Trust

It's funny how once you start trusting yourself all things are possible. Things just 'magically' start falling into place exactly how they should.

It's all in my head.

I've learned this over the past month or so. Since January I've done Weight Watchers and counted calories. While these both worked somewhat (I've lost 12 pounds) I knew what I had to do to really see the pounds come off.

I need to trust myself.

Before I got pregnant, I worked out 4-5 times a week, ate healthier/less and weighed myself once a week. Doing this I lost between 1.5-5 pounds a week, about 40 pounds in 4 months. I decided that it's time to trust myself again.

I'm done writing down every calorie I consume.
I'm done not working out.
I'm done weighing myself everyday.

I wrote up an exercise plan working out 7 days a week doing a hybrid of P90X and TurboFire. I'm eating healthier/less and I've quit my obsession with the scale.

Last week I was down 1.4 (even after a family filled, food filled weekend) and I'm looking forward to another loss this week.
:-)

Why am I fat?

I saw an article online about digging deep to find the root of your weight problem. It posed four questions to be thoughtfully answered. I found it to be quite powerful for me.

                                                                ---------------------

Why do I have a weight problem?

I have a weight problem because I don’t have the will power to say no. Food is a comfort. It always has been. Food tastes good and therefore makes me feel good. Growing up I never felt good enough for anyone. My parents always treated like I could never do anything right. Or maybe that’s just how I perceived it; either way, it’s how I felt. It’s how I still feel from time to time and I believe it’s a sub conscious excuse that I use for a lot of problems that I have and/or decisions that I make. Food tends to bring people together, at least in my family. Food is always used as a celebration tool. I feel closer to my family and feel more accepted and bonded with friends and family when we are eating together. I think that’s why I enjoy going out to eat so much. The food isn’t really that much better than something I could make at home and it’s much more expensive. When food is always used as a celebration tool you start to associate it with happiness; therefore, when you’re feeling sad or lonely or bored and want happiness where do you turn to? Food.

Why am I holding on to this extra weight?

Because I can hold on to the extra weight and it gives me an excuse. It gives me an excuse to not do everything I want to do. As weird as that sounds it almost acts like a comfort. I doubt myself and sometimes instead of facing my fears and self doubt, I have an excuse to not even attempt to try and possibly fail at things. It prevents me from failing when in all actuality I’m failing myself by staying this way. I can do more and become such a wonderful person but the thought that I might not get there as easily as I would like scares me. I try to please people. I try to make others happy. I try to impress others. Again, it goes back to not feeling good enough. I want people to look at me and think that I am smart and I can do anything. Staying the same is easy. Change is scary and can sometimes come with failure. I tend to like sticking to what I know and not taking risks. I usually go to the same gas station because I know exactly how the pumps work. I go to the same stores because I know how they are set up and where everything is. I don’t want to look stupid. What if I try to lose weight and I can’t? I’m afraid to look stupid.

How does the weight serve me?

It’s my own personal coat of armor. My shield. My protection. My excuse. It allows me to put up walls ‘because I’m fat’. It allows me to not take risks in fear of failing. It allows me an excuse to sit on the couch and watch tv. I can’t fail if I don’t try.

When can I move on and fully commit to action?

Now. I can’t wait any longer. Every wasted day is just that, wasted. I’m not truly living. I’m not truly loving. My laughs aren’t always sincere and my smiles often hide more than they show. This life isn’t fun and nothing tastes as good as the feeling after you see a loss on the scale.

But it's so easy!

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to transform your life and become healthy? If you break it down to what it really is, it's quite simple.

Eat less, eat healthier, move your body everyday.

It's so easy!

Stop drinking soda and juices.
Load up on water.
Eat more fruits and veggies.
Limit your sweets and extra sugar.
Move your body at least 30 minutes a day.

Easy peasy!

But it's not.
It's not easy.
Or am I just making it harder than it needs to be?

