me how to use the grill (I blogged on my other site about this). May sound simple, but I had no idea how to turn it on without fear of blowing it up. So now that I've learned I'm made some absolutely FABULOUS marinated chicken on it as well as veggies. Its the best way I like to eat chicken and since chix is about the only meat I eat, its nice to finally have a way to cook it that I actually look forward to eating it. (I'm not much of a meat person if u can tell). So I decided to try my marinade on shrimp ( I love flavorful grilled shrimp at restaurants but have never been able to duplicate it trying to grill them on the stove).
Oh
My
Word!
They were AWESOME! Best meal I ever made. Dan AND the girls loved them too (I didn't even make plain ones for the girls and they STILL loved them marinated!) I'm going to get them eating a wider variety of food yet, eh?
Well, anyway, it'd be nice if I could post some fancy homemade marinade sauce recipe for you. But I just use packets from the seasoning aisle. They are McCormick's Grill Mates. Tonight's flavor was Mojito Lime. FANTASTICO! And besides being delicious, its so incredibly healthy to cook on the grill! LOVING IT! (except for the sweating part. I came in at one point and my face was drenched in sweat and my daughter was like "Whoa what happened to you?!" lol

By the way I read to cook each side for 2 minutes. I did them a bit longer just because I couldn't get them flipped fast enough and I wanted to get some black grill marks on them. I also did them at medium heat for most of it, after I realized the grill was still on high from lighting it, and I finally turned it down (ha ha) (still getting this grilling technique down pat obviously) :)

I have some metal skewers so filled four of those, but had extra shrimp so cooked those in a grill pan (the kind with holes). All turned out fabulous.

By the way, on a funny note, I invited Dan's dad to eat with us because I thought I had too much shrimp. He couldn't come though. It turned out that was a good thing, because we devoured it ALL (it was so good!) and if there was more we probably would have eaten that too, ha ha.

147

Well the countdown is on. Its been two weeks and I've gone from 155 to 147. The crazy thing is I haven't really changed my workout routine, but I have changed my eating habits. I haven't even cut out bread or pasta, I've simply only snacked on fruit and veggies instead of crackers/chips/ice cream/cookies. Its great to see this improvement just from good eating, but its also bittersweet because I had this knowledge all along (eating right is more important than working out), and I just didn't apply it regularily. It just shows you that it can be a lifestyle and not a diet, but it will still take choices and willpower, so I have to make sure that old mentality doesn't creep back ('I can eat whatever I want 'cause I'm skinny now') because if it does I won't be skinny for long and I don't want that to happen. Keep rooting for me to stay on track please :)

Where do I start...

Well, if you've been reading this you know that I got pretty mad lately when I realized that all the clothes that should fit me, didn't. I also said I was going to make a change , and I am. I don't have all the figures yet (yes I promised to post measurements too and haven't yet), but I started this mess at 155 and I've already lost 5 pounds just by not eating JUNK, so I'm at 150. I was hoping after my 5 days in Houston I'd be UNDER 150 because the clothes that I took to wear there (that were going to be really tight, remember I was punishing myself lol), weren't that tight and were actually presentable in public. Still tighter than I like, but I could tell already that I had lost some by the way they fit. Good news.
I still want to get under 140. That is my goal. I want to stay there. That is my MAJOR goal. THAT goal is going to require a different gameplan than I have ever used in the past. So let me share some things I learned recently through a not-so-fun conversation with my husband, and share how some things have changed in my head which I believe will be instrumental in helping me attain my goals.

