So, I went to my WW meeting last night. I had a positive mind, thinking that I’d have lost at least 1-2 pounds, especially since the last two meetings when I thought I didn’t lose anything, I lost 2 & 3.8 respectively. I never thought that I’d have gained any weight. I mean, after all, I’ve been tracking, and exercising.. I mentioned Barbara, and how I can read her face now.. As soon as I stepped on the scale, I knew something was wrong. I had gained 1.2 pounds over the last week. WHAT?!?!?! I was sad… at first. I was disappointed… at first. I couldn’t even think of why I would have gained when I was so constant in losing over the last 5 weeks. But then I thought, there’s going to be fluctuations, and for many reasons.

Deborah told me her heart sank when she heart I had gained a pound and was very quick to show me her history and how she had lost and gained over the years, and kept telling me not to worry about it. The very moment I posted online that I had gained, everyone rushed to explain that my “womanly cycle” could be to blame, and remind me that we did just start up weight training again, and encourage me to keep going because I’ve been doing awesome so far. You guys are all so very awesome… and I’m more than grateful for the encouragement and support. But you know what? I’m ok with that 1 pound. I really am. Want to know why?

• I tracked everything I ate, and only went 4 points in to my weekly extras.
• I made great choices when I did get to eat at one of our various restaurants.
• I snacked on small veggies, and when I hosted my Park Lane Jewelry Party… I made WW friendly appetizers. I tried to make sure that they were good things, but also good for me.. and my guests.
• Heck.. I even RAN A 5K!
• Oh yeah.. I’ve lost 2 inches off my waist, and have a certain pair of shorts that will fall off without a belt.
• I feel better than I did before I started this journey.

Things that could be the cause:

• It’s about that time for my cycle
• I had a couple of days where I didn’t use all of my points.. It’s gotten difficult to do since I have changed the kinds of foods that I keep ready for snacking.

If either of these things were the real reason, then it’s easy to remedy, and once my body readjusts itself, I’ll be good… and it’s only 1 pound.. If it was 2, or 3 or more.. Then I probably would’ve been worried about it. But, it’s something small, and I can lose it easily. Now if this is a continuing trend, then I’ll start worrying, but I don’t see it being so.

I guess the point of this whole post is… Don’t worry! I’m Okay!!! I’m not giving up or giving in. This is the first time I’ve seen weight loss in YEARS, so no way am I quitting now! I want to see 199. I want to be OUT of the 200′s for good. I have 67.8 pounds to lose to reach my ultimate goal. It’s a hefty goal, but I will do it, and I can’t wait!

Thank you all so much for all of your encouraging words, and support! Keep it up!  It’s working!

PS. That photo is from the Run for the Warriors… They are my workout buddies and awesomely amazing friends!

In February 2012, I ran participated in the WDW Princess Half Marathon. Yeah… I ran.. some of it… but not much… because I didn’t train like I should have. I did finish it, but not how I would have liked to. I’ll do it again soon, and smash it. In October 2012, I ran in the Marine Corps Marathon 10K. Again, I ran some of it, but not like I could have with training.

Fast forward to 2013. A friend of mine has a daughter who really wanted to run the Hope for the Warriors 5K. Her dad deployed, and I was asked to be her running partner. I jumped at the chance to help her out. Did I train? Nope. I kept meaning to, but every excuse came up and my expectation was that I was just going to walk most of the race. So many things came up before the run, I just pretty much chalked it up to the “at least I’m getting some exercise” thoughts.

The week before the run, my friend’s daughter cracked her toe, and she couldn’t run. My hubby had decided he was going to do the 10K as part of his marathon training (crazy man), and I had signed up my girls to do the 5K with me. THEY wanted to RUN. I laughed, figuring it was a passing thing. They’d start running, get tired, and we’d walk the rest of the way. No big deal. Then came run day.

