It's Official!!

Today is officially the one week mark of when I started changing what I ate throughout the day. As I said in a previous post this change in eating habits has not been so bad. I have enjoyed everything that I ate and even found some new healthy snacks that I really enjoy.

I even resisted temptation with the sweets this week, which I am super proud of myself for.

So I decided to weigh myself this morning at the one week mark and.....

.....drum roll please......

I weighed 162.5lbs as of this morning. This means that I lost 5.5 pounds in the first week!!!! SO EXCITING!!!!!

I know I cannot expect to maintain this kind of pattern on a week to week basis, but I believe that is a really great result for the first week of really just eating better overall.

So, here's to the future and more positive results!!

I've had better days...

I had a hard morning this morning... maybe not the most difficult day of my life, but rough all the same.

I had a baby shower to attend today. I got up with plenty of time to shower, get ready and I even had time to eat breakfast and relax before my ride got here.

The difficulty came with my wardrobe and my unhappiness with my body. I don't usually fret too much about what I wear, but I like to look presentable. Especially when attending a social event. I must have changed a million times and at one point could have just locked myself in my room and stayed there all day... My emotions got the best of me.

This has been my first breakdown in this battle and I am quite positive that it will not be my last. I am a very emotional person, so I know that on hard days I will feel worse then usual about how I look and how much I hate the way my clothes look on me.

I finally got dressed (wearing the initial outfit I had on) and waited for my ride.

The shower was lovely and the food was heavy and mostly pasta based, but I believe I did well balancing what I ate. Had a little pasta, some brocoli salad and some ham.

Here's the best part.... I turned down CAKE and COOKIES!!! I didn't even have a bite of either. This is big for me. I am an emotional eater and after the morning I had I would have loved nothing more then to enjoy the comfort of a cookie. But I decided if this lifestyle change is ever going to work, then I need to learn how to say no to myself.

I get home to all the fixings for Taco Salad for dinner and my thoughful husband even picked up 2% Shredded Cheese and Light Sour Cream. I don't care how starnge this may sound, but this made me SO happy.

So after a rough morning and a nice afternoon with a small feat in my battle won... all and all today wasn't so bad. I've had better, but I've also definitely had worse.

OK, that's all for now... Until next time. Enjoy life.

One week down, a lifetime to go...

So my first week of eating better and just being healthier overall was not so bad. I actually enjoyed it... I had to step a little more outside my box when planning and cooking meals which was nice. Sometimes you just get tired of the same old and I was in a pretty solid routine of meal rotation.

The only thing that bothered me were the cravings... but I guess when you take something in often enough your body kind of becomes dependent on it. I have a lot of food weaknesses. I love desserts, fried foods, salty foods, cheese, snacks. Which in moderation aren't so horrible for you. But my appetite knew nothing of moderation as of late.

If I can quit smoking cold turkey (which I did on Jan 1st of this year) I can quit eating all the items that go right to my fat cells... at least for now, until I am in a much better place and can afford a treat every now and again (in moderation).

This week I had one chocolate covered strawberry. The remainder of the things I ate were healthy and involved NO CHOCOLATE. I am proud of myself for that. I resisted temptation all week with the candy bowl at work. :-)

Even though I was craving chocolate something fierce today.

I've decided to reward myself for a Fantastic first week! Tomorrow, TGIF, my friend and I will be going out to lunch. Relax, we're only going to Saladworks and since it's Friday and Lent; I can't eat meat anyway.

I have been thinking about my salad options and I believe I will be getting Eggs, Mozz Cheese, Tomatoes, Cucumbers & Lite Ranch Dressing with a wheat roll. I'm looking forward to it!

Rewarding yourself for doing well at something is a good way to keep yourself on track... gives you something fun and good to look forward to, even if it's not a ooey, gooey cookie. :)

Until next time... Stay classy!

Excuses, Excuses...

So part of my promise to myself was to begin doing something physical on a regular basis... I started this plan on a bad week because Monday I had a work thing and last night I had choir practice.