Have you ever known someone that makes it look so easy? They are 30 pounds overweight, wake up one day, decide to start exercising and eating healthy and boom 3 months later the extra 30 pounds is gone forever. Or someone that loses 100 pounds in a year.

Of course these people had struggles and slip ups along the way but they picked themselves up and kept on the EASY, healthy path.

I told myself when I got to 244 pounds that I would never see the 250's again. This morning I stepped on the scale at 250.6

I've become so obsessed with food and soda that I forgot how much better the feeling of losing weight is than the taste of the food and soda.

Time for me to hop back on the easy path.

Makeover

The time has come. My blog needs a makeover. BAD!

If you've followed me for a while, you know that I have a tendency to write a few blog posts and then kind of disappear for a while. Not intentionally of course, but I usually just let life get in the way. 

I truly will not let that happen anymore. 

I need to get back into blogging because quite frankly I've missed it and I've missed the support that I got from this wonderful community. 


So, please allow me to reintroduce myself.

My name is Jennifer and I am 22 (soon to be 23) years old. I live in Madison, WI and I embarked on my healthiness journey on August 13th, 2009. Between then and the end of December 2009 I lost 40 pounds. I did this through exercise and eating less. 

The day after Christmas that year I found out that I was 2 months pregnant with my first child. Not only was I blessed with a beautiful baby girl on July 31st, 2010 but I also added 55 pounds on to my body throughout my pregnancy. 

Here is a picture of her a few months ago. She is my entire world and the reason why I'm still fighting the battle of the bulge. At her birth I weighed 285 pounds. I am now down to 249 and fighting for every single ounce.

Right now I am counting my calories and doing a combination of Turbo Fire (a kickboxing workout) and P90X. These workouts are AMAZING and definitely make it a little easier to work out each day. My goal is to be down between 130-140 pounds. That's a little over 100 pounds to lose.


I will soon be updating my pictures on my pictures page because they are out of date. 

I'm very excited to be back and excited to pick up where I left off on encouraging each and every one of you. 

:-)

17 Days

di·et  /ˈdaɪɪt/ Show Spelled [dahy-it]  noun, verb, -et·ed, -et·ing, adjective

such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight: No pie for me, I'm on a diet. 

 

 

Tomorrow I embark on a new chapter in my weight loss journey. I'm going to be starting the 17 day diet with my mom.

Honestly, I don't like that it's called a diet. Technically, by definition it is a diet but when I think of the word 'diet', I think of something negative. I think of the Atkins Diet that eliminates carbs, I think of the yogurt diet where you can only have yogurt or how about the egg diet? You get my point. The 17 day diet is different. Yes there is some restrictions on food but they aren't long term restrictions. 

That is what I love about this 'diet'.

The first 17 days you are only allowed to eat lean protein (egg, chicken, turkey and fish), cleansing vegetables (almost every vegetable is on this list) and low sugar fruits (apples, berries, grapefuit, oranges, peaches, pears, plums, prunes and red grapes). You are also supposed to have two servings of probiotics a day; this includes yogurt, kefir, acidophilus milk, yakult, Breakstone Live Active cottage cheese, reduced salt miso, tempeh, sauerkraut and kimchi.

As far as drinks go you are supposed to have 3 cups of green tea a day and at least 8 cups of water. I will be adding in a cup of low fat milk because I'm a milkaholic. 

There are 3 cycles after the first one, each 17 days long (duh!) and each cycle introduces more and more foods back into your life so that by the time you are to Cycle 4 you can eat pretty much whatever you want.  

I like that you are taught what to eat, when to eat it and still have the opportunity to make decisions that fit your body. I think of it more of a roadmap instead of a diet.

I plan to write everyday to update on my weight loss and how it's going.

Hope you are all doing well and Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in cyberspace :-) 

I've Been Here Before

Hello is anyone out there!?

Did you all miss me? Do you even remember who I am? :-) Of course you do! Because I'm just that wonderful...right? right?!

