Questioning

I have some very exciting news: I put on a bikini from 3 years ago the other night to do some progress pictures and it didn't look totally disgusting!! In fact, aside from having more belly fat, it actually fit my hips better than it ever has. That's pretty awesome. Reasoning behind randomly putting a bikini on when it's October: I figure I need to show a little more of my body in my progress photos if I'm (supposedly) no longer tracking weight. This way I can actually SEE the difference. I feel like it's hard to tell sometimes with the black workout pants, and I feel like a lot of my change is happening in the leg/hip/butt area. Maybe I can find some of those workout short-shorts on clearance at Target and use those with a sports bra instead of the bikini. My husband might appreciate that a little more lol.

What do you guys think? Workout shorts/sports bra, or just go all the way with the bikini? 

Other somewhat exciting news: I'm down to 195.

Let that sink in for a minute...

Funny story: Friday morning I rolled out of bed and without even thinking about it stepped on that scale. And then immediately was like, "OH! NO no no!!" But then I looked at that number and thought, "Yes, yes, yes. YESSSSS!!!"

Eating is working.

I know that seems like a strange thing to say, but it's true. I tracked calories last week, but wasn't incredibly worried over how much I was actually eating. Apparently my body likes it when I eat. I averaged just over 2,000 calories a day for the whole week. I lost 2 lbs. I lost 2 lbs on the weekend going into starting my period. That hasn't happened to me once this entire year up until now. Usually I see a 2-3 lbs gain on a Friday before starting my period.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject of nutrition and metabolism lately, especially in reference to strength training and the effect nutrition has on the results of that strength training. Basically you can't build muscle and boost your metabolism if you're starving. That seems like a "duh" statement, but you'd be surprised. Currently I'm going through the nutritional chapters of The New Rules of Lifting for Women - if you've been trying to lose weight/fat by extreme calorie restriction while adding regular exercise into your daily or near-daily routine and are seeing no or slow results with that method, I really recommend reading this book. It's essentially the same stuff I've been reading for the last few years (since getting "into" health and fitness) about calorie-restrictive diets - ie: they don't work long term. Because you can't teeter on starvation for the rest of your life. It's as simple as that. The reoccurring theme being put across by these certified trainers, physiologists, nutritionist/dieticians, and medical doctors is that the key is WHAT you eat, not necessarily how much. And in order to build muscle, you must EAT - regularly (y'know, like all three meals a day plus a snack or two), until you're satiated, and especially post-workout. You must EAT - protein, fat and the dreaded carbs. You must EAT - real food, not pre-made, processed diet meals from your grocer's freezer section.

Eat, eat, eat!! Eating is good! Calories are good! Full-fat is good!

Did you know you burn 20% of your calories during the day digesting? But if you aren't eating, you can't digest, which means less calorie burning, which equals a slower metabolism. Your body is highly adaptable and designed to run as efficiently as possible on the food/energy you put into it. This means if you are only eating 1,000 calories a day - your body will learn to exist on only 1,000 calories a day. And what does that mean? It means that it rearranges it's priorities in order to keep your brain functioning, heart beating, lungs breathing, etc. (think vital organs), and puts things like (as a woman) your reproductive organs on the back burner. If you're starving, why would biology want to work hard to make a baby for you? Your body doesn't know we live in 2012 where food is always readily available at every turn and you're just starving yourself on purpose. Your body thinks you're still living in 1243 AD and the harvest was ruined by drought.

Long story short: weight loss - more importantly, FAT LOSS - is much more than calories in/calories out. The calories in part is more vital than we want to believe.

So what is considered "extreme calorie restriction" by these various publications I've read? Essentially anything under 1400 calories/day. Even if you're only 5 feet tall or smaller. By restricting your caloric intake and upping your physical activity (more with high-cardio vs. strength training, but occurs in both depending on your restriction), you may see the number on the scale come down (not everyone does, though, like moi), but you're not just losing fat - in fact, you aren't even mostly losing fat. You're losing mostly muscle fibers and bone mass. That's right. BONE MASS.

Pretty scary stuff, huh? But probably not scary enough to spook you into eating a "normal" calorie intake on a regular basis. The indoctrination by our diet-driven society is ridiculous. Let's do ourselves a favor: stop starving ourselves and EAT!

Here's a nifty little formula for you to know where you should be on your calories:

To calculate BMR:

1. Take your body weight and divide by 2.2 to get your body weight in kilograms (round to the nearest whole number). Example: I weigh 195lbs: 195/2.2 = 88.64, nearest whole number is 89.
2. Take your weight in kgs and multiply by 7.18 (again round), then add 795. Example: 89 x 7.18 = 639.02   639+795 = 1,434

So my BMR is 1,434. I would burn this many calories if I laid in bed all day and did absolutely nothing. Doctor's would feed me this many calories via a feeding tube if I were in a coma in order to keep my vital organs functioning. 

To calculate how many calories you would eat to maintain your current body weight:

1. Find your BMI here.  Example: I'm 70" tall, I weigh 195lbs, my BMI is: 28
2. If your BMI is between 18 and 24.9 multiply your BMR by: 1.6 (non-workout days) or 1.8 (workout days)
3. If your BMI is greater than 25 multiply your BMR by: 1.5 (non-workout days) or 1.7 (workout days)

For me, this equals approximately 2,150 on a non-workout day and 2450 on a workout day. New Rules for Lifting for Women recommends not cutting any more than 300 calories off this number to begin with since that magic "500" is not really so magic afterall since, as I mentioned earlier, the calories in/calories out concept is dated and far more complicated than just your net calorie intake.

Also, please keep in mind, that your workout day calories are your calories BEFORE exercise - since ideally any exercise you'd be doing would burn roughly the difference between your workout-day/non-workout day numbers.

**Please keep in mind that every body is different and you may have to test eating more/less calories until you find that "sweet" spot that works for your body**

As I mentioned, I averaged about 2,000 calories last week overall. I'm going to adjust my MyFitnessPal calories today to make that my new mark in an effort to embrace feeding my body instead of starving it. I won't lie to you and say that it doesn't terrify me a little bit even though it's only 200 calories/day more than where I was.

Would you consider upping your calorie goals to see if it stimulates your body to start dropping weight/fat? Does the idea terrify you? Leave me a comment about it!

Challenge: Scale-free in October!

Okay, okay, so I know we are already 4 days INTO October, but I can't seem to get a post banged out on any other day than Thursday these last few weeks.

"Official" rules of the challenge:

1. Get starting weight and measurements, then ditch the scale starting on 10/1/12! (or today, if you want to play along and weren't reading my mind)

1. Continue to follow whatever diet/exercise plan you are currently following, or start a new one! (I am currently doing Rachel Cosgrove's Female Body Breakthrough for my workouts, and tracking calories along with making healthier food choices for my "diet")

Also, as you all have seen from little chart to the right-hand side or on MyFitnessPal or just being a regular reader of this blog, I have been gaining weight pretty steadily. I mentioned last post that I was up to 201. Well Sunday morning I weighed in again and was at 197.4 which is what I'm using as my "start" weight above for scale-free October. 197 = much better than 201. There must have been some serious water retention going on. 
I'm hoping this month of not having my mood based on the fluctuation or non-fluctuation of my weight will get some stress off my shoulders. Too bad my kids, my husband, my job, and my household chores can't be less stressful, too! Here's hoping to positive results... and if I gain 10lbs, not spiraling into a hot mess of no-workouts-eat-whatever-I-want-sleep-all-the-time-ness.
I took my measurements this past weekend and they were as follows (beginning measurements were as of 8/17/12 - new measurements in blue):

Measurements as of 9/30/2012:

·  Estimated Body Fat % (YMCA formula): 33% - 33%

·  Weight: 195.8 lbs - 197.4lbs

·  Waist: 34” / 38” at navel - 34" / 37.25" at naval

·  Chest: 41" (original across bust) - 36" (This is my measurement above-bust. I believe I will take under bust measurements as well since that is where I have a lot of fat right now. I don't really think it does me any good to measure across my actual breasts, as I really don't care how big and/or small they get.)

·  Hips: 45” - 44"

·  Thighs: 26” - 26"

·  Arms (flexed): 12” - 12.5" (gaining muscle?)

