Work It Off

So, last night we headed to the YMCA for Family Fun Night.

I admit, it takes everything in me to join in on group exercise.  Okay, full truth is it takes everything in me to join in on ANY exercise.  I'm just wired that way.  Lots of overcoming happens in my head if I want to be part of the Family Fun.

We did have fun.  We played some flag football and dodge ball.  Of course, it wasn't a major workout, but it was really great to hear my little girls giggle and squeal with delight as Mommy and Daddy chased and cheered for them.  The boys especially liked having a fast and furious Daddy on their tail. 

Everyone was famished, though, when they got home.  Dinner *was* pretty light, as I was trying to get us out the door quickly.  I made a vegetable stir fry that was apparently short on vegetables.  I served it over crunchy chow mein noodles for the children.  I intended to have brown rice, too, so they wouldn't have so many of the processed noodles, but I didn't make the time for the rice to cook. 

All of that led to hungry bellies after the gym.  I made up three blenderfuls of kale and fruit smoothies while someone else cooked up some peanut butter toast.  We munched away while David read our advent reading for the night.  Really, it was very sweet.

This morning the scale was up on first step.  I decided that since I had had that late night snack, which isn't my norm, I would get in a light Wii workout.  The fact that the house was quiet and I was alone helped in a big way.

Twenty minutes later and I'm down .4 pounds.  I'll take it.

Medival Feasting

The last two days found me in the kitchen.  So, what's new about that, right?

This time I was taking orders from my oldest daughter as she led the way in hosting her first medieval feast.  She planned this event all year, looking forward to her birthday.  She worked hard to make the foods, the table, the decorations, and the events as close to authentic as possible.

We invited some of our favorite friends to enjoy the day with us.  Their oldest son's birthday is the day before our daughter's so it was great fun to celebrate both of their days together. 

Now, when I say we feasted, I mean it!! Good thing I was so busy serving I didn't have time to overly stuff myself.

It was an amazing day. I'll post some recipes for the foods soon. Right now I sorta ache from my back to my calves to my finger tips. All signs of an amazing day!

New Decade in Sight!

The scale was down in a big way this morning!! I have 3 more pounds to go before I reach the next decade. And, only 7 more pounds to go before I am out of The Land of Obese!!!

Whoever thought it would be so exciting to be Overweight. ;)

So, our experiment this week proved successful.  Each week David and I go out for date. We typically scrounge around to find a place to eat out that fits our Eat To Live choices. Often, we find something that works, but still has something that isn't ideal.  The biggest offenders would be the salt, oil, and white carbs. 

This week we decided to skip the meal out and just grab some kind of quick leftovers before we went dancing. (YES! We are taking square dancing lessons!! How nerdy is that?! Super, silly fun!)  So, after skipping the restaurant food, I stepped on the scale this morning and saw almost a full pound gone!  Clearly, those *cheat* nights with fried mushrooms or salty chips do make a difference.

I don't mind giving them up to see that scale move.  I just wish there was SOMEWHERE to go for a nice, relaxing meal together that didn't harm the body.  I sure do like having someone else prepare a meal and deal with the messy kitchen once in a while.

Today is a crazily busy day.  We have a mad rush to prep food and house before I head out for lessons and shopping with the children.  I am going to a different grocery store today, hoping to find some new food items.  Especially looking for some variations of the Ezekiel Bread I've been getting for the children.  Also planning to stop at an apple orchard for a big bag of drops.  I'm not sure when I'll have time to process them, but I can't pass up the price!

Nutritarian Birthday Feast!

My oldest daughter turned 16 yesterday.  We had some fun shopping, then stopped for an express lunch in the van.  Instead of fast-food, we went to the local grocery store and built three huge salads for David, myself, and our daughter. Grabbed a loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter and jar of all fruit for the other children.  We were all excited to have good stuff to eat and cheap for on the road!

After that we ate our way through the apple orchard while we picked to fill our bucket of fresh apples.  Now, that's some healthy fun!

We cruised home for a Taco Bar night.  We tried something new by baking corn tortillas in the oven like this, making some great taco shells for our filling of black beans mixed with onions, garlic, mushrooms, collards, and seasoning, brown rice mixed with mixed vegetable medley, dried onion, garlic, and more seasoning, and of course, a giant fresh salad and salsa.  Everyone was quite happy with the birthday girl for giving us an excuse to eat such yummy food. :)

The best part of the meal came at the end, of course. She was so excited to plan out her birthday dessert, Nutritarian style.

She chose Dark Chocolate Nice Cream mixed with Raw Brownie Bites.  We called it Live by Chocolate Nice Cream. (spin off of our old favorite, Death By Chocolate Ice cream).

