Day 4: Two Weeks Later. FAIL

Well, it's day 4, but it's been 2 weeks since my last post. It's so hard to keep up with this blog... but it's even harder to keep up with healthy lifestyle changes!!!!! UGH! Paul and I went to Atlanta for the weekend, which was AMAZING! Needless to say, I ate amazing, terrible food the ENTIRE time. The only redeeming thing I did was run a full 2 miles on a very hilly Atlanta! It was exhausting, and I was slow, but I did it.

Last week, after Atlanta, I was sick.... very sick... and Paul was not very helpful. So I didn't eat well that week, and only worked out 1 day. :(

So for the remainder of the week, I plan to eat better, stay on my calorie plan, log my food intake, and workout at least 3, hopefully 4 times this week. I don't even want to think about how difficult it's going to be to run after taking this long off. Not to mention, I still have tons of sinus issues going on with my breathing and my throat. I'm going to force myself though!

I've been thinking... instead of just having the two goals of running a 5k (and not being in last place) and losing 100lbs this year.... I need to make smaller goals that are more quickly reached, so that I can see and feel excited about the results!

I think I'll just make a goals page, so that I can check them off when I reach them.

With the terrible 2 weeks I've had, I'm still happy to say I've lost 3 pounds since I started. I wish it was more like 13, but who am I kidding. I haven't fully sold out on the eating healthy or working out, so that's what I get, is minimal results. I'm ready for this change, though, and to get things under control!

I CAN DO IT!

Day 3: Crock Pot Day! YAY

I love Wednesdays because I know that I don't have to cook dinner! Of course, I have to prepare it early in the morning, but for some reason, that seems WAY easier to me than trying to do it in the evening when I'm tired and have all the kids up. Wednesdays, after I get home from work and getting the kids, we have about an hour and a half before I have to take Isabella to piano and Children's Church. So I do crock pot meals a lot so that we still have something to eat.

The day went by fast. I still gave in WAY too many times to candy bars.... UGH! If I could just not go in the school kitchen that would help.... but I have to. So, like every other area, I'm going to have to learn... FORCE... moderation and restraint. I made a roast (beef) for dinner with potatoes and carrots. I don't really like carrots.... as in HATE... so I just ate the potatoes and roast beef. I also ate leftover chicken soup from yesterday for lunch so I did really good on those meals.

I, thankfully, stayed under my calorie count (but as mentioned in the post yesterday, I'm not sure the calorie limit is low enough).... but I had too much candy. On the way home from getting Isabella, I needed to stop and get a gallon of milk. I had been pretty stressed out because I had tried to go shopping with Wyatt which was 1) a disaster, and 2) for some reason I thought losing 5lbs would make clothes fit LOL. So, when getting the milk, I also got me a Twix Icecream. RIDICULOUS! That's embarrassing to even admit. So definitely, I have to start working on the candy bars. Hopefully by Friday, I can say that I didn't have a single one all day. That's my goal! I need to pack other snacks to replace them so when I feel hungry I won't turn to stuff like that... and I also need to find other ways to relieve stress, besides eating food!

The only positive for today, was that I weighed before I went to bed, just to see how I was progressing up or down.... and YAY! I've lost 5lbs since MONDAY! WOOT WOOT! That always helps me want to do better.

I didn't work out today. I didn't have time to go to the Rush and my body is EXTREMELY sore from the workout video last night. So I plan to go run tomorrow night for sure!

Here's my breakdown of food for today: 

I'll end with a sweet picture of Wyatt, after he woke up from his nap. I love his sweet precious smiles! 

Day 2: Candy Bars and Extreme Makeover Weightloss DVD

Hello all.... by all, I pretty much mean myself at this point :) I thought yesterday was busy, then today started, and WOW! No comparison. After work today, I had to rush to my Mom's house (she keeps my boys while I'm at work) and nurse Wyatt. Then I had to rush straight to a new school to interview for a Math teaching position for next year. That took an hour longer than I expected, so then I rushed (yes, that is the word of the day) back to my Mom's to pick up my kids and head home. Once I got home, I realized that it was 20 minutes before Paul would be home... and let's face it, he's "STARVING" and expects dinner pretty much immediately as his foot hits the wood floors ;). So I had to RUSH to cook dinner.