So tonight would be the first free night for me to stick to my promise and wouldn't ya know it... mother nature is throwing a challenge my way.

Well you know what M.N. ... Challenge accepted!

I may not go for a really long walk, but I will go for a brisk walk in the cold rainy/sleety weather you've thrown my way.

Because if I start this off by making excuses, I know that I will never stick to it. There is always an excuse to get out of doing something... that's the easy part. The hard part is actually sticking to a plan.

So it's settled. I am going to be crazy and walk in the sleet.

That's it for now... until next time.

Thanks for stopping by.

p.s. Anyone wondering how the Lemon Pepper Chicken recipe came out; it was delicious. Note: I cut it down to 1/2 TBS of Pepper and the juice of about 1.5 Lemons. Very, very good though.

Making Dinner

I'd like to say I'm a good cook (toot toot). My husband likes to say he taught me everything I know... well that's somewhat true; except for my baking skills.

My husband introduced me to a lot of different foods. When we first met I was a picky eater. Mostly due to the fact that my mom was a creature of habit when it came to cooking. She rarely ventured outside of her own comfort zone. This made me behave the same way. I was fearful of trying new things and I was SO ignorant when it came to food.

I was guilty of judging a book by it's cover... If it looked gross or sounded gross, I would never even consider trying it. But after dating my husband and his families love of all kinds of food... I learned to be a lot more open minded. I tried and fell in love with several foods I would have never tried if it weren't for him.

With those new flavors came the broadening of my cooking skills.... So I guess, the improvement of my skills are thanks to my husband...

My new habits will consist of cutting out the "bad" butters and oils and replacing them with a healthier version of themselves; Smart Butter and/or Olive Oil. I mostly cook with Olive Oil now anyway... so it will just be an adjustment to STOP frying things and to try to use less of the bad and more of the not so bad.

Tonight for dinner I am going to make Lemon Pepper Chicken with brown rice and sauted veggies... I hope it comes out as delicious as I am imagining it.

Here is the recipe I will be using for the chicken... I will share my honest opinion after I try it tonight.

Ingredients

* 2 teaspoons olive oil
* 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, divided
* 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast half
* 4 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a small skillet. Pepper the skillet with 1/2 tablespoon of the pepper, then lay the chicken breasts onto the pepper. Squeeze fresh ½ of the lemon juice onto the chicken, then season with the remaining pepper.
2. Sauté chicken breasts for about 5 to 7 minutes, then turn to the other side, squeeze remaining lemon juice onto the other side and sauté for another 5 to 7 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear).

Breakfast

One of the biggest changes I am planning to make to my eating habits is the addition of breakfast back into my daily meal plan.

I am LAZY and quite the opposite of a morning person... so needless to say I snooze my alarm about a million times before I actually get out of bed to get ready for work. Never leaving myself any time to have breakfast at home.

My secret weapon? A box of Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal in my desk at work.

Day two of my plan started this morning with a nice warm cup of oatmeal and a cold drink of water.

I will eventually start forcing myself out of bed earlier so that I can have other things for breakfast at home. I bought spreadable Honey when I went grocery shopping this past weekend. My husband says that it is quite good on toast and I would like to be able to at least try it one morning.

For lunch today I have a variety of fruits, 2 hard boiled eggs, a yogurt with granola and some wheat thins. I plan on picking myself up a green tea with ginseng and honey as well.

All and all it is a good feeling to know I am taking better care of myself.

The beginning of this week has been busy for me; with a networking event last night for work... which I believe I did well with balancing what I ate. It was pretty much an all you can eat buffet of sample foods... I kept myself in check and was proud.

Tonight we have choir after dinner... so tomorrow begins that daily walks after dinner. I am so happy that my husband is on board with this whole thing, because it's something else we can enjoy doing together.

Well, now I'm off to find a delicious and healthy recipe involving Chicken and Asparagus for dinner tonight.

I should also get back to work.

Until next time...

