Week 1 Log

Day 1:

Weighed - 220.8 pounds

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit and no sugar PB
Lunch - Artichoke Chicken, Salad, 1/4 C. penne pasta, strawberries, water
Dinner - Refried Beans and Cheese, milk
Snacks - Popcorn, a few sips of husbands smoothie

How I felt: Nothing too noticeable today. I did have a slight headache, but I think that is because I didn't have enough water. I wasn't hungry, but around bed time I really wanted something sweet. I still felt a bit bloated/uncomfortable from my dinner and dessert on Saturday.

Day 2:

Weighed - 220.2

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit and no sugar PB
Lunch - Ground turkey, refried beans, cheese
Dinner - Teriyaki Steak strips, steamed veggies
Snacks - Steamed milk with sugar free hazelnut flavoring, pepper jack cheese

How I felt: Cravings galore today! I really want sweets today. Chocolate milk, chocolate covered caramel, Reeses, pretty much anything chocolate. I also had a craving for cake pops! I made potatoes for my husband with dinner tonight and wanted just one bite! I caught myself rationalizing that one bite wouldn't hurt. Luckily, I told myself that the point of the 4 week restricted phase 1 is to reset the body. The point is to kick the cravings and withdraws, get blood sugars where they are supposed to be, and I knew that even a bite would have an adverse effect on my insulin (what I'm working to correct). So, I didn't have even one bite (although I did pout a little). Right before bed I wanted a nice, hot dinner roll. No headaches today (I drank more water). Feel pretty good.

Day 3:

Weighed - 215.6 What!!!???!!!

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit and no sugar PB
Lunch -Broccoli, mushrooms, salad dressing, four slices turkey lunch meat, pepper jack cheese
Dinner - Cauliflower crust pizza (didn't turn out great and I know what I'll do differently next time)
Snacks - Peach, sugar free PB, movie popcorn w/light butter (date night and I was super hungry - healthiest thing available where we were; we saw Monsters University - I recommend it!)

How I felt: Went to the gym today and did strength training. I once heard the biggest loser people do their strength training at the beginning of each week (after weekly weigh-ins) and do cardio before each weigh in....who knows. Felt amazing this morning! (May have something to do with the weight loss.) I was a little hungry today. I'll have to eat beans tomorrow - I think that may be the secret to not getting hungry! I also had a headache in the evening (not enough water).

Day 4:

Weighed - 216.2 (more like what I expected to be at today). Gained 0.6 from yesterday's weigh in, but I am looking at averages here not day to day. I'm weighing each day just to keep tabs.

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein shake with fruit and no sugar PB, two cubes of cantelope
Lunch - Ground turkey, black beans
Dinner - Panda Express: Steamed veggies, Sweetfire Chicken, and a few bites of Teriyaki Chicken and Orange Chicken
Snacks - PB, 1/2 cantelope

How I felt: Went to the gym and did the eliptical for 25 minutes, high knees, butt kickers, and fast feet drills, foam rolling for my legs (the muscles are pulling on my knee). Feel pretty normal as far as my energy level this morning. I'm hoping that in a few weeks, I wake up and have lots of energy. I was not hungry today at all! Maybe my theory about the beans at lunch is true!?! I'll eat beans at lunch tomorrow too and more veggies/salad. I didn't do well with eating veggies today.

Day 5:

Weighed - 216.2 (This is why they tell you not to weigh every day). :)

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit and no sugar PB
Lunch - Salad with beans, mushrooms, broccoli, and olives; a piece of cauliflower crust pizza
Dinner - Oatmeal
Snacks - 1/2 cantelope

How I felt: I am tired this morning. Didn't sleep well. It's hot. Foam rolling is a serious love/hate relationship. It hurts so badly that I actually sweat while doing it, but afterwards my knee pain is totally gone!!! I need to do it more often so it starts to not hurt as badly. I did 30 minutes on a bike today at the gym. Good sweat. I got hungry at about 9:30 at night and wasn't sure what to do about it. So, I drank some water and went to bed.