Haha anyways I'm back and boy does it feel good! I don't know why I ever left; life happened I guess. And yes, life is still happenening but I think I've finally managed to actually figure out how to handle it all. Right now I currently have an 8 month old (WOW time flies!!), I'm working (kinda sorta), going to school and starting up two businesses (hopefully). I've been very very busy. Amongst all that I have going on right now did you notice what wasn't included?

Living Healthy
Exercising
Eating Right

I'm not going to lie. I'm struggling. Big time.

I'm currently sitting at about 257 pounds. At the beginning of January I started WW and I absolutely love it! Between January 11th and the beginning of March, I went from 264 pounds down to 250. Great right? Well, yes if I would have stuck with it. As you can see, since stopping I've gained 7 pounds back. I haven't yet mastered the art of fitting in a workout and I can eat healthy all day everyday but eventually I do get bored.

But I know I'm worth it.

I know my daughter's worth it.

I know my family is worth it.

Monday I am starting a P90X/TurboFire hybrid. I am now a Beachbody coach as well (thought it might give me some motivation haha) so if anyone is ever interested in buying any Beachbody products or become a coach with me just let me know! I can hook you up :-)

Alright, well my baby needs me, I think she's feeling neglected haha.

Until next time!

P90X/Brazilian Butt Lift: COMING SOON!

 

Hey guys! I've finally ordered P90X and Brazilian Butt Lift and they came in the mail yesterday. Never have I been so excited over a dvd in my life! :-) I ordered a new scale and a set of resistance bands from Amazon.com and they are expected to arrive today so I'll be all set and ready to go. I've decided to wait to start until Monday for a few reasons.

 

1. I know I should have the, "why wait, I'm going to start today" mentality but with how crazy my schedule is right now with a newborn, school and work it's easier to just ride out the rest of this week as I usually do and focus on figuring out a new weekly schedule from here on out.

 

2. Sunday is my birthday (woot woot!) and I think it would be fun to restart my healthiness journey the day after my birthday. A nice fresh start if you will.

 

3. I'm nearly out of groceries for the week and the only time I'm really ever able to fit in grocery shopping in Sunday night.

 

I'm going to be doing a P90X/BBL hybrid that I still have to draw out. I'm not sure if I will be doing the scheduled workouts every day from both programs or if I'll switch off. We'll see what I come up with. I'll also take before and after measurements and photos to post on here. Quick question for everyone. I've never done measurements before so how do I make sure I'm taking the before and after measurements from the same spot? Do you just do a rough estimate?

 

Thanks in advance :-)

 

Powerful

 

Do you ever feel powerful?

 

Like you can just conquer the world?

 

I've been pretty stressed lately. Going back to work has really made it hard to keep up with school and I've fallen slightly behind. It's nothing a little hard work can't fix but it's stressful. I wanted to call in sick today because, well I am sick and just super tired. I knew that if I called in sick I would probably lose my job so I had to just tough it out and come to work today.

 

For some reason as I was walking to my car I felt powerful. My heels were clicking against the ground, I had my brand new purse over my shoulder and I had my healthy breakfast smoothie in my hand. I felt good, I felt great, I felt powerful. I have no idea why but I plan to capture that feeling as I start again on this journey.

 

I need to have the power to overcome.

 

To persevere.

 

To know I can do it.

 

To know I am worth it.

 

To know my daughter is worth it.

 

I invite you to all join me in finding your inner power. Because you all are worth it too!

 

Day 1

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

 

I'm happy to say that today starts day 1 of my healthiness journey part 2. If you've been following me for a while you know that I officially started my healthiness journey on August 13th of last year. Between that day and the end of December I lost exactly 40 pounds, going from 270lbs to 230lbs. Between the end of December and the end of July, I gained back 55lbs. But not without help ;-) I found out the day after Christmas that I was 7wks pregnant with my first child. She was born on July 31st, 2010. Now that she is here, my world has changed. She is now my world and I wouldn’t have it any other way but now I have to get back into the swing of things so I can be around a long time to see her and her children and maybe a few of her children's children grow up :-)

 