Eat This, Not That

http://eatthis.menshealth.com/home

A helpful website that gives you tips on eating out & healthy choices.

10 Things that pack on the pounds (from Fox Health online)

Struggling with your fat-loss attempts? Or are you currently happy with the chiseled physique you have but fearful that you may start to pack on the pounds?

Whatever the situation, by learning about some of the fastest ways to gain weight, you can make sure to avoid them at all costs. If there's one thing we know for certain it's that staying ripped at all times does take hard work. Fortunately, by making sure the following 10 traps aren't in the picture, it'll be that much easier.

Here are the 10 fastest ways to get fat. Avoid them at all costs.

10. Down the fruit juice
If you’re looking for a quick way to put on weight, start downing glass after glass of fruit juice. While often thought to be a healthy beverage, it's really anything but. It contains far too many carbs to be on a fat-loss or weight-maintenance diet and what's worse is that a large portion of these carbs will be fructose, which gets converted to body fat much quicker since it can't be stored in the muscle cells. Solution? Opt for water, milk or green tea.

9. Binge drink
If you're the type to avoid drinking throughout the workweek and then go out for a night of partying on the weekend, you're going to get fat. It's quite easy to consume well over 1,000 calories on a good night of drinking, and if you add up all the chicken wings, pizza and peanuts you consume while you're at it, you could be looking at a full pound of fat gained over the course of the evening. As far as your waistline is concerned, limit alcohol consumption to one or two drinks a night, on occasion.

8. Eat carbs
If there's one thing that can make you fat quickly, carbohydrates would be it. High-carb foods, especially of the processed variety, are extremely dangerous in terms of fat gain, because they'll quickly cause your insulin levels to soar, which puts the body into a fat-storing state. With all these calories floating around in the blood with nowhere to go -- unless you've just done a very intense workout -- they're fated for fat storage. Always keep carbohydrate consumption to a moderate level and be sure to balance them out with a lean protein as well.

7. Eat out
Another thing you should avoid doing is eating out frequently at restaurants. Many people do a great job at avoiding fast-food fare, but what most don't realize is that dine-in restaurants are almost twice as bad. The average entree can easily pack in well over 1,000 calories and is often processed, so if you want to prevent fat gain, cook at home as often as possible.

6. Take the car
As much as you might focus on getting in the most intense workout sessions possible, failing to look at the everyday ways you can be active will really cost you. If you hit the gym regularly but then drive everywhere (and are all-around quite lazy), this will significantly lower your overall calorie burn for the day. Just by getting out of the car and walking around more often, you can easily burn off 200 to 500 calories per day. Easy, right?

5. Eat greasy food
If you are going to cheat on your diet, the worst foods to do so with is high-carb, greasy fare. When you consume foods that are both high in carbs and high in fat (such as pizza, doughnuts or burgers), you're really hitting the body hard with excess calories that will lead to weight gain. Now you'll have raised insulin levels from the high-carb intake, and with those insulin levels high and your body in prime fat-storing mode, you'll quickly take the fat up and store it. If you're going to cheat, do so with lower fat, higher carb foods. This way, with the raised insulin, all the excess carbs can go toward the muscle cells to refill muscle glycogen, thus reducing the chances that you gain body fat.

4. Use commercial weight gainers
If you're someone who's trying to pack on lean muscle mass, you might be considering the use of a weight-gain product. If you want to stay lean, however, you'll want to rethink this. While you may require a high-calorie intake to build muscle, some of these commercial weight gainers pack in well over 1,000 calories, which is too much for even the biggest weight lifter. Plus, these commercial weight gainers are often filled with simple sugars, which will wreak havoc on your body and set you up for diabetes. Instead, create your own weight gainer using protein powder, raw oats and flaxseeds.