So, this 5K was really happening. What was I so concerned about? After all, I had already done a Half Marathon, and a 10K. This should be cake. Well, I had thought about it. My girls wanted to run, so I wanted to give them that chance. I set up a rockin’ play list, and figured as long as I could keep them in my sights, I’d be ok. We gave hubby hugs and kisses and wished him luck on his 10K and listened for them to call our race. We went back and lined up. They counted us down, and we were off. We started off jogging fairly lightly, but with the determination that we were going to run till either they, or I couldn’t run any longer. Not too far from the starting line, I felt someone tapping my shoulder, and when I looked over, a familiar face was smiling at me. It was someone from my Weight Watchers meetings! I remembered her mentioning that she was participating too, and we struck up a conversation. We talked the whole way. She kept me going, and I kept her going. We.Ran.The.Whole.Thing. Slowly.. but I kept it up, and finished in 43:46. My girls? They ran it too. They finished in 43:42 and 43: 44… Yeah I let them beat me… I was so proud of them!

At the Finish Line, we ran through, and met up with a couple of friends, and ran to get bananas for everyone else as they came through the line. We actually beat hubby to the finish line. Sure.. he was running the 10K.. but he runs faster than we do! We did make our goal though.. getting there before him… but he wasn’t too far behind!

Everyone did such a great job, and I can’t thank everyone for their support.. including my unexpected running buddy. I’ll see her at the next meeting! Now, I’m actually a little bit more motivated to run another race. Not necessarily for time, but just to keep myself going. I know I need the cardio… Maybe I should start looking up more 5Ks in the area… I know a couple I’d love to do. Any suggestions?

Next up: Weigh-Wednesday May 22, 2013

Barbara, is our sweet secretary at our WW meetings. I am learning to watch her reaction, since I can’t see the scale numbers. She smiled and said “Oh this is a good one!” I lost 3.8 pounds over the last week. My biggest drop to date. Not only did I reach my 5%, but I smashed it last week. I weighed in at 215 even. I am now what I was when I first moved out to North Carolina. It took me 3 years of up and down to get to the weight I was when I started WW. Lots of up and down. Mostly up… Now… I’m making sure that it’s always down…

This weekend is going to be crazy. I signed up to run a 5k with a friend’s daughter… and my girls are participating with me. I am a little nervous. This race… The Run for the Warriors… is the first race that I ever wanted to sign up to do two years ago. I was ready to start running, and that’s when I fell down the steps in my garage and messed up my ankle. I was frustrated. I wanted to run it so badly, but I couldn’t. This year, I will finally get to participate in that run…

More to come over the weekend..

Prep time: 40 Minutes

Cook time: 1 1/2 Hours

Here’s what you need:

Broth:

• 9 cups water
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 2.5 lbs chicken pieces, skinned
• 3 celery stalks, each cut into 4 pieces
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 1 bay leaf

Pie Filling:

• 1 1/2 cups diced unpeeled round red potato
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 3/4 cup thinly sliced carrot
• 1/2 cup chopped leek (about 1 small)
• 1 cup fresh mushrooms
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 6 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup 1% low-fat milk
• Cooking Spray
• Biscuit topping

Biscuit Topping

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder <~ I used a full tsp
• 1 cup 1% low-fat milk
• 1 1/2 tbsp stick margarine or butter, melted

How you make it:

Broth:

• Combine all broth ingredients in an 8qt Dutch oven or stock pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered for 1 hour. Remove from heat.
• Remove the chicken pieces from broth, place in a large bowl, and chill for 15 mins.
• Strain broth through a cheesecloth-lined colander in to a bowl, and discard the solids.
• Set aside 4 1/2 cups broth, reserve remaining broth for another recipe.
• Remove chicken from bones, and cut the meat into bite sized pieces.

