On a Lighter Note

I'm sure the last post was depressing so I'll just put on here what has been helping me through my experience. Diet and Exercise!
I weighed myself today to see that I am down 3.5 pounds from two days ago! (Of course two days ago I weighed myself after eating, which makes a difference). That is 22 pounds total! Yay me!
I had a really good workout today. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and burned 360 calories. I plan on doing another 30 minutes before I eat dinner.
Let me just say that I love having an elliptical machine in the house. It's great. I've been working up a sweat while watching TV and it's worked out perfectly.
The only problem is that my dog is scared of the elliptical, hehe. She's a yorkie and has the funniest personality. She hates the funniest things! For example, if you blow air at her, she gets SO mad. She will snort and get up and move as far away from you as she can (without leaving the room of course) then she will sit with her back to you and occasionally turn around to throw a withering stare in your direction! She even does this to my husband, who is the moon and the stars to her. Well...apparently the elliptical machine produces air when I use it, so she gets all offended by this giant machine and pouts the entire time I use it.

Here is a picture of her and my kitty, Jabbers when he was a kitten:

(Yes this is in the infamous 'Hobbit House', you can see the porthole window by Jabber's left ear)

I've been watching Gilmore Girls while I workout, which is pretty funny considering they never workout on that show and do nothing but eat junk food. (Which is something that I really miss doing!).
I will never get sick of that show!
As for now, I am off to watch the Mavericks game! It's probably over by now, but I taped it so that I could watch while having my lunch. (Which is late because I woke up late).
GO MAVS!

rest in peace

The week had been pretty difficult overall. My husband's cat, Griff, died two days ago. The last day with Griff was literally torture. We woke up to see that he was worse than ever. Last week he was throwing up a lot and I thought it was the new food that we got for him, so I got him some really expensive food. Well in his last few days he stopped eating altogether and would just sit with his face over the water bowl. His last day he couldn't even hold himself up and he was constantly crying. I sat on the floor with him for a few hours and just pet him and he would try to get up to get into my lap but would just fall over again. I wanted to pick him up to just hold him but he seemed to be in so much pain that I was afraid to do more than pet him. My husband was beside himself. He never cries. But seeing Griff like that just hit him so hard that he was crying.
So my husband decided that it was time and that we needed to have Griff put down. I had a major test at school that day and it was past time for me to leave so my husband said he'd take me to school and then come back for Griff. Well I was waiting to go in the car and my husband came outside crying so hard that he could barely talk and said that he couldn't leave Griff because he didn't think Griff would make it that long. So we called around town to several vet offices and finally found one that let us come in at short notice. So we bundled Griff up and took him to the vet.
It was horrible. I wanted to stay, to be there for Griff when it happened. In the car my husband was holding Griff, facing me and Griff watched me the whole drive there.
When we got there they already had a room ready for us and my husband sat in the room with Griff and then said that I had to leave. At that point I could care less about my test but he wouldn't say no for an answer. The only reason I agreed to leave was because I was honestly terrified of seeing it happen. So I gave Griff another few pets and then said my goodbye to him, letting him know that he was a great kitty and then fled the building before I broke down.
I don't know how I got to school in one piece, I was bawling my eyes out the entire way.
The whole time I took my test I was hating myself for being there. I think I might have passed, but anything beyond an average grade will be news to me.
I called my husband the second class got out and asked how things went. He said that they put him to sleep before administering the drug and I felt relieved about that. He said that Griff relaxed the moment he fell asleep, which is good. (He was tense and rigid before). He said the vet told him that it was Griff's time and that we giving Griff the biggest gift by taking away the pain.
This might sound silly, being so emotional over a cat. Griff lived for 16 years and was loved by many. He was a part of the family and I will miss him!
Each day it's been getting easier. My husband masks his emotions, but when I mention Griff, he still gets really quiet and I can tell he doesn't want to talk about it. I've been remembering the good times and the funny things that Griff did that make me smile and I realize that Griff wasn't that cat anymore. Griff lived well beyond his prime and I feel guilty for letting it go on so long. We were just in denial and weren't ready to let go of something we loved so much.
Sorry if this is depressing, I'm sure it is. I just need to get it out there.

                                                      Griff During the Good Days. :)

