Is It Worth It?

Hello all, this post has nothing really to do with my weight loss or anything of the sort it's just something I felt the need to write about. I will be back to regular blogging tomorrow :-)

 

I found out today that a co-worker of mine passed away last night from lung cancer. I wasn't close to this co-worker but I saw her around a lot and I knew who she was. Two of her daughters also work where I do. One is in her late 20's and the other is 16. 

For some reason I was very affected when I heard the news of her passing. I think it was because she worked up until last Friday, 2 days before she died. I'm sure she had some idea that her time here was getting shorter and shorter but I'm guessing she had no idea that Sunday would be her last day to see her daughters or her grandchildren. She had no idea that Friday would be the last time she was at work. 

I got irritated with my boyfriend earlier because he has a habit of rescheduling the nights that we see each other. I thought about how I was feeling and asked myself, "is it worth it"?

You never know what will happen. You never know when the last time will be that you hug a parent or close friend. I don't mean to sound morbid but it's the truth.

No one is perfect. I am not and neither are you. There will be plenty of times in my life that I will fight with someone or have an argument. I will say things I don't mean and apologize more than I should have to. You will do that same. 

From now on I am going to do my best to pick my battles. Decide what is worth fighting over and what is not. I will do my best to "agree to disagree" without hurting the feelings of someone I love. 

I ask you to do the same.

I care about each and every one of you.

I don't want any of you or me to have any regrets when the inevitable happens and we lose a loved one. 

Ask yourself if it's worth it. If you really should be angry about whatever you're angry about or if it would just be easier to let it go. I know that for me 9 times out of 10 it's not worth it.

I don't tell my loved ones enough that I love them, that I care deeply about them and that I appreciate everything, big and small, that they do. 

Eloise,

I hope you are watching over your daughters and giving them some comfort in this terribly hard time in their lives. They love you dearly and so do many other people. You will be missed, I hope you are resting in peace.

Turkey Eve

Happy Turkey Eve!! I am so excited to spend a lot of quality time with my family tomorrow and maybe be a crazy person and go shopping Friday? Haha, we'll see.

 

 

Yesterday was a really good day. Did anyone see Biggest Loser? I won't give anything away in case you didn't but I was sad to see the person that went home go home. They were one of my favorites but oh well I guess everyone has to go home at some point and that person looks awesome now! I'm soo excited to see the "Where Are They Now" special episode tonight! I hope the person that Bob goes and talks to is Eric because I heard he gained all his weight back and I always loved him so I'd like to see him try again and succeed this time.

 

Food was pretty normal yesterday. More Boca burgers! Haha. My dad made chili for dinner which was suuuper good! I had a little fettuccini alfredo for breakfast with grapes and a glass of milk. I think the fettuccini was a bad idea, I felt horrible after eating it. It's crazy how my body reacts to food like that, now that I don't eat it anymore. Won't do that again any time soon. I have to go cash my check at lunch so I'm going to swing by Subway on my way back to work.

 

I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike at my dads and then headed to the gym after BL. It was soooo nice to be back! It felt like "going home" in a way which makes me feel good. I love it there, I'm comfortable there and I love the people there, especially the staff. That's probably part of the reason I've been successful in the 3 1/2 months I've belonged to that gym. Last night the focus was abs with light bicep/back and inner/outer thighs.

 

I weighed in last night at 233.8 pounds. That's a .4 pound loss. I'll take it! =) I didn't work out at all last week and still lost almost a half of a pound. The scale is moving in the right direction and I'm excited to kick my own butt next week and see a great number! I can definitely see my Christmas goal of 230 in plain sight. That would be 40 pounds lost! I'm very excited for that day, I've never lost more than 20 pounds before when I was trying to lose weight. To lose twice that will be amazing and when I get to the 50 pound mark I think this will all start to become real. I still feel like I'm slightly in a daze surrounding this whole weight loss thing. I've lost 36 pounds but I don't think it has completely sunk in yet. I don’t think I truly realize yet that one day soon I will be at my goal weight. In less than 35 pounds I will be out of the 200's. Forever. I'm very excited about all of that =)