Pie:

• Preheat oven to 400˚F
• Bring 4 1/2 cups broth to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add potato, chopped celery, bell pepper and garlic. Cover and cook 5 minutes. Add carrot and leek. Cover and cook 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and peas and cook 5 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. (We omitted the mushrooms and peas)
• Combine flour, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Add milk, stirring with a whisk. Add to vegetable mixture. Cook over medium heat for 3 minutes, or until thickened and bubbly, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add chicken.
• **We added seasonings like Garlic & Rosemary, a pinch of cajun seasoning, and some others… Season how you would like it! Just keep in mind some of the nutrition info may change depending on what seasonings you use.
• Spoon into a 13x9in baking dish, coated with cooking spray. Drop Biscuit topping onto mixture to form 16 biscuits. Bake at 400˚F for 30 minutes or until golden.

Biscuit Topping:

• Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with knife. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and garlic powder in a bowl. Stir in milk and margarine just until flour mixture is moistened.    Yield: 16 biscuits

Total Yield: 8 servings. Serving size; about 1 cup of chicken mixture, and 2 biscuits.

Calories: 327 (18% from fat) Fat: 6.6g (sat 1.8g, mono 2.1g, poly 1.7g) Protein: 26.5g Carbohydrates: 38.8g Fiber: 2.7g Cholesterol: 64mg Iron: 3.5mg Sodium: 668mg Calcium: 155mg

If you are curious, my scale said 230.2. I freaked. I spoke with my best friend, and she suggested going with her to Weight Watchers. I did what I always do.. I kept thinking of an excuse not to go. When my hubby got home, through tears, I told him what had happened earlier, and told him that I had decided I was going to try the Weight Watchers meeting that night. Of course, he was all for it. I changed, and took that first step.

We went to the Weight Watchers meeting that night, and I weighed in at 228.8. Their scale was being nice to me. I got everything all set up, and paid my first month’s fee. I sat down. I listened. I heard things that had gone through my head many times before, things that I knew, but never really paid attention to. It was crazy. This was really going to be a new start for me. I listened as our group leader explained the system and how I’ll need to track whatever I eat. Accountability. I’m only allowed so many points per day, and need to incorporate activity somehow. I started with 34 points per day… and after learning that some of the things I like to eat were 0 points.. I knew it wasn’t going to be horrible to stay within my point allowance. This wasn’t going to be terrible. I could still eat most of the things I love… Not interfere with the rest of the family’s meals… and lose weight? It seemed too good to be true… until the following week.

The very next Wednesday, after a whole week of tracking, exercising and whatever else I was supposed to do… The scale went down for the first time in years. I had lost my first two pounds. I know.. doesn’t sound like much, but to me… it was a huge accomplishment… I knew this was something I needed to keep up.

It’s been 4 weeks now. I’m down 10 pounds, and I’m just 1 pound away from losing 5% of my starting weight. I’m going to hit that next week, and then go past it just a little bit. The number on that scale keeps going down. This is working, and I’m not going crazy. I’m exercising with friends (who won’t let me slack off), I’m eating meals that are still amazing, and I am noticing small differences in how I feel. I still don’t see the loss, but a lot of people tell me that they can tell in my face. My hubby is very excited for me, and every time I come home from a meeting, my girls celebrate with me when I tell them I’ve lost a couple more pounds.

What’s next? Well.. I’m attending meetings every week. I have an amazing support system, and I love them all. I really couldn’t do it without the support and encouragement from everyone. I know that this time is definitely going to be different, and this time, I’m going to lose the weight I need to lose… Where do I want to be? Right now, my goal is 80 pounds gone… I’m going to do it…

I’m going to use this blog to talk more about my journey, what works for me, and what doesn’t.. and to even share some healthy recipes that I find and love. I hope that in keeping this up here, I’ll be able to help someone else who is where I was/am.. and encourage them to get healthy too. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Stay tuned.

At least we got through Christmas… LOL

I’m totally done with being over weight.

