Bringing sexy back, how I lost my weight.

So, I've had a lot of people asking me how I lost my 10lbs.  I thought I would take some time to type out my tips and tricks in my blog.  Why? Well, they sent Tim into work, BooBoo is content rolling around on the floor and there is nothing on TV.  So, Why Not?

My confidence has been really down for a while.  I had Owen in July (6 months of go for those of you who are too lazy to do the math).  Right before I got pregnant, I had just worked what seemed like forever to get my weight down to the smallest it's ever been.  I was content with where I was and as Murphy's Law would have it, I got pregnant.  I went from 145 to 175.  A lot of this was the pregnancy and when Owen was born, I was down to 165.  Breastfeeding really helped to get some more of the weight off as well. But once I stopped that and got back into my regular routine again (Work, church, etc.), I was still stuck with a weight of about 157.  It wasn't until I saw some of the pictures from Thanksgiving of last year that I realized I needed to get back on the wagon. One of my New Year's resolutions was to loose at least 10 lbs.  I set a realistic goal weight of 146.  This was what I was before I was pregnant and I told myself I wasn't going to kill myself to get to work towards an unrealistic number.  I just by happy to get down to where I was.  My long term goal is at least another 10 but if that doesn't happen, I'll be happy. 

When I slimmed down before the pregnancy, I used a lot of the tips that I learned from Curves.  I loved them so much but they didn't really fit into our monthly budget.  When I was a regular member, I lost 30lbs and took a nutrition class.  This has been the biggest help.  (Thanks Mom).  It helped me learn how to count calories and change eating habits. 

One of the main things I also did was cut out all fast foods, eating out, sodas, fried foods and most sweets.  This has been the most difficult thing.  Then I tried to apply the techniques I learned at Curves which teach you to start out with 1800 calories a day.  Then when you feel like you hit your "wall" or stop losing weight, cut out 200 calories and aim for 1600 until you hit the wall again.  Do not go below 1200 though.  Most people will probably tell you this is too low but my body has gotten to the point where it wont loose weight otherwise.  But also don't starve yourself.  Just make your calories count. I also take 2 green tea pills and a multi-vitamin with breakfast.  The Dr. suggest Prenatal as they have the more nutrients and I've included a picture of the green tea pills I use below.  I would only suggest this particular brand.  I haven't had much success with any other brand.   Here is my daily diet:

• Breakfast:  

• 2 pieces of wheat toast with a little bit of low fat butter and a juice glass of skim milk

                    OR

• 1 packet of oatmeal and a juice glass of skim milk

• Lunch:

• Lean Cuisine of choice

                   OR

• Turkey sandwich on wheat bread with mustard, 2-3 pickle spears and a baked potato with substitute butter sprinkles and/or a side salad with low cal dressing

• Dinner:

• 2 tilapia fillets, baked potato and/or salad

                    OR

• 4-6oz. baked chicken breast with baked potato and/or salad

• If you feel like you need a snack:

• Take a banana and/strawberries and drizzle chocolate sauce over the top of it.  Great to kill those sweet cravings. 

Because I gave up sodas, I only drink Skim Milk, Light Cranberry juice and Water.  In order for the green tea pills to work the best, you need to make sure you have plenty of fluids.

Also, one of my favorite recipes are my mini pizzas.

• Take 2 wheat buns and lay face open on baking sheet
• Spread some plain tomato sauce on top of each
• Add some Italian seasoning or oregano
• Sprinkle fat free cheese on top of each
• add 4 turkey pepperoni to each
• Bake until toast and/or cheese melts

This is one of my favorite quick and easy recipe and is less then 400 calories.  

Following this diet every day got a little repetitive but that just means you need to get creative.  I dropped from 157 to 146 in 5 weeks.  Basically, a size 14 to a size 10.  So, it's not impossible. 

Ok, that's all I have for now and Owen is starting to get fussy, so I should probably wrap this up.  Let me know if you have any other questions.  I'll be happy to share some more of my recipes if need be. Good luck everyone!!

 

My before and after shots.  The first one was the "eye-opener" for my this past Thanksgiving.

 

The Green Tea pills I use & don't forget your vitamins.  These are the brands I use.

At least it's only temporary...

