It's Been a While

It's been a while (as I'm writing this the Staind song is playing in my head) and there is lots to blog about. As far as life goes many things are really good and are keeping me busy. I've been officially accepted into grad school, my hubby and I are in the process of getting a king size bed, I've rearranged all the bedrooms to accommodate for this bed, I turned 29, the Christmas decorations are up, and I'm tyring to plan ahead and keep ahead at work. These things could probably all have their own post, but I will worry about catching up later.

The thing that I have been avoiding the most in the midst of all of the above is anything to do with being healthier, eating healthier, working out, or blogging. I've come to a point where most of my healthier habits have gone out the window and I'm just doing whatever. I kind of had an "a-ha" moment last night and am ready to get back on the horse again (for the millionth time). Right now I plan on just focusing on the basics, so no big challenges or goals. Once I'm back in the groove of things that may change.

I would like to focus on making healthier food choices, portion control, and drinking more water. I will work myself back to the Six Week Body Makeover or Weight Watchers, but for right now I just need to do something simple that won't overwhelm me. My meals are usually okay, but I've been doing horrible on snacking again. I've been eating candy bars and cinnamon rolls recently. When I was really following my plan, these things would make me sick if I ate them. I want to get back to that point. I'm usually a big water drinker, but lately I've been drinking more diet pop and less water. Also, when I do eat a healthy meal, I sometimes just plain eat too much.

As for exercising, I will set up the Kinect for the 360 tonight and do that or the Wii Fit for a little bit. I'll try doing a little bit of either one of those a day until I get my fitness level back up. I also need to start doing my stretches for my neck/shoulders again due to pain in my wrists. My hubby's place of employment has a small gym in it, so I would like to do C25K again (and not stop 2 jogs short of finishing) and complete it. I have asthma, so wogging in the cold won't work for me.

Another thing that needs some attention is the mental/motivational side of this. I need to work on positive self-talk and finding what really motivates me again. There's a book that I've probably mentioned before for emotional eaters called Life is Hard, Food is Easy by Linda Spangle. I've read through most of it twice and did some of the exercises, but never finished it. I would like to work on finishing that as well.

Here is the food plan for the rest of this week:

Breakfast:

I haven't tried these yet,but I hope that they are good!

Snack:

Snack:

Lunch:

I will have two of these plus some veggies and applesauce. It is an English Muffin pizza made with a whole wheat English muffin, reduced fat cheese, pizza sauce, onions, and turkey pepperoni. Bake them for ten minutes at 375 degrees. Yum!

 

Snack:

Dinner:

I'm going have these in whole wheat tortillas instead of corn hard shells.

Snack:

The trick with these is portion control. I'm hoping for one or two at night as a treat.

Motivational Marbles

I've been working hard to get myself, if nothing else, eating on plan again. I thought that maybe going full throttle into a ramped up version of my plan would help. I tried that at the end of last week and failed. I thought I would start it up again this week, but haven't. I found myself craving some of my old favorites from last winter when I was doing an awesome job of losing weight. I figure I'll run with that for now since it seems to be working. Here are some of the healthy eats from recently:

This and the rice below are leftovers from a Mexican restaurant in our town square. The hubs was nice enough to give me his leftovers.

I wanted to eat a salad with chicken for both my morning and afternoon snack, but it has been turning out to be more of just an afternoon snack for me.

Cooking up an easy dinner in the convection oven. Probably what I'll be eating for dinner the rest of this week.

This is healthier than you think. The chicken nuggets are Perdue brand made with white meat and 100% whole grain breading. The tater tots are make from sweet potato.

One of my co-workers had pizza for lunch and I was thinking about it all afternoon. I made my own easy and healthier version with skim milk cheese, green peppers, red onions, and precooked breakfast sausage (which I plan on also using with my egg whites to whip up a healthy breakfast).

