Saturday, April 28, 2012

March of Dimes Walk #1

Today was the March of Dimes walk (the first one). I walked 5.5 miles, most of which I pushed my youngest in a jogging stroller...but she got tired of that after awhile so I held her for awhile and also pushed my two boys in a double jogging stroller for a little while too. I got A...L...O...T of exercise...at least for me! : ) I finished strong and wasn't as dead tired as I thought I would be. I did however develop a headache about half way through and once the walk was over it just got worse, so when I got home I took some headache medicine and laid down for an hour or two. What a great husband I have to let me take a nap. : )

We're doing it again tomorrow...but six miles this time! Yikes! My feet didn't hurt at all on the walk today...after my nap however...ouch! I'm hoping they are ship shape again by morning. If I'm still alive after tomorrow than I know I'll be capable of doing the 10 mile walk in the Crim in August...especially after training three months for it.

I am pretty tired so I'll leave you with a photo of my kids posing on a motorcycle at the first check point on the walk. Unfortunately we didn't take any more pictures after that. Although the local newspaper took quite a few pictures of my kids so I'm hoping they'll be in the paper! I cropping myself out of the photos. I can't believe how overweight I look!!! I wish I looked how I think I look in my head!!! Pretty depressing...I need to change that so next year at the walk I can be proud of the pictures I'm in and wear the extra shirt I ordered for myself in a size Medium!!! ; )

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!



Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I'm Back...I Guess...

Well, we're all moved in...mostly...there are still some things at the old place and a zillion boxes to unpack at the new place, but we're getting there. This last several days have NOT been fun. I won't go into all of the stressful details because this is not a blog about unexpected appliance complications and such.

It is however a weight loss blog...and I have NOT lost any weight...at least I'm pretty confident about that...my scale is still at the old house. I haven't weighed myself since Friday the 13th I believe! I've been to afraid too. With packing, moving, and unpacking there has been NO grocery shopping for healthy meals and TONS of fast food and junk! : ( I'm feeling pretty horrible about it all...mentally and physically! I can tell that I've taken in a TON of salt! To top it all off...my right foot is hurting me now!!! Just when my left foot gets (mostly) pain free and with less than a week before the March of Dimes walks (11 miles total over two days)!!! I'm not backing out of those walks though! I have an awesome team walking with me and I'm not letting them, my kids, or those babies I'm walking for down!

My Crim training is getting closer and I'm getting more and more excited about it. I really feel like this will be my turning point (I sure hope it is)! We have a "Meet and Greet" a week from tomorrow, where we'll meet our group leader and other group members. I'm really looking forward to that as well as the "Pre-training Clinic"  where they will assess us physically as kind of a 'before' and then we'll return near the end of training to be reassessed and see how we've improved!

I should be back to regular blogging now and will be getting back on track with my eating as well...I'd better! Its really frustrating when I look back to how I felt when I decided to start this journey back in January...How I planned to lose 10 pounds a month and how it seemed like April/May and 40 pounds lost seemed forever away...now here I sit STILL just 10 pounds or so down (I hope) and the time has flown by!!! Does anyone else ever feel like this? I've had it happen to me EVERY time I try to lose weight. Where I feel like time goes by soooo slow when I'm trying to see results on the scale and then I seem to zip forward several months with no improvement. Its very discouraging! I have a couple weddings to attend this year and I don't want to feel super self conscious in 'fancy clothes'. I use to love going out shopping for a new 'dress-up' outfit for something formal...now it makes me cringe and feel nauseous!

