My Fitness Pal

Had another great food day today. Had a repeat of yesterday's breakfast and lunch. Dinner was grilled pork chops, roasted garlic red potatoes and grilled asparagus. It was very good! Tomorrow I will be attempting to make a low sodium Greek salad, I'll let you know how that goes.

I wanted to talk about my food journaling. My ultimate goal weight is 150 lbs. My Fitness Pal has suggested a daily intake of 1570 calories. I thought that was fairly do-able, but I'm finding out very quickly that low sodium foods tend to be high in calories. So, it hasn't been very easy to stick within in daily calorie goal. :) Foods like mayonnaise, sour cream and cream cheese, which are normally no-no's, are low sodium super stars, crazy huh! I guess it's a bit of a toss up. And of course I could cut out the Nutella and cheese, but with cutting the sodium out of my diet, I need all the help I can get in the flavor department. What the food journaling has forced me to do is measure out servings which helps keep the calorie count down and keeps my portion control...under control!

I have to say in pretty proud of my food progress. And although I wish I had just as great reports on the exercise front, I don't. I'd beat myself up more, but I feel like I have a lot of changes to make and conquering all of those all at once seems a bit overwhelming. So I'm going to stick to my one step at a time program and hope the exercise will soon come in stride! I'm also sort of helping any weight loss that comes along with eating better will only push me to want to do more to continue losing!

I haven't decided on a weigh in schedule yet, any suggestions?

You guys having any difficulties changing your food habits and exercise habits all at once?

What A Difference A Day Makes!

Feels like I've been whistling that song (in my head) all day long, so much so, I'm feeling a little Mr.Roger-ish. Then I slowly start to get creeped out because, well, as an adult, Mr. Rogers is more creepy than cool. Anyway, back to whistling dixie! Today was a great food day! And those, if you've been reading (PLEASE BE READING!) are very hard to come by. I had my usual english muffin egg sandwich with a little butter and jelly (my total GO TO breakfast meal) and even splurged on some Community Coffee last night at the grocery store. That for sure put a little pep in my step for the day. I headed back home for lunch. Lunch is always so hard! The only thing that keeps me from eating a healthy meal at dinner time is me cooking. But I feel like I don't have time to cook something for lunch. And the sodium really limits the usual quick fixes like sandwich and chips, soups and did I mention sandwiches????? So what was on today's menu, a taco bowl!!!! If you are thinking to yourself yum, well, hold that thought.. I browned some extra lean ground beef and seasoned with black pepper, cumin, garlic powder and a hint of chili powder for a teeny, tiny kick. To be completely honest, I didn't even miss the salt!!!!!! I scooped a cup full into my bowl, added a 1/4 cup of monterrey jack cheese (which I could definitely scale back on) and topped it all off with a tablespoon of sour cream. Okay, now you may YUM! It was so delicious and filling and totally stuck to my low sodium needs. I'm still having issues kicking my something sweet habit, so I ended my lunch with a cup of fresh strawberries and 2 tablespoons of Nutella (my new best friend)! Not to mention the icing on the cake that was my awesome lunch, I caught the last 20 minutes of "Save the Last Dance", totally toats my goats. :) A day like like, really makes me think this whole healthy eating is actually do-able. May not be in tip top shape, but we're getting there. I'm not 100% sure what all was involved with dinner as we dined with Vance's Grandmother at her retirement community, but I can't imagine the grilled chicken in a honey dijon sauce on a rice pilaf and steamed veggies was all that bad. And I will leave out the Apple Pecan pie a la mode. Work in progress my friends.

No walking on the agenda for tonight, but it's on the books for tomorrow. I actually have some late night work to attend to, but thought I would share my food day with you guys, aren't you glad!!!

What about you guys, any GO TO meals or great lunch ideas you'd like to share????