Today is a new day. Food will be on point from here on out. For breakfast I had a bowl of apples and cinnamon instant oatmeal. I plan to have an avocado-raspberry protein smoothie for breakfast so I can bring it to work but the avocadoes I bought yesterday weren't quite ready for eating this morning. Bummer. Lunch was a turkey burger with cheese and a little ketchup, a few deep fried eggplant slices (not great I know! But oh so delicious!), a bowl of corn, green beans, broccoli and spinach and a can of low sodium V8. Morning snack was some almonds and afternoon snack will be a cottage double (cottage cheese and fruit mixed up, yum!) Not sure what dinner will be yet, still have to figure that one out. Oh yea, the best part about my lunch? I only live 2miles away from work so I get to go home and enjoy my lunch with my daughter :-) How wonderful is that?

 

Exercise. Dun Dun Dun! I've officially decided that I will be getting AND completing P90X! I will also be adding in some walking and strength training with these cool kinetic bands I got. I'll have to show them to you guys later, they're pretty cool! Overall, I'm excited about this fresh start! I would love to be down 30lbs by Christmas. That's my official goal. Once I take my starting weight I'll let you guys know what that is. And before P90X I will take measurements to see the progress I make.

 

Anyways, I should skidattle!

 

Have a lovely Monday my dears!

 

 

P90X?

So Monday ends my 8 week maternity leave and I've decided to restart my healthiness journey on that day as well. I don't really have the time to go to the gym because although my mom would love to watch Kaliya while I go to the gym I would feel guilty leaving for a couple hours when I only have a few hours with her after work before she goes to bed. So I've decided I want to find something I can do at home. Enter P90x...

I've seen this infomercial more times than I can count but have never even considered buying it. The reason I'm starting to consider it is because it looks like a very intense workout that yields impressive results.

My question to you guys...what do ya think? Have you used it or know someone that has? Opinions? Anything would be greatly appreciated :-)

Let Our Stomachs Decide

I've always been a person that will eat until I'm uncomfortably full just because I think I can eat everything on my plate instead of simply listening to my stomach.

Recently for one of my science classes I read an article about an experiment that was done in Berlin. The study had two groups of people eat the same two course meal: one group in complete darkness and one in the light. After both groups ate their meals they were taken to a lighted portion of the restaurant to have dessert. The study showed that those who could see their food ate dessert that coincided with the portion size they ate. Thus, those with large portions ate less dessert than those that were served a small portion. The study also showed that those that ate in complete darkness and could not see and did not know what size portion they got, ate the same amount of dessert whether they had a large portion of food or a small one. The study proved the scientists' theory that our judgement of how hungry we are is based largely on what we know and see that we ate vs what hunger cues our stomach is sending us. If we cannot see how much we ate it's hard for us to gauge how hungry we are.

I know I'm guilty of this. Many times I've said something to the affect of "I only ate half my burger, I definitely have room for dessert" or "I ate my burger and my fries, theres no way I could fit dessert too". Well, what if half of a burger was enough to keep me full and content or what if after a burger and fries I was still hungry. Just because I saw that I ate a certain amount of food doesn't mean a thing in terms of my hunger. My stomach is the only thing that can truly tell me 100% whether or not I'm hungry but honestly I often don't have the 'patience' to wait the 20 or so minutes they say it takes for your stomach to let your brain know it's full.

I honestly believe that this is part of the reason I am overweight. I'm sure there are many others that can say the same thing. I'm restarting my healthiness journey now and I've decided to make a promise to myself to actually listen to my stomach. It's such a wonderful and powerful tool that we have so why not let it do what it was made to do.

Is anyone with me?

Introducing Kaliya Aria Kleckley!

Hellooooo Blogger world! Hope you are all doing well! I'm just checking in to introduce you all to my lovely daughter Kaliya Aria Kleckley. She was born on July 31st, 2010 at 9:02pm. Ironically enough she was born only a day after my last post where I explained that I was having a c-section on the 10th of August. Well, she decided it was time to make her debut earlier. My water broke around noon on Saturday July 31st and because she was still breech they went ahead with the c-section plans. Everything went really well and my recovery has been quite good.