Sorry I'm such a downer today. I need some inspiration...guess I better head over to Runs For Cookies and catch up on the posts I've missed! Just LOVE her! : )

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Reality Check

I went to the doctor today. I initially made the appointment just to get a referral to see my neurologist (crap...I forgot to call them and set up an appointment...ugh), but then I had the infected toe, which led to the hurt foot after my walk. So I decided to have the doctor take a look and let him know that I had been given a scholarship for the Crim training program and was trying to lose weight. Now, I realize that I have weight to lose (duh, I started this weight loss blog, am 'trying' to be on a diet, and am a part of a weight loss challenge), but I have never had a doctor say to me "Yes, you really need to work on getting your weight down." It was very uncomfortable for me to have him telling me that I needed to lose weight and how I should do that. I smiled and nodded my head but inside I was yelling at him "YOU DON'T THINK I KNOW ALL THIS!!! I KNOW I NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT...I'M WORKING ON IT!!!"
I don't know why it is that I can't hear these things from 'certain' people. I know I absolutely HATE in when my husband makes any comment about my attempts to lose weight. If he asks me how much I lost at a weigh in or especially if he asks if something I'm eating is part of my diet...I just want to rip his head off! I'm like the hulk and discussing my weight loss journey makes me green with anger. "You don't want to SEE me when I'm ANGRY!" Now that I'm sitting here and really thinking about this behavior, I think I've come to the revelation that its when MEN talk to me about it. Hmmm...interesting.

Am I the only one who reacts like this?

***I may not have a new post for a few days, as we'll be moving over the next couple days...so please don't think Ive 'fallen off the wagon' so-to-speak...although the food part of this journey isn't going so well because of the move. I'm actually looking forward to going on a big shopping trip after we move and filling my brand new, side-by-side, beautiful refrigerator with fresh produce and other healthy meal options! : )

Sunday, April 15, 2012

I Love Nickelback...and BUSH

Last night I went to a concert that I bought tickets for a couple months ago. It was Nickelback with Bush, Seether, and My Darkest Days. Bush and Nickelback were AWESOME!!! In fact, they announced another show in Michigan on July 17th and my friend and I are planning to go and to get the BEST SEATS POSSIBLE, no matter the cost (well, almost no matter the cost...I have to be able to save up the money)! My friend turned into a teenage girl when Bush came out on stage! I thought she might rush the stage to get some of Gavin Rossdale's sweat on her! lol He is a VERY good looking man. I wish we would've been close enough to get a good picture for you, but no such luck. : (

Here's a picture of Nickelback on their platform that flew over the crowd!

I haven't been able to go to the gym to work out...but I've gotten plenty of exercise...and yes, I consider going to that concert exercise! I did lots of screaming, dancing, and jumping up and down. Then tonight I went over to the new house and did a lot of cleaning.

This morning was my 'normal' weigh in day and I was still at 233 lbs. but I just weighed in on Friday so I wasn't really expecting it to go down much in two days. I'm hoping to have a big loss this week, but that may be hard, what with moving. I have a feeling there won't be much cooking, but lots of eating out. Guess I'll just try to make the best choices I can. That's all I can do, right?

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Week 1 Challenge Weigh In

Today was our week 1 weigh in for the 12 week challenge. I lost one pound, which isn't impressive, but its still a loss! Which means that I don't have to add any money to the prize pot! Yippy! : )

I purchased the Omron Fat Loss Monitor from Amazon.com (through Runs for Cookies "Favorite Things" link) and received it in the mail yesterday.

Sorry the picture is blurry. I took it with my phone's camera...which is crappy...I have yet to join the 'smart phone' cult. Its disgusting to see that I am close to 50% fat!!! Yuck!!! Good thing that's changing. : )

I went in today to register for the Crim Training Program (I added a link so you can see what it is I've been talking about)! I'm getting really excited about it. I really hope my foot cooperates for me. It does seem to be feeling a little better. I'm going to see my family doctor on Tuesday, so I'll have him check it out for me.

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I went over to the new house last night and put a second coat of paint...Froggy Green...on my boys' bedroom walls. The guy we hired to paint left streaks and only put one coat on the walls so you could still see the pink peeking through. I told David that I wouldn't need an extension pole because I wasn't worried about getting all the way up to the ceiling (it looked pretty well covered by the ceiling). Boy was I wrong...but I got a workout...so I'm not complaining...much. : ) We still have to paint the kids bedroom and closet doors. The guy primed them but never finished painting them. He also didn't finish painting the trim...so we'll have to do that to! It's so unnerving because we PAID this guy to paint everything for us so that we wouldn't have to and he didn't finish his job!!! *Ok...there's my vent for the day. : ) Thanks for listening.

