Time is a Precious Gift

Current Weight - 181.5

With a one year old on my hands, I seriously wonder what I did with all of the time I had before. I spend most of the day chasing her around the house, reading lift the flap books, and playing peek-a-boo and hide n' go seek! While I love every minute I spend with my precious babe, it's hard to find the time to exercise and work out.

Yesterday while Parker was napping, I spent 30 minutes working out and 15 minutes just stretching. It was heaven! I felt great! I need to remember how great it feels to get back into the rhythm of doing it every day.

Here's to more nap time workouts...

Current Weight: 187.5

Goal Weight: 150

37.5 pounds to go!

I've decided to start posting on Sundays like last time, just to make myself accountable. I mean, when you tell the internet how fat you actually are, there's some level of "I better fix this or everyone will know how lazy I am" mentality that keeps you accountable.

I also need to buy myself awesome stuff. That helped last time. A lot. So here goes:

180 - Hollister Jeans (return Christmas gift, so they will be free)!
170 - Pedicure (those things are hard to come by these days)
160 - Hair cut & Colored (Haven't done this since Dominican vacation)!
150 - Tattoos w/ sissy! (Will actually fit into Hollister jeans mentioned above.

I'm just going to look back at a bunch of skinny pictures of myself and keep the following things in mind so I don't cry a little:

1) I had a beautiful, wonderful baby girl.
2) I lost more than this last time and it only took me about 5 months.
3) I can do it!

Perfectionist Attitude

I am definitely a perfectionist when it comes to many things. When I began my journey toward a healthy lifestyle in 2012, I logged every single calorie. I tracked every calorie burned with a HRM. I spent hours cooking and calculating calories. I blogged weekly and tracked everything. Well when you have a baby, you don't have the time to do those things. I barely feel like I have time to take a shower let alone log calories in MFP.

In order to move forward, I've come to an important realization. I cannot do what I did before. If I miss half of a workout in my 21DF because Parker wakes up, I shouldn't just quit the whole program because I didn't follow it exactly. I should keep on keepin' on, even if it's not perfect.

I am absolutely determined that when we have our next baby, I'm going to remain active and healthy. I was so so tired all the time in my first trimester with Parker. I was also terrified of overdoing it and doing any kind of harm to my growing baby in my belly. As a result, I'm back up in the 180s (ahhhh!) and it's time to get serious. I've lost about 50 lbs in 6 months before, and I know I can do it again.

The 21 Day Fix

The 21 Day Fix

Yesterday marked Day #1 of my 21 Day Fix. I have to admit that I wasn't very well prepared. I didn't even really read the meal plan until yesterday morning. Nevertheless, I was able to follow it from what we had already at home. 

Food

Here's what a day of eating looked like:

Meal 1: steel cut oats with strawberries

Snack: banana

Meal #2: chocolate Shakeology w/ coffee

Snack: cashews

Meal 3: Chicken Breast topped with red roasted peppers, spinach, and mozzarella cheese with a side of green beans

*Note: I did not eat all the food that I was allowed. I could have eaten one more purple container, one more green container, two more red containers, two more yellow containers, and 2 more teaspoons.

Allow me to briefly explain how this works. Each container corresponds to a food group.

Purple - Fruits

Green - Vegetables

Red - Proteins

Yellow - Starches
Blue - Cheese/Nuts/Avocado
Orange - Seeds/Dressings
Teaspoons - healthy oils (olive oil, for example), nut butters (almond butter, for example), and seed butters (pumpkin butter, for example)

There's a simple formula, based on your weight, that tells you how many of each container you can eat daily. I love this!! I am retraining my brain to know what a portion looks like! I have also realized that I don't eat nearly enough protein during the day.

For my weight loss goals (and adding in 400 extra calories for breastfeeding), I am allowed 3 purples, 5 greens, 5 reds, 4 yellows, 1 blue, 1 orange, and 5 teaspoons.

Exercise 

The 21 Day Fix also comes with exercise DVDs. Each DVD is only 30 minutes. Yesterday, I did the "Total Body Cardio Fix." 

This, paired with the fact that I sucked it up at volleyball on Saturday, helped me come to an important realization. I am in bad shape. The worst. Worse than probably ever before in my life. As I did the 30 minute workout, I was struggling. Struggling hard. I even did the low modification and still was dying. There were a few times that I couldn't even keep up with the low mod girl! Gone are the days of Melissa and I doing the highest possible intensity modifications at Zumba, jumping and hopping around to make it more difficult than even the instructor would do sometimes. *sigh*

Then I hear Autumn Calabrese say to keep moving, no matter what intensity level you are working at. It makes me think of something I've read before...