I was off all pain meds only 2 weeks after I had her and was driving around that time as well. I just had my 6 week check-up and the doctor said everything looks good so I've been cleared to start exercising again! I've lost 35 of the 55 pounds that I gained during the pregnancy, so my first goal is to focus on those last 20 pounds. Woo hoo! I never thought I'd actually be excited to start exercising again haha but I've been craving it for the longest! And not just walking or biking, I can't wait to start lifting weights again so I can reshape this lovely body I have. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things as far as planning out my meals and what exercise will be but I expect to start up full force within the next week or so.

Things have been quite crazy as you could imagine. I have a 6wk old baby, working full time and going to school part time. Wowza, I never thought I could juggle it all but it's actually not that bad. So once I get back into the swing of things you guys will be seeing a lot more of me and you're going to like it ;-) I'll leave you with some pictures of my baby...Enjoy!

It's Been A Looooong Time

Hey guys! It's been about 2 months since I've posted, EEK! Thanks to those of you that still follow me, I see that I've lost a few followers and I don't really blame people lol.

Things are going okay here. I am about 37 1/2 weeks and I'm getting very excited to meet my little princess. I'm not sure if I updated you guys or not but we found out we're having a little girl! :-) Here name is going to be Kaliya (kuh-lee-uh) and the middle name will be Aria (are-e-uh). The first name we chose just because it's a name we both love and we chose Aria for a middle name because it means 'song or music' in Italian and I'm Italian and my boyfriend is working hard to make a name for himself in the music industry so we thought it fit perfectly. :-) We wanted at least one part of her name to mean something. Here are a couple pictures we got of her from a 3D ultrasound we did about 6wks ago.

A very happy baby :-)

With her arm over her head, hiding

Sucking on her thumb, maybe?

I'm totally in love with her already and can't wait to meet her. We have a c-section scheduled for August 10th because this little stinker is still breech, which means she is head up, feet down. I'm currently on bedrest, however, because my blood pressure is high and won't go down. I have to meet with my doctor again on Monday and if my blood pressure is still high they will bump up the c-section to next week. I'm very excited! But very nervous at the same time. Hopefully everything will go well and the next time I post, I may have some pictures of my new love :-) It seems like you are all doing well, as I still read all of your posts daily.

Can't wait to be back in the action with you all!

New Friends?

Thanks everyone for your kind words. I love having the blogging community to fall back on for constant support. You guys are awesome :-)

Anyways, tomorrow I am 27wks pregnant. That means I will be starting my third trimester. How crazy is that?! Time is absolutely flying. I will post a picture soon of my growing belly. I got my blood glucose results and everything came back normal so no gestational diabetes for me. Woo hoo! I am slightly anemic though so I have to start taking an iron supplement daily. I'm hoping this might help with my constant hunger problem. We'll see.

I also wanted to know if anyone had any weightloss/fitness blogs that they enjoy reading that you think I might enjoy as well. I'm looking to add some blogs to my reader for more inspiration. If you have any suggestions that would be great!

Hope you are all having a wonderful Monday!

Pregnancy Vent

I feel the need to vent and since this is my blog I guess I have the right to do it here.

Lately all these pregnancy hormones have really been getting to me. I'm happy one minute and the next minute I'm bawling for no reason. The worst part is that it's so hard to make yourself stop when there's really no reason that you started. Today I went for a drive to clear my head and all it really did was make me think about every emotion I'm feeling.

Sometimes I feel lonely. I don't know why because I live with 4 other people, I have great friends at work and my weekends usually consist of spending a lot of time with my friends. I think a lot of it right now has to do with the fact that I'm pregnant and I only get to see my boyfriend once a week. It's hard having a bond like a child and wanting to share every moment of my pregnancy with him and I can't. And on top of that he is so busy working right now to save for the baby that it's really hard to talk to him a lot on the days we aren't together.