I hope everyone has a LUCKY Friday the 13th! : )

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

I Got It!!!

I received a phone call today that I was selected for one of twenty scholarships for the Crim training program!!! I was so surprised!!! I never 'win' anything! I have an appointment on Friday to register. I'm really excited to see what all it entails...I'll be sure to let you know what I find out on Friday. I'm really thinking that this is going to be the push...nay...SHOVE I need to get me into this journey mentally.

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I went over to the new house last night to get some things cleaned up. It was a little creepy being there all by myself...at night. It was SO quiet! lol You'd think I'd welcome the opportunity for silence but it just creeped (my spell check says that's not a word...hmmm) me out. I had to go in the basement to spray down some walls with bleach water that have mold on them. I've never lived in a house that had a basement so it was kind of creepy being down there...especially since the lighting is bad and the fact that the room I was spraying down reminds me of what one of Dexter's "kill rooms" would look like. *Major stupid points to me for calling it a "kill room" the first time I saw it resulting in making it seem even CREEPIER!!! (I've used a form of that word 4 times in this paragraph so far...lol) At least I got some exercise going up and down the basement stairs several times because I kept forgetting stuff upstairs. I haven't been able to get to the gym in a week so I wasn't complaining. I vacuumed the whole house as well...which was quite a workout too...there isn't any furniture to take up any space so it was ALOT of carpet to vacuum. Tonight I went and shampooed the carpets...fun fun! My good friend Kari came over though to chat with me while I cleaned and to just keep me company...so I wasn't as creeped out! lol *Had to use the word one more time. ; )

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry that it has been so long since I've posted but this week has been pretty crazy. First, I should say that I have COMPLETELY fallen off the diet wagon. I haven't been counting calories, making healthy food choices, and I haven't been to the gym since Tuesday!!! Honestly, I haven't been to the gym because I have been busy every night since Tuesday, but it still bothers me that its been 4 days.

Here's the run down on what I've been up to this last week...

On Wednesday night I went and saw Titanic with my good friend Kristin. This was only the third or fourth time that I have seen anything is 3D and really, the first "movie"...I've been on a couple 'adventure' movie rides. I don't really think it needed to be converted into 3D...but it was kind of cool at the very beginning when they showed underwater footage of the wrecked ship and it made it look like you were actually down in the ocean looking at it! Anyways, I saw Titanic 3 times when it first came out in theaters. It was the first movie I ever saw more than one time in theater. I LOVED it and was IN LOVE with Leonardo DiCaprio (LOVED his hair!!! lol)!!! Well, it was just as good as I remember it and it took me back in time...that is...until the teenage girl behind me started commentating NON-STOP!!! Now, I'm a movie talker...but I lean into my movie companions ear and I WHISPER!!! She wasn't whispering...far from it...practically yelling (this was when all the action in the movie was going on)!!! I did all of the subtle tells...adjusting in my seat, shaking my head, glancing back...none of it worked...so I finally (and it takes a LOT for me to do this) turned about and said...pretty loudly because the movie was loud "Could you please be quiet?!" She didn't even look my way and DID NOT stop talking!!! She completely ruined some of the most emotional parts of the movie!!! Therefore, I am going to see it again (and if you're counting...that will make 5 times seen in theater...a record for me), with my 17 year old brother, who's never seen it in its entirety...should be a much better experience.