Day 6:

Weighed - 215.8 (average of a pound a day)

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit
Lunch - Taco Bell: Taco Salad (just ate the salad not the shell) and pintos & cheese
Dinner - Chili's: Monetary Chicken and Steamed Broccoli
Snacks - None

How I felt: Tired again today. I didn't fall asleep until midnight (hubby isn't home) and was awake before 7 (I do best on 8 full hours of sleep). Worried because my hubby just changed our plans for today and now I am going to be camping (which I despise), outside in the heat (my body gets lethargic and I get cranky above 83ish), around people I don't know (I have major social anxiety so people who first meet me think I'm a snob usually, but it is just because I am trying to remember to breath and stay calm, so I don't talk very much), and I don't know what the plan is for food. I'm worried about staying on track AND having enough to eat. Considering my choices (we had to leave the campground to go get food because the food that was there was not on my list of good choices), I think I did really well. However, I don't think I ate enough because I was hungry most of the day. I also had terrible cravings for sweets (mainly chocolate) and pizza! I wanted anything BUT what I ordered for food. Nothing was very satisfying because my cravings were so bad.

Day 7:

Weighed - 216 exactly (need to drink more water)

Ate:
Breakfast - Protein Shake with fruit
Lunch - Turkey sausage patty, slice of cheddar cheese, an egg
Dinner - Hubby took me out! We went to Cheesecake Factory. I ordered well and allowed myself to have a virgin strawberry daiquiri. It was amazing!!!
Snacks - Watermelon, veggies (broccoli/mushrooms/steamed variety)

How I felt: It is just hot!!!! So hard to want to eat well and prep food. Oh well.
Final results for the first week are 4.4 pounds lost! I am so happy with that number because it is a great number!

Breakfast and Workout

Workout Wednesday is a no go today. I tried finding another link up that I liked, but since I'm not losing weight and don't own a scale I couldn't do Weigh In Wednesday and there was another I found that I don't really like or understood. So I'm going to stick with posting a workout today, but I will also let you know what I had for breakfast. It was delicious, yummy, filling, and healthy!

Monday nights workout for me focused on core and was centered around planks. I ended up dropping to my knee, which still gives a great workout and I am sore, because I'm not as strong as I was a few months ago. That's really frustrating by the way, but the trade off is well worth it. I know I can get back to that strength and even better after baby #2 comes in November.

The workout came from Pumps & Iron and is her side plank workout.

 My review? It was awesome! And quick, but still burned so good! I'm loving working out with a partner. The Hubs did a seven minute interval workout, it's fun watching the man I love workout along side me. We don't do the same workout at this point, jumping/high knees/high intensity cardio are all uncomfortable for me now that I'm in Month 5 of pregnancy.

Tonight I asked him if we could do the same workout or at least let me design one for him. I'm debating between a Deck of Cards workout or a nice Yoga Flow. I'm leaning toward a yoga flow. I'll update later with the chosen workout.

Breakfast this morning was a concoction of yummy healthiness. I had bought some precooked turkey breakfast patties a few months ago, they've been sitting in the freezer with a few left since. I wanted to make sure there was no flour in them and guess what? There wasn't! Woot! No sugar either! Sweet!

I popped one of those bad boys into the microwave with 1/3 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, letting it melt over the delicious meat. Then, I took one large egg and cooked it sunny side up. I placed it on top of the cheesy breakfast patti, cut into it and let the delicious yolk spill onto every mouth watering bite. YUM!!! I finished it off with a cup of Almond Milk (Vanilla - unsweetened) and a juicy fuji apple. Delish!

There ya have it! Have a great Wednesday!

Until Next Time!
Spicy

New, Healthy Breakfasts

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I've been focused on other writing. :)

I have however been attempting to find more breakfast ideas. Remember my goals a while ago about no sugar and no breads. Breakfast meals/recipe's generally have some kind of bread or baked good. It's been a challenge to find new ideas.

I did find a couple though!

I will be trying them out over the next couple days and I will post reviews about them and the recipes. I'm terrible at following recipes, I like adding my own twist. It will be fun to tell you the original recipe and then my additions.

Remember to check back tomorrow for Workout Wednesday!

Until Next Time!
Spicy

What Am I Doing?

Seriously, I have no idea. Let me start out by saying that Spicy looks amazing and SOOOO cute, right? Wow, mama! Keep up the great work. You inspire me.

Back to my post:
I tell myself all the time, I'm gonna start over and finish this time. Lose weight, so happy, celebrate, sabotage, gain weight, sad and mad, repeat! Story of my life! UG!

Seriously, I don't know how I could have a stronger reason to get healthy.

1. May be my only chance at being able to conceive and have a child (my one dream in life that I have wanted since I can remember; I always said that I wanted to be a mom when I grew up).

As if that weren't reason enough, here are more reasons:

2. I want to feel good! I want to walk up some stairs without being winded, I want to be strong and athletic, I want to be confident about how I look.