I’ve tried so many things…. and none of them have worked. Well… mostly because it’s been my fault. I haven’t kept up with what I really should have. I got bored, I got lazy, and I just gave up.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been worried. I actually went to a doctor to make sure the problems I was having had nothing to to with my weight, and he confirmed that my arm numbness had more to do with stress and pinching a nerve than anything else… But… It really freaked me out. I can’t have these things happening to me, and causing even more anxiety… I decided once and for all that I was going to make changes.

Last week, I spoke with a nutritionist, and was given all the info I need to get my body started. I was told to write down everything I eat, at least 3 times a week, to do weights 4x a week and cardio every day… Well… I’m doing great on the food part… The exercise part… not so much. I’m so caught up in work, that I haven’t done my exercise… and it’s totally my fault. I need to make more efforts on that.

Keeping a food journal has been very eye opening. I never realized how many calories I actually took in. I didn’t think I was eating badly, and I probably wasn’t… but I was eating too much. Yes.. There is truth to the statement “too much of a good thing”.

On Monday, July 23, 2012, hubby and I started keeping our food journal and wow. It has changed a lot about how and what we eat. I found myself making decisions I never would’ve considered before. For example, at lunch yesterday, I actually thought about having 2 or 4 tortillas… I made tacos, and I could’ve made 4, but instead, I gave up 2 tortillas, and just ate the filling with a fork to save myself 90 calories. It has been crazy! I never would’ve given it a second thought before I started writing it all down.

I have been going to bed hungry, but that’s good. I’m catching myself when I think about snacking, and making a conscious choice not to.

I do hope that this is just the beginning of a life long change. I have a goal.. I want to lose at least 80 pounds… It will happen.

Join me for the journey?

As I’ve said before, I typically don’t talk politics with people. I hate hateful confrontation, and that’s almost always what happens when you talk politics… But, yesterday was a very sad day for me, as I’m sure it was for many people. It was voting day here in NC, and a vote was taken on what was being called Amendment 1- The Marriage Amendment. This amendment would add into our state’s constitution that marriage is only recognized as being with 1 man and 1 woman… and that was it. It passed. It reminds me of that good ol’ Prop 8 debate in CA when I was living there. I voted against that one too…

For the last several months, I’ve heard news stories about Pastors preaching in their churches that gay marriage is bad, it’s not what God wants, it’s not right… One priest even went so far to tell his congregation to slap their son’s wrists if you see them fall limp, or make sure their daughters dress up as girls, and do girl things… He later backtracked, and said he was just joking… but if you see the video footage of this sermon, you sure as heck wouldn’t guess he was just kidding about any of it. I’ve driven by churches whose sign boards say God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve… I’ve seen people talk about how wrong it is for someone to be gay, and that a gay person can be changed… WTF? To all of this, I call bullshit.

I may be just a bit passionate about this whole thing… Not because I have friends that are gay (although I do) but because.. It’s just plain wrong. It’s discrimination, it’s ugly, and it’s hateful.

Does anyone remember the separation of church and state? Now, I’m not saying to go crazy, and take prayer out of schools, or take “In God We Trust” off of our currency… but in this instance… Civil Marriage is NOT a religious entity. You get married in the CHURCH for that, and the state recognizes that as a legal marriage.

The thing that gets me… is that this SHOULD NOT be a religious argument in the first place. Not once have I heard people fighting for the churches to allow gay marriage… Not one single time. What is being fought for is their civil rights, as humans, to love who they want to love, and be recognized by the state as a legal marriage. It’s the right to have medical insurance, the right to the same tax deductions as a married couple get, the right to the same benefits and liberties that any heterosexual couple can have… just because they can.

I grew up in a very Catholic Family. I still hold many of those values in my heart, but when it comes to things like this… there is NO WAY, at all, that I can be in favor of discrimination. There’s a long road ahead… There’s a lot of fights yet to be had. But seriously… This country has GOT to get their act together.

When Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, everyone was so scared of what was going to happen. What did happen?? Absolutely NOTHING. Those service members were finally able to be themselves. They didn’t have to hide anymore. They didn’t have to worry about losing their job because of who they loved. They still, however, do their job as they are assigned to do. They still fight the wars, treat the wounded, and bleed red blood, just like everyone else does… THAT was a step in the right direction.

I know so many people who completely disagree with me… and I know a lot who will back me up here… All I’m saying, is who the hell are we to choose who someone else can love or not? Who are we to decide whether it’s right or it’s wrong?

There are more things I will probably discuss in the future… but this one.. right now.. is on my mind. I am sad, that the people who voted last night passed such a law… I hope there is some way to appeal it. I hope that someday, everyone has the freedoms that they deserve.

What do I mean? Well, for example. A few weeks ago, a group called Store Brand Formula wanted to hold a Twitter Party in order to bring awareness to their products. Now, I’ve worked with Parent’s Choice for a couple of years now, and I know their product very well from when the girls were babies. So, anyway. The day had arrived. Everyone was getting ready to hold a real conversation about the money saving benefits of buying store brand vs name brand, and how it didn’t matter what brand you bought, since they are all the same, nutritionally, why spend $30 when you can spend $15… etc etc. Well, word got out about this Twitter party, as it should have, and the people who are very pro breastfeeding and very anti formula feeding came around and basically shut down the Twitter Party before it even had a chance to begin.

I was so upset when I found out about this. Why? Because I know that had store brand formula not been there, I would’ve spent a whole lot more money on formula than I needed to. I didn’t know much about formula when they were born. They, of course, were my first children. I was blessed with twins, so imagine that shock to the wallet when we ran out of all of the samples the hospital gave us, and had to start buying formula on our own. We were planning on just staying with the name brand that was sent home with us, not knowing that each can was going to cost us around $30. Oh, and by the way, my children were not shy when it came to eating. I think we went through a large can of formula every 3 days or so. It was expensive! We didn’t know about Store Brand Formula, let alone any regulations by the FDA that made all infant formulas nutritionally equal. I had just assumed you get what you pay for. Boy was I wrong. I knew there had to be a better option, and sure enough, we sat down with a bunch of formula cans in our laps, and went through the labels on all of them. We found out that they were all the same darn thing, but these store brand formulas were almost half the price of the big name brands. It was pretty eye opening. Had we not thought to sit and block the aisle at the store and search through all of these labels, we may never have known about the similarities in the formulas, or the money savings we were able to have.

Back to the whole point of this post… The folks at Store Brand Formula never had any intentions of telling people that formula was better than breast feeding. They never wanted to sway anyone on their decisions of how they were going to feed their baby. Their sole reasoning behind that Twitter Party, and any of my work that I’ve done with them, is to let people who are ALREADY using infant formula, that if they are buying the big name brands, they are spending too much money. They want to let those parents that have already decided to use formula, either as a supplement, or exclusively, that there is a money saving alternative that will provide your baby with the best nutrition that a formula can provide. Not once have I ever heard them say that people should use formula. NEVER. They have always been very cautious in how they do their promotions, and for that, I have loved being a part of their crew.

I am very tired of hearing the breast feeding folks attack the people who are formula feeding. I would understand it if the companies said that their product was superior to breast feeding, but I don’t recall any of them doing that. Why should they feel that they can attack other moms who can not or just choose not to breast feed, for what ever reason. I know I felt bad that I couldn’t .. But I wasn’t able to. It wasn’t a choice for me. If I had someone yelling at me, telling me I was going to harm my girls because I was using formula, I probably would’ve felt even more guilty. There’s no reason for it. If you are a pro-breastfeeding person, great. But, keep in mind, not everyone feels the same way, and yelling at someone, or attacking them is not a way to get them to believe the same things you do.

Store Brand Formula is a great choice when using formula for your baby. Check out the Store Brand Formula website, and you can compare labels for yourself. You can also check out the formula money savings calculator.