·  Jean/Pant Size: 14/16 - 14/16

·  Shirt Size: L - L 

So as we can see, there hasn't been a whole lot of change since 8/17 - but that's been just over a month ago and I JUST started regular exercise the first week in September. I'm also not 100% sure that my waist was 34" in August - I think it may have been more like 34.5" but I just rounded down. Doesn't do me a whole lot of good to lie to myself like that. It just makes me feel like I'm not progressing when I actually am. 



Okay, so there's that. Now, a wrap-up of the last week:

As I mentioned above, there's been a lot of stress and I have not been very good at UN-stressing. Everything kind of culminated for me on Wednesday and I ended up sitting in the bathroom at work crying for 10 minutes. Sometimes life just gets to be too much and you gotta cry it out. Unfortunately, sometimes that happens at work. Which is entirely unprofessional. I wish I could say that solved everything and made me feel infinitely better, but it did not. Today was not quite a difficult and work was a little less stressful other than realized I missed a major deadline on a couple things a couple months ago... but it wasn't as scary and fucked up as I originally thought it might be and the solution was pretty quick and simple. Let's hope it all stays that way.

On top of everything I'm fighting a cold. Sunday night into Monday I was very very stuffed up. I still did my workout Monday night and that seemed to really help clear me up. However, Wednesday morning I noticed that it may have just migrated to my chest. Super. Bring on the bronchitis! We aren't quite there yet... but I can feel it coming. I did not workout on Wednesday night. After my emotional breakdown at the office, I was exhausted. I couldn't build up the energy to get it done. I'm okay with it. I was still very sore last night from Monday, so maybe an extra rest day will do me some good this week. Definitely revving myself up for Friday, though! I really want to stick with this program as I feel so much better about my body already. Plus with eating more "clean" food at home for lunches instead of going out to eat everyday, I think I may see results much quicker... the key is keeping with the routine! 

Fighting

Still keeping up with the workouts, folks!

I moved into "Phase 2" of the Body Breakthrough workouts. I think I may hit a snag as I progress through this bad-boys, though, because I do not have a gym in my basement... only dumbbells, a stability ball, a flat bench, and a yoga mat. The more challenging workouts definitely require cable pulls and pull-up bars. I'm thinking about purchasing a pull-up bar - one of those you can install in a door frame. But for now I'm just googling "dumbell alternatives for [enter exercise here]" like a crazy person. So far, so good, but I'm not really sure how much longer I will be able to substitute before it effects my results. Maybe that's a negative view to have and it will all be just fine. We'll see.

I'm going to do new measurements this weekend and see if I made any progress - which I feel like I definitely have! My posture is definitely improving, which naturally makes me look a bit slimmer. No more of my grandfather threatening to strap a board to my back!

Okay, so we know that exercise is going well (can't say enough how proud I am of myself for this!!) - now I will talk on some of the food stuff I've been doing:

• I recently boosted my calorie-intake to 1,900/day from 1,800/day. I said I was going to do 2,000 - which honestly is what I'm aiming for - but it was screwing up my charts on MFP to increase it by that much. Also, I'm trying to boost my protein intake a little bit... and at 2,000 calories they were suggesting I eat something like 250g of protein a day - right now it's at, like, 195g which is still RIDICULOUS! I'm starting to feel like these online tools aren't as awesome as I'd like them to be.. and wondering if there might be something better out there that always also (Freudian slip - ALWAYS IPHONE!!) has an iPhone app. 
• I have switched to almost all full-fat dairy. Full-fat cheese, full-fat yogurt (plain greek is the only kind I can find full-fat that isn't super expensive baby yogurt), sour cream, and 2% milk. 
• The biggest difference, though, is I am now cooking almost every night or eating leftovers from a night I did cook. I am also eating lunch at home during the workweek, with the exception of one day where I can choose a restaurant. 

Since we are nearing the end of September (where does the time go?!), I figured I'd update everyone on my vices; drinking and smoking. I'm doing much better. There are now nights where I don't drink at all, or will maybe just have a few sips of Mike's beer. A lot of nights I'm only smoking 1 or 2 cigarettes - however, I'm still having my half-pack nights. The weather is getting much cooler now, so that will help cut that down since I do not smoke in my house.

Edit:
I began drafting this post Tuesday morning and am just now getting about to editing and adding some things. Tuesday morning I felt awesome about my workout. Last night was rough. Our oldest son had an hour-long meltdown. By the time is was over all I could think about was go outside and having a smoke - which I did. And then remembered "duh, this is Wednesday, this is workout B day"... but I wasn't trying to go workout for an hour at 8:30pm after having smoked like 3 cigarettes. That just sounded gross to me. I haven't taken more than one walk this week, either. Having lunch at home I feel like it's a little harder to motivate and/or not enough time to go walk the neighborhood vs walking around the pond next to our office building.

I'm getting very down on myself for skipping this workout. And technically it wasn't "skipped" because I will make it up tonight, and according to the Body Breakthrough plan you can do as few as 2 workouts/week, so I'm not ruining the progress I've made so far. I'm trying to tell myself that just because this week didn't work out the way it normally would/the way I'd like it to, doesn't mean everything is ruined and next week can still be great.

Another thing adding to this self-hate cycle: I stepped on the scale this morning (even though it's not my weigh-in day) and came in at 201lbs. That's a 5lb gain in a week. Aunt Flo will be visiting in a little over a week - but 5 lbs is not just water retention. I'd like to think it's muscle. I'd like to also quit being so scale obsessed and focus solely on how awesome I'm feeling about my body and my back-fat disappearing (!!), how my clothes fit better every week and I have more energy and look forward to my workouts. I guess it's just hammered into my head that I "can't be healthy" at 200lbs when the media inundates me with BMI charts showing that my "healthy weight" should be between 150 and 165. I need to reprogram, but I'm not entirely sure how to do that.

Maybe I should challenge myself to 6 weeks scale-free, only taking measurements weekly or bi-weekly and tracking that way. 

Should I ban the scale for a month or so? What do you think?

There is no excuse - and I'm the sweatiest person ever

I have not blogged in a week and I have no excuse. I’ve still been exercising, still been tracking calories. I guess you could say I’ve just been busy with, well, life. I mean, there is a reason this blog has been retitled… life has a tendency to get the best of me sometimes.

Let’s see… I last updated on Thursday, with every intention to post Friday. My 6 year old has judo on Friday nights. We don’t get home until 8 or after and at that point he’s usually on the verge of a meltdown because that is his usual bedtime and there is still the matter of bathing and teeth brushing and story reading to attend to. He gets a little cranky. I was hoping that after dealing with this crankiness that perhaps my wonderful husband would put the grumpy child to bed so that I might lift heavy things and sweat and breathe hard in an effort to look AWESOME. But no. This did not happen. Grumpy child needed mommy to do bedtime.

Bedtime did not go as smoothly as planned. It ended up being almost 8:45pm. Then my friend John came over. No exercise for mommy on Friday night.

I still had an awesome Friday night. It ended up being an impromptu party with John and Caitlin and Neal. And, as impromptu parties tend to do, this impromtu’d me to drink many of the beers… and when I say many, I only mean 5, but for some reason these were magically Miller Lites that made me much more inebriated than usual. I stayed up until 2am chatting and being wildly witty and entertaining (actually, probably not). I collapsed into bed and slept a deep sleep for… 4.5 hours. When my children awoke.

Now I was a grumpy mommy. And Grumpy Child was STILL a grumpy child from staying up too late the night before pitching a giant fit about bedtime. Grumpy Mommy + Grumpy Child = WORLD WAR III IN THE TROTT HOUSEHOLD!!!

From 7am until 10am (when Always Happy Baby went down for a nap), James (aka Grumpy Child) and I bit each other’s heads off, whined and complained (mostly him, but a little bit me too), and generally didn’t get along. I was so exhausted. I just wanted to take a nap in hopes that I could pull it together for my friend’s bridal shower and Bachelorette revisited later that day/night. The baby went down for a nap… and instead of crawling back into bed with my husband, I put on my workout clothes and headed to the basement for my workout!

