Throwin' out the scale...

It's happening again....I'm getting obsessive with the number on the scale. It's to the point where I'm getting on and weighing multiple times a day. Not healthy. Not to mention stupid. Like I'm going to lose 10 lbs between breakfast and dinner?? It's irrational and unhelpful. Sooo, I've decided to challenge myself in a couple ways. First, I'm declaring next month "No Weigh May". Next, I'm shifting my focus back to eating as clean as possible. No more junk, even if I can fit it into my calorie count for the day. I'll admit that lately I've been fudging here and there with the sweets, especially after Easter. Unfortunately that leads to more sugary stuff and usually bread slathered in butter then ice cream then...well, you get the picture. Snowball effect. Downward spiral. Weight gain.
Hopefully taking the scale out of the equation will be helpful. Lately seeing the number drop has been causing me to sabatoge my success. Especially as I get closer to the 30 lb mark and breaking into the 160's. I freak out and eat.
So, no scale and no junk in May. My next challenge is nailing down the exercise this month. I'm shooting for 5 days a week. Something. Anything. Even if it's just swinging my kettle bell for 10 minutes. I've got the stuff here at home to make this happen. Now, to implement and follow through. Focus. Eat good quality food when I'm hungry and quit when I'm full.
Now, I leave you with a couple pictures. To be honest, I was disappointed when I looked at my "now" picture this morning after taking it. Then I pulled up the "before" picture. Progress has been made. Sometimes it's hard to tell since I see myself everyday in the mirror. But now, I'm starting my day with a renewed sense of can do attitude because hey, look what I've done so far ☺












Have a great weekend!

Help me!!

It's been a bad morning. I just keep eating. Time to put a stop to it. There is no way in hell I'm going to undo the hard work I've done. I'm gonna go brush my teeth, pop a piece of gum and get busy doing something else!

Hospitals and Stress...

So we've been having a rough go of it lately in our house. Last Saturday (the 16th) my 2.5 yr old son had to be hospitalized. We were finally discharged on Tuesday afternoon after spending the better part of 4 days in the hospital. He has asthma and allergies and when he gets a virus it tends to go straight to his chest and often turns to pneumonia. Which happened. He had to be on oxygen for several days. Thankfully he is doing much better now but the whole experience was stressful to say the least.
On a brighter note I was able to maintain my weight during all this. I've been able to slide right back into my normal healthy eating and I'm feeling good about that end of things. The exercise part of things is where I'm struggling right now. I plan to focus my energy on that next week. One other thing to note- I've picked out my first (post baby) 5k. I'll be running it May 7th. More about that in another post.
So that's the update. Hope everyone has a great weekend....

Finding the sweet spot...

Good morning lovelies! Did you miss me? Somehow the days and weeks have just been flying lately and I haven't been blogging. If you remember I was sick, the kids were sick, then hubby went on vacation. Totally threw me off my routine. Last week was a "normal" week though so I was working on getting everything back in order. And here I am. I've had a few successes (and a few bad days). I busted into the 170's which is an awesome feeling. My BMI no longer categorizes me as obese...now I am simply overweight lol (I really hate BMI because I think it's screwy, but I still look at the number as a bit of a guideline). I dropped 4% body fat this month and overall I've lost almost 10% which means I've lost 30 lbs of fat since starting this process. I'm very close to fitting into my size 10 jeans...I can get them on and buttoned but the spill-over effect is not pretty. Another 10 lbs or so and I think they'll fit.
I did have a few bad days though in the past couple weeks. Thankfully I'm learning to brush it off and get back on the right track immediately. It used to be that a bad day or two would morph into a bad week or two. Not so anymore. I LIKE eating healthy and being active so getting back to it is that much easier. This isn't something that I'm doing just to lose weight but it is an added perk.
That last point is an important one. The changes I'm making are sustainable. Not always easy, but doable long term. Otherwise, what's the point? I had to motivate myself out of my little funk last week. How? I bought myself a double jogging stroller. Something I've been wanting. Something that's going to make exercising with the kids easier. And I love it. I took a 6 mile walk yesterday and burned 750 calories! And I enjoyed it, I'm excited to take the kids on walks and get little bits of exercise wherever I can.
Something else I've learned the past few weeks- a tip for those of you hitting a wall or having a tough time losing right now, start tracking your sugar. I started tracking my intake on MyFitnessPal.com just for fun really. I was frustrated the first few days because I kept going over their suggested levels. So I quit tracking it. Then I figured I'd try again and give it a couple days and see what happened. Let me tell you people, the weight fell off for a couple days. Unfortunately I didn't think about the effect it would have on my milk supply...that dropped too :( So now I am aware of my sugar intake and searching for that sweet spot number that will allow me to drop weight easier but not compromise my ability to feed my child. Being aware is the first step though...
And now, I'm hearing the pitter-patter of little feet which is my signal that the day is starting. Have a great day peoples!!

Movin' right along...

I'm so close to hitting my first "official" 20 lb mark. This week's weight- 182.8! Only .8 to go and I'm treating myself to a pedicure. It's keeping me motivated since the tootsies are in need of some major pampering. It also hit me today that I'm basically 1/3 of the way to my goal! Go me ☺
I'm still not back to 100% after being sick but things are improving every day. This week I'm focusing on pilates and walking for my exercise, at least till I'm feeling back in tip top shape. I walked the monkey to school yesterday and was reminded how much I enjoy that little bit of extra exercise. Hopefully the weather keeps cooperating and I can do it regularly. It also hit home that I need to start looking for a double stroller. While it works to put the baby in the carrier on my chest and push my 2 yr old in the stroller, it would be more comfortable just to push a stroller.
On another note, running is starting to call to me again. I miss running. Now the question is how do I fit it into my daily routine? I'm still working on that. But right now, I've got some bathrooms to clean and floors to mop...ta-ta! Have a healthy day!

Jinxed myself...

I guess I spoke too soon when I said I seemed to be getting better. Yeah, the cold came ROARING back, worse than before. I lost my voice, got pink eye and have just generally felt terrible since Tuesday afternoon. Since swallowing hurts so bad my food intake has been much lower for the past few days which has led to nice drop on the scale...silver lining I suppose LOL.
Anyway, just wanted to check in. Next week hopefully I'll feel up to exercising again. After talking with my husband I've decided to do the first month of Insanity again. The second month's workouts (which I did Monday) are longer and tougher and I think too much while nursing. We'll see how it goes.
Happy Friday everyone!

Go AWAY sickies...

We got hit with the sickies in our house this week. Thankfully I seem to be on the upswing. Unfortunately my weight seems to be stuck (most likely due to the fact that I've been eating whatever and not exercising). This past week was my recovery week for Insanity so that worked out pretty well. Tomorrow starts the 2nd (more intense) month...should be "fun". I'm a little scared LOL. I'll be working on bringing my eating back on track today so hopefully I'll see a little drop on the scale in the morning but I'm not holding my breath. Happy Sunday...