Week 1 With Slim-Fast As My Co-Pilot.

I've decided to write a blog post tracking each day during the first week of my Slim-Fast kick-off, because I know that the first week will be the hardest and so I really need to keep myself accountable.  After Week 1, I'm hoping that everything falls into place quite nicely and my body stops complaining, which I'm sure will start happening by about the third day.

There's a lot of daily chit-chat in here, too.  So you may want to grab a snack.  :)

Day 1 (Monday, January 19th):

Total weight loss:  It's Day 1, so none to report yet!

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  Greek yogurt
Lunch:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack 1:  Carrots, Triscuits and Hummus
Snack 2:  An apple and some blueberries
Dinner:  Chicken Tetrazini (made with organic whole wheat pasta), followed by Big Slice kettle-cooked apples
Beer/Wine:  No

Run:  No (I ran yesterday, so I'll run tomorrow)
Workout:  Day 1 of the 10 Week Workout Plan below (minus the cardio since I'm half training)

I was going to do some P90X today, but I couldn't find my DVDs, so now I'm wondering if I even have them anymore!  I remembered that I had saved the Diary of a Fit Mommy's workout above to my desktop, so I just went with that.  If I find my DVDs, maybe I'll do those instead.


Day 2 (Tuesday, January 20th):

Total weight loss:  1.2 lbs

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  1/2 an avocado
Lunch:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack 1:  Bowl of black beans and Rotel
Snack 2:  Greek yogurt, raspberries, bread & butter pickle chips
Dinner: Soup/Salad/Pizza bar at Portofino's
Beer/Wine:  No

Run:  4-mile treadmill run
Workout:  Day 2 of the 10 Week Workout Plan

It's only Day 2, but Snack 1 is proving to be the biggest struggle so far, because my body wants to EAT.  I'm not necessarily starving by then, but portion control for my snack is definitely difficult.  Today I heated up a can of black beans and a can of Rotel together, making myself a delicious spicy black bean side dish.  I limited myself to one bowl, but I could have eaten the ENTIRE POT without batting an eyelash.  Then I was counting down the next two hours before I could have Snack 2, which I ended up having an hour late because I hit the treadmill (so I managed to forget about it for an hour!).  I really wanted something more substantial for Snack 2 (EAT ALL THE CARBS) but I knew that I needed to wait for dinner for anything heavier, so I curbed my extended craving a little with pickle chips instead.  I should totally buy myself some whole dill pickles for snacks!! 

On days when I eat lunch and have a shake as a snack, I may not have the same afternoon struggle with wanting to eat, because I will have already eaten.  But at the same time, that also means I will need to watch my lunch portions!

Day 3 (Wednesday, January 21st):

Total weight loss:  1.0 lb (up 0.2 from yesterday)

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  1/2 an avocado
Lunch:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack 1:  An orange and a single-serve bag of popcorn
Snack 2:  Graham crackers with peanut butter
Dinner:   Chicken Tetrazini (made with organic whole wheat pasta), followed by an apple and some raspberries
Beer/Wine:  No

Run:  No
Workout:  No (I was going to do Day 3 at night but I was just SO TIRED that I went straight to bed!)

I'm pretty certain that I'm up that 0.2 lb from yesterday because of my dinner last night.  We went to Portofino's right down the road, which is a place where we are considered regulars.  I ate from their Salad/Soup/Pizza bar, making sure I focused on soup (navy bean) and salad.  However, my salad wasn't necessarily the healthiest out there, and I did eat ONE slice of pizza.  It was a really small slice, and I didn't eat the crust, but it was still pizza.  Had I not gotten the salad bar, had I ordered a salad straight off the menu, I wouldn't have eaten as much, and I know this.  But the salads on Portofino's menu aren't anything special, so the salad bar is always a better bet in that department.

Ok so it wasn't that tiny.

Up less than a quarter of a pound is really nothing, though.  Especially since I'm still down a whole pound from two days ago!