I was so proud of myself. I was hungover, tired, grumpy… and I knew that pushing through that workout would definitely make me feel better. It did. However, it didn’t really fix my tired… and the Grumpy Child decided he needed to come to the basement and play while I did my exercise and talked to me the whole time. I tried to explain that exercise time is mommy’s time and that it was fine for him to be down there with me but there was not going to be extensive conversation being had about all things Transformers and superheroes and Skylanders and and and and and and… this point was lost on him. LOST.

It did not lend that whole “stress relief” portion of exercise to the situation, that’s for sure.

So, yes, it was great. I worked out on a Saturday. Awesome, super duper. But then: I continued to sweat buckets for the REST OF THE DAY. It was disgusting. I wasn’t even warm! I don’t know what the deal was! It would.not.stop. Super embarrassing. Also ruined my hair-do. 

One downer thing I want to talk about: I went up a little over a pound 2 weeks ago... and haven't come back down. In fact, Tuesday morning I weighed myself just to see and I was up ANOTHER pound back to 197!! This morning (Friday) I stepped on the scale after sticking with exercise for the week and doing much better on my eating... I was still at 196.4. I'm very disappointed. My strength routine is doing an excellent job of toning me up - and I'm trying really hard just to focus on that. But between counting calories and exercise I was expecting to see at least some kind of results on the scale - and if not, at least maintain, not go up almost 2 lbs!! I just have to keep reminding myself of this:

But it's much easier said than done. I'm not really "okay" with the idea of being over 200lbs again... even if I look like I'm less than that. 

I decided to go back through MyFitnessPal to figure out what I was doing food-wise when I dropped from 197 to 195 in like 9 days (I wasn't exercising at the time except for occasional short walks at lunch and cleaning house - that type of stuff). I was averaging higher caloric intake during all of my recent weight drops. I would plateau for 2-3weeks, then have a week or two where I would go way over my calorie goals most days, and then see a 1.5 to 2 lbs drop at the end of that week. 

I understand that there isn't really a "starvation mode" - that's pretty much a total myth in the standard way dieters think of it. However, everyone operates differently and apparently I was operating a little more efficiently eating closer to 2000 calories a day than 1500 calories a day. So.. I'm giving that a try. We'll see how it goes. 

While we are sort of on the negative side of things for a moment... I feel like ever since I started regularly exercising again I've become completely fixated on my calorie burn and feel totally guilty and crazy if I don't at least walk EVERY. DAY. Plus I feel like I'm beating myself up over what I'm choosing to eat and drink. It's like, I'm finally doing what I've been aiming for for all these months, and I was much calmer about the weight loss and food and, well, everything when I wasn't even trying - when I was just kind of being conscious of my calories and being happy for whatever loss happened. 

What's up with that? 

It's almost like exercise is having a negative impact on my mental health rather than a positive one. Am I allergic to endorphins or something? Do they make me crazy instead of sane? Depressed instead of happy? I mean, that's doesn't seem particularly fair. I'm obviously still keeping up with it since it does make me feel good at the time, even if when I'm  not exercising it makes me feel like a pile of mental poo. I wish there was like "A Tall Girl's Guide to Eating and Exercising" - because I feel like 90% of the stuff I read only applies to the "average" girl, who is 5'4".. so I guess I should just start paying more attention to men's stuff since the average man is 5'11". Much closer to my height at 5'10". 

I feel like when I started drafting this post 4 days ago I was actually trying to go somewhere with it and then I got distracted and/or didn't have time to wrap it all up and now it's all "blah" and all over the place. Sorry for not keeping things updated this week. Hopefully next week will work out a little better. 

Food stuff for those that are interested can be stalked here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/PrettyGirlsOnFire

Ahhhh!!

It's been a little bit like the week from hell, but a new post is coming soon!! I've been drafting since Tuesday!!

Pep Talks in the mirror - true story

Yesterday I headed straight from work to get my hair done. For those of you that maybe don't know me and are just Dear Readers, I have a LOT of hair. My ponytail is like 3" in diameter. It's ridiculous. So when I say I "got my hair done" - this means at least 2-3 hours at the salon. And that is usually just for color.

After my hair appointment I knew I had dinner plans with friends. I ended up getting finished with my hair in less time than expected (only 2 hours this time lol), and headed home to tuck the kids in and change my clothes. As I was changing, I started completely freaking out that I had not gone for my version of "running" that night since it was an off-day from strength training. I had gone for a 30 minute walk at lunch. I got about a 150 calorie burn in. 2 weeks ago that would have been the ONLY EXERCISE I WAS DOING. PERIOD. But for some reason my brain decided taking that 30 minute walk on my off-strength day was just not enough. I started thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't go out for dinner. I can't afford the calories."

what?

Where was this coming from? Again, I ask you... "Who is this chick?" but this time in a bad way.

Well, that was just enough of that craziness. I marched myself into the bathroom, looked myself in the eye in the mirror and literally said out loud: "Jessica, you stop this right now. You worked out hard last night. You kicked butt, you pushed yourself, you were covered in sweat. The fact that you aren't completely sore right now from that workout is a good sign. It means your body is adapting, your muscles are getting stronger. This is what you want to happen. This is the point. You went for a walk today - THAT COUNTS. Go have your delicious dinner and enjoy yourself. You are beautiful and strong and healthy. It's okay to work hard, but you can't overdo it."

And I did go enjoy my delicious dinner. I went over my calories because I had to enjoy delicious beer with my delicious dinner. But that is okay. There was still this little piece of crazy in the back of my mind trying to tell me I should do strength training AND run last night... but I did not do that. A) I didn't have the time, and B) that just would have been too much. The last thing I want to do is overwork myself this early back in the game. I need to stop freaking out about calorie burns. It's not about that. It's about being healthy. It's not like I am required to drop a ton of weight in a short amount of time. If it takes me another 9 months to lose another 20lbs then so be it.

Fighting crazy is exhausting.

I did another round of Workout B last night and Mike even joined me! I realized: Maybe I just don't like working out with other people. It feels a lot better to just stick my headphones on and escape somewhere else for a while. But I know he appreciated it, and it was good for him. Tonight I don't know if I'll get a walk/run in or not, but I did have a walk at lunch even though it wasn't as long as I would have liked.

Here is my food/calorie burn for the last couple days:

Who is this chick?

Seriously, who is she? Because she certainly isn't me. At least not the me that I've known virtually my whole life. This chick, well, she does things like: cleans her house on the weekends and in the evenings after work, cooks dinner nearly every night, keeps up with her kids' laundry, bakes zucchini bread from scratch, and - probably most importantly - exercises on a regular basis!

The only thing that clues me in that this chick is still me is her complete and total inability to not go out for lunch everyday during the work week and eat things like: Taco Bell, Qdoba, Firehouse Subs, Wendy's, and Chick Fil A. Yeah.. there is that part.

So remember when I told you guys a few weeks ago that I'd picked up this book called The French Don't Diet Plan? Well, the beginning really had me... and it even made me want to take a trip to France. But then I completely lost interest. I got through most of the important parts - the cutting out fake foods (processed chemical-filled crap - y'know, like TACO BELL), the eating smaller portions, the mindful eating, returning to the family table, the activity vs exercise... but then... I kind of got bored. I am going to finish it, but it's just taking me a while.

So last week I worked out 3 times. In a row. Wednesday I did workout A from Phase 1 of The Female Body Breakthrough, Thursday I went for a walk/run, and Fri I did workout B from Body Breakthrough. Then Saturday and Sunday.. well.. I kind of did a bunch of nothing. Aside from cleaning my house (which I totally forgot to log into MyFitnessPal, btw). I guess that's where that whole activity vs exercise thing comes in. I was still active, I just didn't actively exercise. I had intended to go for a walk/run Saturday afternoon but then ARMAGEDDON happened... and by armageddon I mean ridiculous thunderstorms. Sunday I had a bunch of errands to run and also realized I was still super sore from my Friday workout, as well as the 4 hours of standing/dancing at my buddy Derek's AWESOME cd release party (go Derek, woo!). I reminded myself that not exercising is just as important as the exercise when it comes to strength training and decided not to give myself a mental guilt trip all day long.

So now, here we are, on Monday. Things with the kids were a little crazy this afternoon/evening. I usually do my strength training stuff after the baby goes to bed and while our big-kid is doing his bathtime/before-bed-quiet-time, around 7pm. That worked out pretty well last week. Well, tonight 8:15pm rolled around and I still hadn't exercised. I had just gotten our eldest (James) to bed and marched myself to the basement to kick butt on another round of workout A.

