Yesterday david hugged me and went to grab the little love handles on my side. He loves doing this despite the fact that it drives me madd! He searched and searched but couldn't find anything to squeeze. He finally settled on squeezing my butt. I guess it's not going away any time soon. At least my love handles are less.

Back on the Wagon

OK, last night was the end of the incredible baking spree. I made molten lava chocolate mugs with espresso whip cream. They were so rich it almost made me sick, and I realized I am ill. I have a three month old child, yet I run around making intricate desserts. No more. My joints hurt, my face is erupting, and I can see the dial on the scale wanting to move. Goodbye empty carbs. The order of the day shall be meats, eggs, veggies, and fruit. I'll add whole grains after a while, when I feel the carb monster is back in its cage.

I only broke the coffee rule once this week, and it didn't even taste that great. I have noticed a difference in the skin around my eyes. I think I was drinking so much coffee that I wasn't drinking enough water and it was dehydrating me.

How is everyone doing? A -- have you thought about having a slice or two of turkey bacon with your oatmeal? Would that be enough protein?

To be honest I am a little surprised at just how out of shape I am from not walking the last few months of extreme hot weather. I'm trying to get into the habit of walking every day again. I didn't make it every day this week but mostly. I just huff and puff up the steepest part of the walk... didn't used to do that.

I'm liking the IR diet for the most part but sometimes I get really tired of always having to try to link the protein. Breakfast is the hardest meal because I like oatmeal for breakfast. The book suggests making it with milk instead of water, tried it once - yuck.

The rest of the day it's easy to do.

There was a problem with my web vitamins order (not their fault)UPS trashed the box and I only wound up getting one out of three items I ordered so I am still waiting for the colon cleanse supplements I ordered................

The world wide web is a beautiful thing!

Rose Water Ice Cream

I'm thinking of making this for Erin's next birthday. Perhaps we will have a fairyland theme.

I started my period today. That would explain my recent mood swings and consumption of all things carb full.

I bought some delicious dried mango at Costco last night. I'm going to have to monitor myself with it around!

I'm going to lift today. I'm starting right now!

Anyone have ideas for what 5k I should run in the spring?

Woo-hoo

Sam slept for more than ten minutes, so I did a full routine of pilates. It felt so good.

My eating was not so great this weekend. My sister-in-law was in town and we took her to PF Changs. I had a little bit of everything. I think I managed pretty well. I ate mostly the veggies and meat and had a tiny bit of white rice and chow mien. Saturday morning Laurie took me to her favorite breakfast place. They have the best apple walnut coffee cake! It's funny because it's actually a health food restaurant. Sunday I had a few more carbs than normal, but I also went on a four hour canoe trip so I'm fairly certain I burned them off. We stopped at this little ice cream shop on the way back home. It's called Scream'n Mimi's, and they had Rose ice cream! It was amazing. It tasted exactly like I would think a rose would taste. It was made with rose water. It was also an all natural ice cream shop so I felt a little less guilty about having a scoop of Mimi's mudd which had bits of oreo like cookies, peanut butter cups, and fudge brownies.
The walk/running is going great! I've decreased my time by about 5 minutes. :)

I really love run-walking outside. It's so much more motivational that staring at the wall in my bedroom as I pound out the steps on my treadmill. It's also less painfull on my calve muscles. I switched up my route so that I'm now going 2.1 miles a day. Hopefully I'll be running at least half of that by the end of October.
The diet is going really well! It's a really easy plan to stick to and I haven't had any cravings! I don't know if I've lost any weight yet, but I'm really trying to make that less of a goal than I have in the past. I want to focuse on running longer and faster and eating what makes my body feel strong and healthy.

It's beginning to feel like fall here in Oklahoma and for me the change of seasons always make me know it is time to cleanse my body.

First I will do a colon cleanse... which is pretty simple...eat clean, drink lots of water and tea and take a colon cleanse pill every night for 3 nights.
Colon cleanse:
Contains
Herbs: Acidophilus, Cascara Sagrada, Kava Kava, Valarian

Other Ingredients
Cascara Sagrada, Buckthorn Bark, Celery Seed, Papaya Leaf, Peppermint, Bentonite, Oregon Grape Root, Kava Kava, Valerian, Acidophilus, Echinacea, Garlic, Passion Flower and Ambla

After that I will do a blood and liver cleanse. I will buy that supplement from
Her Native Roots


a wonderful website with a lot of good information and products.

You can do simple skin cleanses with herbs and a hot bath which is wonderful.

I always feel better after detoxing, ready to take on the flu season....

On Her Native Roots she talks about building up our immune systems and making ourselves "too tough to die"

Amen to that.

Click below

for an interesting Spark People article on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to eat healthy and exercise. Interesting ideas.

Three New Habits I'd like to start

1. No eating free food at work. If I must have something sweet, I'm going to have to walk to the store to get it and pay for it with my own hard-earned money.