 

I'm in the process of making an appointment for a private Pilates lesson at my gym. It costs $60/hr so I will probably only do this one lesson but I felt like I wanted to have more one on one time before I did a group class. I'm thinking of doing it on Monday and scheduling it right before the intro to cycling class starts so that I can do the palates and then go straight to that class. We'll see how I feel come Monday. I'm still nervous about doing a group class alone. Have you guys ever taken a group exercise class alone? Were you nervous about it?

 

 

Anyways I hope you all have a FUN and SAFE Thanksgiving!! Remember to just relax and enjoy yourself. Don't let your food thoughts consume you. Make smart choices and be CONFIDENT in those choices. We will all be just fine =)

Wall of America

Are you surprised that it's been so long since I've posted? No? Me neither. I know I say that ALL THE TIME but I WILL start posting more. Promise.

 

 

I'll try to catch you up on what's been going on this past week but I think I'll start with Friday because that's when the fun started.

 

Friday was my friend Kim's 21st birthday party. We started out with dinner at P.F Chang's. I got 4 steamed pork dumplings (also known as pot stickers) and water to drink. I was very proud of myself because let me tell you, Chinese food is a BIG weakness of mine. Everyone else got some sort of fried rice and one person got sweet and sour chicken which is my FAVORITE. It was hard to resist but I was glad I did =) After dinner we headed back to her apartment for drinks, dancing and girl talk. I didn’t have any drinks because it was too many empty calories that I wasn't in the mood to work off. I didn’t get home until 11pm so needless to say, I did not make it to the gym.

 

Saturday, my fun, crazy weekend started. I began the day with an hour long "Introduction to Pilates" class. It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to start taking mat classes regularly. After class I zoomed home and made myself a late breakfast/lunch. I had a Boca burger topped with fat free shredded cheddar cheese. On the side I had a bowl of steamed green beans, asparagus and mushrooms and a handful of grapes. I also had a glass of 1% milk to drink. At about 2:30 my brother, his friend Tyler and I headed to Winona, Minnesota to visit my brother's girlfriend at college. We got there at about 5 and headed to a restaurant called Bubs (pronounced boobs oddly enough haha). I got the Hawaiian Chicken Sandwich with a side salad. I ate the whole sandwich (the menu said the chicken breast was about 5oz) without the bun. The sandwich was topped with guacamole and a pineapple slice and was absolutely divine! I drizzled a little bleu cheese dressing on the side salad and ate all of that as well. I had water to drink of course. After dinner we headed back to her dorm for about an hour then said our goodbye's and headed about 1hr 30min north the Red Wing to spend the night in a hotel.

 

Sunday morning we woke up and got a free breakfast at the hotel. I was pleasantly surprised with the food that they had there. I ended up getting a low fat blueberry yogurt, 1/4 bagel topped with a little butter and honey, 2 hard boiled eggs and a carton of 1% milk. It was very satisfying and filling. After breakfast we said goodbye to Tyler, he headed home and my brother and I headed an hour north to Minneapolis for the VIKING GAME!!! We were sooo excited to go to this game. I've been to 2 games before and he's been to 1 but this one was special because we had 4th ROW TICKETS on the 35 YD LINE!! It was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t believe how close we were to the players! Here are a few pictures that I got during the game of the players.

 

Jared Allen (my new boyfriend haha) During The National Anthem

The Quarterbacks Talking

Our Amazing Defensive Line, "The Wall of America"

Vikings Score!!

Brett Favre Looking At Us, He Kept Waving To Our Section

 

 

And to make things better, the Vikings won of course! =)

 

After the game we headed to the Mall of America for a bit before heading home. We didn't end up getting home until about 11pm so, again, no work out. Poo. I must say, any of you that live in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, I commend you. I could not handle driving on the highway there everyday, it's nuts! I'm used to driving in Madison and Milwaukee which are pretty decent size cities but there were so many highways criss crossing and exits here and there my head was spinning haha. It was fun though despite the crazy traffic.