It. Was. Awesome.

I pushed myself tonight and I usually have a rough time doing that (read: I'm a big baby). It probably helped that the hubby and I got into a little tiff earlier today and were giving each other some awesome silent treatment (all has been resolved now, but it had to wait until after my workout lol). Anger is apparently the best motivation for me! I was so proud of myself for pounding out this workout even though it had gotten really late and I had been feeling kind of wishy-washy about it earlier in the day. I'm excited to see what kind of results I'll see next time I do measurements. I'm pretty convinced I'm going to continue to see the scale move upwards or stay steady over the next few weeks, so I'm trying really hard not to let that bum me out.

I had blogged a few months back about feeling like I wasn't at a high enough fitness level to whole-heartedly attempt this Body Breakthrough program (tried to link to the post, but I couldn't find it - yay no blog organization!).. and honestly I can't really tell you what motivated me to give it another shot. But I'm sure glad I did. It's making me feel really awesome. Shortly after giving up the Body Breakthrough program I also talked about trying to shed some of my weight before working on the toning portion of my fitness/weight loss. I think, for me, that was a really good idea. I got my eating/calories under control, saw that I could lose weight steadily (albeit very very slooowwwly) by controlling my diet, and realized that adding a good solid routine on top of that might really boost my results.

Here's hoping anyway.

Now to talk a little bit about how I'm a bad spouse and a bad friend:

a) my friend Courtney asked last week if I wanted to try to do somewhat regular walks in the evenings during the week. Um, DUH. Yes! I would love that! Well, every single one we've tried to schedule, life has come in and interrupted on my end. No wonder no one wants to be my workout buddy. I suck at being a workout buddy. Courtney, I am super sorry and I promise we WILL get at least ONE damn walk in this week! If my basement wasn't completely cluttered save for the 8x8 cleared square where I attempt to lift weights, I would invite you to lift weights with me. Maybe I should make my next weekend clean-up project my basement!

b) I still still still have yet to put a workout/eating program together for Mike. Worst. Spouse. Ever. Instead of giving him workout assignments, I found motivation to do my own workouts. By myself. Because I'm an ass. I love you, baby, and I will do this!! Make me do it for you!! (Ha, look at me talking to him like he actually reads my blog.. psht.)

Now for some food logs:

Nevermind. MyFitnessPal is being completely buggy today. Will try to remember to post tomorrow!

Fed up

Yesterday was another really “grumpy” day for me – it got even grumpier after my blog post. There is just so much rough stuff going on right now, and it’s put me in a weird place because I’m really happy with my life and where I am and where I’m going, but there is still a lot of stress that is putting this giant Anger Cloud over me. I feel like I usually handle stress pretty well, but I’m almost starting to feel like things are just never going to be “normal” again.

By the time I got home from work last night, I’d just about had enough. My head was going to explode. I was going to commit acts of violence against people. My children were going to be sold to the gypsies. My husband was going to be spending the night in a literal doghouse. I had to run away. I had to get the f up out of life for a while. So what did I do? I went running.

“WHAAAAA-??” you say (again)? I know! I know!! It’s like the only response you have for me anymore, right? It’s like you’re thinking, “Well, sure, Jess. You say you’re going to do all these fitness things all the time and then you post the next day or a week later and say, ‘Oh, well, I decided I didn’t feel like it’.” It’s TRUE!! I do that all. the. time. But something has come over me, folks. I can’t explain what it is. I can’t describe this bizarre feeling of drive and determination – but it’s there. And hell if I’m not going to take advantage of it while I can, because who knows when it might disappear, taking me back to the land of “I don’t wanna”!!

Now, before all my runner people out there get all excited… let me explain to you what I mean when I say “I went running”:  I went for a 40 minute fast-paced (4mph) walk that included several short (but so-very-sweet) bursts of running my little heart out until my lungs screamed for oxygen. It was my own little loose version of HIIT.

And it cured me.

I got home and I was calm. I was ready to read a story to my kid and not want to strangle him the whole time. I didn’t feel all tired and lethargic leading up to bedtime. I fell asleep quickly and deeply… and then, as if the gods were blessing me, my baby slept until 7:30!!! SEVEN-THIRTY!! It was beautiful. I’m hoping that was some of the positive reinforcement I need to continue to be a healthy, fit person who is full of awesome – and blog posts.

Tonight: I lift. Weights, that is. Actually, to be honest, I’m more working on body-weight-resistance type exercises. Squats, push-ups, planks, etc. Get that form down and build up some base strength and then move on to actual weighted movements. I’m also trying to work on my ridiculous quad dominance (here’s a good explanation of what that actually is). I’m definitely still feeling some soreness from Weds night, especially in my abs – which is where I need to be feeling it most anyway. This mommy-pouch needs to go. Over. It.

I keep forgetting that I just had a baby 9 months ago and that it will take another 12-14 months for my body to finish recovering from that process. I have a feeling I’m going to lose my hips. The shape of my body is already so much different than before I got pregnant this second time around, and it’s like every couple of months something sort of shifts or shrinks or sags or sticks out more/less, etc. Having babies is weird. Let’s just all agree on that.

I’ve been thinking about snapping some progress photos in either short-shorts w/ sports bra or a bikini. I’m thinking of doing this to keep my perspective when it comes to stepping on that stupid scale every week. If I end up sticking with this whole strength training/cardio thing I’ve had going on this week I know the fat and inches will start coming off, but the scale may not move much and may actually end up going up before coming down. I figure if I have half-nekkid pictures of myself and can see, “Oh, hey, maybe I’ve gained 5 lbs according to the scale, but look! I’ve lost nearly all my back-fat compared with 3 weeks ago!” I won’t start freaking out. This is big “if”. We’ll see. Also, I’m not sure I want people realizing just how fat I really am… maybe I need to get over that and/or use it to push me forward in this process.

Enjoy my food count from yesterday (yay for abrupt endings! I got distracted and forgot where I was going next with this):

Motivation - a funny thing

Yesterday (I almost wrote "last day", as my 6 year old calls it) was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. For no particular reason... I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Work was stressful but for no real reason other than people were acting like things were on fire (in a metaphorical sense) when really they weren't. Everyone on Facebook was kicking their own personal campaigns for "their candidate" into full gear, so there's a lot of up-in-arms going on there (I have a very politically diverse group of friends). The new school year has just begun and our 6 year old had a really rough year last year, so I'm on edge expecting the worst to happen with that again. And on top of that I made an off-color joke to one of my best friends that really offended her and made her pretty mad at me.

It sucked. 

Normally I feel like I would have gone home and crawled into bed feigning some kind of illness... but I was pretty riled up and kind of wanted to cause physical harm to... well.. everyone. So I did something completely unexpected: I worked out. 

"WHAAAAA???", you say? I know, I know... I was shocked myself. I got home with the kids, fed the baby one of the most nutritional dinners ever (bananas, avocado and brown rice, if you were curious), put on my gym clothes and moments after Mike walked into the door I was in the basement listening to Pandora's Rap Strength Training station and taking my anger and frustration out on my muscles. 

It felt amazing. 

Unfortunately, like an hour later I was right back to being cranky and ragey. I hate to say this.. but I think a run may have done me better. I hate running. And it was really humid last night. Maybe tonight.. even though it's more humid and hotter. I think I need it, though.. 

(Dear Lord: Please don't let me become one of those runners that thinks running is the answer to everything in life. Some of them are my friends and I love them, but let's leave the running to them and the crazy girl-muscles to me. Amen. *adjusts halo*)

I guess I'll have to let you know tomorrow if I actually did go for the dreaded run. I wish I could lift weights every day. Stupid muscle recovery. 

Maybe I'll just dance. Dance my little heart out. 

I feel like I'm a little all over the place with this post, and I apologize for that, so I'm just going wrap it up with calorie counts from yesterday:

Re-branding/naming/whatever - CHANGES!

Change! Change is good, right?

As you may have noticed I'm currently in the process of sort of "re-branding" my blog. The focus is still mostly going to be on health/fitness/weight loss, but I realized I talk a lot about ordinary life things sometimes too... maybe it was time to go with something a little catchier and a little more accurate in describing what this blog is actually about - y'know, instead of just some random song lyric reference that no one really understands.