Thursday...oh Thursday *sigh*...I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off!!! We had a birthday party for our oldest son who turned five (five?!?) on Friday. With all of the stress and preoccupation going on with buying the house I wasn't really planning well for the party. I hadn't even ordered his cake. My plan was to go out early to Meijer and ask if they would still be able to make a Spiderman cake for my birthday boy. I didn't get there until noon but they said they could have the cake ready by 3:00pm. (His party was to start at 4:00pm at our local Chuck E. Cheese). I then decided I was going to make two other trips before stopping and getting some balloons and then picking up his cake. One to the health department to get a copy of a map showing where the septic system is at our new home and another to the township office to get a copy of a map of our property lines. Many mother's out there know how difficult it is to tote three young children around to places like these. So, by the time I got back to Meijer to pick up the cake I was running a half hour late...but I still managed to get us to Chuck E. Cheese (almost) on time. He didn't have the greatest turn out...but he didn't notice or care (only Mommy does that). He had a lot of fun! He loves taking his picture in the booth...he'd rather do that than play any of the other games...we must have brought home 20 printed photos! : )

Friday was my oldest babies 5th birthday. As has become the custom, I took him to the local mall to get his pictures taken (he's such a ham...he was having so much fun posing), played with a puppy at the pet store, had lunch, and the all important ice cream. Then we headed back home where I started cleaning up the destruction that is our home! What with packing and my horrible housekeeping skills our house was the worst I've ever seen it (and that's saying something)! My foot has still been bothering me pretty bad so I was taking it slow and it felt like I wasn't getting anything done...but I had to because we had some of our close friends and my sister and niece coming over to have cake and ice cream for Jacob's birthday. When my husband got home, although he wasn't very happy about it (and made sure I knew that), he helped me finish cleaning up and by the time everyone got here the main rooms of the house (bedroom doors were caution taped off) were presentable. My sister has just started college at a culinary arts school. She loves baking especially and wanted to make Jacob's cake...Spiderman of course...and everyone loved it! I know what you're thinking..."Erin! You're on a diet!"...rest assured I didn't have any cake...but that's really only because I'm not a huge cake fan. I did have a bowl of superman ice cream (which turned into several bowls over the weekend...ugh).

My birthday boy with the Spiderman cake his Aunt made for him. : )

Saturday brought an kids Easter party that we were invited to by the parents of a little girl that Jacob bowled with on a 10 week league. They own a party rental company, so they had some bounce houses set up and had other fun activities for the kids. The boys had a lot of fun. Little Isabel grew restless after about two hours (way past her nap time). Luckily the party was literally right around the corner from my in-laws, so I took Isabel over there to spend some time with Grammy. Back at the party the boys participated in an Easter egg hunt and saw the Easter bunny. My only negative remark about the party was that the egg hunt and Easter bunny time was at the very end of the time allotted for the party. I'm not sure if this was planned that way or if things were a little unorganized because this was only either the first or second time they had done this party. We will definitely return again if we are invited next year and are planning to rent one of their bounce houses for Nathan's 4th birthday in August! We didn't get home until after Isabel and Nathan's bed times...but we still hadn't colored our Easter eggs...so we did that too.

A cool roller coaster car..um..'thing' they had there...I would really love to get one for the kids!

Nathan talking to the Easter bunny...he wouldn't sit with him last week for a picture though!

Isabel just before she decided that she'd had enough of that party.

Today, Sunday, was (as everyone knows) Easter. We went to church. Now, I am a Christian, and David and I have been talking about finding a new church closer to where we live for awhile now...but shamefully have not done it. So we rarely go to church since my church is a couple of towns over and takes nearly an hour to get there. Not to mention that the congregation is an older one, so they do not have any kids programs or areas. Hence, the disaster that was Easter service!!! Isabel, who is normally so quiet, decided she was going to try out her lungs during service...which was cute for about 2 minutes but then got excessive. So I went to the back of the church (its a very small, one room church...typical white w/ steeple church) but she didn't really quiet down...and because I left our seats, my boys wanted to know where I went and follow me. Enter, 3 year old stomping back and forth between the back of the church and the row we had been sitting in. By the end of the service, my entire family was standing in the back of the church...and my husband was livid! I wasn't too happy myself...I was really looking forward to hearing the sermon and didn't get to...I was too busy trying to quiet my kids and wondering what everyone else was thinking. After that disaster was over we headed over to my Grandfather's house to visit and have our Easter egg hunt for the kids. They had a lot of fun and I had a lot of fun watching them. Jacob also got to fly a kite for the first time, his Spiderman kite that he got from someone at his birthday party. I even flew it for a minute...I haven't done that since I was a little kid! It was so much fun. David said how he had forgotten how much fun it was to fly a kite and now wants to get a "real" one. *The Spiderman one was lost to a 30 ft. tree before we left. : (