 

 Delicious!!  She truly is a genius.

 

I always tease my children that their birthday is also MY birthday. After all, who did all the work, right?  ;)  So, I was pretty happy to see the scale down half a pound this morning. I'm calling that a belated birthday gift to me!

Do-Si-Do!

Tonight we headed out for an interesting date.

First stop: A local health fair. We had them check our cholesterol and blood sugars. I think we did pretty well. :)

 

 

We also spent some time sharing with others about our adventure moving to a plant-based diet. It's so great to have such a thriving testimony to share. There's just no denying how much our lives have changed for the better by simply changing what we put in our mouths! Just LOOK at us.  There's no denying life is SO much better!!

 

Then we headed over for dinner at Dos Amigos.  Vegan Chili burrito in a whole wheat tortilla. Yum.  The chips were not so smart with the salt and oil. I'll have to make sure they skip those next time.

 

After our sidewalk dinner on a gorgeous fall evening, we headed over for our first square dancing lesson. Oh my, what fun!! The people there were amazingly friendly and fun to be with. We worked hard trying to learn the calls, but spent even more time laughing at ourselves!  By the middle of the evening, we were sweating.  I couldn't believe that we could work that hard learning some basic steps.  I think we're going to really enjoy having such a great way to get out and have fun this winter.

 

We've been getting in our walks in the morning, which is fantastic!  Still going strong with the 6 week plan.  I chopped up some broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots in the food processor the other day. Those are going great on my head of romaine for lunch every day.  I found a great creamy Italian dressing from theprotectivediet.com website. It uses chia seeds to thicken it and make it creamy. Really great flavor, too!

 

All in all, life is great and I'm plugging along. Down a pound so far this week. :)  REALLY close to that 30 pounds down mark. Maybe tomorrow?? Maybe not. Those chips I had at dinner may hold me back a little yet. 

Field Trip!

We headed down to Mass for a family field trip today.  I'm beat!

I ate heavy on the grains today, but I still was able to pull of an ETL day of eating.  I'm feeling right proud of myself for having put together a day's worth of meals while we were on the road.

Breakfast happened in the car so we could spend the morning packing and getting out the door early.
Orange-Berry muffins
hb eggs
bananas
walnut pieces
(fruit bowl for me and I had a muffin)

Lunch was served picnic style in the grass near the museum.
Taco salad wraps
apples
peanuts
carrot sticks

Dinner was eaten with friends at their house.
Peanut butter and all-fruit sandwiches
Cold Sloppy Corn Muffins
carrot sticks
a bit of taco salad that my friend prepared, I skipped the dressing :)

So, I had a lot of grains with the muffins, cornbread, Ezekiel bread, and rice tortilla at lunch. Still, they were nutritious grains and it made the day so much easier while we were out.

And, my "skinny skirt" that I've been wearing is getting looser.  I can even spin it. :)

Good Kind of Tired

I have not updated in a long time.  Every time I sit in front of my screen, I'm a little too tired for getting in all I want to type.

Quick Version:

Saturday I made some amazing black bean and corn empanadas. I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free all purpose baking flour and flax-egg to up the nutrition on the crust. They were incredibly good.  I got a little crazy with the chipotle chili powder, but that's an easy fix for next time.

 

I was short on filling, so I mixed some chopped apple and blueberries to use up the extra dough.

 

They weren't a quick meal, but I was really happy to have them for our picnic lunch this weekend while we had some fun downtown at our local Hay Day.  How's that for a yummy nutritarian lunch?

 

 

Today we visited with a dear friend. The grill was loaded with thick pork tenderloin steaks, veggie skewers, and we had a green salad and watermelon.  It was so good! I did enjoy some of the pork and it was delicious. The little girls went all crazy asking for more and more "chicken".  I have to say, though, as yummy as that meat was, those grilled mushrooms stole my heart. Boy, were they good!

 

I haven't weighed myself in a few days. I've just been too busy each morning getting life going to get in a work out or weigh-in.  Tomorrow we'll see how the sat did me in. We did chomp on corn chips and salsa in the car on the way home for dinner. I'm sure that's going to set me back a bit. 

 

I'm looking forward to the beginning of another new and great week.  Hopefully my body will get a good sleep like last night and I'll have the energy I need to hit the ground running....like I need to do!! 

 

 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Today's Good Things:
Ate well, under on calories
Got out twice for a walk
Tried a couple of new recipes

Today's Not So Good Things:
Missed my afternoon workout

I was tired again today.  I ended up going to lie down after lunch instead of working out. I didn't sleep, but having some quiet and closing my eyes was good.

