Monday Picture

Every Monday I am having a picture taken to document this journey. This Monday I was a tad down after my little gain but I had a NVS (none scale victory) where I was able to fit into a new pair of Capri jeans that I bought a few months back. I bought these from American Eagle in a size 8. I was wearing a size 10 in jeans when I bought them and I wanted that motivation to get down a pant size. I tried them on over the weekend and bam, that actually buttoned up. They are tight but I think they look pretty good.

I am still hovering back and forth between about 8 pounds down and 6 pounds down. If I eat things with sodium, the scale goes up as it holds on to all the water I am drinking. Speaking of water, I drink at least 8-10 glasses a day. Usually it is closer to 80oz of pure water with a 24oz ice tea somewhere throughout the day. I visit the bathroom often but it is all worth it to have my body hydrated.

I made it the gym yesterday and ran/jogged for 30 minutes on the treadmill. I have only been walking and running a bit with the girls at the park prior to this. Today I am feeling it. My legs are burning a bit and it shows me how out of shape I really am. I hope to improve and get to the gym more often in the next few weeks.

So how is everyone else out there doing? What are you doing? What is keeping your motivated? Let me know, leave a comment!

A little set back

I have had a little set back this week. Things were going really well up until Friday. My husband got a BIG promotion at work and we went out to celebrate. I ate Mongolian grill food and a little soft serve ice cream. Not so bad really in calories but the sodium is probably what killed me. Then the next day we had a family BBQ on my mom's side of the family. There were not any healthy options at the party and so I chose to eat a small cheeseburger and a few bites of all of the salads and two deviled eggs. I tried to keep active but the extra food stuck with me and my weigh in this morning was 145.2.

I am still down a bit this week but on Friday I was 144 even. It is funny how just a little diversion can change the scale so drastically. I hope to get back on track today but we are going out to dinner for Fathers day and to celebrate my step mom's birthday which was on the 17th. I plan to get grilled chicken or fish with steamed veggies. Wish me luck that i will get back on track and find some time for exercise this coming week!!!

I will leave you all with a picture of my new haircut which was my prize for hitting my first 5 pounds milestone. I am hanging out with my girlies and loving the fun we had!

A Day in My Life....

Hi, My name is Amy and I live a busy life. Sometimes I wonder why I put so much on my plate but then I sit back and know, I would not have it any other way. I love to be busy and I enjoy setting goals and accomplishing those goals. My dad always said that if Amy puts her mind do it, it will happen. This was not always a good thing, especially when I was 3 years old and I wanted something I was not allowed to have. I had to learn somethings the hard way but it helped to shape who I am today.

So a little more about me. I am a married mom of twin baby girls (or should I say toddlers). Our girls are 2 years and 2 months old now. I married a more laid back man that compliments my busy lifestyle by slowing me down a bit.

I work full time as a counselor for a major for-profit University. I am also a part-time instructor for another for-profit health care school. Part of my employment as an instructor involves going to graduation and tutoring the students here and there. I'm also finishing up my 2nd masters degree in Adult Education. I have about 5 classes left and I should finish that degree early 2012. I think I may pursue a PHD later in life, just not anytime soon as I need a major break for school. I also sell Scentsy products in my spare time (which I hardly ever have).

So there you go. I am full-time mom, full-time student, with a full-time job, and 2 part-time jobs. Some days I don't get everything done but most days I manage to fit it all in. I think that I am lacking in the exercise department and since I have so little time, I need to MAKE some time for myself.

Take today for instance. I am up for work at 4:30am. I get ready for the day and get my lunch and meals packed and I am out the door and arriving at work at 5:30am. I will work from 5:30 to 11:00am where I will leave and run over to the other college and tutor students for 2 hours on my lunch break from Job #1. I will arrive back from tutoring at about 2pm. I will then work until about 4:15pm and then head home. I usually have at least 1 errand to run on my way home consisting of grocery shopping (for more delicious healthy food) or picking up the dry-cleaning etc. I spend a couple of hours with my girls, we like to go to the park when it is not too hot and we also play in the sprinkler in the back yard. I will make dinner, see my husband for a short time since he gets home around dinner time. After dinner we play with the girls for a bit and then it is time for the girls' bath time and bedtime routine at around 7pm. After we get them in bed. I have about 30 minutes to check up on emails and do a little of homework and then I shower and go to bed around 8:30.