Day 4 (Thursday, January 22nd):

Total weight loss:  1.8 lbs (down 0.8 from yesterday)

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  Scrambled egg mixed with black beans and Rotel
Lunch:  1/2 Asian Salad from Cheddar's (that salad is DELISH, btw)
Snack 1:  None
Snack 2:  None
Dinner:   1/2 Asian Salad from Cheddar's
Beer/Wine:   No

Run: 1.5-mile treadmill run
Workout:  Day 3 of the 10 Week Workout Plan

Yesterday was the hardest so far, as I kind of expected out of Day 3.  I was just SO HUNGRY from about lunchtime on.  My Slim-Fast shake at lunch did curb my appetite briefly, it just didn't curb it for as long as the previous two days.  I was ravished by snack time, and I really wanted to eat crappy food.  The orange and the popcorn were good, but it felt like they did nothing to satisfy my hunger and I was counting the minutes until my second snack.  I opted for graham crackers and peanut butter for my second snack, which was a little better at satisfying my hunger since the graham crackers had carbs and the peanut butter had fat.  After dinner, though, I found myself scouring the fridge and cabinets for something else to eat, and I wanted something sweet.  I eyeballed the bottle of cream soda in the fridge several times.  In the end I decided to behave and I ate an apple and some raspberries.

We have 2 of these in the fridge left over from mixed drink experiments we were doing last month.  They are SO good but SO sweet and SO full of sugar!

A friend and I had a conversation this morning about meal replacement shakes and how 99.9% of the time, they are completely ineffective because as soon as people stop doing them, all the weight comes right back.  And I definitely don't disagree with her.  A Slim-Fast shake is only 200 calories, though mine is a little more because I use 2% milk instead of skim milk.  But it would be downright impossible to have a filling meal for 200 calories.  There are breakfast ideas for around 250 calories (half of a whole wheat English muffin spread with 1/3 an avocado and topped with a sliced hard-boiled egg and a little hot sauce, for example), and I do have a few 350-400 calorie meal ideas readily available that I pulled from a magazine, but let's be realistic - it's just not feasible to think that I would actually stick to a 250-400 calorie meal plan.  For breakfast, sure, I can do that.  But not for lunch and dinner.  I'm not quite that disciplined, nor do I want to feel so limited.

Just seems like a lot of work......

(I just saw on a Google image a meal replacement shake referred to as a "barfshake".  HAHAHA!)

However, I'm also determined NOT to pile this weight back on once I lose it.  I'm hoping that running will become easier as the weight slips off, and so I'll be running more and for longer distances and be able to maintain my happy weight, all while eating healthier but not watching everything quite as carefully as I am now.

P.S.  I found (well, Lucas found) my P90X DVDs.

Day 5 (Friday, January 23rd):

Total weight loss:  2.0 lbs (down 0.2 from yesterday)

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  Greek yogurt
Lunch:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack 1:  Triscuits and hummus
Snack 2:  An apple
Dinner:  A handful of chips and salsa and 1/2 a Steak Avocado Salad from El Meson
Beer/Wine:  Yes - a beer and a few margaritas

Run:  No
Workout:  No

So yesterday I had the Asian Salad from Cheddar's.  After I ordered it but before I ate it, I Googled its nutrition info.  According to the My Fitness Pal website, the Asian Salad has 1,250 calories, 96 carbs and 76 (SEVENTY-SIX) grams of fat.  Holy bejesus.  That's my entire calorie count for the day and almost double the fat intake I should have.  I wasn't overly shocked about the calorie content......a lot of large restaurant salads out there have enough calories for an entire day and sometimes more, but I didn't expect it to be quite that fatty.  Ah well.  I cut my Asian Salad down the middle, ate half of it for lunch, ate the other half for dinner, and skipped any and all snacks in between (not that I was even hungry to want them).

They don't actually stack it that high.

I totally should have gone with the Hawaiian Chicken Salad (524 calories, 21 g fat) and dipped into a side of dressing.  Can you imagine if I had split that salad between lunch and dinner?  There would have been my 300 calorie meals for the day!

Lesson learned.  Check food nutrition info before ordering.  Don't order salads pre-tossed in dressing.

My in-laws come into town today for the weekend.  We'll be going out to dinner tonight, probably eat out for lunch tomorrow, and then will probably eat out for either brunch or lunch on Sunday before they head home (I bartend tomorrow night so I'll make sure my dinner option is on point).  I'm going to try to eat as healthy as possible, but I anticipate that this weekend will be a bit of a setback from my current progress (much like my Asian Salad choice!). But that's ok.  There's always next week, and the week after that, and the week after that......I don't mean that I plan to procrastinate or start over, I just mean that I've got plenty of recovery time for a weekend of a little indulgence!