So yesterday was full of a lot of firsts for Owen. It was his first day at the new baby sitter and also his first day full time. His regular babysitter, Lori, is 9 month pregnant and is due at the end of the month. So, she is taking a sort of “maternity leave” of sorts until the end of March. This puts Owen with a temporary babysitter for 8 weeks until Lori is back up and running. We called the babysitter that use to watch Tim’s little brother, Nick, and she agreed to take him on. No one is as good as Lori but Catherine is close and within our price range.


When I came back to work, the constant question was “How are you holding up with Owen in daycare?” I felt strange because it didn’t really bother me. Tim works second shift and had him until 1:00 and Lori only had to keep him from 1-5:30. But now that Tim is back in school and Owen is spending the entire day with someone else, I can finally understand the question. It’s very hard. It’s like it’s hitting me as a delayed response. I know this is a typical set up for most families and I was lucky to have such a good transition period but yesterday was still very difficult.

Maybe I’m just spoiled on Lori. She treats Owen like her own child and I can tell they have a bond. When I go to pick h im up, she answers the door with him and he always seems like he’s in a good mood. I’m not saying Catherine is a bad sitter, I just don’t think Owen clicks with her. Does that make since? When I picked him up from her house yesterday, he seemed very lathargic. Where Lori usually has him greet me at the door, Catherine already had him buckled in his car seat like she couldn’t wait to get him out of there. I’m sure that’s not the case but it just re-enforces my theory that they don’t connect.

I realize how “new age” I sound. But where some mothers judge situations by seeing that the practical needs are taken care of, I judge them by emotional needs. Not to say that I would leave him in a bad environment, we are just very in tune to one another. I can just feel what he wants.

I know it was only the first day and she does have a nice set up. They turned their garage into a bonus room and had little cubbies for all of the kids along with videos and tons of toys. Tim is going to take Owen’s pack and play over there tomorrow as we realized she never gave him any “floor time” yesterday due to their little yappy rat dog. That made me feel a lot better.

I’ll give her some more time. Perhaps things will improve with him and for me. I can just tell that we both already really miss Lori.

Vacancy

I just couldn't concentrate today. No matter what I did, the hands on the clock seemed to be in the exact same place for hours. I sat at my desk and wondered, what I could do to pass the time? I'm off work Thursday and Friday, so I don't really have any large projects on my plate. I have a report that's due at the end of the week but could not find the thoughts or words to finish it, today at least. It seemed as though I stared at it for a good part of the day and I am no closer to finishing it as I was this morning, or Yesterday for that matter. Don't get me wrong, it'll get finished. Today just wasn't my day.


I kind of felt like an episode of The Office where Jim and Pam are on the phone with each other and they are leaving voicemails at the same time talking about how today was just an "off" day. That pretty much sums up my current mood. Something about today was just off and it was exhausting trying to constantly keep my focus on one task at a time. The weirdest part of it? I don't really have a whole lot on my mind to begin with. Sure, I have a lot of things going on right now but it's not like my mind was straying to any particular situation, it just was vacant.

At the risk of sounding like an airheaded blonde, not only could I not concentrate today, I couldn't THINK. I would chalk this up to my recent fatigue, but I'm just not sure. I tried everything and nothing worked. I got up and walked around, I ate lunch somewhat early, I drank more water and even got into my chocolate stash because I read somewhere that that helped with concentration. But what helps if something is just "off"?

I can't put my finger on it, which is somewhat concerning. I know this week is when Tim goes back to school. Owen got his 6 month shots today (which means he wont be feeling well for the rest of the week) and will be switching babysitters starting Monday. I had a project I worked really hard on canned and the bank sent my house payment TWICE, sending our bank account into severe overdraft. Interesting enough, my mind hasn't been on any of these things, it's almost like it checked out.

I feel somewhat withdrawn, which can probably be contributed to stress or anxiety. Luckily, I'm going to see the Dr. on Thursday to get tested for anemia. So, at least I have something already lined up. I just don't feel myself today and it concerns me. As you can probably tell from this rambling blog, I don't really have a point. Just that I needed to get all this out.

The "No Spending" Rules….and other resolutions.

So, a lot of people have been asking me what the “rules” are for our year without spending mission. People see us spending on one thing but not another. Luckily, once I found the original article and re-read it, I was able to get a better perspective as to how to execute this daunting task. We basically have taken the original author’s guidelines and tweaked them to fit our lifestyle. This has really helped, being that it feels a lot more structured and achievable now. So here are the Duncan “No Spending” Rules:

RULE 1: Tim and I won't be purchasing anything for one year. No clothing, shoes, CDs, DVDs, Etc. This also includes eating out and going to the movies. Charity giving is Ok.