Another thing that has just been getting to me a lot is not feeling needed. A lot of things in my past have caused me to lose a lot of my ability to trust. I have a hard time trusting that people aren't going to just up and leave me especially when times get hard. I can't wait until my daughter is born because I know that she will need me and love me just as much as I love her.

Right now I'm just taking it day by day. My life is very good and i don't want this to seem like a woe me post I just needed to get some things off of my chest.

Thanks for listening or reading I should say. Hope you guys all had a great weekend. I think I need to get some rest.

Poached Eggs?

Hey guys! Happy super duper Friday!! I love that I can lay in bed and blog. How fun =)

Anyways I was wondering if anyone has had poached eggs before. Are they any good? Are they worth the extra cook time? I'm trying to find some creative meals that might help me stay fuller longer and I was thinking maybe poached eggs and a bowl of fruit for breakfast.

What do you guys think? Any other suggestions for some good breakfast foods?

Have a wonderful weekend!! I'm counting down the days until I can rejoin the weight loss/fitness world =)

Testing 123...

Hey guys! I bought myself an iPhone! Very excited about that especially since it will be much easier for me to post and put comments on all of your guys' blogs. Woo hoo! Anyways this is just a post to make sure the app I got works lol

Hope you are all having a wonderful day, tomorrows Friday!!

Wow Really?

Wow, I can't belive I haven't posted since March. Time sure flies!! I decided since I'm not doing anything on this gloomy Saturday that I'll take some time to update my blog and all of you guys on what's been going on. I'm updating my 'weight' column on the side of my blog because I have gained weight. I know that it's obviously because of my pregnancy but that doesn't mean I won't have to lose it again once the baby comes so I'm including it in that column. I will also take some photos of my blossoming belly for you all to see!

I will be 26 weeks pregnant on Tuesday and I can't belive that my little peanut will be here in a little over 3 months! It's craaaaazy to think about. We found out that we're having a little girl! :-) We're both very excited about that even though my boyfriend wanted a boy at first. Of course he is fine with either one as long as she's healthy. The name we have picked out is Kaliya (kuh-lee-uh) but that could change by August.

As crazy as it sounds I'm really really ready to get back into exercising. I walk on a daily basis and we're doing a wellness challenge at work to see how many steps you can walk daily. My average so far is about 6500 steps. Although walking is a great way to exercise, especially for me right now, I really want to get back in the gym and lift weights and bike hard intervals on the exercise bike. I also have been reading about people who do "stair climbing". Basically they have events around the country similar to 5K's and half marathons and triathalons except instead of running or walking you climb flights of stairs in tall buildings. I don't know why but something about this really intrigues me. Maybe because I know it's such a tough thing to do and I'm ready for a good challenge to get me into shape. Anyways, I'm excited to have this baby and start exercising again.

I hope you are all doing wonderful! And Happy Mother's Day (tomorrow) to all the mothers out there :-)

Feed Me!

Hey guys! How goes it? Things are good here, same old same old.

I've been finding lately (basically since I got pregnant) that I am starving ALL the time! I know it's because I'm pregnant but jeez I'm really getting sick of it. They say when you're pregnant to only eat 200 extra calories a day but I'm sorry I think I need more than that. I don't know maybe I'm not eating enough? Here's what my current eating looks like:

6am-1 piece of toast with Smart Balance spray "butter"
9am-1/2 PB & Apple Butter sandwich, Clementine
11:15am-Turkey, Boca Burger or Chicken Breast, grapes, V8, Clementine, small salad with just lettuce and tomatoes topped with low fat bleu cheese dressing
1:30pm-1/2 PB & Apple Butter sandwich, apple sauce
2:30 pm-1/2 PB & Apple Butter sandwich
After 3:30 when I get home I snack and snack and snack until I feel full. Usually on cheese and ice cream :-) Then at about 6 I eat dinner.

I think I'm going to try to get heartier snacks for the afternoon and start eating more often. I'm also making a breakfast casserole for the morning. Here's what I'm going to try to make my eating plan look like.