3. Load up on the wrong proteins
You're aware you need protein to build muscle, and you take this information to heart. Day after day you're loading up on all the high-protein foods you can find and don't feel ashamed to indulge in a juicy 12 oz steak when the opportunity presents itself. If this describes you, you may very well be on your way to gaining body fat. Remember that many protein-rich foods do contain high amounts of saturated fat and calories, so consuming too many of them will put you on the quick road to obesity. Instead, choose leaner sources of protein, and consume them in moderation. Men naturally gravitate toward protein-rich foods whenever they have a craving, but remember that you can get too much of a good thing.

2. Move back home
In today's tight financial times, more and more adults are choosing to move back in with their parents. If you're looking to maintain a lean body, though, this may be the last thing that you want to do. Surrounding yourself with all of your mom's high-fat, high-calorie cooking will likely lead to excess calorie consumption. With someone else doing the cooking and you strictly focused on the eating, you're headed for a bad situation as far as your belly fat is concerned.

1. Forgo your weight-lifting workout
Do not not skip your weight-lifting workouts. Even if you can get to the gym and do one set of each exercise, that will be far better than skipping it entirely. What some men fail to realize is just how much of a boost they will get in their metabolism after weight training, and this could mean the difference between you staying lean at the end of the day and you gaining body fat by night's end. You can burn up to 200 calories over and above your usual expenditure after a very intense workout, so don't ever underestimate the power of lifting weights.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/08/10-fastest-ways-gain-weight/#ixzz1HFSjyFiR

10 Fitness Myths (from FOX Health online)

Think you'll get a six-pack with crunches? You might want to check out these fitness misconceptions before hitting the gym.

Whether it’s coming from the media, athletes, celebrities, or friends, there are countless exercise myths that are widely accepted as fact. Here are 10 commonly held exercise misconceptions, as well as the real truths to improving your health and performance.

1. Static stretching decreases risk of injury
If people warm-up at all, they usually static stretch. Static stretching immediately before exercise can cause performance decrements; it can also increase your risk of injury. Stretching can also cause a short-term decrease in musculotendinous stiffness. If joints are relying on this stiffness for force production or stability, this decrease can lead to undesired joint movements and eventually cause injury. This is especially true in runners who do the standard calves and hamstrings stretches outside, and go immediately into their run.

There is research demonstrating that runners who static stretch immediately before they run actually suffer more injuries than those who don’t. Dynamic warm-ups with joint mobility and muscle activation exercises will improve your range of motion while promoting muscular control. This gives you the best chance to move efficiently and avoid injury.

2. Getting in shape is good for fat loss
Most people equate losing weight with getting in shape. By definition, getting in shape means that any given workload (for example, a three-mile run at 7 mph) will be easier to perform and less costly in terms of energy. Using jogging as an example, this means you’ll need to run longer or harder to get the same metabolic disturbance (what causes weight/fat loss). This can lead to excessively long training sessions that take a significant toll on your body. One way to minimize this adaptation is to alter your methods of conditioning, like with biking, running, slide-boarding (if possible), and resistance training circuits. This prevents your body from becoming too efficient at any one modality and therefore increases the metabolic disturbance from each.

3. Long-distance cardio is good for fat loss
Just about every piece of cardio equipment currently manufactured comes with a nice display of target heart rate zones for “fat burning.” The idea behind these zones is that working at the specified target heart rates will allow you to burn the largest proportion of your energy from fat. Sounds tempting. What few people realize is that you actually burn the highest proportion of fat while at rest (around 70 percent of your energy comes from fat).

There is a growing body of research now supporting the use of high-intensity interval training for fat loss. This form of “cardio” takes well less than half the time (typically 12 to 20 minutes) of traditional long distance cardio and leads to better results. The only people that should ever do long-distance cardio are endurance athletes, people who have a complete disregard for the value of their time and people who aren’t in good enough health to pursue high-intensity intervals (in which case, lower-intensity intervals would still be better).