RULE 2: Owen is somewhat except. He will get the clothes and stuff that he needs and the occasional learning toy but we just won’t be picking something new up every time we go out. There is only so much you can do when you have a baby.

RULE 3: All gifts will be in the form of books, gift cards, or homemade items.

RULE 4: Broken items will not be replaced unless absolutely necessary.

RULE 5: Any form of family entertainment is allowed. Basically, stuff that allows us to spend quality time together (the zoo, putt putt, etc.)

RULE 6: Previous commitments will be honored as we also don’t want to go back on our words.

RULE 7: Being that Owen is so young, family portraits and/or Owen pictures are allowed. He is only this age once. Purchases will just be limited.

I think the hardest part of this will be the not eating out. I just have to keep telling myself that this is a win/win situation being that I am also trying to lose weight, which brings me to my next topic.

While we are talking about New Year’s Resolutions, I thought I would throw the other ones I made, out there as well.

I have always wanted to read through the entire Bible in a year. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve read quite a bit but not all together and most definitely not the entire Bible. I just feel that it will add a lot more depth to my faith if I can finally achieve this goal in a year. I’ve tried several times but always fallen short.

My last resolution is to lose at least 10 lbs. This is less about public image and more about needing to fit into the clothes I have already. ;o) I am tired of trying to cram my post-baby belly into jeans that are probably about 1 size too small. This would have several benefits as it would go hand in hand with our no spending challenge and will increase my confidence. I guess you could call this one the “bringing sexy back” resolution. My realistic goal is 10lbs but I would like to ultimately lose 20. I just figure I will work hard to meet the first goal and if I’m doing well, I’ll keep going to attempt to meet the second. That, and, this way, technically I’m not “breaking” my resolution if I don’t meet the 20lb mark.

Ok, there it is. Probably the most challenging life plan I’ve ever taken on, laid out before you. I would like to take the time to stress, once again, that this all is not about the money. We are doing just fine as is. It’s just about hitting the reset button on our priorities in an effort to be the best parents we can for Owen.

Last weekend we didn’t make any plans (other then Church). We spent 2 days, being lazy around the house, watching movies and just enjoying each other. And you know what? It was the most relaxing and enjoyable weekend I’ve had in a long time.

Click here to read the original article that inspired us.

And So it Begins....

2010 marks the beginning of our “Year without Spending”. For those of you who missed my previous blog, Tim and I decided to challenge ourselves to go one year without spending. As I mentioned before, this sounds a whole lot worse then it really is. Of course we are going to still by necessities but we are going to completely cut out anything we consider “non-essential” for one year. We do have a couple of commitments that we have outstanding and those we are still going forward with. For instance, we feel that being that Owen will only be this age once, it is important to document that with as many pictures as possible. So, we are going to keep our JCPenny appointment as we can get good deals through them. But perhaps, in the Spring/Summer, I will attempt to do my own photo shoots with him outside.


We know how challenging this is going to be and know already that we will probably slip. But we are still going to attempt it none the less in an effort to restructure our priorities. I was really turned off this passed holiday season with all of the greed and materialism that was going around and found it really difficult to get into the Christmas spirit because of it. But I can’t point fingers without looking, first, at myself. Tim and I buy A LOT of DVD’s, CD’s, etc. I love to shop and tend to shop (especially online), just because I’m bored. But how much of this stuff do we really NEED?

Things are finally looking up for us with Tim going back to school. It’ll be rough for the years he’s in school but we feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel now. This has left us at a crossroads where we feel like we should be evaluating where we want to go from here. And where we want to go is towards a family that is less focused on material things and more focused on relationships and quality time.

Thus, we would like to ask our friends and family to not buy us anything for our Birthday’s this year. We will be making all of our presents this year and those always mean the most to us anyway. So, being that all of our presents will be homemade, we don’t want everyone else to spend a lot on us in return. I know this might come across as cheap but that is far from the point we are trying to make. We are simply trying to adjust the value in our life. A card with a heart felt note or a handmade gift can be just as valuable as anything store bought.

As of right now, we are attempting this for just one year. If we feel like we are successful in establishing our goals, we might continue further. However, that is difficult to judge as of yet being that we have only just begun.

And so it begins. May the coming year bring all that we hope and more…

Click here to read the article that inspired our journey.