First off, some history.
I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted until my freshman year of college when I gorged myself and wound up with stomaches (u'd think that would have told me to stop) and gained 25 (!) pounds. In h.s. I LITERALLY ate 5 HUGE servings of ice cream every day during the summer and ate all the candy bars I could find. I didn't have much pop, cookies, or chips bc my mom didn't keep them in our house, but I certainly made up for it with the ice cream, didn't I? I only weighed 120-125 then.
Well, fast forward several years, and unfortunately I realized I still have had this mentality.
When I'd reach my goal, I'd hold fast for awhile (even a few months), then I'd fall back into this old way of thinking that "I'm skinny, I can eat whatever I want". Well, guess what. I don't have the same metabolism that I had at 17 and I can't do that! So consequently, my weight since college has gone up and down, up and down, up and down, about 20 pounds in each direction. No fun.
Well, in talking to Dan, he made me realize that yes, people probably do 'crave' or "want' some things, but they make choices NOT to eat them. He himself does this. I get myself into my pity parties, whining to myself that its "not fair" that others can eat anything and not work out, or never seem to battle weight, but I do. So he made me realize that for most people (yes there are those lucky few who have such a great metabolism it doesn't seem to matter at all what they do), but for MOST people, they are making WISE choices. I wasn't. I was in la-la land thinking I could do one thing (eat anything) , but reality is , I can't (anymore). I am coming to face this reality head-on with the maturity of an adult. I'm not going to whine that its 'not fair'. I am going to accept it , and then deal with the cards I am being dealt. I am going to make wise choices. I am not going to eat candy bars/chips/ice cream all the time just because someone else might be partaking, including my kids. AND I'm reducing the amount of that stuff in our house so that they can start making healthier choices instead of always choosing crap for a snack. I'm not cutting it all out, because I think that can cause problems for kids, and its not fair to them to go cold-turkey on this when its not THEIR problem, its mine. But with less and less of it around, I am sure I will see them making better choices too, which of course can only be good news for them and their lives to grow up making wise food choices.
In our discussion, Dan couldn't get over the fact that I told him, that yes, in my head I really do want all that junk. I want (or used to) want to eat it. SO, in my mind, the step I'm in now is to NOT want it. To CHOOSE the jeans that fit and the happiness that brings, instead of the momentary taste of that item in my mouth. I purposely kept those hideous pictures I posted earlier on my camera, so that if I am out and about and about to falter, I can pull up those pictures and remind myself that NO I DON"T WANT THAT JUNK, not in my mouth, nor in my trunk!
I watch some people always trying to eat the healthy thing on a menu or plate, and I used to think (that's so sad, it seems so depressing to never get the 'good stuff' which is really the CRAP). Now I realize that they were doing what Dan talked about. They were making wise choices, they knew they couldn't eat anything they wanted to all the time, so they were making good choices so that they didn't have to battle yo-yo's all their days. I'm almost 40 (yes, I really do wish I still had the body and metabolism I had at 16-17. But I don't... so) I'm going to have to be more diligent in my choices ALL THE TIME, not just when I'm on a 'kick' to lose it then gain it all back because of that old la-la land mentality that doesn't work for me anymore (obviously). So there u have it, that's my game plan... realizing that it IS going to take EFFORT, but that effort will be well rewarded and worth it in the LONG RUN, not just in short runs. I'm not in la-la land anymore, I am facing this head-on and its just the way it is. Is it fair? probably not, but its life.

one day at a time

I've been in Houston for the week. Things have been going good. I took workout clothes hoping I might get in 3 workouts while away, but only got in 1 mile run (in 98degree heat). Its ok. I ate cereal, oatmeal, and one regular meal per day. Twice we were at cafeteria type arenas and didn't have anything I really wanted, but still feel I did ok on what I did wind up eating. And I was full, without being stuffed, so that was good. One thing for me is learning to stop before it hurts.
Was staying with my mom-in-law in the camper and she had a bag of mini candy bars she had purchased mainly for my girls. I normally previously would have been craving those and eating as many of those as possible at a time , but not this time. I didn't eat a single one, and I wasn't bummed about it.
Last night Dan and I played in a dodgeball tournament (a whole 'nother hilarious story in and of itself!) and afterwards we all went out to a restaurant to play pool etc. Everyone ordered buffalo wings, nachos, mozz sticks, chix fingers, potatoe skins, etc. Everyone that is but me. And you know what? I didn't even want it. I was not sitting there agonizing over the fact that I wasn't eating a mozz stick (like I used to do when the girls ordered them and I 'tried' not to eat one). I truly didn't want any, wasn't hungry, and certainly didn't wasnt THAT food.
YIPPEE for me! 99% of my success and failure in choosing the right foods is mental, so if I can get the mental part down (not desiring it), then I win win win.
Also on an 'improvement' note... Dan and I went to Bonefish before the game. I told him I wanted to get my free Bang Bang Shrimp that I love so much. He said I thought u were giving that up (with my new desire to eat better). I said no, Bang Bang will always be with me :) BUT I ordered it with the sauce on the side and probably only used a tablespoon out of the cup they gave me. So instead of about 1300 calories, I'm sure it was ALOT better. It still tasted great and I still got my hot Bang Bang flavor!
Anyway, I've got a post I need to write about my rude awakening in my weight history/hurdles, but I've been away all week, so that enlightening post will have to wait to be written ;) talk soon chickas!

Throwing it away!

