No more excuses

I started this post last week and I got distracted so here I am back at the blog. I really need to keep this up mainly I think to help me keep on track. I've lost 10lbs so far, but I think if I got moving more then I'd be losing more a little bit faster. Just wish that warmer weather would get here so I could walk more, having a little one makes walking in the cold not so easy. Living in tiny town America (where we don't even have a 4 way stop downtown), with only one car can make it hard to get somewhere indoors to work out, not to mention trying to find someone to watch Lil'Man.

Today, though I was supposed to go to Zumba with a friend, and my mom, aunt, and cousin. Of course I wasn't able to make it due to ride issues at the last minute, but instead of just making the excuse and taking my anger out on food I decided that I would take Lil'Man (who was being a grouch all day), bundle him up, and go for a walk ourselves. And while it was a little cold it wasn't too aweful, and Lil'Man loved our evening walk. I even decided to change it from a regular short walk (it was 6:45p so it was getting dark even though we had a bright light I didn't want to be out too long) I did a small circut of walk, lunge, walk, run, walk, lunge, walk... Lets just say after 30min of that in the cold I was a bit out of breath and my thighs felt like jello... Which oddly enough made me feel good. :)

Now my next goal is to push myself out the door everyday for at least a 30min walk. As long as it's not too cold or wet Lil'Man and I will start taking walks, I know it will be good for both of us. :) Every day and every new thing I do to help gets me one step closer to my goal.

So far, So good...

Wow! I'm on to week 3 of The Biggest Loser Competition at the gym. My first week I lost 3lbs... My thought, ok well it could have just been a really good day for me, every one has those up and down days. Plus the day before I had participated in a pretty intense spin/pump class. (A class which combines spinning on a bike, hand weights, barbell, and other strength exercises) That first week I started out my "healthy lifestyle" by using simple portion control. But after that I thought, heck I keep finding all these delicious recipes on Pintrest why don't I just start trying them. So, last week along with portion control, I started cooking healthier meals, and getting my but moving more, I put in one more day at the gym, and did some Wii Fit. I went in yesterday to do my weigh in (same time every Monday to help with consistency) and I lost another 4lbs! I couldn't believe it!

My biggest push has been my son. It's amazing what a little guy can do to your life. It was easy for me when he was an infant to just sit around with him, to eat easy junk food, and to just feed him his baby food or give him his bottle (or breastfeed him while sitting on my butt lol), but now that he's been eating real food I've realized I have to choose the right things to feed him so he will grow right, and so that he will always eat right. The only way anyone learns how to eat and move right is by example and I want to set a good example for Lil'Man.

My biggest help has been Pintrest. I keep finding some great sites like....



Lets you know how many ingredients
and how long it takes to prep and cook



Tells many of the recipes nutritional information (though not all) and has easy categories to search



Has a lot of really good Weight Watchers and
other healthy recipes along with a nice blog

Along with some great random recipes. Last week and this week I've only made the healthy recipes I've found, and have yet to find anything we don't like.I've actually found ways to make some of the recipes even healthier by using low sodium, low fat, or low calorie items vs the traditional items. I've been buying a lot more fresh produce or frozen depending on the need, I try to get items that are low in sodium, fat, or calories, and of course I try to stay out of the aisles.

My biggest motivation in figuring out how to eat and how to exercise self control has been a girl Taralynn McNitt and her blog Undressed Skeleton. Taralynn's blog has so much! It has her own personal story, food ideas, motivation, tips... Everything I have needed to help me started with this new change she has easy to find. She has so many great suggestions, ideas, and tips!!! I really do recommend checking out her blog if you are looking into starting a healthier lifestyle, even if you don't follow everything she does (which I'm not specifically) she can still help you feel like you can do it!

Over the years I've come up with so many excuses to put off changing my lifestyle, buy no more. I've had a great start to a healthier me, and I'm excited to see where this new lifestyle takes me. It's going to be a long, hard, and at time slow going road, but I'm going to push through it and keep going. If not for me for Lil' Man... And so far, so good. :)

Oh and while I really not sure how much I want to I think I'm going to try and track my weight loss visually by posting a picture of myself each week.... I'm a very visual person and I think this will help me to see my progress.

Let's try this again... With a Healthier Me

Ok so I have decided that while life in general can actually be a boring concept for a blog, if you pick a specific thing to blog about, life, can in fact, be interesting enough for others to read. With this in mind I have decided to narrow down this blog a bit better. Actually I'm going with a whole new concept, and instead of giving it a new title I think the old one still fits.

While most people have New Years Resolutions I tend to be a little more "eh" about them. When I would make them I'd forget about them, or just give up before January was over. This year I have decided while not necessarily making any resolutions I have planned to change somethings, these changes just happen to coincide with the beginning of a new year. I have decided that I'm going to start living a healthier lifestyle. Which means eating better, getting my butt moving more often, and losing the almost 60lbs I put on since being pregnant.

It was brought on by 3 things:

1. Wanting to show my son how to eat right and set a good example for him so that he doesn't fall into the same habits I did as a kid.

2. My mom signing me up with her to do her fitness clubs Biggest Loser Contest

3. Me getting an account on Pintrest

Ok so the first two are obvious. I want my son to be happy and healthy in life and the only way he's going to know how is if I set an example and show him how to do that. The Biggest Loser Contest offers a moderate cash prize at the end if you lose the most weight. When you sign up you get a discount on using the facilities for the 10 weeks the contest is running. And then part of the money goes to charity, so why the heck not. [especially when Mom offers to pay ;)]

By now I'm sure you're thinking, "How did getting a Pintrest account help you with your decision to live healthier?!" For anyone who knows me I am a junk food nut, I have a large sweet tooth, and I grew up on red meat and potatoes and not too much else in my diet, thus I tend to be a picky eater.  When I got on Pintrest I started to see some really healthy and delicious looking recipes. I had realized I was in a rut cooking out of boxes, and only cooking what I know, so, it was all loaded with sodium, carbs, and tons and tons of calories. And while I can cook when given a recipe, I felt it too taxing to try search for recipes that I didn't even know how or what to look for. With Pintrest they were right there in front of me, I could see what they looked like, click the link, and go right to the recipe. It was so easy! I've also found a lot of motivational tools, and workouts I can easily do at home. Ok, I'll admit it's not the only thing I use Pintrest for, and once I get on it I could sit and pin things for hours, but really it's been helping me with my choice to be healthier.

I'm halfway through my second week for the BLC (weigh-ins are on Monday's) and last weigh-in I had lost 3lbs. This week I had started my healthy eating and I'll let you know Monday how much it may have helped.

I'm keeping my past posts on here for sentimental reasons, but this blog will now be about my progress in trying to commit to a healthier lifestyle, all my trials, errors, success, and everything in between.

Edit: Have decided to be visual about my new change to see how it is working out... So for this post here is a before and after, and a hopeful incentive to losing weight