3. I DON'T want Diabetes (which runs in the family)

4. I want to live a long, healthy life with my hubby and siblings. A LONG life.

5. I want to actually beat this disease! Yes, I just called obesity a disease! That is what it feels like - fighting a battle that never gives up. I don't want it to control my life!

I have all of these amazing reasons that one would think would be enough to keep me doing what I'm supposed to do. Somehow, I always find myself thinking, I'll start again tomorrow (or Sunday, or next week).

My husband gets frustrated because he wants to support any decision I make and since I am so flip-floppy, back and forth, he never knows how to support. Should he remind me I'm trying to be healthy? Should he just go with the flow? He never says how frustrated he is but I can imagine it must be difficult. UG. He doesn't read this but let the record show that I am sorry.

I have to stop beating myself up about it, I know. So, instead of making all of the promises to myself and family just to have to say why I didn't, I'm just going to work on doing better. I have a secret plan in mind that I want to do. I want to do it without telling anybody and then when I accomplish it, I won't have frustrated anybody along the way.....then again maybe not. I got a diet plan (from somebody who knows somebody who is/has gone through fertility treatment at a fertility clinic in our area (one that I would love to go to but can't afford). This diet plan is the first thing they have MOST of their clients do right away.

I'm not going to give details here (right now). I want to do it, on my own, and then report midway through and at the end. I'll keep you posted and pray for me to have success.

By the way, I made it to the gym three times last week and twice this week. Small, but huge, accomplishments.

19 Weeks; Sweetarts are not vitamins!

I learned a hard lesson this week. I went a little over board on camping treats... One of the treats I bought was Mini Chewy Sweetarts. I do not recommend doing this... I could not stop popping those things into my mouth. Four at a time. They were SO delicious. What's left of them are currently sitting in the back of my pantry while I try to forget about them. 

In case you were wondering...

Sweetarts are NOT vitamins! 

And if you eat to many of them you wont feel very good...

I had to reevaluate what I was doing. So I woke up at 6:45 am. Said my morning prayers, read my scriptures, and got ready for the day. A routine I haven't done in... well... a long time. It felt AMAZING!!!!

Oh and the hubs is on board with working out! WOOT! We worked out together Wednesday night and we are working out again together tonight. He did a speed interval workout that lasted 10 minutes and I did a weights and intervals workout that probably took me 20 mintues from start to finish. He got a little dizzy after his workout so he sat down, drank some water, and waited for me to finish then we stretched together. My baby belly is getting in the way of some stretches... 

I'm flexible people. I'm used to wrapping my hands around my feet when I lean forward... I can touch my toes. It's weird to me.

Speaking of the baby belly, check it out!!!

How far along? 19 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 3lbs+ last I saw (about a month ago)
Maternity clothes? Maternity pants, yup. Maternity shirts, I have one that fits me right now, and it's actually my cousins.
Stretch marks? No new ones.
Sleep: Bah... I slept fine with LW's pregnancy. This one, not so much. :(
Best moment this week: Feeling all the movement! Been feeling it for a while, but I have just been getting excited about it lately.
Miss anything? A good nights sleep and laying on my tummy.
Movement: YES!
Food cravings: Chinese and Mexican food! I'm really craving Mexican food at this moment, haha.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope.
Have you started to show yet? Yes, but someone told me I didn't even look pregnant... So what do I look like? A person who is randomly gaining weight in... only her stomach? There is a point when telling a pregnant lady she doesn't look pregnant isn't a good thing.
Gender: I DON'T KNOW!!!
Labor Signs: No.
Belly button in or out? In, but it's looking funny.
Wedding rings on or off? On :)
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy most of the time, but I seem to be getting headaches easily which puts me in a grumpy mood.
Looking forward to: Learning the gender!!!! I want to know.

Until Next Time!
Spicy

Pregnancy 18 weeks. Healthier, it makes a difference!

I wanted to post the comparison pictures for you of my first pregnancy and this one. This is at 18 weeks. I know it's a different angle, different shirt, different blah blah blah... Whatever. It's the best I've got and you can tell the differences. So there. :P

This is me with my first at 18 weeks. Notice the choppy ugly hair--no actually don't notice that, haha.

Second time around 18 weeks. Healthier w/ more muscle. Thinner face, thinner arms, thinner upper stomach.

See?! It does make a difference! I'm not as healthy as I wanted to be the second time around, but I am healthier! I weigh less then I did last time, I have muscle this time, I'm happier both inside and out! It makes a difference!

Now, onto the update everyone wants...