4. Pasta is the ultimate pre-workout meal
For endurance athletes, there may be some benefit to the idea of carb loading. With that recognition, carb loading has been misinterpreted as requiring the need for large amounts of carbohyrates in the meal eaten before exercise. Pasta is the most frequent culprit. Most men have fully depleted their body's carbohydrate stores through the foods they eat throughout the rest of the day. Overeating pasta does little in the way of providing energy and likely leads to fat storage. Carbohydrates can also cause people to feel tired. A better meal option would be a balance of lean protein (like turkey, ham, fish, chicken, and lean beef), whole-grain products (such as quinoa) and vegetables. This provides a wider range of nutrients and gives your body the fuel it needs to perform optimally.

5. A quick jog and a few stretches is a sufficient warm-up
Not overlooking the fact that many people don’t warm up at all, the quick jog to “break a sweat” and a few stretches is the default warm-up of those that do. There are a few benefits of this type of warm-up. By going for a quick jog, you’ll increase your circulatory rate and your body temperature, which can help improve the elasticity of your muscles. But this type of warm-up does little to stimulate the nervous system (or increase the excitability of the working muscles) and doesn’t take the working joints through a full range of motion.

Static stretching immediately before exercise has been shown to decrease performance measures like power, speed, and balance. While the deleterious effects of static stretching are datable and frequently misinterpreted, this type of warm-up can still be improved upon. A dynamic warm-up consisting of joint mobility and muscle-activation exercises will take your joints through a full range of motion, increase the neural drive to the working muscles, increase the extensibility of commonly locked-up muscles, increase your circulatory rate, and increase your internal body temperature. This type of warm-up is ideal both in terms of performance and injury prevention.

6. More is better
In an effort to get stronger, faster or to improve athleticism, most people default to adding more volume. This is often at the expense (or neglect) of added recovery. In order for your body to adapt, it needs sufficient recovery time. While brief planned periods of volume increases can be beneficial in increasing your capacity, continually adding volume will eventually have deleterious effects on your performance. Many men have heard that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. This may be true in some cases, but it’s important to remember that quality practice leads to quality muscle memory and that fatigue masks fitness. In other words, you need to give yourself time to recover from skill-based practices, or you’ll be teaching your body to remember garbage movement strategies. Stress is necessary to stimulate improvement; recovery is necessary to realize adaptation.

7. Strength isn’t important for distance running
It’s true that every distance runner doesn’t need to be and, well, shouldn’t be built like a powerlifter. With that said, every distance runner should be doing some form of resistance training. This doesn’t mean the low-weight, high-rep crap that seems to frequent endurance training; this means strength training designed to actually get you strong (like sets of 6-8 reps). Distance running events are about covering a set distance as fast as possible, meaning speed is the key. Speed is improved by putting more force into the ground in each stride. More force means more strength.

Think of it this way: If you need to put an average of five units of force into the ground each stride to attain your time goals, and you’re maximal capacity is 10 units of force, you’re working at 50 percent of your maximum capacity. If you improve your capacity through quality strength training to 15 units of force, then running at five units per stride is only 33% of your capacity. More likely, you’d increase your speed to maintain your given work intensity (in this case 50%). Strength is far from the only component of being a successful distance runner, but it’s one of the most overlooked.

8. Basketball shoes protect against injury
High-top basketball shoes were invented in an attempt to minimize the risk of rolling an ankle as a result of landing on someone’s foot. These shoes, which increasingly have ankle support that mirrors ski boots, effectively limit side-to-side ankle motion. This will minimize the risk of ankle sprains but causes excessive range of motion at the knee. The knee has some rotational ability, primarily flexes and extends. Unfortunately, basketball shoes also limit the ankle's range of motion in dorsiflexion (shin coming toward toes) and rotation. When these ankle movements are restricted, compensatory motion occurs at the knee. Over time, this leads to a number of knee problems. Couple this with the fact that restricted ankle motion causes a decrease in sensory and reflexive ability of lower-leg musculature and consequent impairment of balance, and basketball shoes can be viewed as both injury inflicting and performance inhibiting.