I made some vegetable broth today. I used it to water sautee' our yellow and green beans tonight at dinner. Very tasty.

I also made Mushroom Stroganoff and it was great. I enjoyed mine over steamed broccoli.  Didn't miss the pasta at all and felt VERY full when my meal was done. I even skipped the pineapple everyone had for dessert.

I worked on my menu and recipe binder today. That was fun.  I have a big grocery list for next week.  Trying some new things like bok choy and artichokes. :)

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Today's Good Things:
Attended a church cookout today.  Made great choices from what was available. Skipped the dogs and burgers!
Spent my time on my feet instead of just sitting after we ate.  Stayed busy taking pics, running around for the little girls, and doing a bit of stretching while I kept an eye on the little ones.
Got our shopping done for the juice fast!

Today's Not So Good Things:
I gave in and had a sweet treat from the dessert table.  I reasoned it away knowing we were fasting tomorrow. It was a small treat. Really, it's *okay* but I didn't NEED it, that's for sure.
Still dealing with some lingering *crab* in my attitude when we are dealing with stressful, get out the door, type moments in our days.

We are all shopped and ready to start our juice fast tomorrow.  I feel like I'm not quite ready, but I guess we'll just jump in and see how it goes. We're using the 15 day Reboot that Joe Cross (of Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead fame) recommends. We've decided to skip the first 5 days of prep since we've been eating so close to a vegan diet these last few weeks.  Tomorrow we begin the 15 day juicing fast.  We'll see how we're doing at day 15 and make a decision on continuing from there.  I am SO excited to see my husband take this on! I just know we are going to see great results and feel so much better doing this together.

Here's our shopping trip and my awesome job fitting all the juicing produce in ONE fridge. I am so thankful the Lord blessed us with two refrigerators in our home. Now the children have one for their menu this week and we have one for ours. :)

Thursday January 17, 2013

Today's Good Things:
Logged and blogged
Under on calories for the day
Exercised
Family Fun Night
Didn't stress-eat/good food choices

Today's Not So Good Things:
Didn't do well with emotions/stressful situations today
Still struggling with sleep
Baby is acting strange, doesn't want to eat other than nurse


I've got two nights in a row on the elliptical machines this week. :) The first night I used a Smart Stride machine (or something like that) and it felt hard to press on for the full 20 minutes, but I did it including a 3 minute cool down after. I had to go pretty slow, though, so I only burned 127 calories when it was all done. Tonight I used a regular elliptical machine and was able to go much faster, burning 187 calories in 20 minutes. I had to hurry out after that, though, to get the little ones for Family Fun Night. We were all a little disappointed because the games didn't involve much movement. But, we had some fun getting to know the other families and doing some silly stuff together. I really like it that we have some time carved out in the week to just have fun together.

So far, the Y has been great. It's a little stressful getting there. It's a little crazy dropping off so many in the kidzone when I go to work out. But, wow, do I love having some time to just move myself and not chase people around. I think that Benjamin is a little young for the room and I need to keep a close eye on him. But, when David and I are able to go alone, it's just awesome. It feels like such a great escape.

I weighed in last night at the Y and then again at home on the wii. The scales are different, but I am up a bit, which I expected. Not up as much as I expected, though, so that's good. Maybe this month of sugar free and yeast free is helping a little. Not sure. But, I'm motivated to keep it up and see what the scale says again next week.

Quick Update

I haven't journaled for a bit. My numbers have all been amazingly low.  So much so, that I have even gotten a little lax on how I round out each meal. I'm still being cautious on portions and amounts of protein. Actually, what I've been lax about is not eating enough most of the time.  I don't leave the table hungry, and with all these snacks, I guess it's just feeling hard to make my meals as large as the menu says they should be.

That said, I had 2 slices of Sam's pizza over the weekend while we were out shopping.  I thought for sure it was going to do me in.  Not so! My numbers were perfect! I don't get it because pizza before, especially 2 slices, would have sent me way over. Could be the meter. Could be insulin, I guess, even though I'm still only taking 10 units at bedtime.  Could have been all the activity I had that day with shopping and such.  Whatever it was, I'll take it!

I haven't been doing any official exercise.  We have, however, been doing a lot of cleaning, purging, and moving as we are rearranging most every room in our house right now.  My husband finished his last exam this past weekend (woohoo!) so we emptied his office and that leads to an avalanche of "newness". ;) 

His new "thing", he declared, now that this year of studying and testing is over, is Diet and Exercise. I'm excited! First my daughter, now my hubby!  It's amazing to watch everyone get excited about health and strength and want to do it together!  A little weird it is happening now that I can't fully join in, but I'm so thankful.  And, to be fair, I *am* working hard on my health, just not on weight loss, so I guess I am still part of the team. ;)  Just need to focus a bit more on strength than I have been.