How Far Along? 18 Weeks

Total Weight Gain/loss: 3 lb gain.
Baby's Size? Currently a melon, about six inches from head to rump
Maternity Clothes? Shirts, no. Pants, yes. I still could wear my regular jeans with a hair-tie around the button, but it's uncomfortable.
Stretch Marks? No new ones. I'm still lotioning up like a crazy person. Hopefully no new ones will appear...
Best Moment This Week: Feeling him/her move!!!
Miss Anything? Um... No?
Movement? A TINY bit. 
Food Cravings? Chocolate, which is weird, because I do not usually crave chocolate. It's not my 1st candy.
Anything making you queasy or sick? Not lately.
Have you started to show yet? I think most people would be able to tell I'm pregnant now... maybe?
Gender? Hoping, hoping, hoping for a girl. Another boy is good too though. We will find out soon!
Labor Signs? No! Thank goodness, that would be bad.
Belly Button in or out? In, but I have a major inny anyway, it never popped out with LW. It is looking a little funny though.
Wedding Rings on or off? On, I'm hoping it will stay that way this time. I stopped being able to wear them last time around twenty weeks.
Happy or Moody most of the time? Happy! I'll randomly feel really upset about something and then I remember it's the pregnancy hormones talking and that makes me roll my eyes, then I feel better.
Looking forward to? Finding out the gender!!! Duh!

There you have it! Keep going strong! 

Until Next Time!

Spicy

What Are Good Days Without The Bad?

Without bad days, we wouldn't know what a good day is. We wouldn't know joy without sadness, or elation without anger. There are many, many wonderful things we wouldn't know without their negative counterpart.

Yesterday was workout Wednesday and I have been linking up with Skinny Meg for a while now to do it. Yesterday just wasn't gonna happen.

I'm a dreamer. I have big, extravagant dreams. Some of them seem unattainable at times, then I always have that voice in the back of my head... the stubborn, head strong, competitive side of my brain that beats back that weaker side and tells it to BE QUIET! My Mom knows better then anyone, if I put my mind to it, there is no stopping me. It's a great quality and I love it! It seemed last November that part of my brain kind of disappeared for a while.

I am an aspiring author. Someone who I love very dearly, who read my book, told me after my first rejection letter in November; "You are already an author, time just hasn't caught up with you yet." Her words helped lift me up after such a terrible moment. Most authors have their books rejected close to twenty times before getting published! That first one, I thought I was prepared for, but it hit me on a personal level like I wasn't expecting. After months of recovery and getting my head and heart in the right spot again I'm in the process of sending in my work for a second time. Wish me luck!

Yesterday another dream of mine took a big hit. I didn't respond well to it. I never considered myself and emotional eater. Usually when I get depressed I lose my appetite completely. I guess that's still emotional eating... or the lack there of. It seems being pregnant kicked that the other direction. I ate a tootsie roll, a long one, not one of those tiny bite-sized ones. And a couple handfuls of chocolate chips (ugh, just writing that makes me feel sick). Now... compared to my sugar tooth I used to have... this is amazing! And the fact it was the only "chocolate" things we had in the house. I wanted chocolate. I also didn't workout yesterday and the hubs brought home wonderful, delicious comfort food. Panda Express. YUM!!!! I told the hubs last night (after he saw how sad I was) that this dream was not stopped. It's just on pause for the moment.

I woke up this morning with a strong mindset. I am a dreamer! I will always be a dreamer! I may not accomplish all of my dreams in this lifetime, but I'm sure as heck going to try my hardest to reach all of them! I can have sad moments, otherwise I wouldn't know the happy moments, but I refuse to let them set me back!

One of my other dreams, as you all know, is to be fit and healthy. To have a healthy pregnancy. I woke up feeling skinny this morning! Which is weird... considering I'm pregnant. But it felt good! I know that my eating habits this week, minus yesterdays mishap, have been making my body feel so much better. I'm working out today and I'm going to everyday from here on out. (not including Sundays) I think my strong, stubborn, competitive brain finally kicked back in today and said, "Enough is enough! You want this? MAKE IT HAPPEN!" I am not at a healthy weight, but I'm going to do everything in my power to have the healthiest pregnancy I can.

I am happy to report that I fit into a pair of pregnancy pants that I couldn't fit into with my last pregnancy. Also I am smaller this time around, then last time as well. I have a comparison picture to show you, but this post is long enough so I'll share that with you tomorrow.

Take your negative, and turn it into a positive!
What are you making positive today?

Until Next Time!
Spicy