Day 6 (Saturday, January 24th):

Total weight loss:  2.8 lbs (down 0.8 from yesterday)

Breakfast:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack:  Scrambled egg and 1/2 sausage patty
Lunch:  Farmhouse Salad from Urban Stack
Snack 1:  None
Snack 2:  None
Dinner:  Slim-Fast shake
Beer/Wine:  Yes, Pinot Grigio
*After-Dinner Snack:  Some ribs, a smoked chicken thigh and some pulled pork from Sticky Fingers....and an apple (leftover from tonight's catering event, minus the apple)

Run:  No
Workout:  No

Last night we, my parents and my in-laws had dinner at El Meson.  I knew eating out was coming (along with frosty beverages) so I stuck to my shakes during the day and only ate an apple for my second snack.  I drank a Blue Moon at home when the in-laws got into town (they brought a cooler of beer with them) and then had a couple of margaritas with dinner.  I ordered the steak avocado salad as my meal, and it was YUM.  The server suggested that I eat it with salsa instead of dressing, so I did, and she was right - it was so good (plus salsa is healthier than dressing anyway!).  I didn't purposely decide to eat only half of the salad, but it just worked out that way, probably because of the margaritas.  I tried Googling the nutrition info for the salad, but I couldn't find info for El Meson anywhere.  But the salad consisted of lettuce, tomato, onion (I think), avocado and steak (or the other choice, chicken).  So it definitely wasn't an unhealthy choice.

For lunch today (Saturday), we ended up at Urban Stack.  Urban Stack is known for their burgers, and I love their Good Day Sunshine Burger, because I love me a fried egg on a burger.  I also love their onion rings.  YUM.  But today, I ordered the Farmhouse Salad, which consisted of oven-dried tomatoes, roasted beets, asparagus, sugar snap peas, roasted corn, diced strawberries, fresh greens and chopped grilled chicken.  And I had it with their homemade Sweet Vadalia Onion dressing.  And I did have ONE onion ring.  Because who can resist?  :)

Urban Stack's hot pimiento cheese dip is YUM, too.

Tonight (Saturday night), I bartended an event at the Aquarium.  The event was CRAZY all in itself and deserves a post all of its own (300+ people from Jasper all in one spot).  It won't get one, but let's just say we nicknamed a woman "Toothless" and another wannabe-Toothless-lady "Lacy".  And that we were convinced that there were going to be some shenanigans going on between Toothless and a much younger guy we nicknamed "Cowboy" in a hidden (or maybe not-so-hidden?) corner of the aquarium tonight.  Well, no shenanigans were discovered or interrupted, so they at least made it outside of the building.  And besides being drunk, "Lacy" didn't have any activities to report.  But it was THAT kind of night.  And they were definitely not the only ones.  But since this post is about food and not about Jasper hookups, I'll stick to that.

Since we went out for lunch, I had a Slim-Fast shake for dinner.  And had I gone to bed at 10:00, that would have been the end of the night.  But since I went to work and we were still breaking down bars until midnight, I was hungry again by 10:30 or so.  Sticky Fingers catered tonight, so there was a CRAPTON of leftover food at the end of the night that all ended up down in our kitchen.  I was too hungry to care, so I had several ribs (probably 4 or 5), a chicken thigh and a handful of pulled pork.  No sauce was involved, but the chicken and ribs were definitely greasy.  I brought home a cup of spinach dip, but it's still untouched and now in the fridge waiting for another day.  I had thought I'd be eating it right now while winding down, but I talked myself out of it and grabbed an apple instead.  Part of me thought I'd actually come home and jump on the treadmill after work tonight.  But that was just wishful thinking.  If I had gotten home an hour earlier, that may have happened.  But after midnight, that's definitely NOT happening.  Even though now it's 1:00 am and I'm still up......a treadmill run was definitely NOT in the cards past the 11:30 mark.