 

Yesterday was back to normal with food but still…no exercise. I went to visit my boyfriend last night and didn't get home until 11pm. Hmm seems to be a pattern this past week.

 

Tonight will be my first and only night exercising since my last weigh in. Because of that I think I might see a gain on the scale. I ate fine and I did do that Pilates class on Saturday but only one day of exercising won't help me lose weight. I guess sometimes life throws crazy times at you and you just have to deal with it and move on. If I see a gain, I won't lie, I will be disappointed; however, it's expected and I know I can only improve next week. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Not only because I get to spend time with family but so I can prove to myself and everyone else that I can make it through without throwing my new lifestyle off track.

 

 

It's just another day, so what's all the fuss about? I will eat normal, get in a workout and continue on as I have. It's one day out of 365. Bring it on Thanksgiving, bring it on.

Shocked, Speechless and On Top of The World

So, first things first I NEED to start blogging more. I know I say this a lot but I really do. I love when people blog daily and I need to start doing it as well. Honestly, I know it may sound crazy but I look forward to my Google reader telling me I have a new post waiting to be read. It's one of the many highlights of my day. :-)

 

Now with that said, I realized last night that I never updated my weight loss from last week, November 10th. Oops! Sorry. Well, last week I weighed in at 238.8. That was a 1.5 pound loss for the week and I was officially under 240. Yippee! I was very happy with that and decided that if I could keep up a 1.5 pound loss per week until the end of the year I would be a very happy camper.

 

Fast forward to last night, another weigh in. I don’t know about all of you but stepping on the scale is the scariest thing for me. I always take a deep breath and just do it. In the 5 seconds that it takes for the number to pop up every decision, every bite of food, every ounce of energy I put into exercise comes into my head. Did I eat okay, did I exercise enough, did those little pieces of chocolate affect what I'm about to see? In my head I told myself I would be happy with at least 237.3 because that would be right on target with the 1.5 pound loss per week. Well, last night the number finally popped up after what seemed to be years of waiting (haha) and it said 234.2. Um, what?! Wait, does that say 234? I stepped off and on probably 4 times before I believed it. I lost 4.6 pounds this week! And to make things better I passed my Christmas goal weight! I think that is why I was so shocked. I wasn't expecting to see that number for at least another 2 weeks.  My goal for Christmas was 235 and I just passed that. Woo hoo! After seeing that I decided that I was going to be ambitious and dropped my goal to 230. I think in the 5 weeks until Christmas that I can squeeze out another 4.2 pounds. I don’t think it will be easy but I think I can do it.

 

I realized yesterday how reserved I used to be about getting excited for something. I would never get excited about weight loss or anything like that because I always knew eventually I would trip, fall and land back where I started. I think that mentality is part of the reason I would trip. It's fun to get excited about success. It's fun to know that I will never see 235 again. It is fun to know that I am less than 35 pounds away from onederland. And if for some reason I do slip and fall and have a gain next week or the week after or 5 months down the road its not a tragedy. I will be okay, it's not the end of the world.

 

I want to say thank you to all of you. Everyone's blogs that I read, everyone that leaves comments, everyone that reads my blog: thank you. I know I don’t blog as often as I should and I may not be as interesting as the next person but without you I would not have made it this far. It's true that a support system is soo important. I have great fans in my friends and family but it's nice to constantly be surrounded by people who are going through the same exact thing. You are all my heroes.

 

:-)

 

Lifelong Goal

Happy Friday! I know I'm very happy to see the weekend, how about you?

 

I know I've struggled with my weight my entire life. I've always been bigger than all my friends but I was also always taller. In 5th grade I was already 5'8". I was basically a gentle giant until the rest of my friends caught up. Some never did haha. Looking back I didn't think that my weight really ever crossed my mind when I was younger.