Went to the store and returned $18 worth of m&m's, ice cream, and chips. Also threw out 3 bags full of junk food from our house. Its not empty (amazing after getting rid of that much stuff eh?), but at least now there isn't a plethera of stuff to tempt me. Need to set a better example for my kids by snacking on carrots and celery or fruit instead of junk. I will keep u posted. I'm still pissed. But I'm trying not to be pissed at the world. (That's my problem, when I get mad, I get mad at EVERYTHING, and that's not fair to those around me, so I'm trying to direct my anger appropriately). hopefully I'll have a good progress report when I get back Fri.

Thighs wider than a freight train

Here are the first pictures that started me realizing that I might have gained more weight than I thought... We were celebrating Jen's birthday and took these pictures and I realized that my upper body looks fine but my lower body looks wider than a freight train! I guess not weighing myself everyday and eating basically whatever I wanted, combined with less running has had a very negative consequence.
Compare these pictures to the ones on the left side of my blog. My thighs have gotten extremely wider!

In fact, in these photos with my husband, even though I KNOW I am smaller than him, my thighs and butt look BIGGER than him! I certainly don't want that!

This is when I first got these jeans. They are still body-hugging, but they just didn't seem as wide in the thighs back then. So I am on a mission to lose this extra 15 pounds I have gained this year and get rid of it.

I'm mad

I'm mad.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm not sure which, that is what it takes to get me to get my big butt in gear and get in shape again. So it starts today!

I was trying on shorts to take with me to Houston next week (none of the newer and obviously larger ones I've recently bought, but my old shorts that USED to fit). They didn't fit. They looked disgusting. So disgusting that I took pictures to prove it to myself so anytime I start to think "oh I haven't really gained weight" I can look at those photos and be disgusted enough to not eat junk. I will post them, because its probably not fair that I only post pictures when I've lost weight and feeling really thin. I guess I should share the disgusting pictures as well so that when I DO lose this weight (again! ugh!) I can look back and see the improvement. Nothing like a picture to prove it.

What really pisses me off (or one of the things) is that it seems I am a complete yo-yo, or even worse... a complete growing blob IF I don't watch it and be careful with what I eat. Its ridiculous that I continuously gain weight. It really pisses me off and makes me mad! Its not fair (to borrow that horrible phrase from my oldest daughter).

Anyway, I will post these pictures soon just so u can relish in my disgust as well.
AND, I'm making myself take some of these shorts with me to Houston to wear. How's that for punishment?! (and my husband won't be there to see me in them, I certainly won't wear them in front of him because I want to look good for him. But since he won't be there I will suffer in the discomfort (too tight) and humiliation (looks ridiculous) to teach myself a lesson that these shorts better start fitting darn well soon! I'm taking my shakes with me as my main meals while I'm away, and some running clothes to hopefully get in quick workouts each morning b4 the girls get up. So this better be a jump-start to get back on track. I am so PISSED! You don't even know how much!

I said no

Was at Lone Star tonight and ordered a delicious salad. I REALLY like salads, so its not hard for me to eat them. Now if I can just make sure to take off the unhealthy toppings (like bacon) then I can be sure they are good for me too. I used to never eat dressing as a kid. Then I slowly began eating italian only. Then about 15 years ago I tried Ranch (on chicken fingers no less! It was Vegas, that was a popular way to eat them there), and I wound up liking it. So mostly I eat the healthier version of dressing (italian or a balsamic), but every once in a while I go through a 'ranch-phase' and want that instead. Fortunately I have come through my latest ranch-phase and am back into my italian/balsamic phase. This is healthier, BUT in the past I've never used alot of dressing, just about one teaspoon for my whole salad (this is easy for me bc remember I used to eat them dry), but lately I've been adding more and more dressing and I'm realizing I have to reel this in bc this is a bad habit to get into. I can totally ruin a healthy salad if its drenched in dressing. Also, I never ate the croutons. I wasn't that infatuated with them and I learned they are the worst item on the salad bar for you, so it was easy for me to fore-go them. But lately with my added dressing consumption , I've realized I like croutons when they get drenched... so not a good thing.I'm not only eating some croutons now but I'm eating too much dressing. So both need to be reeled in.
Anyway , the reason for my post is that an appetizer of spinach dip was ordered, and I didn't eat a drop! not even a chip! and I wasn't feeling deprived, I really did NOT want it, especially since it looked gross and smelled sickening (I think they had sour cream in it and the smell of sour cream makes me nauseous---hey maybe I should spread sour cream on cookies, then I won't eat them!) So I am happy to say I refrained from the appetizer-yippee!
Now I will admit that I really WANTED to order the onion blossom, but I would be the only one who liked it or ate it, so fortunately I didn't. And IF that had been on the table I would have probably ate over half of it, but fortunately that wasn't ordered so I didn't inhale it and I therefore wound up having a pretty good dinner. (Plus a few fried shrimp off my husband's plate, and a few nachos at the bowling alley and 2 cheese sticks there too) No wonder I need to work out so much , eh? Oh well, at least dinner was good, even if the bowling alley fare wasn't.