Day 7 (Sunday, January 25th):

Total weight loss:  2.8 lbs (same as yesterday)

Breakfast:  1/2 waffle and 3 bacon strips
Snack:  None
Lunch:  Slim-Fast shake
Snack 1 (more like a late lunch):  Chips and salsa, Chicken Tortilla Soup from Taco Mamacita (YUM)
Snack 2:  None
Dinner:  Smoked ham, homemade mac & cheese, strawberries and kiwi, and a homemade Rice Krispie Treat
Beer/Wine:  Yes, Sangria from Taco Mamacita

Run:  No
Workout:  No

Today was definitely an unsuccessful day for sticking to my meal shake plan, but it didn't end up being as bad as I thought it would be.  I did start the day off with some carbs instead of a shake, but it was only half a waffle.  At Taco Mamacita I had the soup, because I wanted to stay healthy but needed a day of NOT eating a salad.  Dinner was at my parents' house, where I ate more ham and fruit than anything else.  I only ate a little mac & cheese and skipped the bread altogether.  So overall I deem the day a win.

Day 8 (Monday, January 26th)

Total weight loss:  2.6 lbs (up 0.2 from yesterday)

So I'm one week into my weight loss challenge and down 2.6 lbs.  Woohoo!  I don't look any different or feel any different and I'm not out of my fat jeans yet, but it's a really good start in the right direction.  I am this much closer to losing the 20 lbs I want to lose - only 17 1/2 more lbs to go.  At this rate I'll hit my goal weight by the end of March.  Realistically, though, it will probably be more like May.  

Today I plan on hitting the treadmill during the kids' naps (or this evening if naps don't work out as planned), as well as doing Day 1 of the 10-Week Workout Plan.  I also plan to start tagging consignment items, since drop-off starts in less than 2 weeks. 

Here's to Monday!

Meal Replacement Shake Monday!

Here we go!  Slim-Fast shakes are now officially a part of my day.

Rich Chocolate Royale, welcome to my morning.

Yes, I am fully aware that drinking a shake in place of a meal or snack is not a healthy lifestyle change.  As in, it's not something I can do forever (nor do I want to).  But it IS a temporary change that I'm making in order to jumpstart this weight-loss plan better.  So for the next few weeks, Slim-Fast and I are friends.

P.S.  Slim-Fast shake mix was hard to find!  Straight-up protein powders rule the roost nowadays.  Target doesn't sell Slim-Fast (at least in the store), so I went to Walmart and found it, though I still had to really look for it.  Amazon had it, but Walmart sells it cheaper than Amazon at $6.88 a can.  A can has 14 servings, so that's about 50 cents a shake.

Yesterday I skipped breakfast (totally by accident), had a bowl of soup for lunch, and then crashed my dinner with a cheeseburger, french fries, corn fritters and chocolate pie.  What I should have done was eat the hamburger off the bun, skipped the fries and corn fritters, and just had the chocolate pie.  But it is what it is.  And it was delicious.  Now onward to better choices!

I read a Facebook status post by a friend who said that 17 days ago, she cut sugar, flour, dairy and alcohol out of her diet in order to lose weight and gain healthier eating habits.  She's lost a bunch of weight so far, and I completely understand the approach to clean eating. 

My weight loss plan isn't quite that strict (though I'm sure it would be more effective if it was).  I do have lots of healthy snack options to choose from, though......blueberries, raspberries, apples, bananas, popcorn (made in my air popper), hummus with carrots or Triscuits (which are whole grain and made with only 2 or 3 ingredients), trail mix (for my sweet and salty tooth), Greek yogurt, avocado, edamame, and peanut butter (when I need a little fat and protein with my apple, or just on a spoon).  I also have things like soup, eggs, and black beans topped with pico de gallo (that can be eaten alone or on top of a sweet potato) if I'm really hungry and need something with a little more backbone.

I'm working towards being more disciplined about my eating choices.  Sure, I anticipate having a few not-so-healthy things while eating out now and again, and I anticipate enjoying some beer or wine on the regular (though not every day).  I definitely anticipate indulging and having setbacks, though I'm trying to do better at having them happen LESS often.  These 20 pounds need to GO BYE-BYE.