The last two days I've worked hard at rearranging shelves, books, toys, furniture, you name it.  Today is going to be a rest day while I catch up on grading and school stuff.  I'm hoping to get out for a walk after lunch, though.  I have one here who has been super hard to love and I think a walk for the two of us would be a good thing.

My daughter and husband have been planning a family celebration for Valentine's day.  She's planning to make some mini-muffins for our dessert so we have something more "healthy". Love that girl.  I'm feeling a little bad that I'm not real involved in the planning and prep. But, honestly, I'm feeling swamped right now with duties and I just can't keep up.  So, I'm choosing to be blessed and enjoy their efforts. :)

Blessings to you all this Valentine's day!  Enjoy your treats, but remember to strive for balance as well as grace!!

A Cartoon For Heather

The proper way to weigh yourself:

I thought of you and your adorable cartoons as soon as I saw this, Heather. Thanks for always bringing a smile to our hearts and faces. :D

Friday February 3, 2012

I. Am. Exhausted.

We went on a great field trip today with some of our dearest friends. We had such a great time.

But, with all that walking and standing and driving, I can barely move. My back is killing me. My legs are sore. My feet are aching. My head is hurting. Just everywhere is ouch.

My morning was off. We were so rushed getting out the door that I completely forgot to test after breakfast. My after lunch number was great, though. My fasting was still a little high. We'll see tomorrow what number I get and if I'll need to up my insulin or not.

I'm having a hard time remembering to test 1 hour after eating since I was used to 2 hours. I'll get it, though. I have to be up super early tomorrow. I so wish I could just go to bed now, but I need to keep myself awake to eat and take my shot. Bah.

Friday January 27, 2012

Today's Good Things:
Bible & journal
My husband went to work early so he could have the afternoon off for a family date night!
Packed a "healthy" dinner for us to eat out

Today's Not So Good Things:
Junk food at lunch & dinner
No exercise
A lot of hard attitudes to work with around here today

Today's Food Choices:
Breakfast: whole english muffin with pb, decaf black coffee
Snack: 2-3oz cheddar cheese, 6 sesame crackers
Lunch: 3/4-1cup ranch beans w/ turkey, carrot sticks, corn dog w/ mustard *sigh*
Snack: diet soday, 1 package pb crackers
Dinner: pb sandwich w/ ww bread, carrot sticks, pickle spears, cheese stick, bag of snack size chips, 1 mini sized butterfinger, water

Today we took our second son out to pick his birthday gift. We had to go to Maine to a favorite sporting goods store for him to pick out the perfect Indiana Jones hat.  He was adorable finding just the right one.  We had a good time and I enjoyed the long drive after a hard day working with children who were struggling with grumpiness and disobedience.  It always feels like such a nice break when everyone is strapped in and we can just drive.

This is probably very tacky, but we brought our packed picnic dinner into the mall food court and ate it there.  We figured it was better than sitting in the van, and it was. We also were planning to get some exercise by walking the mall. But, once we were there a bit, I just couldn't do it.  Keeping track of littles that hadn't napped was tricky enough at the store we had been in. Walking around a busy mall tending them and working to keep my boys eyes in the right places, well, just the thought of it made me tired. We headed back home and I'm glad we did. I got in some laundry duty while my husband played UNO with the girlies.  Now everyone is settling in to bed and I feel exhausted.  It's weird because I did so little today by way of activity, but I am definitely worn out.

Off to look over our new budget and keep working on ways to chip away at it. I'm so thankful for my husband's new employment. It's giving us many ways to watch the Lord work and trust him to fill in the gaps where our income has shrunk. ;)

Thursday January 26, 2012

Today's Good Things:
Up 30 min early (5am)
Morning pilates (10 min)
Bible & journal
Story hour at library with littles
followed my meal plan with lunch exception
24 min on wii fit this afternoon (*instead* of zoning out on computer)
Pushed through dinner and ended night working on some lesson work we've been behind on
My husband was home at 7pm tonight..yay!!