*SIGH* So you see how busy and stressed I've been (and I even left some stuff out...I didn't want to bore you to death...or make you read a 30 page post) and it hasn't helped my diet at all. This last week was full of fast food and junk food. Not to mention that my weight loss challenge started on Friday!!! I better get my butt in gear tomorrow...I don't want to have to add to the pot this coming Friday if I don't lose any weight!

I hope everyone has a great week. I'm hoping mine will be much less stressful (yeah right...getting closer to moving out/moving in). I'll be seeing Titanic again on Wednesday and then I'm going to see Nickelback on Saturday!!!! I can't wait...LOVE that band!!! As an added bonus, one of the three bands opening is Bush...which I really loved when I was in high school!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Money, where did you go?

It's been a busy weekend. What with, closing on our new house! We did end up getting the keys on Friday and so my husband jumped right into things. We had a company come out and fill the propane tank (SUPER EXPENSIVE) and the paint guys were out Friday evening to start patching holes and then on Saturday they were painting the ceilings and we had a guy come out to assess our water softener...turns out it was shot and we had to buy a new one...not the greatest news, but the guy was able to replace it that day! Things are moving along. We went appliance shopping today...HOLY MOLY...we're going to drop a pretty penny on all of the appliances.


Crappy camera phone picture of our new house...it doesn't do it justice though...and we need to do some landscaping.

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I went to the gym Saturday night. I know! I'm shocked too! lol I didn't really want to at all, but I went and I'm so glad I did. Since my foot is still VERY painful I rode the recumbent bike again. I brought my new Garmin Forerunner along this time so that I could track my heart rate (not that I have any idea where my heart rate should be) and my calories burned. I rode for 30 minutes (32 if you count the 2 minute cool down) and did what I guess is called intervals? I did two laps at a level 6 and 70 RPM and one lap at level 10 and 80 RPM. My heart rate got up to 129 at its highest. I'll have to look up what my "target heart rate" should be when working out. I was a little bummed afterwards. I felt like I had worked out pretty hard and the bike's monitor guesstimated that I burned 241 calories...when I checked my Garmin it said I only burned 146 calories!!! What a let down...I felt like I burned 1,000!!! I was happy with how much I pushed myself this last time so I think I'll keep with this routine for a week or so and then start to increase it somewhat.

I'm really hoping that my foot starts to get better soon! I was in agony walking around the appliance stores today...hobbling around behind my husband. A friend of mine who is a physical therapist said that she would meet up with me and give me some tips on how to help it heal. I'll be really bummed if I am offered the Crim training scholarship and cannot participate because of my foot! Guess its a good thing that I signed up for my first 5K in October! I really do want to give running a try and it makes me very angry that I went and injured myself the FIRST time I went out on a walk! Who does that??? My husband makes it a point to rub that in too.

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I'll be starting my 12 week weight loss challenge next Friday, but I still did my "normal" weigh in today (and I still plan to do my personal weigh in on Sunday's). I was back up to 235 lbs.!!! I'm really starting to HATE that number!!! I better not see it again after this week either because for our weight loss challenge we have decided to have a prize for the winner. We will each bank $5 in a pot and then if we gain or even just stay the same we have to add another $1 to the pot! With all of these house expenses I can't afford to gain or stay the same. : ) What a motivation, right? I can't wait to see how we all do!

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One last thing...

I've been completing some of the things on my 30x30 list and I thought I would share what book I'm currently reading. I just got done reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave which was my pick for this months book club meeting, which is this coming Tuesday night. So I've moved onto another book, Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. She wrote The Time Traveler's Wife, which I LOVED!!! I'll let you know how I like it when I'm done. I'm only about 30 pages in so far, not enough for any judgements.