I discovered this past Friday night that I'm in desperate need for new running shoes.  I already kind of knew this, as I knew I had long surpassed the mileage limit on my shoes, but I didn't know that I had holes in my shoes until this past Friday when I looked down and could see my hot pink socks looking up at me.  So now it's definitely time for a new pair.  A friend of mine just recently bought some Hokas, and she LOVES them.  She says they have made ALL the difference in her running - her legs don't get fatigued like they used to.  The ultra marathoner who was on my Ragnar team also ran in Hokas.  So I plan on checking those out this week to see if I like them.

They kind of remind me of the Sketchers Step-Up shoes.

I also need a decent pair of tennis shoes for just everyday wear, since all of my other tennis shoes are too small (and my current shoes have holes in them).  I'll hit up the DSW clearance rack for those, or maybe head to TJMaxx or Rack Room.  My everyday shoes need to be comfortable, but they don't need the same price tag as my running shoes.

I ran three days last week - 2 miles, 3 miles and 1 mile.  My next half marathon is in less than 6 weeks, and so those numbers are definitely NOT going to make the next 13.1 miles any easier than last weekend's 13.1 attempt.  This week I HAVE to up my game.  I am way behind my personal running schedule.

Time to tackle the day and be productive!

Words To Live By.

Lots of people have little mantras or quotes that they either live by or are reminded of now and again.  Some people quote the Bible.  Some people quote movies.  Some people quote their parents or their grandparents.  Some people quote famous actors or authors or preachers or public speakers.  Some people quote Gandhi.  I actually have a Gandhi quote included in my personal email signature:

A friend on Facebook said something a few months back that stuck with me......I can't remember what she said verbatim but it was something to the effect of, "Humans are the only species with an ego capable of being cruel".  I hadn't really thought about that concept before (at least from that angle), but it's true.

When I was growing up, my mom had this tiny little wooden plaque hanging in her kitchen that said:

I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now.

When I was little, it was a fun little tongue twister and I was just proud of myself that I could remember it and say it.  But as I got older and hit certain points in my life, I would think about that quote from a whole different angle.  That little plaque had hung in every kitchen I had lived in my entire life, but I'm pretty sure it got ripped away by the tornado that destroyed my parents' house 2 years ago.  But I'll never forget it.

Something else that has stuck with me over the years is:

You can't complain about something you're not doing anything about.

I think about this one ALL the time, because I see/listen to people do it ALL the time - complain about things they're not participating in a solution for.  They complain about political figures in their township/city/county/state/nation......but they don't vote.  They're appalled by the way their neighbor treats their pet or their kids......but they don't bother calling anybody to report it in order "not to get involved".  They feel horrible about all the animals that die in shelters daily and agree that we need to DO something about it.....but they don't bother to adopt or foster a shelter animal.  There are other non animal-related examples, but you get the idea.  It all wraps back around to Gandhi:

But it also applies to people who complain about the little personal things.  Those who constantly complain that they are "so fat" or "so out of shape" or "so sick of their job" or "so tired of their boyfriend/girlfriend" or "so.....(fill in the blank)....", but they don't make an effort to remedy their so-called problem.  And sometimes I even have to remind myself that I can't complain about something if I'm not attempting to remedy it, at least a little.  Which brings me to another quote I like:

Now I'm not talking about ALL complaining, because there are definitely complaints out there that can't (or maybe just simply shouldn't) be solved.  A mother complaining about how exhausted she is because her baby won't sleep can't necessarily do a DAMN thing about it (no matter how much of a baby expert you think you are).  So she has a right to shed a few tears and whine about it.  Or maybe someone you know hates their job but CAN'T leave?   Let them complain...they probably need to vent.  Or let's say you go to a restaurant and your steak comes out overdone.  Sure, you could complain and send it back and wait and get a new one and ultimately "solve the problem"......but really, is it worth it?  Do you want to be THAT person?  If it's not that bad, just eat it anyway.  And there's also the whole complaining about friends and relatives, another thing you can't always "do" something about, nor should you even if you have the chance.  Because of a little something called kindness.  Being 100% blunt and honest all the time is just simply not always the way to go.  You could lose friends over it.  And with family, it might be a situation where it wouldn't matter anyway.  So in this case, pick your battles.  It's much wiser.  This is what bitch sessions with your friends are for.  Bitch sessions get a free pass for complaining and gossiping.