I am not exaggerating when I tell you this. I finished my low mod, fat girl version of the first 21DF workout. I walked out of my bedroom and when I stepped down on the first stair heading toward the living room, I thought my legs were going to collapse. They felt like jelly and were barely holding me up. I had to hold on to the railing. It was sad. It was pitiful. This workout would have been a breeze for me a year ago. Not anymore. I am determined to get back to that place where I would have done the highest intensity version of the workout. I want to be able to do that again. I will be able to do that again. It will just take time. In the meantime, as my whole body aches and struggles to move around today, I'll remember...

It's a Beautiful Day for a Walk

I'm starting to learn more about what is involved in being a Beach Body coach, and I'm excited to get started! I think I need to go ahead and do the 21 Day Fix (starting on Monday), learn more about all of the programs, and then after that I will try to start my first challenge group!

I had a delicious green smoothie this morning! What a healthy start to the day.

 I also went on a nice walk with my baby girl, which of course means I'll share her picture with you. I can't help it! She's so darn beautiful :)

Saturday is the Annual Chili Classic Volleyball Tournament. You have no idea how freaking excited I am!! I have been missing volleyball desperately since I didn't get to play while I was pregnant. I haven't played a game since November 2013. Such a tragedy! Anyway, I can't even explain how I excited I am for Saturday.

Another thing I'm starting on Monday...Shakeology! I've sampled it before, and it tastes pretty good from what I remember. I just need to get the okay from my doctor to take it while breastfeeding my little munchkin. Guess we'll find out at my appointment tomorrow.

I'm determined to not only get back to 145 pounds, but to pass that up and get to my original goal weight of 140. It is on!!!! :)

Going Forward!

Must. Go. Forward...

In November 2012, I weighed myself after Thanksgiving dinner and a depressed, unhealthy almost 200 lb. girl decided it was time to make a change. 

I worked my butt off! I meal planned, tracked my food and exercise using My Fitness Pal, and did tons of exercising! I joined the gym. I played volleyball. I ran. I did Zumba, yoga, TurboJam, TurboFire, Hip Hop Abs, some thighs and butt program that I can't remember the name of! I lifted weights. I had an awesome workout buddy! I did all the things that healthy people make a lifestyle of. I was down to 145 POUNDS and feeling better than I have in years!!

But then...I got pregnant. I am beyond blessed to have a beautiful and healthy daughter! I never thought it would be possible to love a little person so much! But along with my precious little Parker came 55 pounds! Well it's time to get moving again because I am remembering just how much I hate being overweight. I'm remembering just how much I love being healthy. I'm remember how much I love fitting into cute clothes.  I am now a Beach Body coach. I don't know what all that entails yet, but I am ready! It's time to go forward. 

My Motivation:

• To be a good example for my daughter
• To complete more Beach Body programs and help others reach their health and fitness goals too!
• To find a cute dress for Phil & Melissa's wedding next October
• So I can wear all my cute swimsuits I bought last year
• To feel good and have more energy!

This is the Jenny who is on her way back...

Now I just need to find my heart rate monitor...

Little Baby Cole

It's funny. I looked back at my blog, which seems like it hasn't been used in forever. I read my last post before now. The last time I used it, I wrote about how I hoped that I was pregnant. Well (drum roll please)...

I was ONE day pregnant when I wrote the last one :) Now I'm 17, almost 18 weeks, and couldn't be more excited. I have to say, being pregnant is not all the fun and awesomeness that I expected it to be. Of course it's worth it, and I would go through this a million more times to be able to meet my sweet baby boy or girl. However, the first trimester nearly killed me. I've never been so exhausted in my life. I'm talking lay on the couch, can't/don't want to move, completely fatigued. I never threw up, but got nauseous on a few days. I think the worst part for me has been the headaches. I've tried so many things to get rid of them. I'm even seeing a chiropractor and old friend, Jeanne Engert. Anyway, I don't want to complain too much! I saw the most perfect explanation of all of this the other day:

Anyway, this blog has completely been about weight loss and leading a healthy lifestyle. I had a very successful year last year, and it was so hard for me at first to slowly watch the pounds creep up on the scale. It was downright depressing. I've finally (I think) accepted the fact that I'm going to gain weight, and I'm going to be starting over again. *sigh* But I know it will be worth it. 

I wanted to write this post to post pictures of our latest and greatest purchase - baby furniture! I really love what we picked out, and we finally ordered it yesterday.

I guess that's all for now. Hopefully now that I have a more normal amount of energy, I can blog more. I sure did miss it!