Oh, btw: HAPPY SEPTEMBER!

My oldest started 1st grade yesterday, and my baby is going to 1 year old in just a few short months!! Where has the time gone?? I can't believe how fast this year is going by. It's sort of awesome and terrifying all at the same time. The concept of time is so vastly different as I become a Real Live Adult. I can still remember summer being ALL ETERNITY as a child - now it's like, "Um, wasn't 2 weeks ago April?". No. It wasn't. You're just old and forget things.

Go ahead. Ask me what I had for lunch yesterday. Go on.

**pause**

That pause right there? That was me having to go look at my calorie tracker to remember... because I'm old. And forget things.

I am very pleased to report that I accomplished all of my August goals... for probably the first time since I began this whole "setting monthly goals" business. My August goals were (to recap):

1. Blog more consistently 
2. Focus more on being "active", less on "exercise" 
3. Make time for myself: reading, playing music, meditation, etc. 

My blogging still needs work, but we're getting there! Definitely posting more often than once or twice a month these days, that's for sure. As for activity vs exercise? Done, done, and done! I've been taking almost-daily walks, as well as putting focus and effort into keeping my home clean and somewhat organized has turned out to be wonderful and productive activity, as well as some serious calorie-burning when you spend a couple hours vacuuming/mopping! And as for the third, I've been spending more time reading, watching movies I want to see that maybe my husband isn't interested in, and just general "down" time.

If you'll take a gander over at September's goals, you'll see something that hasn't been touched on or talked about much on this blog since the birth of my 2nd child... smoking!

I, unfortunately, quickly picked this bad habit back up after I stopped breastfeeding back in January. And over this summer I have progressively become a much heavier smoker than I ever have been in the past and would like to be in the present and/or future.

I am not making any declaration of quitting, mind you. I know myself. I enjoy smoking. Trying to quit right now would be unsuccessful, as I don't "want" to. However, I do "want" to quit going through half-a-pack every night. I feel so gross most mornings, and I know it's those 8-10 cigarettes I smoke in the 2-3 hour period before heading to bed.

Here's the thing: I'm a weird smoker. I only smoke at night after my kids go to bed. I don't smoke at work, I don't smoke in my car. I mostly smoke when I'm drinking alcohol, although I have been known to indulge if I'm having Starbucks. Not just coffee or tea, specifically Starbucks. So there's that. I used to pretty much only smoke on the weekends - or if I happened to be drinking alcohol during the week. I might occasionally have a cigarette in the hour before bed, but not every night. I used to average about a pack a week.

Gone are those days.

I am currently averaging about 5 packs a week. I still do not smoke at work or in my car or really at all during daylight hours. However, lately I have found the "need" (if you will) to smoke a LOT at night as I sit on my porch and drink beer or wine.

Here's another thing: over this summer I've become a "regular" drinker. I have at least one beer or one glass of wine every night. I used to only be a "social" drinker. I would drink on the weekends if I saw friends, or during the week if I went out for social interaction. Other than that, didn't really drink. Wasn't really interested in drinking.

Gone are those days, as well. I think I'm definitely experiencing a phenomena my friend Holly refers to as "Drunk Summer". Last summer I was pregnant and could not participate in any of my usual vices. Holly experienced a similar situation when she was pregnant with her youngest child over the summer months a few years ago... and subsequently made up for lost time the following summer. (Holly, hope you don't mind me sharing!! lol) Subconsciously I seem to be making up for my "lost" summer this summer. Hence, Drunk Summer.

Once thing I can say about that: summer is almost over. Drunk Fall and/or Drunk Winter don't sound quite as fun. But during September I am going to make a conscious effort to scale back on my alcohol/cigarette consumption. I'd like to get my smoking back down to that 1-2 packs/week level. Certainly will save me some money as well! As far as the boozing, well, lots of recent studies have shown that one drink a day is actually good for you. So, by the end of this month I'm shooting to be down to only one drink a day or less on days that I'm not actively out socializing.

No big deal. I got this.

So yay for all the positivity, but I did have a momentary sort-of-freak-out-breakdown thing the other night while taking new progress photos. See my first problem was: taking them at night after a giant mexican dinner for my anniversary (4 years!) complete with giant margarita and then a beer upon arriving at home. Should have taken them morning/mid-day like I've taken all of my OTHER progress photos... oh well... but the freak out was this: I am sick of being fat.

I don't mean in the sense that I feel like I'm some huge gargantuan blob of yuck... I mean, I'm sick of having so much fat on my frame even though I'm getting thinner/smaller/shrinking/what-have-you. My body fat percentage is around 33% right now. I need to lose about 6% to put myself well into the "average" range, or about 10% of my current body fat. I'm not going to be able to do that if I don't kick up my activity level a little more. I have 6 weeks to reach my halfway goal of 185lbs. That 10lbs away. I feel like 6 weeks is a perfectly acceptable amount of time to accomplish this. But we know what this means... Gym. Or at the very least: basement weights.

And probably more/most importantly - cut out all the JUNK FOOD!!! *gets crushed by a giant mountain of chips, cookies, taco bell, and french fries* AHHHHHHHH!!

I have been so good and so terrible all at once with my eating lately. I've been good because I've been cooking more, buying  more organic, eating more fruits/veggies... but I've been bad because I've been eating out for lunch almost every single work day - and I eat stuff like Taco Bell, Qdoba, Wendy's, Firehouse Subs, etc... high calorie faux foods. And granted it's only one meal, but that one meal a lot of the times kicks my calorie limit out of the water. Today is a perfect example. Go ahead. Take a look.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Brownies are my sweets weakness.

*sigh*

From that link you should also be able to view my recent diary entries. Check out last Weds - Saturday. It's a scream! And I don't mean that in a "funny haha" way.. heh.

Oh, hey, real quick before I go... I made the most amazing pork chops last night, and I want to share the "recipe" with you:

1lb boneless pork chops about 1" thick
2tbsp of Olive Oil (extra virgin or otherwise)
mix dried garlic, sea salt and cracker pepper and rub on the pork chops
pan-sear for 2-3 mins on each side
bake for 40 mins at 350
serve with rice and veggies/salad

SUPER YUM! Seriously. Best pork chops I've ever made and I totally just did it on the fly. Didn't look up a recipe or "how to" or anything. I'm pretty proud of myself. I've really been enjoying my little forays into cooking/chefery (not a word) lately! I'm really starting to enjoy it and I'm hoping to really expand into it a little more.... for example: cooking for lunches instead of eating a bunch of junk every day.

~Tell me what you think of my "new" blog, and any goals you accomplished during August!~

Lunacy, Hormones, and Listening to Your Body

I've had a very strange week this week. It all started with a migraine on Sunday evening. The second one in a month for me. This is unusual, not because migraines are unusual for me, but because I normally only get 2-4 a year... not 2 in a month. I broke it down to: birth control.

I have been really bad about taking my birth control like I normally would this cycle. My normal routine is that the pill gets popped with my handful of vitamins every morning around 8am (with the exception of Saturdays and/or Sundays, on which I usually remember sometime around 10am). Well, my worst-migraine-I've-ever-had popped up last month after I forgot to take my pill one day until around 7pm... and then went ahead and took my next one at my normal of 8am. HORMONE OVERLOAD. Apparently. So when I started this next pack, my first day back on active pills I neglected to take it until around 11am. Deciding I would not like to go through another migraine, I made the decision to switch my normal time to 11am. Well this was a big fail because I have a life and work and 2 children and 11am and is just too far into a normal day to try to remember to anything at a specific time. So all cycle I've been taking it sometimes at 10am, sometimes noon, sometimes not until 2pm, sometimes actually at 11am... this apparently has made me a little crazy.

I've been highly sensitive for the last week, quick to anger, quick to cry, pissed off at my husband and/or children for no reason whatsoever, bouncing back and forth between feeling pumped and positive and happy to the next moment wanting to punch people in the face. I believe the recent full moon probably has something to do with this as well lol.