not so cool at chili's

So I took the girls to dinner at Chili's a week or so ago because I was craving their Southwestern egg rolls (which I love). While there on a whim I order us a dessert to share. It was some chocolate chip paradise cookie and ice cream concoction. It was tasty... but
today I found out that that dessert is a measly 1600 calories!!!!!! yikes!!!!
This is really bad news because I ate devoured more than half of it myself! That means I probably consumed 1000 just on dessert, not to mention everything else I ate that day. ugh. what a total bummer! You know its actually amazing that with the number of calories in everything EVERYONE (including me) DOESN'T weigh 500 pounds! my goodness!

check out THESE guns!

Sometimes I get bored with the same old routine...

so I decided to lift my daughter instead of weights ha ha ha Here is my 9 year old flexing her muscles. I think its sad that her 'guns' are better defined than mine, and I'm the one who works out trying to get guns!

When can I stop?

When can I stop?
That's the question I want to ask.
When can I stop working out? At what age is it ok to not workout all the time? I really want to know.
When I was a teenager I thought I would work out till I was 30 then just coast in middle-agedness (is that a word?). When I told my husband this in my early thirties, he just laughed at me like I was crazy. He was right. And so are all my friends at the gym. When I asked them this today, they reminded me that as I get older my metabolism will slow down and I'll have to work out more, eat better, and I will also feel worse (sore muscles, aches, pains, and all).
They are right (although I don't claim the sore body part), but they are right, our bodies are built to typically change with age and that means if we are trying to maintain something we will have to work harder at it as we age.
This news stinks!
I don't like it.
I want to stop... yea, right! On the one hand I would love to stop. Meaning, more time to do other things. But on the realistic hand I know that if I stop... I will gain weight and keep gaining weight, just like I did after high school. I was 120 in school. I peaked the scale at 150 my freshman year of college (hey, I thought it was only supposed to be the 'freshman 15' ???!!!), which then caught my attention and I brought it down, and up, and down (notice the yo-yo pattern beginning here), till I got married at 128. Then I was basically 130,135,140,145,150,155 over the next several years. See what happens. When I don't work out consistently and regularily I gain a pound at a time till about every 12-18 months I've gained 5 pounds. I can't keep going at this pace the rest of my life, so I've GOT to workout. But I seriously want to know when do I EVER get to stop? Because, deep down, I really wouldn't mind stopping. If for nothing else, just to get that time back to do other things.
Maybe this isn't the kind of post fitness fanatics want to read. You probably just want gung-ho, super-motivational stuff to keep YOU going. Problem is... right now I'm having a hard time just keeping ME going.

Maybe I just need something new. (No Jen, I don't want to press 'play'. But who knows, maybe I should. I guess it would be something NEW. Honestly though , its just hard for me to get motivated to do different at-home routines than the ones I already know from my collection).
I'm loving riding my bike, but I know its not enough of a workout to do much for me. At least not in comparison to running or classes or weights. So even though it may be fun, its actually too easy to count as exercise for me in my book. Maybe I want new classes at the gym, maybe I should try some, or use my free pass at my husband's gym and do classes there. I don't know, I just need something, because I'm just not 'feeling the love' for my workouts lately, if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I love my teachers, and my gym friends. Its just me. On the inside, some switch has gotten turned and I'm having a real hard time getting it switched back. Then I think of people I know who never work out and look perfectly fine and I get mad (and ok, a little jealous) that they don't have to spend time working out, yet they look great and are in good health. Wrong, probably. But I'm being honest here. Or maybe I'm just whining, I don't know. But since I'm probably not really accomplishing anything with this post I'm going to end it. Comment for me if you have any ideas on how to change this mindset I'm in right now or any other helpful ideas for anything! thanks :)

eating choices

I posted on my other blog, but u fitness buffs may want to read it too since it applies to food choices. If you want to check it out, click here.