* Yes, I work with Store Brand Formula, and Parent’s Choice. Yes, I am being compensated for my time on this post. YES my opinions are completely MY OWN.

It all started one day back in, oh… September ish.. One of my friends invited me to join her and another friend to run this Disney Princess Half Marathon together. I was a little bit hesitant, but I figured, I had plenty of time to get to running. I jumped head first into this trip, and couldn’t wait. We bought our plane tickets, registered for the run, reserved our hotel, and printed out our training schedules. We started a workout program, and swore to run the plan. The excitement was immeasurable… and then reality hit.

Time got in the way. Life got in the way. I fit in a run here and there, but certainly didn’t fit in the full training as I should have. I know. It was totally my fault for not staying completely dedicated to running. I did max out out a 6 mile run, and had every intention of building.. but I just always had an excuse as to why I couldn’t run that day. Work, kids, tired, whatever. Then January was here, then February, and I started to panic. Enter the OMG what have I committed myself to panic mode. I was thinking (daily) What if I don’t maintain the 16 minute mile they require? What if I don’t finish? What if this, what if that… I was stressed…. and it was all my fault. Yep.. A lesson was going to be learned one way or another.

Finally, Thursday February 23rd had arrived… We had decided to drive up to Raleigh that night rather than get up at 230am to drive up Friday morning. I was packing, making sure I didn’t forget my 3 pairs of shoes, running clothes, casual clothes, and all other necessities. I had dinner with my family, gave everyone hugs and kisses, and off I went.

Our drive up to Raleigh was smooth. We got up to our hotel near the airport and just relaxed. We had to be up really early to catch the shuttle up to the airport for our early flight. We went to bed and set our alarms for 430am.

At 430, our alarms started to go off. I checked my phone, and saw a missed call. That missed call, was from the airline calling to tell me that our flight had been delayed by 2 hours. Unfortunately, we were already awake, and going back to sleep was not an option. We took our time getting ourselves ready and headed down to eat some breakfast. Our shuttle took us over to RDU. We checked in, got through security and waited. We had been delayed because of the minimum rest requirements for airline crew. Hey. I don’t function properly without enough sleep. I certainly don’t need a sleepy flight crew flying our plane! Our flight was quick and easy.

Arriving in Orlando, reality set in. I had 2 days left. Breathe. Our first day there we spent at the expo, and enjoying just being there. The next day we headed out to the Magic Kingdom and hit all the cool rides. Can you guess what the first ride we went on was???
SPACE MOUNTAIN! LOL

We needed what we called a wake up coaster, and that did the job well. Of course we hit up all of the classic favorites. We headed back to the expo to take care of any last minute purchases… and went back to our room early. We prepped all of our gear for the next morning and grabbed a good dinner.  We knew that the next day was going to be rough. We had to be on the bus early.. like 3am early. Naturally, as we were finally settling in to bed, we got hit with a bad case of the giggles. It was probably due in part to some of the nervousness that I was experiencing, but it was much needed laughter. Alarms were set, and to sleep we went.

Up early, we dressed grabbed whatever we needed for the morning and headed down to get on our bus over to Epcot. Even at this early hour, the bus was abuzz with conversations. Everyone was very excited about what was going to be the Disney Princess Half Marathon. I was excited, scared, and everything in between. I couldn’t wait to get out there and get going. Everyone was lining up in their assigned areas. The energy was just amazing. Big screens and loud music led to the Fairy Godmother counting down the beginning of the race. Fireworks glowed against the dark, early morning sky. I was off on my first Half Marathon. I was positive that this was going to be like nothing I’ve ever done… Sure enough.. It was.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this story.

Disney Princess Half Marathon

Our first day at Magic Kingdom
Lunch with Piglet
Lunch with Tigger
LUNCH!
Visit from Eeyore
Visit from Winnie the Pooh
Causing trouble
Up early (3:30am)
Trying to get to the race area
I'll see you again when the sun is up
There's the finish line. I'll be back.
Waiting to start the race