Today's Not So Good Things:
Caved to my craving for frozen pizza for lunch (aka cardboad pizza as my husband calls it)

Today's Food Choices:
Breakfast: 2 oz cheddar cheese, 1.5 sourdough rye krisp crackers, decaf black
Snack: 1 slice hm LOOM bread with raisins, buttered
Lunch: 3 pieces of frozen pizza (cooked, of course!), carrot sticks, 2 pieces of ants-on-a-log (celery w/ pb and raisins), diet soda, 1 spoonful of pb
Snack: grapefruit and *maybe* 1 oz pepperoni
Dinner: 2 reg sized bowls of tortellini soup, (second bowl I removed the tortellini ;) ), 1 slice of ww italian bread-buttered
Snack: greek yogurt with fruit bowl (thawing as I type. ;) )

Today was good. Okay, the pizza wasn't a great choice, but I did chase it down with fresh vegies.  I'll never understand why I still like that stuff so much. I grew up on it (among other prepackaged gems) and I just can't shake the taste for it. I rarely buy it, so it always feels like a treat when we have it. I was glad to follow it up with some yummy homemade soup LOADED with vegies tonight. :)

I made a great choice this afternoon to put aside my computer and "sitting work" and get in some exercise on the wii.  It's fun and wakes me up a bit during the afternoon slump. Because of some school issues happening here, I'm not yet comfortable to leave the house for my afternoon mile like I used to, so this was a good substitute. 

That's all I've got for tonight. My husband is enjoying some time with the children before they head to bed, so I'm going to join them. :D

ETA: I added the recipe to the tortellini soup to my Recipes page at the top in case anyone wants to give it a try.

Tuesday April 26, 2011 Trying

Today's Good Things:
Stayed busy switching clothes for the season, purging, and catching up on laundry
Enoyed some extra sleep this morning
Enjoyed some nice time with my 7yo dd working on chores today
Took a nice drive with dh for date night tonite

Today's Not So Good Things:
No exercise
Didn't eat well
Didn't log
Didn't even work on my water goals

My Reboot isn't going so hot. Yesterday we went for a superfun trip to a butterfly conservatory to celebrate our 4 youngest dd's birthday (which all happen to fall within 4 weeks of each other). That was awesome, but also warranted Road Trip Food. It also didn't afford much exercise.

I keep going back and forth between wanting to get moving, work hard, and conquer some projects and wanting to rest, relax, and enjoy my time off. I feel like I really need to do both right now so I'm not sure what tomorrow will hold. I've got another day of inside work this week but a LOT of outside work, too, along with a day of shopping/errands to fit in somewhere. Somehow I'll need to make exercise and purposeful eating a part of the plan as well. :-S

Friday April 8, 2011 Spring Has Sprung!

Today's Good Things:
Crazy but fun day!
New ducklings joined the family today! :-)
Good choices eating
1 mile Date Walk with my honey

Today's Not So Good Things:
High on carbs for the day

Today was a great Friday. It started with a visit with my dear friend (who called me "skinny"..heehee!) for lunch. We had a short visit, though.  My dh and oldest dd bought 3 ducklings and we had to get them home under the heat lamp. They are so super cute! Their little peeps are sweet to hear.  After dropping her off at home, we raced to the park for kickball. It was a crazy day!

With all that racing around, I didn't get a ton of exercise. I did have fun at the park with my children. It was so fun to visit with some other homeschooling moms.  I enjoyed a brisk Date Walk with my husband tonite. I grilled up some yummy burgers and chicken for dinner. It was just a lovely day filled with all sorts of signs and promises of spring. The weekend, I'm told, is going to be even warmer. I can't wait!

Overheard today...

"If Jesus can make it 40 days in the wilderness, I can make through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru."

I resisted the Boston Kreme! Yay Me!!  Oh, correction...Yay God!! :D

Thursday March 24, 2011 Super Fun!

Today's Good Things:
Field Trip!!!!
Made some good choices for our packed lunch
Burned 233 calories with my evening Step Aerobics workout
Got in my sit-ups and push-ups (a little late, but it counts!)
Shopping for a new washer/dryer :D

Today's Not So Good Things:
Made some poor choices for our packed lunch
Munchies on the way home
Still not caught up on laundry

We had a Super Fun day today! It was like My Birthday Part 2 - The Good Version. :-D  Dh woke me with an offer to take us out for some fun. We decided to go on a field trip I've been planning for a while to a history museum/science center. We had such a great time. Perfect, perfect, perfect day. :-)

I came home and got the kids settled into bed. Read from the Five Little Peppers and then got in a 30 min. step work out on the Wii.  It felt so good! I haven't done it in so long, I actually made myself believe I didn't like it anymore, but that is SO not true! I love the step aerobics and I can't wait to start up again in the evenings. Dh's schedule is so crazy right now, so I hope I can find a way to make it happen.

Tomorrow is Friday. We'll have to catch up for the work we didn't get done today, but no biggie. No one can be grumpy on a Friday. ;-)