I also found this really neat motivational idea on Pinterest for a visual about how many pounds that I lost and how many more I have to go. Here's a link to the blog where the idea came from with pictures of other people's motivational marbles. I want to make two sets, one for home and one for my office at work. I struggle in different ways at both home and work and it might be nice to have a big ol' reminder in front of my face when I am tempted to stray. Here is my set for at home as it looks right now. I'm feeling like being a bit more crafty with this project, so I'll probably add something more to the jars later when I'm not tired and still have to get ready for work tomorrow. Anyway... I have decided to add a bead for each ten pound mark that I reach. When I get to my goal weight, then I'll put the beads together to make a bracelet. The bracelet and beads are from Hobby Lobby.



Both jars filled and next to each other in my home office.

The marbles in there each represent a pound that I still need to lose to get to my goal weight.

As I lose weight I will move the marble to the pounds gone (didn't use pounds lost since lately I've been easily finding them again!) jar. For each ten pound mark I will add a bead for my bracelet instead of a marble. You can see an awesome pink and black zebra striped bead in there already.

September Girl

I named this post September Girl after the Bangles song "September Girls." The reason why follows after a video:

The simple reason is that I want to rock it out in September with weight loss, exercise, and eating right. I would like September to be the month that I make goals and stick to them for a change. Really go back to the good habits I formed when I first started losing weight. I've strayed quite far from some of those good habits over the summer and it is time to get back on the wagon. On my weigh-ins page I've highlighted the weeks that I gained weight in red. There weren't very many reds if you go back to the early days and there are a ton of reds now. I used to lose 5 pounds in 4-6 weeks, not months. I'm still in the obese category, so the weight should still be coming off like that. The problem is that my motivation and willpower have faded. They aren't gone, but I feel like they are a little candle with a small flame blowing around in the wind instead of a roaring fire. I've been trying to find some new blogs to read, because some of my favorite bloggers aren't writing as often or taking a break. Reading blogs is what sparked my fire the first time. I've also been on the hunt for some motivational quotes and found a page with a ton of them. Here is one that has resonated with me:

"Anything is possible, It's your choice whether or not you choose to make IT happen."

I'm working hard on choosing to do great things this month in weight loss land. It isn't something I have to do, it is something I'm choosing to do to make myself a better person. So here are the choices that I would like to work on in September:

• Lose at least 30 pounds (again!) and get down to at least 190 by the end of September.
• Focus on following my eating plan again with cooking more of my own meals at home.
• Finish C25K (only two more 30 minute jogs) and decide on whether to continue jogging.
• Work out five days a week. Working out could be jogging, walking, biking, walking the dogs, cleaning around the house, or playing Wii Fit or xBox Kinect.
• Keep blogging as I have time about my September choices. I might not be on every day, but I will try to keep up to date.

If I choose to do these things, the weight loss will follow and my habits will be good ones again.

I've also given myself a non-scale victory to work towards. I would like to fit into this dress sometime this fall/winter. It would be super cute with some black leggings, my mid-calf black swede boots, and these peace sign earrings.

Thank goodness this picture is blurry and a front view. Yes the dress is on my body, but believe me, it ain't pretty from the side view.

I also haven't been giving myself some the rewards that I have for meeting goals. I should've given myself a CD for getting to 195, and I never did. When I lose 0.8 pounds and get to 195 again, I choose to give it to myself and feel good about a step in the right direction.

And maybe I should choose to do things to make me sweat as much as Chuck Berry is in this picture. Johnny B. Goode!

I also bought a CD with five songs from Phillip Phillips (winner of American Idol last year). I wanted to give myself a song for every pound lost between 195 and 190 as a small reward which I never did as well. It sucks to be losing the same weight again, but I do think I deserve a little bit of reward for putting the effort in again.

If I find myself struggling (which I'm sure that I will) I will have to remember this whole choices thing and push myself to make better choices until they become second nature. If I'm hungry while driving home from work, I could choose to stop and get a doughnut like this week or I could choose to get a protein bar, veggies, or a piece of fruit. If I'm tired after work, I could choose to watch TV or sit on the computer or I could choose just do to a little bit like a short walk or some laundry.