Here's the other thing: since my migraine on Sunday night, I've been getting mini-headaches every day this week. I can't think straight, I can't concentrate, I can't remember what I'm doing even when I'm in the middle of something. I realized last night I've been STARVING since Sunday. I ate very little Sunday until after my headache... I've been staying well-within my calorie limit, plus walking every day. Then there was the laser tag and dancing extravaganza Friday night that left me incredibly dehydrated. I don't think I had quite recovered. Even after my veggie burrito bowl lunch at Qdoba yesterday, an hour and a half later I found myself starving again. That is incredibly unusual for me. After a Qdoba lunch I normally don't need anything but a light snack for dinner because it keeps me full and satisfied until well into the evening.

So last night I went to this amazing pizza/beer place with a couple friends for drinks. Because Qdoba had obviously failed my all-of-a-sudden insatiable hunger, I ended up ordering a delicious wood-fired pizza brushed with olive oil (no tomato sauce) topped with whole milk mozzarella (YUM! HUGE difference from part-skim), mushrooms, artichoke hearts, chunks of fresh garlic and prosciutto. It was incredibly delicious and full of calories and fats and everything my body was screaming for. A nearly-3,000 calorie splurge day has never felt so amazing and so right. I didn't feel bad or guilty for one second. This morning I woke up and felt more "normal" than I've felt all week.

Listening to your body and not criticizing your cravings is sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself, in my opinion. I can't even describe how amazing it felt to eat and really enjoy my food with no guilt, no feelings of "I'll have to be extra 'good' tomorrow", not feeling the need to binge on what I ordered but simply eat until I was satisfied and to take the rest home for a second meal the next day, and probably most importantly: not feeling the need to binge on other junky foods just because I had "already messed up" for that day, week, whatever.

Okay, so now this: You know how I've been sort of avoiding exercise like the plague? And how I was supposedly putting together a training/food program for my husband and haven't said anything more about that (talk about feeling guilty...)?

Well, I haven't done anything as far as actually writing down a program for Mike to follow... which I feel terrible about.. and will eventually get to within the next few days because otherwise I fear he will just give up entirely on "being healthy" and think I'm not supportive of him... but as far as exercising: Mike and I have been taking near-daily walks for 20-40 minutes depending on how much time I have, and I feel pretty awesome about it! I know it's not intense exercise or activity by any means.. but it's something. And that is definitely more than what I was doing a month ago. I'll take it. Slowly, but surely, Folks. Slowly, but surely.

I haven't posted food in nearly a week, so if you are interested you can look it up yourself by following this link:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/PrettyGirlsOnFire


Feel free to send me a friend request if you are a fellow MyFitnessPal user!

The Downside of Being Smarter Than Everyone Else

I have a this terrible habit of, when I don't know something, going and learning about it. Sometimes, if it strikes my fancy, I become an information gobbling machine and can't stop hitting myself in the face with knowledge and more knowledge.

The reason this is a terrible habit is because: I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this.

It's getting to the point where I may be becoming a bit of a radical - especially in terms of food and fitness. I find myself constantly "correcting" people - "No, you really should be focusing on strength training if your goal is fat loss. Too much cardio can actually make your body retain fat more efficiently and therefore stall weight loss. Let me quote the 7 books I've read in the last 4 months on the subject." "No, you really shouldn't be focusing on low-fat. Your body needs fat. New research suggests that saturated fats may actually be good for you." "No, you shouldn't worry about the number on the scale. Muscle takes up less space than fat, therefore the more muscle you have the skinnier you are but the more you weigh. Take your measurements and focus on building strength."

These are just some examples of my everyday bossiness. It probably helps that I have lots of people around me who seem to like it when I tell them what to do.

I said in a recent post that I was going to be reading Dr. William Clower's "The French Don't Diet" book. It's been really great so far, I'm almost half-way through. The concept is very simple: Eat whole foods. Even if they are full fat, full carb, full sugar (in moderation on this last one - also notice I said "sugar", not "high-fructose corn syrup"). In fact, speaking on fat specifically: full fat foods are actually better for you because they possess more nutrients which in turn keep your body fueled and satisfied longer, which in the long-run means you are actually consuming less. It is so simple. Sounds like an amazing "experiment" to me. Once I finish the book I'm going to work on implementing this simple ideas into my current diet and lifestyle.

But here's the thing: I say that. But will I actually do it?

This is the downside of being smarter than everyone else... I'm a big, fat hypocrite. I'll dole out my free (and sometimes unsolicited lol!) advice to anyone who is dumb enough to broach the subject in my presence, but just know that I do not always live my life to the healthiest as I know (all too well, thanks to my addiction to education) I should. I still indulge in fast-food, faux food, and all the chemically and genetically modified foods offered at every turn in this the great U.S. of A... I try to limit my indulgences, but I certainly do not eat the amount of fresh foods that I should be.

One thing I can say for myself: I have not eaten McDonald's in more than 6 months.

...but that doesn't mean I haven't fed it to my eldest child... *hangs head in shame*

It's hard to know how much fake, chemical crap is in the foods I consume on a regular basis... and to know that these foods are stalling my weight loss and ruining my health in general... but to really not quite have reached the point of having the willpower to say, "No. I will NOT eat Taco Bell anymore. I WILL buy local produce at my local farmer's market, I WILL purchase grass-fed beef and free-range chicken, I WILL buy all organic dairy! AS GOD AS MY WITNESS!!!"

...okay, that got a little dramatic. I will get there. Just like I'm slowly getting there with being more active - daily walks, etc. I keep waiting for that magical "I'm fed up" moment. And I know it's coming. I can feel it. My youngest son will soon be 1, and will stop eating baby food that is organic and nicely prepared in easy jar-form... this will probably be my wake up call to say, "I will NOT let my baby know the delicious poison that is McDonald's french fries!! I will NOT feed my already giant child milk pumped full of chemicals and hormones!". I'm just going to leave it at saying: I was too young and dumb to do this with my oldest. This was when I thought I would never be overweight, so why should I learn about the food I eat? HA! Just because you are skinny, does not mean you are healthy.

Oh, it's a long hard road ahead, folks. I'm trying incredibly hard not to become a completely insane "food freedom" radical in the process of learning all these scary things about the food we eat. (ps - food freedom is something I came up with. I don't know if this is like an actual movement or anything, but I feel like it sounds good.) More importantly, I'm going to try not to be such a damn hypocrite anymore.

Speaking of hypocrites... my food for the last few days:

Adventures in various things

Today was an excellent day in my Adventures In Eating. It was also an excellent day in my Adventures of Being Active.

I had my normal-as-of-late breakfast of a Nature Valley protein deliciousness bar (peanutbutter and dark chocolate - who could ask for more?), and a fresh pear. I snacked on some almonds and a tangerine (which said it was seedless, but had more seeds in it than any regular old seedless tangerine I'd ever eaten!). I ate Taco Bell for lunch. It was delicious. I understand that Taco Bell is terrible, terrible for you. I also understand that it represents almost everything I hate about FDA controlled food sources, with its not-really-all-beef beef - which contains nearly 25 ingredients, a warning stating "Contains Wheat and Soy". Last I checked cow flesh did not contain wheat and/or soy... but anyhoo. The one I can say: the crunchy taco shells containing my 25 ingredient "beef" and lettuce and cheese and HOT Border Sauce DO NOT contain WOOD PULP or TRANS FATS. I wish I could say the same for Chipotle's crunchy taco shells. So I will allow myself my Taco Bell obsession. And also my Qdoba obsession... After lunch I proceeded to take a 30 minute walk in the GORGEOUS weather we had here in Virginia today, and for dinner I ate a serving of Jamaican jerk marinaded chicken breast with 1/4 cup of mashed sweet potatoes and a small square of 72% cacao dark chocolate with 1/2 cup of grapefruit for dessert. My net calories for the day currently are right around 1200. Plenty of room left for some beers (another thing to add to obsessions) and/or a light snack later.

I am getting ridiculously excited for my copy of The French Don't Diet Plan to arrive. I'm not even sure that living in regular suburban/urban America I can access the types of foods required to follow a French-style "diet"... but we do have a Wegman's down the way with a cheese department the size of most standard grocery store's entire dairy section... as well as a generous selection of free-range and grass-fed meats. We'll see how long I can stick with this.. assuming after educating myself it still sounds like a good idea.

Super awesome thing about today: my mom told me I was getting "really skinny". She is somewhat of a fibber since I'm still a good 25-30lbs away from being close to a healthy weight for my height/build. But it still felt nice to know that someone who sees me on an almost-daily basis is able to "see" my current weight loss.