Most recently, though, I've had to remind myself of the following:

You can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

I've been running a couple of times a week, I've been eating healthy most of the time, I've been avoiding refined carbs most of the time, and I've been letting myself be hungry during times when in the past I would have previously stuffed my face with whatever food looked good.  OH SO YUMMY JUNK FOOD.  So I've definitely been making the effort towards losing weight and getting my old body back.  But it's been antagonizingly SLOW and the results aren't punching me in the face like I'd like them to.  And so while taking a shower the other day and thinking about everything, it dawned on me that I have been doing the same thing for weeks yet expecting better results.  So I decided to change things up a bit.  I'm adding meal replacement shakes into my day.  I'm making sure that if I don't get my run in during the day (if nap time doesn't work out in my favor), I run at night after everyone goes to bed.  I'm going to blow the dust off my P90X DVDs and incorporate some of the workouts into my "off" days from running. 

I'm simply just going to have to work harder and do a better job.  :)

So I Froze My Half Off For Sure.

This past Saturday was the FREEze Your Half Off free half marathon put on by Run Chattanooga. 

It was EIGHTEEN DEGREES when the half started at 8:30am.  EIGHTEEN DEGREES.

Now I know that people who live in colder climates, where it is often MUCH colder than 18 degrees in the winter, will go running outside like it's no big deal.  They pile on the appropriate running gear and just go for it.

Like this guy in Russia.......

But this girl isn't all about 18 degrees.  Especially along the river when the wind is blowing.  BRRRRRRRR.  Once I got moving, I was actually perfectly fine when I wasn't running against the wind.  I actually got hot and had to shed my gloves and jacket.  But against the wind.....BRRRRRRRR.

My friend Angie and I ran together, and neither one of us were really prepared for a half marathon, though she was better prepared than I was.  I did pretty well until I crossed Mile 7.  That's when things started to fall apart.  My lungs were fine, and I didn't get any side stitches (like I usually do), but my legs were killing me.  My thigh muscles were screaming and my feet felt like lead weights that just kept getting heavier and heavier (the "unpreparedness" was setting in......my body was saying WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING????).

Overall, Angie and I completed about 10.7 miles before calling it a day.  I was having to walk quite a bit of those last 3 miles, and Angie's ankle started bothering her and she was afraid that if she pushed those last 2+ miles she'd end up with an injury.  So we ALMOST made it the whole 13.1!

A pic taken of me after the first loop, about 2.5 miles in.  Right before I shed my gloves and jacket.

The potluck portion of the event was INSANE.  That was the most amount of food (and food variety) I had ever seen at any race EVER!  There was everything from bagels to doughnuts to homemade sausage balls and homemade brownies and homemade chili to a guy grilling hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches over hot coals.  Along with hot coffee and hot chocolate and chocolate milk and Gatorade and sodas galore.  And that doesn't even cover it.  Had it not been so darn cold I would have stuck around and enjoyed more of it!

Some of the aid station snacks.

ONE of the finishing food tables.

Grilled cheese.  YES SIR.

Would I do this race again?  Absolutely.  I will just hopefully be more half marathon-ready next time, and it hopefully won't be quite SO cold.  Run Chattanooga is hosting a Raccoon Mountain Marathon, Half Marathon and Relay on March 21st that I am considering signing up for.  It will be a month AFTER the Scenic City Half Marathon (which I am running) so I should definitely be ready for another half by then.  At least one would hope so, right?

The Raccoon Mountain Marathon course.  That's a nice lookin' course!

Now onto my current weight loss happenings (and the point where some people might decide to close their browser window hahaha):

It's been 2 weeks, and I am down 2 pounds.  Sigh.  I know that 1-2 pounds a week is a good, steady pace, but I was really hoping I'd be rocking the 2 lbs a week instead of the 1 lb a week.  And the even more frustrating part is, I've been doing REALLY well minus a few exceptions.  I've been eating healthy about 90% of the time and I've been running 3x a week the past 2 weeks. 

I've been feeling like this has been so much harder this second time around, but then I looked up my weight loss tracking chart from October 2010 through December 2011.  I logged everything on an Excel spreadsheet as motivation.  And as it turns out, I didn't lose anything the first 8 weeks!  It took me 15-16 weeks to lose 10 lbs, and then it took me a whole 31 weeks to lose 22 lbs.  My weight fluctuated up and down and up and down constantly!  So I guess that's what I have to look forward to!  I don't feel so bad now.