This schedule is not conducive to much "me" time but I make it work for now. At least I can control my food intake and make the best choices about what I put into my body. My schedule will change at the end of this month where I start teaching a course and I will be teaching from 6pm-9pm M-Thurs leaving me with less time with the girls but I may be able to go to the gym at work during my lunch break since I won't be tutoring during the lunch hour.

So there you have it, a day in the life of busy Amy!

PCOS

I don't know if any of you know what PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) is but it was something I was diagnosed with this year. PCOS is a problem in which a woman’s hormones are out of balance. It can cause problems with your periods and make it difficult to get pregnant. PCOS may also cause unwanted changes in the way you look. If it is not treated, over time it can lead to serious health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. For me, the main issues were infertility and weight fluctuations. I don’t metabolize my food correctly either which also spikes my weight gain. Now I am not using this as a copout but it does help me understand my body a little better.

When I was younger, I was fit when I played sports. I could eat what I wanted because I was so active but as soon as the sports season would end, I would gain weight again. This has been the cycle of my life. I was never diagnosed even through the days when my husband and I were trying to have a baby. At that time my blood work came back fine and my cycles were normal. It wasn’t until after we had our twin girls using fertility treatments and I breastfed them that my hormones went crazy. My cycles became really long and I was finally diagnosed and given medication to help regulate my body.

Some of the symptoms of PCOS include:

·         Acne – check, I had this all through my teens and still to this day.

·         Weight gain and trouble losing weight – check

·         Extra hair on the body and face. Often women get thicker and darker facial hair and  more hair on the chest, belly, and back. – Check

·         Irregular periods. Often women with PCOS have fewer than nine periods a year. Some women have no periods. Others have very heavy bleeding. – Check – mine are heavy and can last 14 days without medication

·         Fertility problems – check took fertility measures for us to get pregnant.

·         Most women with PCOS grow many small cysts on their ovaries. That is why it is called polycystic ovary syndrome. The cysts are not harmful but lead to hormone imbalances.

So knowing all this, I have to be healthy and stay healthy to avoid more health problems that my body is prone to if I don’t take care of myself. So once again, I have another reason for me to adopt this healthy lifestyle and not just diet for weight loss.

Weigh in Day.............

So every Sunday will be my weigh in day since I started this whole journey on a Sunday. Last week, I made sure to do all of my food shopping and get myself prepared for the week so I could do this right. I had a great week with my food choices and the only thing I ate that I think is a little on the bad side is several snacks of Rold Gold Pretzels.

These things are so yummy and they and they satisfy my craving for something to munch on. These are better than chips, I suppose. I made sure to stock up on some different healthy items for this week so I don't get bored.

I started this journey at 151.6. After one week the scale read.......146.6!!!!! Woohoo!!! Somehow I managed to lose 5 pounds doing things right. That makes me feel so good to know that things are going in the right direction and I am seeing results. And get this, my husband said he could already see a difference. Since when does that happen???? Usually I have to lose a considerable amount before he can see it or before he actually says something. I can feel that my tummy is a tad flatter too which is saying something since my time of the month showed up at the beginning of this week. It is hard to start a diet plan healthy lifestyle when Aunt Flow decides to visit. I hope to see a bit more loss after she leaves.

Wish me luck for next week. I will take comparison photos this week to see if I can "see" any changes.

So far so good....

I have almost finished my first week of my new lifestyle. So far things are going pretty well. I am seeing some weight loss and I know this because I am a little obsessed with seeing progress so I weigh in daily. I'm only going to post my weekly weigh-In's here but so far things are going in the right direction. I will have my weekly posts on Sunday which is the day I started this whole process.