Small Victories

Today was pretty miserable. After lunch I was on a full on decline. I had ZERO energy to do anything, more less just keep my eyes open. I would have been more excited about the work day being over had I not already committed to going grocery shopping tonight. :( I picked up Vance and dragged my ass to the store, pouting the whole way. After about a filling our cart to the brim, we headed for the check out and I was ready for bed! I got home, unpacked groceries and resisted EVERY temptation in my body to change into pj's and climb into bed. Not only did I resist, I what you call rebelled against my fatigued, changed into workout clothes and went for a walk. Can you believe it!!! I'm not going to pretend this is the start of something big or a huge turning point, but I am going to celebrate the small victory, because I got off my lazy ass and did something, ANYTHING. It may have only been for a small period of time, but it was something and I'll take it. As much as I wanted to stop, I just kept looking up and saying, "Little bit further, Steph."  It was a pretty night for a walk and I will do my best to remember feeling accomplished tonight to motivate me to many more evening (or any time) walks. :)

Looking forward to shrinking this girl!

Distractions

Holidays are hard. If attempting to change your normal lifestyle wasn't difficult enough, add on top of it the everyday extra distractions that make good choices EVEN MORE DIFFICULT to make. Just this weekend alone I had more distractions that had me cheating on my healthy eating choices left and right. And left me feeling super deflated and thinking this goal of mine is NEVER going to happen. Saturday morning I had an early morning date with the Dyer's at the hospital. 7 am is very early for me, so I opted to pick up breakfast tacos for everyone and a small coke. Not really the breakfast of champions. Around Noon, the hospital decided to kick us out and send the Dyer's packing. I followed them home and picked up a quick lunch of chicken tenders. Another no-no! The remainder of the afternoon was spent snuggling little man and trying desperately to keep my eyes open. About 4:00pm I left for home and started baking for Easter Sunday. At 7:00pm we left for dinner with a couple of Vance's friend's at Baby A's. (Mexican food restaurant) I shared fajitas with Vance and finished the night with a cup of coffee. Sunday morning we headed over to my parents where I probably had the WORST day since my low-sodium diagnosis. With so much food and most if home made, it's almost impossible to track the sodium and even more impossible to control my desire to eat a little bit of everything. I'm quickly finding this whole journey to be even more difficult that I thought it was! A few photos from our Easter Sunday...

Egg Hunting!

One of the MANY temptations!

Pretty much sums up how I felt after my TERRIBLE eating choices!

So now I am reaching out into the blog-o-sphere, what do you guys do to stay on track during the day to day distractions?

Two Out of Three

Somebody please, PLEASE, intervene. I'm thinking I need to be on that show called Addiction. My name is Stephanie and I am addicted to screwing up my entire day by eating the world's shittiest dinner! The last two days I have done sooooo good with my breakfast and lunch selections, just to completely screw it all up with terrible, TERRIBlE, dinner choices. What's up with that! Last night it was Carl's Jr. And tonight Mr. Gatti's. Again, as I'm logging my food into my app, I'm just disappointed and disgusted. So maybe the food journal if is doing its job! I think tomorrow, before I decide what to eat for dinner , I am going to re-read yesterday's and today's posts as a reminder of what NOT to do.

Now that all the bashing is out, I will end on a positive note. This morning I stopped myself from putting that third tsp of sugar in my coffee. Nothing huge, but it's something. And after the last two days I've had, I'll take it.

Nothing to report in the exercise front.
:( I'm hoping for a better post tomorrow, will you hope with me?

Guilty

Whoa, today was such a bitter sweet day. Let me start with the sweet, today we welcomed Brody Dean Dyer into the world! Brody, Momma and Daddy are all doing great and we can't be more happy for the new little family.

Now, for the bitter. Breakfast and lunch were great today and I was feeling really positive about my eating decisions. But dinner came around and after waiting around for Brody at the hospital for 3 hours, Vance has a hankerin' for Carl's Jr. which we passed on the way in. As supportive as Vance is, the truth of the matter is he's not the one who is on a low-sodium diet and I don't expect him to have to make the sacrifices I do. But, instead of just letting him order his food and I eat something at home, I gave in and ordered a burger, fries and a coke! Can you say no, no? I finished the burger but passes on the fries and only had a few sips of the coke and I feel miserable. I'm sitting here totally disappointed in myself and with a rather upset stomach to add on top of that. More importantly, I'm sitting wondering when and where I'll find the strength to rise above these situations and make the better choices.