Weeks 1-12 (starting October 2010)

Weeks 12-24

Weeks 25-36

Weeks 37-48

Weeks 49-60

Weeks 61-64

I stopped logging after December 2011 because I was then pregnant with Delano and so no longer losing weight. :)  I started logging again in September 2012 a month after giving birth to Delano, but I didn't keep up with it very well and eventually gave up.  Lately I've been keeping up with my runs on the Runkkeeper app, and keeping up with my weight on the Monitor Your Weight app.  Maybe I should try my Excel spreadsheet method again......it seemed to work the first time, plus it's nice to be able to go back and look at it as a morale booster!

Bring on the next week and the next pound!

One Week Down

Monday:

Okay well technically, it's only January 5th and therefore we're only 5 days into 2015.  But since my "new year" of healthier eating and what not started last Monday, I'm already a week into the new and improved me.

Awww that's cute.

The new and improved me has already lost a couple of pounds (3 lbs, to be exact, according to my scale this morning) and I've already started ordering prints of photos to be (eventually) organized into albums.

1,314 prints, to be exact.  And I have LOTS more to go.

Somebody else's pictures.

I plan on ordering prints and photo books and canvases as they go on sale.  This past weekend Walgreen's had their prints on sale for 9 cents each (up to 1000) and Snapfish had "penny prints" (up to 300) going on, so that's where I ordered from.  I hear that Shutterfly gives away free prints all the time, so I plan to take advantage of that, as well as trying out a phone app called GrooveBook, which costs $2.99/month for prints that are mailed to you in a tear-out book.

Tuesday:

I miss Christmas already.  Not necessarily the madness and craziness and business of the season......I was glad when that was officially over this past Sunday (after Lucy's second birthday party bash).  But I miss the feeling of it.  Even if you put up your Christmas tree the day after Halloween, the Christmas feeling doesn't really set in until the day after Thanksgiving.  And rightfully so, as Thanksgiving deserves its own personal glory in the spotlight without Hobby Lobby trying to drown it out with their Christmas decor.

Who is that guy in the background???

So I miss the Christmas feeling.  It just seems like we don't get very long to have it.  Three weeks, maybe?  And this Christmas, I even had a full-on Christmas FAIL.  Everything went right on as planned except for one thing.......a thing I consider very important every Christmas.....and no, it didn't have anything to do with my own children.  It had everything to do with the Angel Tree at Hamilton Place Mall.  Every year, I pick out one or two angels from the tree to buy gifts for.  And I buy them EVERYTHING on their list, from clothes to toys.  Because to me, that's important.  And I want to teach my kids that it's important.  That it's something we do every year.  Just like sponsoring an animal adoption at the Humane Society is something we do every year.  And that when they're old enough, helping to feed the animals at the Humane Society and clean out their cages on holidays when staffing is low is something we do every year.  I want that to be the "norm" for my kids.  Not a dreaded job, but an honor in the name of Christmas spirit.  So what happened this year?  I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO CHOOSE AN ANGEL TREE RECIPIENT.  I remember thinking about it, planning to do it, then the next thing I knew, it was Christmas.  So I forgot.  And that's awful.  And I can't blame it on anything specific.  I wasn't consumed with shopping for the kids (that was already done before Thanksgiving), I wasn't consumed with shopping for the hubs (we don't shop for each other, at least not right now), I wasn't consumed with shopping for the family (we did the whole Chinese Christmas gift exchange thing this year), so I simply forgot.

These guys didn't forget

Wednesday:

I obviously WIN at blogging.  If I didn't make my posts so long, maybe I'd actually get them out on the day I started them. 

In other news, I have a half marathon coming up this Saturday!  It's a free one being put on by Run Chattanooga called FREEze Your Half Off.  And that is SERIOUSLY what's going to happen.  The low Friday night is 19.  NINETEEN.  Which means it will be right around 20 degrees when we start running.

HOLY BRRRRRRRRRR.