Now that I'm feeling some motivation, I'm going to choose to make the most of this day off of work. I'm going to cook a healthy dinner and snack. I'm going to get up and move by mowing the yard, doing laundry, and mopping the kitchen floor. I'm going to work on my grad school application. Maybe I'll even be writing a post again later today to let you know how all this goes.

Working for the Weekend

Well, today was my first day back at work after my illness. I had to be back today, because the FAME (Fine Arts and Music in Education) Festival is this weekend. I'm taking my after school choir composed of 3rd and 4th graders to perform. The kids in choir had to try out and their parents had to pick them up from practices, so I know that they want to be there and will do a good job. The theme this year (or so the letter sent to me told me) is Southeast Asia. We only learned five songs, but they were hard since they were at least partially in another language that isn't familiar to any of us (songs from Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, etc.) When I got the flyer with my packet a few weeks ago the theme was about seas and countries from around the world. That would have been so much easier than Southeast Asia, but the kids already were only two practices away from the performance. I guess I'll have to call and ask to confirm the theme if they send me another letter with a theme for next year. I still need to fix some props that are falling apart and bag the shirts for the performance tomorrow.

I still need to fold these shirts nicely so they don't wrinkle.

And them put the right sizes in each student's bag with their props (and fix the broken props).

March is also Music in Our Schools Month (MIOSM). I've been working hard this year to include some activities and promote music education this year. I have guest performers coming into music classes, assemblies planned for the whole school, and a bulletin board that is almost complete about how people/staff at my school participate(d) in music. It isn't just that one day that goes into any of these activities- there is a lot of prep work involved. I'm sure glad that the kids will get to experience some extra fun music activities though.

Please ignore the dog hair from hugging my doggies when I got home from work.

There have been some signs of spring recently. Here are a couple of pictures to show what we've seen here in Northwest Indiana.

Boxes and trash that was blowing around on trash day due to the very high winds.

The first flowers in bloom for the spring (please ignore the weeds next to them).

Tree branches from the high winds.

Here is a little bit better picture of my new green eyeshadow. It is also springy.

You notice my lack of posting about food. Well, I have been just eating what I want since I don't feel well. Today though I'm starting to feel some motivation to eat better. Maybe I can work myself back on plan over the weekend and set my new goals for the month.

Time to get Back on Track

I know that the posts are getting far and few between lately. I have been wanting to write, but I've been really busy with work again or worried about my family. I've spent two weeks not completely on track. My meals are usually pretty healthy, but my snacks are not always. My snacks are killing me, and I'll probably see a weight gain this week again. My workouts have been mostly consistent, but I have skipped a couple of days.

My goal is to again focus on what I need to do to continue my weight loss journey and take the time to do it. It is tough, at this time with everything going on. I have two more late Tuesdays, and my after school choir will be done. This leaves me with late Wednesdays for the piano lesson I teach. I try to get things done while I'm waiting for my student, so I don't have to come in on weekends. Sometimes I'm pretty beat down by the end of the day though. I have been keeping my iPod and armband in my school bag, so I could always walk while I'm waiting and get my workout in at school if I feel like it.

I also haven't really taken the time in weeks to do just something for even a few minutes to have fun. About the only things I've done for fun is read a couple of articles in Rolling Stone magazine and find a few bargains on clothes while out doing my weekly shopping. My winter coat is too big, so I found one on clearance for $20 that is one of those three-in-one jackets. I can unzip the lighter one from the inside and use it this spring, so I thought it made it worth the money.

I also found two pairs of size 17 juniors lightweight cords that I can use for work for around $5 a piece.

I found a cute Garfield shirt as well that I just had to get. It is slightly tight, so it can be some motivation.

I think I need to go listen to some cheesy motivational songs like Richard Marx's "Ain't Nothing You Can Do About It" and maybe make a play list on my iPod for days weeks like I've been having. It would definitely bring some slight enjoyment to my life for a few minutes at least.