2. No snacking while cooking dinner, especially not on chips. If I must eat something NOW, I will munch on veggies and dip.

3. No eating after 7 p.m. Not that "after a certain time, you automatically gain fat," or so goes the myth. I just don't eat anything healthy after that time, and whatever I do eat, I eat in excess. No more of that.

I started walk/running at the park by Erin's school after I drop her off in the mornings. It's close and convenient and there are several other people walking there so I feel safe. I walk/ran for 30 mintues Friday morning and then tracked it on gmap when I got home and I went 1.7 miles.
I read an article on begining a running routine at Spark People and it recommended that beginners start by walking four minutes and running one minute and slowly added more running as you can handle it. I'm going to play around with that and see what happens. My plans for this week are to walk/run the 1.7 miles Monday through Friday and lift weights on MWF. I want a quick weight routine that covers all the basics. Any ideas? I'd prefer not to spend more than 25-30 minutes doing weights.
Even on the IR diet, I'm keeping my one free meal a week. I'm making peach cobbler. Since reading Becky's post about baking and Erica's comment on cobbler, it's all I've been able to think about!

Not doing so well

Um, yeah, my eating sucks. My exercise routine is hit and miss. I feel gross. No need to post encouraging comments. I'm suffering from a lack of discipline and excuses. Fall has hit the Flathead, and I want to bake up a storm -- why do baked goods have to be so bad for us?

Hello ladies! Day one on the IR diet seems to be going well. The food plan is easy since you can eat anything as long as you balance carbs and proteins. This is my day so far,

7:30 a.m. 1/2 a whole wheat bagel with 1 tsp of low fat cream cheese spread
1/2 cup cottage cheese with 5 rasberries and spinkled with splenda
1 cup of coffe

10:30 a.m. 1 small white peach & one string cheese.
12:30 a.m. 3 oz of grilled chicken breast with 1/2 cup of peas
3:00 p.m. 1 zone bar and 1/2 cup of non fat milk.

I couldn't muster up the energy to work out this morning. I'm still recovering from my mom's visit. We squeezed a lot into the short time she was here. I plan on working out tomorrow full force.

Sandy and I are reading the Insulin Resistant Diet that Cheri recommended months ago. To be honest I don't really see that much difference in this diet and what we have already been doing.
Kristen has been telling us for a year now... add more protein.... well, that's what this book recommends, too. More protein, limited carbs, eat every 2 to 3 hours, make your snacks protein snacks, exercise, drink a lot of water, limit portion sizes... so, what's new about it?
The only thing that is different is the linking of the protein and carbs. She recommends that you never eat carbs alone, always with protein to stop the insulin spike that causes us to store fat. You can eat protein alone or veggies but never carbs alone and to not eat more than 30 gms of carbs in a two hour period... seems it goes straight to fat storage if you do.

This is what I've had today:

Bkfst (10:00) 2 eggs, 1 piece dry toast and coffee
Lunch (12:00) 1/2 cup low fat yogurt, 2 T walnuts, 2 T soy protein powder, 1/2 mixed berries and a sprinkle of granola on top
Snack (3:00) 1 slice whole wheat bread, 1 slice deli ham, 1 slice swiss cheese, and 3 little pickles.
Supper (6:00) chicken breast, 1/2 cup eggless noodles, 1/2 cup cooked carrots

I went walking after supper.

I will have my last snack at 9:00.

The book is right about one thing, I haven't been hungry all day long. It says the insulin spikes are what causes the cravings.

This seems too easy but I'm gonna give it a try and see how it goes.

The book does say a lot of good things about emotional eating and not starving yourself... I would recommend to anyone who is interested in good nutrition.

Thank you Sandy for doing this with me... what do you think so far?

Long, long post ahead…

In which the author begs your patience and advice.

Here’s the deal:

Last year (early 2005), I weighed 141 pounds. I am almost 5’7”, so this is about normal. I gained the freshman 30 in college, mainly with eating bad southern cafeteria food and to comfort myself over a bad break-up, and when I got married I weighed 162. I was in the 12-14 size range, and this never bothered me much. I had a fairly healthy self image through high school and college, even with a beautiful 5’10” and 120 lbs roommate/best friend. I have always had friends who I thought were beautiful in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and I always had boys that liked me, so I never worried about my size. Maybe the occasional, "My boobs are too small" feeling, but no big deal.

Anyway, by increasing my exercising and cooking my own meals when I got married, I gradually lost about twenty of that.

Back in 2005, at 141 pounds, I wondered if I could lose more weight. I guessed I was about 130-135 in high school (I had to guess because I rarely, rarely weighed myself), and I wondered if I could get back down to that. With a limited knowledge of calories and nutrition, I embarked on a kind of stupid diet plan. Stupid because it was nutritionally deficient, although it did include exercise and limiting calories, so I was on the right track in some ways. Well, in 11 weeks, I was back down to 130. I was eating very little protein and doing absolutely no weight lifting (just cardio), so I’m sure some of that was muscle loss. Besides, sometimes I ate as little as 900 calories a day, just because I didn’t like exercising and I don’t like to cook. Unfortunately, I also became absolutely obsessed with calorie counting. I can’t count the number of times Jason asked me what I was thinking about, and it was calories. I never felt like I had anything on my mind but food. It was awful.