 

But I was wrong.

 

I found an old journal I used to write in when I was younger and read a little bit of it. I found a passage from the month before my mom and step-dad got married. My goal was to get down to 175 pounds from the 190's before their wedding.

 

That was 9 years ago, I was twelve years old.

 

I've always been a person that could say I really don't know what it's like to be thin because I never have been. Until reading that, I never realized how true it was.

 

I have never been thin.

 

I don’t know what it's like.

 

I don’t know what it feels like.

 

But I will.

 

Reading that passage lit a fire inside of me. I've read a lot of blogs lately about having fear. Fear of reaching a goal, fear of the unknown. I too have that fear. I have that fear because I've never been thin. It's a fear of the unknown but it's also a fear of failing. Inside I ask myself, if I have never been able to control my weight what makes me think I can do it now? What makes me think I can succeed? What makes me think this time will be different?

 

I don't think I can do it now.

I don't think I will succeed this time.

I don’t think this time will be different.

 

I KNOW it.

 

Why?

 

Because I have the tools to succeed. I have the knowledge to succeed. I have the drive to succeed. And as I'm writing this, I just happened to look at the calendar and see the date. Yes, it's Friday the 13th. The 13th of November. Exactly 3 months since I started on this journey. Do you know how long I lasted last time I tried this? 2 months. 2 months and 20 pounds.

 

Now, it has been 3 months, 30 pounds and I'm still loving every second of it.

 

This time, change will happen. It has been my lifelong goal, literally, to lose weight and be healthy. It's about time I take my life back.

I ::Heart::: Biggest Loser

Happy Tuesday! Two post in a row?! Crazy, I know! (a little Dr. Seuss action for you guys)

 

This post will probably be just as boring as yesterday. Bear with me my life will get more exciting soon…

 

I hope :-)

 

Yesterday's food was good. I had veggie burgers for both breakfast and lunch, lots of grapes, V8 etc. Basically the same old same old food. One new thing I am obsessed with though is my first afternoon snack. I take 3 Breton whole wheat crackers, spread 1 wedge of garlic and onion laughing cow cheese on them (split the wedge between the 3 crackers not 1 wedge per cracker) and top it with salsa. Yummmmmmy! I also have a hard boiled egg white on the side for a little belly filling power. Last night I cooked up some chicken so that will be lunch for the rest of the week.

 

My leg was not in any kind of shape to be doing much of anything last night so I switched it up and made last night an arms night with some light upper ab/oblique/back work. I followed that with 1 hr of intervals on the stationary bike. The bike felt wonderful for my leg and I think it REALLY loosened it up because today my leg feels great. Still a little sore but good enough to attempt a legs night tonight. We'll see how it goes!

 

I'm very excited for Biggest Loser tonight! Anyone else? But 2 people are going home?! I hate having less and less people to choose from because I like most of the people left. Oh well, I guess that's life at the BL Ranch.

 

 

I have something fun to share with you guys tomorrow. (Well, I think it's fun anyways) Stay tuned :-)

Wonderfully Wonderful Weekend

It's crazy how Monday comes so fast isn't it? Oh well, another day another dollar right?

 

 

This weekend was pretty satisfying. My exercise was wonderful, my eating was pretty darn good and I'm excited to (hopefully) be out of the 240's come tomorrow night's weigh in.

 

Friday we went out to eat at the Nitty Gritty for my step-dad's birthday. I had water to drink and to eat I had a vegetable burger with tomatoes and lettuce on top. I took off the bun and didn’t eat any of it. I also had a side of steamed veggies. (broccoli, cauliflower and carrots)

 

Saturday, my mom, my friend Chelsea, her mom and I went out for dinner and drinks. We went to this amazing Italian restaurant called Angelo's. I had the giant portabella mushroom ravioli with a side salad and water to drink. I ate half of the ravioli and all of the side salad with some minimal bleu cheese dressing. After dinner we went to this cute little bar called Jade Monkey. I had a grasshopper ice cream drink and 1 "key lime pie" shot.