Since about the end of last week I've been feeling super happy with my body and my eating choices. I don't know what that's about, but I'm going to attribute some of it to finding a couple of different inspiring websites/blogs (here's one in particular: http://www.healthyisthenewskinny.com/), plus creating my new "body positivity" pin board on Pinterest, which you can check out here.

It's kind of amazing what looking at pictures of half-nekkid ladies that are the same size or heavier than you can do. (I'll give you a hint: it makes you realize skinny ain't sexy.)

I'm really excited that there are all these body positive sites and campaigns going around right now. It's important for young women to be encouraged to accept their bodies regardless or their shape or size. I think I'll talk more on this later. Right now I have a phone date with one of my favorite people.. my cousin Maury! :)

Overloading and over.. educated?

I have had so many amazing health-related conversations this week. From my husband deciding he's "sick of being fat" and asking me to help him with his diet/nutrition as well as put together some kind of a training routine, to discussing at length and into the wee hours of the night the corruption of the FDA and the food industry in general, the obesity "epidemic", how these things effect the idea, implementation and application of universal healthcare, and learning about the French Paradox... it's been awesome and chaos all at once.

Today I read the history of saccharin. No, for real. It was fascinating. Aspertame as well. Even MORE fascinating and terrifying.

I always felt like I knew this, but now more than I ever I'm realizing how important it is to consume REAL FOOD. Natural, grown-in-the-ground, raised-on-a-farm, non-genetically-modified, locally-grown/raised FOOD.

I learned that in 2010 a bill that was passed regarding the FDA and its control over... well... the human race... has essentially made the FDA a "super force", in which they now can control what you put into your body and you have absolutely no say. No say whatsoever. It also outlaws homegrown foods. Be careful not to post anything on Facebook about the vegetable garden you planted this year. (Learn more about the FDA bill here (this bill was actually passed and signed into order by the President under H.R. 2751). This is a good breakdown. I even read some of the actual bill. Ugh. THAT was fun!)

Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

I was amazed that I didn't really hear about this while it was going on... but I guess it wasn't considered "real" news.

Sorry to get so crazy serious all of a sudden. It's just... very scary. The political climate right now is absolutely terrifying. This may sound completely radical and insane... but there is a part of me that questions my decision to bring another child into this world. Things are getting too deep now - but that's kind of where I am when I think about the U.S. lately. It makes me want to look into living in other countries. I hear Switzerland is nice, albeit cold.

Getting back to more of the light and fluffy!

I'm very excited that Mike has decided to jump on the get-healthy bandwagon, even if it is for purely aesthetic reasons! I am in the process of doing a little more reading/learning about male physiology and how to best utilize cardio vs weight training. I know all about the female side of this, as I am one and am completely obsessed with learning everything I can! (Even though I don't always apply that to myself as I should...)

I will post here about what I find and how it's working.

I ordered a book about the French paradox, and I'm really excited for it to get here so I can delve in and perhaps experiment with the French "diet" - lots of cheese, bread, and wine? Sounds like fun to me!!

I did amazingly well with my calories over the weekend. Yesterday, not so much... damn Dairy Queen... but nonetheless. I logged a nearly 3lb loss on Friday, I'll take it! I must be doing something right.

Here is my food for the weekend and beginning of this week for those that are interested:

Happy Surprises!

My 6 year old had a sleepover with Grandma last night, which meant that my morning was calm and easy-going... and I was actually able to remember to step on the scale before getting dressed and leaving for work. I also had time to take measurements. 

Measurements as of 8/17/2012 (updates in BLUE):

Estimated Body Fat % (YMCA formula): 36% - 33%

Weight: 209 lbs - 195.8lbs

Waist: 37” / 41” at navel - 34” / 38” at navel 

Chest: 43” - 41"

Hips: 48.5” - 45"

Thighs: 28” - 26"

Arms (flexed): 13” - 12"

Jean/Pant Size: 20 - 14/16 (depending on the day and brand)

Shirt Size: XL/XXL - L (firmly wearing a large in all the brands I shop now, woo!)

I'm VERY proud of these accomplishments! It's nice to realize there is actually progress being made.

I still haven't had the chance to sit down and draft out the other billion things I want to blog about. A couple of them I really need to research a little deeper before choosing a stance... stand by.

Enjoy some calorie-diary fun:

So many!

There are so many things going through my head right now that I want to blog about. I just a couple hours to sit down and sort it all out (ha!). Soon, my readers, soon!

For now... food from this week (not including the weekend - both Friday and Saturday consumed just under 3,000 calories), so far:

Healthier than I think?

I was perusing through some of my favorite health and fitness blogs this morning when I came across a post about weight gain and then one followed by discussions of binge eating. Kind of the norm for most health and fitness bloggers, but for some reason it occurred to me as I read these stories of failure and success... that I am healthier, I think.

I do not have disordered eating. I have some days where I crave mostly fat and sweets, and I sometimes indulge these cravings. But I do not binge, nor do I deprive myself to the point of being unhealthy. I may have a slight junk food addiction, this is true. But if I don't put myself in a situation where I have access to that junk, then it doesn't bother me and I'm happy to eat whatever normal-type-foods I may have at home such as: fruits, veggies, whole wheat pasta, chicken breast, salad, etc. I just did major grocery shopping for the first time in about a month, and I'm incredibly excited to eat all those delicious fresh, whole foods!

I consider myself incredibly lucky. I have a positive attitude toward food. It's something I enjoy, but I don't "reward" myself with it, not do I "punish" myself with it. I'm a big fan of splurge days. I've finally reached a point in my "dieting" where I don't even feel guilty for those splurges.

So speaking of splurges and healthy relationships with food... I gained 1.6lbs over the last two weeks. I'm set to start my period this weekend, so this could very easily be water-retention and/or some bloating. I was pretty lenient with myself on calories week before last, but I've been much more active this week and last  so I feel like that sort of balanced itself out.

Official weight @ 8/10/2012: 198.6lbs 

I'm still under 200, though, and that definitely counts for something. I've now been maintaining for about 6 weeks. I think I definitely need to dig a little for that motivation to either a) commit to clean eating for a month or two, or b) get into some kind of regular activity/exercise routine. Still kind of fighting through this whole "I don't wanna" stage, though. Not gonna lie.

I have 10 weeks until Andrea's wedding. I wanted to be at my halfway goal of 185lbs by then. If I really want to push for that then I have 10 weeks to lose roughly 12lbs. That's 1.2lbs/week. I've been steadily losing about 0.5 to 0.75 pounds a week. Outlook not so great, lol! It's okay. I'm feeling so much more confident in this slow-but-steady approach. I've lost all my pregnancy weight and I'm just a couple weeks shy of the 9 month mark. It took me 2 years to gain the other 30lbs I'm currently still carrying around. It may very well take me 2 years to lose that.

One thing I need to really try to remember to do this weekend (or some other not-too-far-in-the-future time) is take my measurements! I can't even remember the last time I did that. It may have been March when I attempted to start the Body Breakthrough program. I am also going to run by body fat % calculation with new measurements and weight. We'll see! Kind of excited about it. I'm a weirdo.

I need to get better about posting my food. This, I think, will definitely help with keeping me accountable to keep the hell away from the fast food!! I've been eating out for lunch almost every day... and although I'm paying attention to what I'm ordering as far as caloric value... this is not helping my too-much-saturated-fat intake problem. Which, in turn, has become a big-fat-belly problem.

Here is yesterday's (I did really well, actually):

Well, hello August...

Soooo I think it's pretty obvious that I took a vacation from my blog this July. It was not an on-purpose vacation. For some reason blogging has been even lower on the priority totem pole as exercising. I also realized that I had even updated my weight tracking.. did that today and realize I've only lost 2lbs this whole month. *shrugs* oh, well. At least I'm still losing.

I'm kind of in this "I don't wanna" mindset lately. Exercise? I don't wanna. Go to bed at a decent time? I don't wanna. Avoid extra calories by not drinking beer nightly? I don't wanna.

Things I HAVE wanted to do: eat more fruits, veggies and nuts and other healthy fats, really focus on portion control, cook more. These are all awesome things! I'm still struggling with my Taco Bell/Qdoba (think Chipotle) addiction... but it's getting better. I've also made an effort to at least walk when I can - ie: when it isn't 106 degrees and 90% humidity. (Virginia weather has been awful this Summer!)