The only nice side effect was that I could wear size 8 jeans for the first time.

Well, those jeans are too tight for me now. A year and a half later, I’m back at about 145. Probably for three reasons: 1) the diet I was on was unsustainable, 2) I’ve indulged myself too much this summer and haven’t exercised enough, and 3) I gained some muscle back.

I wear a size 10 (in my lower body) now and feel a little bulgy at times. I got so many compliments back when I was a size 8; now hardly anyone compliments me. Ugh.

Exacerbating the problem is that I’m a classic pear shape. My upper body looks nice, and I don’t mind having soft-looking arms (I don’t need to be super lean in my upper body, I guess that’s what I mean). I often wear a small or extra small top. I can usually wear size 6-8 dresses if they aren’t fitted through hips (like an A-line dress). But my hips are wide; in fact, I’m not even sure I could get to a size 6 if I wanted to (which I don’t think I do--I have a friend that size who is my height, and she looks too thin to me). I have a cute rear end and a flat tummy, but wide hips and thick thighs.

I really, really do not want to go back to counting calories. I'm afraid I'll get obsessed again. I thought about doing Atkins (no calorie counting, just avoiding carbs for the most part), but I don’t think it fits realistically with my lifestyle. Sometimes I really feel addicted to sugar, and I need to get off of that. Food, as we all know, is a huge part of who we are and how we celebrate--and I can’t hide from that. I have a family birthday or major holiday at least every month of the year. I’m participating in this supper club with two ladies who are committed to eating pretty healthfully (they are both pregnant, to boot), and I just can’t just forgo carbs all the time. Once I start having kids, carbs are (from what I've read) pretty dang necessary for a healthy pregnancy (not that I'd be dieting at that point anyway, but I just don't know how realistic it is for me to maintain an "Atkins lifestyle").

I guess the crux of the issue is, I want Jason to feel that I am attractive. He always tells me I am, even when I was bigger. He reminds me that he married me at my heaviest weight and found me stunning even then. He tells me that as long as I feel confident and sexy, I will be attractive to him.

I am so desperate for his affirmation. I am so afraid of losing him to some stick-thin red-headed goddess. J doesn’t have the perfect body (do any of us?), so it’s not like he’s holding me to some impossible standard. Hell, he even thinks my cellulite-y butt is sexy. He's kind of tired of hearing my body image issues all the time, and I'm tired of struggling with it, too, frankly.

Part of me just wishes I didn’t even worry if he thought I looked good. I wish I could just be confident on my own. But I don’t know…I mean, aren’t we supposed to care what our spouses think? I really do want to be the most beautiful woman to him.

I guess the question is, do I try to get back in to those skinny jeans again? I am so tired to trying to reach this “ideal.” I think what I really want to do is just try to maintain, to stop dieting, to just be healthy and exercise because it’s good for my mental and physical health, and not to achieve some standard of beauty I think Jason wants. I don’t think doing a lot of dieting is healthy right before trying to enter my childbearing years anyway.

I don’t know. Could I get some words of wisdom? I am so frustrated.

Last night I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned with the fear that not only will I never lose another pound, but that I'll gain 100 of them. My eating has been awful. I could blame it on the stress of David not having a job or the fact that he is home and wants to eat crap all the time. Honestly I don't know what my problem is. Everyday I tell myself that I'm going to make the right choices and every day I talk myself into an ice cream after lunch or some other treat I should save for my free day. ACK!!
Once again I will start fresh.
My goal is to continue running 3 times a week as well as going to Curves 3 times a week. I'll walk the three days I don't run. Sunday will be my free day for food and exercise. It's going to be a tough week because my mom will be in town, but I want to prove to myself that I can eat healthy even while going out and having fun. I just have to get back into the routine of it.
I want to lose 2 lbs this week.

new beginnings again

Hopefully we are at the end of this horrendous summer we've had. It has taken it's toll on everyone and everything. We still haven't had enough rain to even mention but the temperatures have dropped into the high 80's, low 90's. The ponds are either empty or stagnant, the grass is dead, the trees (especially the young trees) are dying.

I've gained 5 pounds over the summer from lack of activity. I walked, seriously walked, for the first time yesterday in probably 3 months. I thought I would die... that last push up hill I was breathing hard!!

I feel like I am starting all over again from where I was last December. I haven't lost much muscle, I don't think, because I did continue to lift throughout the summer months but I feel so out of shape.

So, here I go again... with yet another resolution to walk every day, lift 3 times a week, and eat better.

Those 5 pounds need to go Bye-Bye!!