Each day I get stronger and each day I get less hungry in between meals. I am learning to love food that is good for me and I am open to trying new foods to acquire different tastes. I eat a little slower now because I actually taste my food. And when you are not in a rush to shove greasy food down your through, things can actually taste good. I'm not saying that a cheeseburger does not taste good but good food also has a great taste.

I am trying to drink lots of water. I am better when I am at work and I tend to get most of my water intake completed in the first half of the day and then I enjoy some tea in the afternoon and my fluid intake levels off so I am not waking up 50 times a night to pee. However, my mornings are spent going back and forth from the bathroom which is a little annoying. I know that my body is thanking me for the extra hydration and proper fuel though.

I am hoping to find new recipes and new foods that will keep me from getting bored. I also want to find more time to exercise, but as a mom of twins who works full time, teaches part-time, and goes to school full time, time is sparse. I just hope I continue to do well, feel well, and make more progress.

Phases

Does anyone else feel like they go through phases when it comes to eating right and exercise? Sometimes I feel like it is an all or nothing type of deal. I am either in it full force and being really clean about the things I eat, or I am so bad with my food choices, I am looking for a heart attack to happen. Now it may not be as bad as I describe but I enjoy fast food. I enjoy a big cheeseburger and fries. I'm not really a sweet tooth kind of person but I do enjoy anything peanut butter and chocolate together. I think I eat when I am bored. I eat just to fill time when I am at work. I like to snack or I like to eat big huge meals and not need anything for another 5-6 hours at a time.
All of these habits are ones I need to work on and I need to commit to this healthy lifestyle not just embrace it for a few months and then go back to my old ways.

I feel like once I get back to my goal weight I will learn portion control and hopefully be able to still enjoy a slice of pizza here or a cookie here but it must be in moderation and not binge on those things.

I say all this because just last year, I was on the right track. I was finishing up nursing the twins and I was ready to get my body back in shape. I did all this through food choices alone and very little exercise. I was successful to a point but then I gained a bunch of this weight back over the last year:

I was not to my goal weight in the top picture but I was about 8-10 pounds away. I was so close I could taste it, and apparently I chose to taste other things. I hope this time will be different and I will become a changed healthy person through this journey.

Getting Started

It is time. It is time for me to get healthy and stay healthy. I can remember countless times over my life that I have started a diet, tried to lose weight, or felt my body was not good enough. Now I can look back at some of those times and I could slap my younger self. I was pretty fit growing up. I loved sports and playing outdoors and my body developed at a different rate than my peers. I was a gymnast with a muscular body while my friends were "skinny" or that is how I saw it. I developed curves early and thought that meant I was fat or bigger than my peers. Looking back on pictures from my childhood, I can see that I was fit and active.

Although I was pretty fit. I was probably not healthy. I was raised in the fast food generation. At the end of generation X we were among the first families where both parents worked. I was also a part of a blended family and both of my mom's had little time to cook or make meals with healthy ingredients. I learned to love fast food early and that has always been my downfall. My body craved that junk and I never learned to eat "right". In my adult years, I made some changes but never stuck to my changes. I have learned more about proper diets, exercise, and ideal weights but I have never adopted the lifestyle.

Now that I am a mom of two beautiful twin girls, I think it is time for me to make some major changes so I can raise my girls better and allow them the to learn about food in its purest form.

My husband is no better with his eating habits. He has a psychological aversion to water. I don't know when or how that started but he doesn't drink water in the pure form. He will drink Crystal Light, juice, and soda but he does not drink water. He also refuses to eat most vegetables. And the only fruits he eats are apples and some oranges.

As I look at our family, I realize we are all struggling to find health. My quest has to do with losing weight but it is more important that I get my family healthy. The weight loss will just be a perk of getting healthy.

So with that said, I introduce you to me. I don't know why I have the most awful frown on my face but you get the idea. This is all 152 pounds of me.