6am-toast, hard boiled egg white
8:30am-breakfast casserole, fruit
11am-lunch
1pm-snack
3pm-snack
6pm-dinner

I'm trying unsalted pretzels dipped in low sodium refried beans, mashed potatoes and a brown rice/corn/salsa/avocado concoction for afternoon snacks. Do you guys have any other suggestions for some snacks that might work? I looked online for ideas and a lot of people said popcorn (doesn't keep me full, too much salt), carrots in hummus (yuck and yuck), fruit and pb (I have a lot of fruit already, sick of pb), yogurt (doesn't keep me full), cottage cheese with fruit (LOVE this but holy moly does it have a lot of salt in it.) Can you guys think of anything else that might work? Sorry I know I'm being picky!


Have a wonderful Thursday!

Alive!

I'm alive!! No, really I am! Sorry I haven't been blogging regularly or even semi-regularly. I am still reading your blogs via the wonderful Google reader everyday but of course I haven't been commenting much. Again, sorry! This will get better I promise!

Things have been kind of nutty in my life. I'm still pregnant (woo hoo!) As of today I am 16 weeks along. I have another appointment in 2 weeks and then another 2 weeks after that I have my 20wk ultrasound and I'll find out what I'm having!! Crazy! I can't believe the time is flying by so quickly. I am still pretty sick. It seems to be easing up a bit, I'm not throwing up everyday more like every other ;-) I still have lots of food aversions like Subway. Oh how I miss you Subway! But currently even looking at the sign makes me gag. TMI? Sorry! Also many vegetables and pasta look pretty gross, so needless to say I am currently getting most of my veggie servings from the lovely V8 and salad. Basically lettuce and tomatoes are the only veggies I can stand the sight of. Oh and corn but umm is corn a vegetable? I heard it was a "starch". Anywho I'm trying to keep my eating just as good as it was before I got pregnant mostly for the health of the baby but also because I'm concerned about my blood pressure. It was slightly elevated before I got pregnant and I know if it gets too high it can be dangerous to both me and the baby. Right now it's pretty good. This week I'm finally finding enough energy to start exercising so I will either be walking or biking 1hr everyday starting tonight! Fun fun :-) Too bad I couldn't just use this pregnancy to vedge out and be lazy huh? Such is life..

School is going okay. Pretty crazy but I'm hanging in there. The end :-)

A new reader of mine (hey new reader!!) posted a question asking how I feel about being pregnant and gaining back some of the weight I lost. Do I feel discouraged? Well, that's a very good question. Luckily enough I have only gained about 3 pounds so far but we'll see what the scale says at my next doctor's appointment ;-) At first I was a little discouraged because I've only lost 40 pounds so far and some women have been known to gain that much during pregnancy so honestly I knew it would be possible for me to as well. Aaand ironically enough my due date is only 4 days after what would have been my 1 year anniversary on this healthiness journey. But after thinking about it and getting used to the idea of being pregnant, my outlook on it has changed. I know many people who aren't able to have children of their own so honestly I feel blessed that I am. Am I going to gain some of my weight back? Yes, I am. But just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I'll revert back to how I used to eat and how lazy I used to be; if anything I'm eating healthier than I did before. To me this journey has been about getting healthy and yes, losing weight has been nice but my health is more important than what the scale says. If me and my baby are healthy come August then that's all that matters to me. I also look at this as kind of a challenge. I can't wait to knock people's socks off when I get into the best shape of my life AFTER my baby is born. Everyone knows the dreaded "have a baby, ruin your body" issue but for me it'll be the exact opposite. I can't wait to get down to my goal wait within the first year of my baby's life. I can't wait to take walks with my baby in it's stroller and attach a carrier to the back of a bike. I can't wait to join walking clubs with other mom's in the area and take that opportunity to meet new people. And most of all I can't wait to teach my child how to be healthy so that they don't have to go through a "healthiness journey". It will just be part of their life.

Sorry it was so lengthy but I hope it answered your question :-)