I was going to cook chicken casserole, which would have been terrible calories wise, but I didn't have enough time. So instead, I fixed chicken soup. I just threw a lot of things in it, but it actually tasted AMAZING! And the best part is, Paul didn't love it so I have to for lunch the rest of the week. The second best part, it's not very many calories at all!!!!! I had a little "GO KRYSTAL" party after accomplishing everything I did today and making a yummy meal on top of it.

Wyatt is normally VERY fussy during the evening, but tonight he was so tired that he fell asleep at 7:30. YAY! So I decided instead of going to the Rush to run, I would try a workout DVD I have. I didn't want to run because I seem to do better when I take a day or two off. But I was determined to work out. So I set up the tv and DVD player in Wyatt's nursery (he still sleeps in our room). I used the Extreme Makeover Weighloss DVD. 

I really like his personality on the show, so I thought I would probably like the DVD. I also like that he uses some of the people who have lost weight, because 1) I know they used to be overweight and they did it, and 2) some of them are still a little heavy, which is encouraging. Some DVDs I've done in the past, have used such in shape people that it's both intimidating, and the moves they do are impossible. Anyways, there were 3 levels on this DVD. I decided to do level 3, since I've been working out for several weeks. It was HARD, and TIRING! But I completed the ENTIRE workout (about 40 minutes) and didn't cheat on any of it.... well I probably could've done the sit-ups a little higher, but with my large chest and stomach, those are still VERY hard. I loved the work out though, and will try to continue to do it on my off days from running. The best part... Isabella wanted to do it with me, and she did the ENTIRE workout as well! Of course, she can't do all the moves, but she made up her own and we had a great time! She was very into it, and was hilarious to listen to. 

JD even came in and participated sometimes. He liked the squats section and the push-ups. I loved watching him try to do what we were doing.... while eating crackers (of course). That boy is going to turn into a fish cracker before long. 

As far as eating is concerned, I stayed under my calorie count. But I'm really really struggling with candy bars. Here's why... where I work, I sell concessions to our students at lunch. There are an assortment of candy bars that call my name daily. I'm certain that if I stayed under my calorie limit, but did it with things besides candy bars, that I would do WAY better on my weightloss. So that's going to be my goal the next couple of days... .to start cutting back completely on the candy bars. I'm also concerned that my calorie limit is set too high. When I entered in my current weight, height, and what I want to lose, My Fitness Pal calculated how many calories a day I should eat itself, but I think it may be too high. It says I should eat 2,470 a day, which seems way high. I was thinking more between 1,600-1,800. I decided I would give it one week with their numbers and see how much weight I lose, then lower the calorie limit if I need to. Here's my food break down for today.  

Day 1: Only 24 hours in the day...

So I decided today would be the day I picked back up where I left off last year when I found out I was pregnant with Wyatt. I always seem to want to start on a Monday. Sunday night, while nursing at 3AM, I planned in my head what I would fix for breakfast and lunch so that I could prepare it quickly the next morning. The mornings are always a blur because I have to get Isabella up and ready for school.. she is NOT a morning person, then I have to get Wyatt and JD up and ready to go to my Mom's... then I have to take them all to their respective places and get myself to work. WHEW I'm tired just thinking about it. OH, I also downloaded MY FITNESS PAL again. It really helped me last year be able to see exactly how many calories I'm eating. It's amazing how many calories I eat when I don't track what I'm eating. It's a lot easier for me, when I see that I have 500 calories left, or 1,000 calories left to make better decisions.... yes, I try to stretch and use my calories for all their worth (aka EAT AS MUCH FOOD AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE for the calories I'm allotted). The highlight of MY FITNESS PAL is that I get to add 400 calories a day for breastfeeding.. SCORE!