9. Squatting is bad for your knees
The idea that squatting is bad for your knees has a few sources. Data on patellofemoral contact (kneecap against the joint) forces during these movements can show forces in excess of nine times an individual's body weight as the knee flexes through 90 degrees. This is coupled with doctors concluding that squatting is bad from your knees after seeing men come to them in pain from squatting. From the doctor’s viewpoint, this is a logical conclusion. If you hear people say they hurt their knees from squatting again and again, squatting must be bad for your knees.
The gap in this logic is that most people without a history of knee pain squat without ever experiencing it. Regarding the patellofemoral contact force data, a number that seems strikingly high doesn’t necessarily imply that the body is not built to sustain these forces. Most men that have squatting-related knee pain have poor technique. In an attempt to keep their torso vertical, they drive their knees excessively forward. In a good squat, the angle of the shin matches the angle of the torso. This ensures loading of the posterior hip musculature (glutes and hamstrings) and minimizes the anterior shearing forces across your knee. In people with a history of knee pain, it’s best to try to maintain a vertical shin angle throughout the motion.

10. Crunches are the best way to get a six-pack
Everyone, from the average civilian to elite level athletes, has been fooled by the same misconception. Doing crunches and sit-ups are not the best way to get a six-pack. Having a visible six-pack is almost entirely a function of body fat and minimally a function of abdominal development. We all know the rail-thin guys that have a shredded midsection. Contrast the overwhelming majority of powerlifters who have insanely strong core muscles but don’t sport a six-pack. Intuitively, we all know this, but when we start to feel saggy in the midsection, we go straight for the ab exercises. Contrary to popular belief, training a muscle group will not burn fat locally. This means that doing ab exercises won’t burn fat from your midsection. Save yourself the wasted time and probable back pain -- the best way to get a six-pack involves making better dietary choices and doing high-intensity interval training.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/17/10-fitness-myths/#ixzz1HFRgeHlF

Today is the first day of the rest of my healthy life...

Today is the start of my healthy living... This blog is for me to track and keep record of my struggle with my weight and my recent decision to get to a healthier me. I plan on being 100% honest with myself and anyone who reads this blog. It won't work any other way.

I have been struggling with my weight for the past 10 years or so. Mostly trying this diet and that diet and having great results at first. Then slowly sliding back into my routine of bad eating habits and laziness. I joined at least three gyms over the course of the past 10 years, only to waste the money on the monthly payments because I just stopped going. I relied on others to motivate me, when I should have been motivating myself.

This time I am not following a diet. This time I am making an overall change to my eating habits and my lazy life style.

I recently went to the doctor, because my husband and I are having trouble conceiving. My doctor showed me the file he has of all my records. When I first came to him as a teenager, I weight maybe 100lbs. He showed me how each year my weight increased a little bit; some years a lot. He told me there is no "right" weight for anyone... you just have to be healthy and in shape. It's not an exact science.

He told me that my weight gain could have a lot to do with my irregular cycle and therefore the fact that I am having trouble with conception.

He also put me on some hormone medication and had me get an exam to ensure everything was working right. This exam is supposed to make women twice as fertile within the following 60 days. I was also told by several people that women got pregnant pretty quickly afterward. Paired with the medication he prescribed I assumed I would be pregnant before I knew it... I was sadly mistaken...

I am 5'3" and when I was 18 I weighted about 110 pounds. Granted my metabolism was much better then and I was a lot more active physically. But now at 31 I find myself at the heaviest I have been in my whole life and that makes me very sad and disappointed with myself. I am in no way obese, but I am over-weight & unhappy. I currently (as of yesterday) weight 168 pounds. This means I have gained about 10 pounds since my previously described doctors visit a couple months ago.

So now that you know a little of the back story... I plan to change my life style and my eating habits. I am paying more attention to what I eat and trying to stay away from the items that are really really bad for me (i.e. fatty, sugary & greasy). I am also trying to start to do something physical everyday. Walking or riding my bike or jogging to start.

This starts today.... I welcome you to follow my journey.

Thanks for listening.