Not the best way to start my three day weekend, but there's always tomorrow, right? Until then, I'll leave you with this sweet face, which makes everything better!

P.S. I'm Fat

I think the bulk of these first posts are going to be really figuring out the reasons why I am here, as in here at this junction in my life. So please forgive all the internal thoughts rambling out over this blog, but a girls got to do, what a girls got to do. 

I think one of the MAJOR factors that has kept me from really doing something about my weight is that, I don't want to come to the realization that I'm fat. I know it's hard to believe that I don't know this already, but  it's the truth. I don't feel fat all the time, because most of the time I avoid mirrors and pictures and things that remind me of my actual size. I have a lot of friends and family that love me and find me funny and entertaining and I guess some where deep done I think to myself, fat people aren't funny and loved! How terrible is that? I also have an amazing man that chose me to love for the rest of his life and why on earth would he pick a fatty!? Denial much? I don't share my weight with him because it embarrasses me. But the truth of the matter is, telling him, or anyone for that matter, how much I weight couldn't possibly come as a shock, because note to self, I am fat. I am over weight. I am not healthy. It's no secret, it's not headline news. But I guess to me, it is. I try to cling to the mantra that I love the big me, the curvy me, the me just the way I am. I try to tell myself the trendy plus size clothes make my size okay, but for me, it's not. Now let me say this. I love, LOVE, curvy women. Always have, always will. And in my quest for health, I seek to find a happy place where working out and eating are things I do to nourish my body, and make me the best me I can be. I hope to God, that still includes my curves. I love my big booty and my hips and I hope they follow me everywhere I go, they are a part of me and I embrace and celebrate them and so does my husband. 

So to help me remember what it is I'm working towards, I printed a bunch of hot mama's and posted them up on the mirror in my bathroom. Surprisingly, Vance was totally cool with sexy, half-naked women pictures going up. :)

Unfortunately I have to report we did not make our early morning walk today, but I did track everything I ate in my new MyFitnessPal app on my iphone. Yes, I even tracked the cherry pie and ice cream. We had a great dinner of roast chicken, with roasted red potatoes and steamed broccoli. It was delicious, fulfilling and totally LOW sodium. Super score.

So what do you do to stay motivated???? Anyone else finding it hard to start their workout regime?

***In personal news, we are awaiting the arrival of our best friends first baby boy!!! She's been in the hospital since Tuesday night and little man is not budging. We're hoping the pitocin they are giving her this morning will jump start things. :)

Changes

Since my wedding blog days, I haven't really found a voice or a topic for a new blog, for THIS new blog. Crafting, cooking, home renovations, all the bright ideas have come and gone. It's not that I'm not passionate about those hobbies in my life, especially our house, but I just don't have burning desire to share those things with the world, like I did our wedding. Can't really blame myself for it. But what sucks, is I always did enjoy blogging. Wanting to blog and having nothing blog about puts a blogger in a sort of awkward position. So with my spare time I've been the opposite of a blogger, I've been a READER! It's so funny to have seen my Google Reader morph into what it's become today. I've gone from following EVERY WEDDING BLOG KNOW TO MAN, to following home renovation blogs like, Young House Love, one of my faves, home styling blogs like, Style By Emily Henderson, who is ever so quirky and funny and I totally want to be her BFF so we can laugh at our stupid jokes that we think are funny, but really, are SUPER funny, and fashion blogs like, Kendi Everyday, whose closet I want to RAID! I've also have become oober curious of weight loss blogs. Every couple of weeks I get on a google search kicks that send to all sorts of weight loss blogs. I can't really put my criteria in words as to what constitutes a great weight loss blog in my head, but I have to admit, I'm VERY picky. I've read through quite a few now and they always have the same affect on me, I close the link thinking, I should do that. So last night, while in bed at a ripe 7:30pm due to a recent battle with bronchitis, I found my self on a weight loss blog mad search. Link after link, I clicked, looked, read and closed. And then I found it, there embedded beneath layers of Google pages, Project 365. Immediately, I scrolled to the bottom of the page to watch her progression unfold in front of me, AMAZING! Her weight loss journey started 365 lbs and as of today, well as of 03/16/2012, she is at 199lbs! Is that just not incredible. So after my initial scroll through, I started from the very beginning and have been reading through her 365 day challenge, I am on Day# 70. She is young and funny and honest and so, so brave for sharing her journey. She posts pictures, weigh ins, struggles, good days and bad and I TOTALLY admire her for that. If this isn't all snowballing into the inevitable, I have decided to start writing about my own weight loss. I'm not ready for a challenge, nor do I think last night has all of a sudden sent me into a healthy living frenzy, but what I do know is that losing weight has been a constant goal I've wanted to achieve and it has yet happened. I've been waiting for my AHA moment, where one incident kicks me into gear, but at this point, I don't think that's happening. So I am going to take finding this blog as a sign, a sign that maybe starting this blog is something I should do and sharing my story with whomever will read it, is a good thing and a step in the right direction.