So I tracked all of my food yesterday... every single bite. I even had enough calories for a candy bar!! I ate well enough on all of my meals that I was able to do that. I had a home made strawberry banana smoothie for breakfast.. YUM! I will probably do smoothies most days because they are so easy to make. I also made my lunch for work for the first time in FOREVER! It's so hard for me to prepare ahead of time, when I'm trying to think about everyone else too, but I did it! And it was GOOD tasting, so that makes it all the better. (sorry for the not great picture... I forgot to take one until I was already drinking it in the car).

When I got home from work and picking up the kids, things got crazy. I really needed to do 3 loads of laundry, wash dishes, clean up the house, etc etc CHORES CHORES CHORES... BUT, Isabella came home with 10... TEN!!!... pages of math homework to do .. SHE'S IN KINDERGARTEN PEOPLE!!!! It took us over an hour to get done. And Wyatt, thought he hadn't eaten all day and wanted to nurse every 2 hours, so it was very very busy. We did get in a little play time in between home work and cooking dinner.

I had to let Wyatt cry while I cooked dinner, which made JD on edge. Something about Wyatt crying makes JD extra fussy. I made spaghetti, green beans, and bread. Not the healthiest, but I didn't have much time or hands to cook anything better. I almost burned it all anyways, trying to get Wyatt to sleep and to stop crying. The silver lining, Bella, on her own, wrote this little lovely paper while I was cooking. ADORABLE! I even love the misspelled words :)

Once dinner was over, and everything was cleaned up, I nursed Wyatt AGAIN... that boy is an empty pit.... then Paul agreed to let me go to the Rush to workout. I really didn't think he'd want to keep the kids, because Wyatt was so fussy, but I'm so thankful he did. 

I have 2 goals this year:

1. Run my first 5K (and hopefully run it in under 37 minutes)

2. Lose 100 lbs. 

I had started working out about 3 weeks ago, so I've already been running a little. I'm using the Couch to 5K app on my phone to help me start running. Because it's so cold outside, I've only been able to run on the treadmill. I HATE running on the treadmill. HATE HATE HATE. When I run outside, it seems so much easier, and to take a lot less time. On the treadmill it seems that time... and distance... goes SO SLOW! My Mom went with me tonight, so I was also trying to talk while jogging/walking, and I had just eaten spaghetti, so it didn't go to great. I'm on week 4 of the C25K program. On week 4, you jog 3 min, walk 90 secs, jog 5 mins, walk 2.5 mins, jog 3 mins, walk 90 secs, then jog 5 mins. The most I had jogged before this was 3 minutes, so the 5 minute intervals felt like TORTURE. I was cramping in my side... probably from trying to talk with my Mom and from the spaghetti. So I took the speed slower... probably slower than I should have... but I was SO tired, was having trouble breathing, and again... my side :) I still burned 301 calories... so I count that as a SUCCESS. After the treadmill, I went and ran the stairs they have set up in the building. I did them 6 times and was starting to feel that throw up feeling, so I stopped. I was proud of my workout though, considering the hectic, fast day I had had. I think the fact that I'm 285 lbs and running at all is something to brag about... so BRAG BRAG BRAG!

I also stayed under my calorie limit! YAY! Too many carbohydrates... so I'm going to try to fix that today. I love that this app makes it so easy to see what everything counts as! 

 The best part of the day... when I started yesterday morning, I weighed 285 lbs. I know I'm only supposed to truly weigh in once a week, but I'm slightly obsessed with weighing everyday... several times a day (I'll talk about this on another post). BUT after all of my meals for the day, and my workout, and with WET HAIR (I have very thick hair and wet hair, I'm convinced, adds like 20 lbs to the scale haha)... I was DOWN almost 3 pounds!!!!!!! I took a picture because that was in less than 24 hours! I get it.. water weight, I know. But it was a nice way to end of the night, and a nice boost of confidence and encouragement to continue the journey! (I have tried for 20 min to flip the picture. It's right side up in my file and phone, but it keeps flipping here. You get the idea though).... and let's not even talk about how bad my toes need painting :)

DAY 1 DONE! BOOM!