 

Sunday for breakfast I had an orange smoothie from Smoothie King. Then, for lunch I had the other half of my ravioli from Saturday night with a glass of milk to drink. Dinner was a MorningStar veggie burger that I topped with 1/2 cup fat free shredded cheddar cheese and about 1 tbsp salsa. I had a glass of milk to drink with this as well. 

 

 

Exercise this weekend was pretty darn good! Friday I didn’t end up making it to the gym, I was NOT in a good mood and I know that I never have a good workout when I'm like that so I skipped it.

 

Saturday morning my mom and I were supposed to do the Intro to Pilates class at my gym. Well, apparently this weekend was "wellness weekend" so they weren't holding any of their normal classes. I was pretty disappointed because next Saturday I'm going to a baby shower for my cousin's wife so it will be 2 weeks before I can try again. Oh well. Saturday night after dinner I headed to the gym to try to work off some of that ravioli and drinks. Focus was arms with light hamstrings, upper abs and oblique's. I finished it off with an hour of intervals on the stationary bike.

 

Sunday, me and my crazy friend Erin decided to take a little stroll. It was nice to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather before winter comes. Oh wait, did I mention that the stroll took place at 7am and that we walked around Lake Monona? (10 miles) It was quite the walk to say the least but it was fun. We finished the walk in about 3 hours and 30 minutes. For some reason, even though I stretched, my left hamstring behind my knee is very very sore and tight so it kind of hampered my gym time last night. I still went and did my ab work with light biceps, back and inner/outer thighs. Instead of my normal hour long cardio I did about 20 minutes on the stationary bike at a steady resistance of 8. It felt good to move my leg around but I knew I couldn’t push it much further than I did. Tonight is supposed to be a legs day but I might have to change that depending on how I feel.

 

 

Overall this weekend was pretty good and probably pretty boring to read about haha. The thing I REALLY REALLY need to work on is getting in my water on the weekends. I want to say between Saturday and Sunday I probably got in 40 oz of water. NOT GOOD. Next weekend I WILL get in my 64 oz per day, it won't be an option.

Craving Chicken

Hello my lovelies! Happy Friday!! Sorry it has been soo long since my last post, I really need to try HARD to post at least every other day.

 

 

So I had my weigh in Tuesday night. The scale read 240.3. I'll take that :-) as it's a 1.5 pound loss from the previous week. I know my weight loss will eventually slow down so I don’t expect to see a 2-3 pound loss every week. I think 1.5 is exactly where I need to be and considering I only got in 3 workouts last week I think a 1.5 pound loss is all the effort I put in. I would have liked to be out of the 240's but hey that's what next week is for right?

 

Food has been good. I need to stay away from this cheese that my mom gets from her friend's cheese shop. It's called wonder bar and it's too die for!! Buuut I'm sure it's LOADED with fat. If you've never had cheese from Wisconsin I promise it will change your life! I'm trying to decide what my lunch will be for next week, I think I'm craving chicken :-)

 

Exercise has been pretty much nothing since I last talked to you because Wednesday's and Thursday's are my days off. My plan is to hit the gym tonight through Tuesday. I'm even bringing my workout clothes to a restaurant we're going to tonight to celebrate my step-dad's birthday so I can zip over there right after dinner. Boy have I changed haha. Tomorrow morning me and my mom are going to take a Pilates class together at my gym. I'm very excited about this! After the class she plans on heading home and I'm going to finish my regular routine at the gym before heading home. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will be regular gym days. Maybe I'll get the courage to take a cycling class Monday? I guess we'll see.