About a week ago I went on a cleaning frenzy. I guess I finally hit my breaking point with the mess in my house... upstairs especially. 3 hours of running up and down the stairs, vacuuming floors/furniture/walls, cleaning out drawers and closets, throwing away various "potions" (as my mother calls them - lotions, perfumes, etc.) that I haven't used or even LIKED in years, making room in my medicine cabinet for the few "potions" I do still use on a regular basis as well as my deodorant and contact lense stuff. It felt SO GOOD. And then I almost died... because I was going full-speed this whole time, non-stop movement... and I burned like 650 calories!! Definitely the most exercise I'd had in a while. Then this past weekend. Oh lord. 2,000 calories burned on Saturday. For real!!

It went a little something like this:

• Woke up and did awesome boot camp thanks to Andrea's friend Jenny - this was about an hour, plus we walked after a LOT.
• Went to the beach, spent literally 3 hours straight in the water frolicking, fighting waves, body surfing, general fun and constantly moving.
• Went to out to "da club" for Andrea's bachelorette celebration and danced my little butt off!! 

It was awesome. I felt totally amazing after that boot camp... but definitely was ridiculously sore until probably about an hour ago (it's now Tuesday night, btw). 

I felt like maybe all of that had inspired me to get back into working out, but today I'm kind of back into the "blahs" with the workout stuff. I've been more active in general as far as house-work, taking walks at lunch, playing with my kiddos, etc. I'm feeling like that's pretty good for now. I really want to continue focusing on my food and portion control stuff. I think I've reached a point mentally where I feel like losing the weight by controlling calories/food is easier right now than finding the motivation to exercise. I've been pretty successful so far! I'm down almost 20lbs since January, and though it's been a slow loss, it's consistent and I'm feeling good about it. I'm feeling like my plan, without consciously meaning for it to be, has become to "shrink" - ie: lose the scale-weight first - and THEN focus on toning. Maybe that's a crap idea, but I'm comfortable with it right now and it's been easy for me to stick with it. That's what's important. 

Soooo... it's August already! When did THAT happen?! This year has flown by so fast. I can't believe it's just a few weeks and school starts again and the days will begin getting shorter. Just a couple short months and it will be downright COLD! ...I'm going to try not to think about that and get myself all depressed. lol 

I'm going to try to be better about writing more often. I think it definitely helps me keep... sane. Ha! I feel like I had all of these things over the last month that I wanted to talk about, but I can't remember a single one right now. Oh, well. I'll just have to be better about posting when something pops in mind, right?! 

Enjoy this... my new favorite song:

For Serious, and Breaking the 200 mark - again

Omg, you guys. I was just going through some old "drafts" that are still hanging out in my little bloggy dashboard area thing... I still have so far to go. In one draft I was talking about how I was eating upwards of 10 servings of fruit and veggies a day! A DAY!! And exercising consistently 3 days a week, but most weeks 5 days. UUUUGGGHHHH!! *stabstabstab*

Why can't I get with it?!

I am lucky if I get 3 servings of fruit and veggies a day now. My saturated fat intake is a little out of control. My sugar intake is still completely out of control. And I have SO MANY days where I say to myself, "I'm not for-real hungry, but I'm bored, and I'm bored-hungry for ALL THE FATTENING, PROCESSED, DELICIOUS THINGS!!"... and then sometimes I proceed to just, well, eat them.

I had been maintaining at right around 200lbs for the last month, but I stepped on my scale Saturday morning to see something glorious... "198.8"!!!!!!

I am only a pound away from my official pre-baby weight!

So in March, as some of you may know, I joined MyFitnessPal. My weight at the time was 209, so that's what I put into my profile information. My mom asked me yesterday at the pool how much weight I had lost because, she said, "You look great!". So I said, "Oh, like 10 lbs I guess.." and then I said, "Well, no, I guess more than that because on my scale I was 216lbs on January 1st." and she said, "So, that's more like 20 lbs!!" and I realized, why, YES. YES IT IS. So I decided to update my MyFitnessPal today to reflect my starting weight from January 1, instead of my "I just started using MyFitnessPal" starting weight. It feels pretty damn good to log-in there and see "You've lost 17lbs!" at that sidebar.

I'm not doing as well on my eating and exercise as I was back in the beginning of 2011 and end of 2010. I'll get there. I should probably sit down and read back through some of my entries to see if I can relocate that motivation and drive. Really my only excuse right now is that having two kids is hard and one of them being an infant is exhausting. The last thing I want to do after dinner is trek my way over to the gym for a strength routine. I just want to sit on my couch, eat Dairy Queen, and watch television.

At the beginning of this year I had a goal I wanted to reach by my friend Andrea's wedding... well, I had almost 10 months to get there at the beginning of the year... now I have not-quite-four. But for some reason I keep telling myself, "You have plenty of time." Um, no. Especially at the rate I lose weight. Let's be honest here. If I work SUPER HARD and never drink and eat only clean, I could maybe MAYbe lose 5lbs/month, putting me around my halfway goal of 185. *sigh*

First things first, find the damn motivation. Where are you, motivation, where are you?!?!

Here's a screenshot of my net calories for the last month:

Things to accomplish by the end of the summer

• De-clutter my home
• organize after the de-cluttering
• remind myself how awesome it feels to wake up WITHOUT a hangover on weekends every Friday afternoon
• hit the local Farmer's markets at least once

Finding time

I've been in the process of writing a new post for the entire week now... stand by. It will be coming. Eventually.

6 month check-in

I realized we are in June... and once again I've fallen off the blogging band-wagon. Why can't I get it together?

It would probably help if I was getting some kind of a work-out in on a regular basis. Then I might actually have something to discuss. Sigh.  ...not beating myself up, just saying!

Over the last few days I've gotten some walks in and gone out and done some dancing - so at least I'm being active even if I'm not actively "exercising". I've been doing pretty excellent on my calories, with the exception of Thursday and Friday. Cheat days totally have to happen, though, or I have a tendency to completely fall off the bandwagon.

Official weight @ 6/09/2012: 200.8 lbs


So 6 months in: I've official lost 16 lbs and am holding pretty steady right around the 200 mark. That's okay. It would probably help if I didn't fill up with beer and high-sodium foods on the night before my weigh-in morning. lol

I'm a bit frustrated right now because I'm in between sizes.. again. My 16's are too big after they've been on for a couple hours, but the couple pairs of 14's (and GAP 16's, which are a 14 in any other brand... stupid GAP) I have are too tight to sit comfortably in... I currently refer to them as my "standing jeans".

I do have to say I'm a little disappointed that I've only lost 16 lbs in 6 months. But I also know that's because I'm seriously lacking on a steady exercise routine and I wasn't being very serious about my calorie counting until just a couple months ago. 8 lbs of that 16 came off just since April. That's a little more promising. I'm hoping to be at my halfway goal of 185 by October. That's only 15 lbs. If I can get serious about the gym or even going for daily walks, it'll definitely come off faster. I should totally redo my measurements, too. I know I've definitely lost some inches since the last time, 'cause my clothes don't fit anymore! I know I also keep saying I'm going to post more progress pictures, but life is crazy.. and sometimes I'm forgetful and lazy.

I'm hoping this week I can find some motivation for some weight lifting.. or something more than 20 minute walks on my lunch break. I'm thinking about rereading Rachel Cosgrove's book. Even though I felt like some of the workouts were above my fitness level, I think it might give me some motivation to at least do my own workout routine. Also thinking about rereading Jackie Warner's book to inspire some clean eating.

I also recently made a list of Things I Want to Do/Be/Accomplish. Here are some examples from my list:

1. Get at least 7 hours of sleep nightly, and be in bed no later than 1am on weekends, midnight on workdays
2. Plan meals for the week and shop for that menu
3. Be more active in general
4. Workout in the morning before work
5. Spend Saturday mornings vacuuming/dusting/running laundry
6. Save more $$
7. Cut back on drinking/smoking
8. Make more time for myself and doing the things I enjoy

The list will continue to grow, I'm sure. I gotta get with it. For reals. Time to focus on being a Real Life Adult.