Since it's a free event, it's also a potluck.  Most races (with entry fees) have food and sometimes even booze at the finish line.  For this one, the runners are in charge of bringing something to share for after the race snack-wise.  My thoughts are that I'll bring bagels and peanut butter.  But I need to look and see what other people have said they're bringing.  We may have an abundance of bagels!

Did I mention that I am NOT prepared for this race?  Not in the least bit.  Well, maybe a tiny bit.  I'm 5k prepared.  Just not 13.1 miles prepared.  Ah well.  My next race is at the end of February.  I plan to be prepared for that one!

New Years Resolution Time

Happy New Year!!

Is everybody ready for 2015?  I know I am!!  Last year was a good year with lots of good things that happened, so I'm excited to see what 2015 holds.

For those of you who don't know (which is pretty much ALL of you, even family members), 2014 was a tad bit juicier "behind the scenes" in the Simington household.  And no, I don't mean anything dirty (get your minds out of the gutter!).  I mean that it almost included the decision for our family to move to Nashville.  So "almost" that we were even house hunting.  Several months ago, Lucas was given the heads up that he would be offered a position in the Nashville office with his current employer.  A guy in that office had decided to step down from his position and the top dogs decided that Lucas was the perfect man to replace him.  Long story short, when it came down to the money, it just wasn't enough to get us to move.  The official offer finally came in a couple of weeks ago and it was a very nice offer, and we talked about the pros and cons, but it just wasn't nice enough to make it worth it.  Here in Chattanooga we have a nice, big house with a nice, big yard (that includes a giant wooden shed/barn that is perfect for the dogs) with a nice, tall 5-foot fence in a nice, quiet neighborhood.  I have a good thing going on with my independent contracting gig as well as my bartending gigs, and I have my mom here to help out with the kiddos pretty much anytime that I need her.  Plus my family's here.  Lucas already makes a really nice salary in his position now, he likes both his coworkers and his employees, and the office here runs pretty smoothly. 

If we moved to Nashville, I would still be able to keep working as an independent contractor just as I am now, but I would (obviously) have to give up my two side bartending jobs.  We would move away from MY family and friends, but we would be moving into Lucas's home town with HIS family and friends.  His mother would be available just like my mom to help out with the kids if I needed her, so I wouldn't lose that family benefit, which is an awesome thing NOT to lose.  But the standard of living is a lot higher in Nashville, and Lucas would be walking into a position where he'd have to spend months cleaning up a cluster of messes.  For those of you who are ex-Chili's servers, I call it "pulling a Tom Brantley".

That's right, Tom.  I stole your photo from Facebook.  Don't look so surprised.

Overall, our current life here won over.  :)  So that's the big news that isn't actually news at all, since it didn't happen.  We didn't decide to move.  But we could have.  ;)

As far as New Year's resolutions go, I think mine are basically the same as last year.  You know, the ones I never got around to doing.  I couldn't actually find a list of resolutions for 2014, but I did find this blog post from October 2013 that lists a bunch of projects on my to-do list that are STILL on my to-do list, so we'll just consider the ones I haven't completed as part of my current resolutions.  And while we're at it, I guess we should go ahead and include the incomplete projects from this December 2012 blog post.  But this time, let's make a list.  An official list of resolutions.

From 2014........and 2013.......

 In 2015, I hope to accomplish the following:

1. Lose 20 lbs (I know, I know.....so cliche.  But it's in my plan and has been ALL YEAR.)
2. Run more frequently (4 times a week EVERY week is my goal - right now I average 2)
3. Build my mileage back up to half marathon runner status
4. Be READY TO OWN the Scenic City Half Marathon at the end of February
5. Create photo books (I've already done a few) and shadow boxes for past vacations and memorabilia
6. Print photos (and/or make photo books) from all of my pictures over the last few (SEVEN) years
7. Print the currently missing photos for the kids' baby books and add them in where they're supposed to go
8. Order more photo canvases for the walls
9. Go through/toss/organize the pile of crap that came out of my downstairs desk (that I no longer even own)
10. Paint the dog room to see if I like painted paneling (it will determine if I will paint the den paneling or not)
11. Paint and decorate the office, which is now Lucy's room
12. Make it through more of my magazine stash

So there we go.  That should do it for 2015.  If I can accomplish those things, then I should be caught up! :)

Bye-bye, 2014!