 

In non-weight loss related news I think I will be getting back in school in January! I know this might not seem that exciting but I'm thrilled!! I NEED and WANT so badly to be back in school earning my degree. I'm going to be doing online classes to get my bachelor's in computer science. Aaaaand I get 2 paychecks next Friday so I can buy a new laptop!! My pay schedule at work is that we're getting paid for what we worked 2 weeks ago, like normally Friday I would be getting paid for the time I put in October 15th - October 31st. The new company that bought the place I work wants us to be getting paid for the 2 weeks we just worked so in order to get us caught up I will be getting paid for October 15th - November 15th. Honestly this couldn’t have come at a better time! That will help a lot with Christmas shopping so it'll take some stress off of it money wise.

 

 

I hope you all have a fun and safe weekend! The new season of Ghost Adventures starts tonight! Definitely check it out on the travel channel if you like stuff like that. It's amazing!

Lopsided?

Happy Tuesday! One day closer to Friday :-) AND Biggest Loser tonight! Woo Hoo!

 

So tonight I do my weekly weigh in. Not sure what to expect but it would be really awesome to get out of the 240's. That would mean at least a 1.9 pound loss. Do you think I did it? Hmm I guess we'll see.



Food has been pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself. The weekend was, of course, full of eating out but I think I made some pretty good decisions. Saturday for lunch I had a stuffed tomato and a glass of milk. Dinner was Fragrant Chicken at this Chinese Restaurant called "Imperial Garden". It was chicken and veggies in some kind of spicy sauce, served with white rice on the side. I ate about half of the chicken/veggie concoction and only a little bit of the rice. I'm more of a brown rice type of girl. I also had water to drink of course.


Sunday I ate at a place called "The Silver Eagle" with my mom and step-dad. I ordered the chicken tenders with a side salad and water. I ate the entire salad with a little bit of bleu cheese dressing and about half of the chicken tenders. I took the other half home and ate those for dinner Sunday night.


Sunday night after the Vikings beat the Packers (big smiles!!) I whipped up 6 turkey burgers. I made 3 "cheesy horseradish" burgers and 3 "salsa stuffed" burgers. I followed both recipes using half the ingredients (since I was only making 3 of each instead of 6) and subbed low fat mayo instead of regular mayo in the salsa one and fat free shredded cheddar cheese instead of regular fat cheese in both recipes. I also added 1tbsp of my favorite horseradish to the cheesy burgers to add some flavor. I had one of the salsa ones yesterday for lunch and it was AMAZING! I spread a little avocado on top with some sautéed portabella mushrooms and a few tomato slices. TO.DIE.FOR. I had one of the cheesy burgers last night with the same toppings. That burger was delish too but next time I would probably cut the worsterschier sauce in 1/2 because I thought it was a little overpowering.





Exercise has been good I guess, I just need to get in more of it. For some reason that is still a problem for me. I went to the gym Sunday night, last night and I'll be going again tonight. I need to start making Friday and Saturday mandatory if I'm going to take off Wednesday and Thursday. Last night was abs night which is now my new favorite night because I.LOVE.THE.BOSU.BALL more than I can even express :-)





So…weird question for all you bloggers out there! Does anyone else have/had in the past a slightly lopsided body? Now let me explain what I mean by that. If you've taken a peek at my progress pictures you know I have plenty of rolls to go around. I was looking at myself in the mirror this morning admiring my rolls getting smaller and noticed that the rolls on the left side of my body seem to be slightly smaller than the rolls on my right side. Now I don’t know if that side of my body started smaller because I know fat doesn’t just sit evenly on your body but I also don’t want the cause to be that I'm unpurposely working one side harder. What are your thoughts? Do you think everything will even out eventually or do you think it's something that I'm doing causing this?





Anyways, there's some fun stuff going on in blogger world that you should definitely check out if you haven't.



1. Doug is starting a challenge for the month of November. Definitely head over to his page and check it out, it's going to be fun! And God knows we all need some extra help over the holidays.



2. Speaking of extra help Jen, a priorfatgirl and MizFit have decided to team up to pair people with others in need of motivation. Check out Jen's page to see how you can be a part of this.



Well that's all for today folks, just remember the weekend is almost here! (haha)