More Than Ready

My husband and I have lived in our house for about a year now and I am ready for a fresh start!
The house is cute and small, just big enough for two, but at the moment it seems like it is shrinking by the day!
We nicknamed our house "the hobbit house" because my brother made a comment about the house looking like it was built by hobbits, and it truly does. It has a porthole in the living room and a "secret" window in the bathroom. (It looks like a medicine cabinet, but when you open it, it's actually a window). It also has this weird brick window in the kitchen. It's really hard to describe, let's just say the entire house has character.
But I really do miss having a bathtub! I LOVE taking baths and now that I'm regularly working out, a bath would just be awesome for sore muscles.
Also they finally opened a Lush store in my area and I've been dying to get some emotibombs! (Lush is an incredible bath and body works type store. A lot of their products are vegan and everything is made naturally).
I've also missed having a fireplace. A lot of people don't use their fireplaces often, but my husband and I do when we have one.
I also really hate the floors of my house, they are horrible! It's this weird, fake laminate floor that is supposed to look like green marble, YUCK! No matter how many cleaning products I buy for it, it always looks dirty.
Plus, my husband's work is an hour away as is my school. Monday through Thursday are days that I have class and my husband has work and on those days we burn a whole tank of gas! We only have one car and I drive him to work (Which again, takes an hour), I go to school (about 20 minutes away in good traffic), I go home (Another hour), and then I pick him up when he gets off (another hour). Not only is it exhausting, but it's expensive.
Our lease is up in April and I am hoping that we'll be able to find a new place soon! Our credit is horrible at the moment and it's going to be nearly impossible to find a new place. Our last apartment complex put a huge ugly mark on our credit. We needed to move out two months early and we hand delivered a note to the office telling them so. In the note we provided our new address for them to send us however much we owe for breaking the lease. Well...we were too stupid to send a certified letter and the apartment complex never contacted us again.  So about 6 months go by and we have about 8,000 dollars saved up to put down as a deposit on a house. We contact a realtor and find a nasty surprise when they run a credit check. The apartment complex charged us 7,500 dollars for breaking our lease!!! Not only that, but my husband's student loan went default and we ended up spending the 8,000 on clearing his student loan off our credit report. So we had no choice but to move. (At the time we were living with my Dad and his wife, helping them fix up their house in exchange for free rent so we could get our own house). We moved out to the college town that we are in now because a lot of the houses are privately owned and the landlords don't often do credit checks. (Our landlord is awesome, we literally have to hunt him down each month to pay rent).
Sooo, long story short..we NEED to move, but the area we need to move to is really strict about credit. We'll try using an apartment locating service that might have a better idea of who will be willing to work with us...hopefully that goes well!

Valentine's Day

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day and usually I would jump at the excuse to cheat on my diet, but not this year! My husband surprised me with my Valentine's Day gift last night, an elliptical machine!

Now some people would be insulted by this for obvious reasons, but I've been dying to get one since I started the gym. I already have free weights at home and going to the gym just for cardio was too inconvenient.

My husband said he was impressed at how well I've been doing on my diet and was really proud of me for putting so much effort for it. He even spent about two hours putting it together last night just to find out that we need to go back to the store today to get a power supply for it.

I am about to go to Target myself. I was planning on going on the way to the gym today, but now that I can get in that hour of cardio at home, I've been dragging my feet on getting out of the house, ha ha.
I'm usually the one that has Valentine's Day and Birthday presents bought months in advance, but for once I'm the one waiting until last minute!

I'm not sure what to get him now, I was planning on a basket of his favorite candy, Reese's and a nice card, but that seems so lame compared to an elliptical machine!

Wish me luck!

Exercise Song of the Week

With every fresh week of my diet I will post a song that has pushed me to burn extra calories.
This particular song always manages to put a smile on my face. It's not the typical workout song that everyone jumps up and dances to, but it's what gets me moving.
The song is "Australia" by The Shins, who are one of my favorite bands. Enjoy!

My Meal Plan of the Week

Since it is Sunday I will be starting a new meal plan this week. I change up the meal plan every week to help from getting bored with my food. I get the groceries for it at the beginning of the week and prepare as much as I can in advance.

Breakfast:
-Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal, Weight Control
-Half a Grapefruit
-Greek Yogurt with Honey

Snack:
-Small Apple, diced and sprinkled with cinnamon
-Slice of Cheese

Lunch:
-Grilled Chicken Salad with low fat Balsamic Vinaigrette

Snack:
-Small Apple, diced and sprinkled with cinnamon
-Slice of Cheese

Dinner:
-Grilled Chicken Breast
-Steamed Veggie (Usually either Brussel Sprouts or Broccoli)
-Toast w/ honey and cinnamon for dessert (Made with 40 cal wheat)

This is the diet I did for week one and two. I changed the diet week three and really missed this meal plan, so I'm going back to it for the week. (This week I had fish as my protein and banana as my fruit, bleh).
Let me just say, I do not like grapefruit, even a little bit. The reason I have it every morning is because it has SO many awesome health benefits. Here is a site that lists some of them: http://www.grapefruit-diet.org/grapefruit_health_benefit.htm
This particular meal plan is around 1200 calories. Let me know if anyone else has some good meal plans!

Where Do I Begin?

I guess I will start off with the biggest thing in my life right now...losing weight.

I have started several diets over the years and have never been successful. I've tried fad diets like the Cabbage Soup diet or what I thought you were supposed to do on a diet..not eat.

About three weeks ago I started on this weight loss journey and I actually sat down and did all the research I had never done before. So now I am eating about 1200-1300 calories a day and exercising almost every day and guess what...it works! As of today I am official down 19 pounds.
Just in case anyone is wondering, I've been setting my meal plan around some basic principles:
1. Drink tons of water, 8 glasses a day.
2. No soda, not even diet
3. Have 'good calories' from foods that have lean protein, fiber, and other good nutrients.
4. Exercise

Another big thing for me is having a schedule. I've been scheduling my meals daily. I don't wake up at the same time every day, but that's okay! I just have breakfast an hour after I wake up, wait three hours and have a snack, wait three hours..and so on. It's been the biggest help. I don't worry about wandering into the kitchen looking for food. I know exactly when I'll eat and what I'll have at that time.
I've felt so in control of this diet that I haven't even craved fast food or sugary snacks. Of course, the food does get a little boring but I do feel myself getting into the mindset of "eating to live and not living to eat". Hope this advice helps!