So where do I stand today? Today I stand here with a lot of weight to lose. I am not at the point where I'm at peace with sharing my starting weight, but I can tell you I have a goal over being under 200 lbs and have a little under a 100lbs that need to go to get there. WOW, even that was hard. That number STILL surprises me because I have always justified my weight to my height, but the fact of the matter is, I'm just not THAT tall. :) I haven't always been heavy either, so I think along with other issues, I'm battling a hard case of denial. My weight gain started my freshman year of college, but for much more reasons that the freshman 15. In 2001, I had the first of 3 back surgeries (disk fusions), the last one being in about 2006 I think. Bear with me, I'm getting old! With each surgery, my activity level gradually diminished and today I have to say I don't consider myself an "active" person. Just a mere 10 years ago I was playing volleyball several times a week, going to gym because (OH MY GOSH) I actually enjoyed it and really eating anything I wanted. These days I have to talk myself into doing anything remotely aerobic and that makes me a sad. I've tried the gym, zumba classes and even walking in our neighborhood with a friend, but nothing has stuck. Our social calendar tends to get in the way of anything routine after work and I am not the most pleasant morning person. But at some point, something has to give. And at least the desire to change has never gone away. Now I just have to find the self discipline and control. Which is a great segue to talk to you about my eating habits.

TERRIBLE, that is the best way to describe my eating habits. I mean as I'm typing this, I'm eating a slice of cherry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. THAT is the ugly truth. I recently was diagnosed with Meniere's disease. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, the day I got the diagnosis was the first day I've heard of it as well. If you want the long story, click the link, the short story is it's an inner ear disorder that causes vertigo-like symptoms, NO FUN. There are a few ways to treat, but we've opted to start with a low-sodium diet, a 1500mg of sodium a day, low-sodium diet to be exact. NO FUN and not easy. Everything has sodium, even things you think would be super healthy have sodium, so it's been a bot of a nightmare. But just the finding Tiffany's blog, I am taking this diagnosis as a sign. A sign that something needs to change. I don't desire to be a girl who doesn't eat cherry pie or bread or things with fat in them or gluten in them. I don't desire to never be able to eat out at restaurants because I'm on some weird diet plan which only allows me to eat squirrel food. But I do desire to be healthy and not overweight. I want to have a bad day and not feel like the piece of chocolate cake is the only thing that will make it better. I want to find the self control to not eat something sweet after EVERY meal, just because I can. It's going to be a long road, but that's expected. 

I have a lot of hurdles to clear. Managing to do them all at the same time seems to be a little overwhelming and quickly feels like I am setting myself up for failure, so I've decided to take them a little at a time. The long term goal for losing almost 100lbs seems totally out of reach, so I think for me baby steps are the best way to go. I've asked my husband, Vance, to get up early with me to start walking the neighborhood. Even 20 or 30 minutes is something, rather than nothing. And I am going to start a food journal. YES, I've already written down the piece of cherry pie!!!! And the ice cream, promise. I think it's easy to eat and forget, so I am hoping eating, writing and remembering will cause me to reflect and start to really think about what I am choosing to put in my mouth. We'll see!

So welcome, should you choose to come along for the ride. It feels really good to have found my voice, my outlet again. I can't promise it will always be about weight loss, there are other things swirling around in our life, but whatever it is I chose to share, I can promise you one thing...I will keep it as real and as entertaining as possible. :)