Blogging Through the Alphabet: F is for Frustrated

I am just so frustrated with myself. I can't seem to stick to any plan to get healthy. I start each week with high hopes and big plans only to sabotage them myself within the first day or two. The Biggest Loser Challenge with our Weight Loss Accountability Group has come to the end of round 1, but I haven't lost near as much as I had hoped for. 

Beginning weight Feb 1st: 262.6

March 2nd weight: 258.2

March 29th weight: 247.8

Final weight for BLC Round 1 April 27th: 246.3

I lost a total of 16.3 pounds. While I am happy that my weight is decreasing, I was really hoping for quite a bit more than this. The week that I had actually juiced every day, I lost 7 pounds. Granted that is a little too big when it comes to healthy weight loss, but I would love to see some bigger numbers.

I know it is not going to fall off itself. I have to get up early enough to exercise. I need to stop making excuses when it comes to not making my salads for lunch and my juice for dinner. 

I would have much rather have posted about how I was "fight[ing] the fat" as the boxing trainer tells me on WiiFit Plus. So, here is to another round of Biggest Loser Challenge Weight Loss Accountability Group version. Hoping for a good week with exercising, eating and weighing in.

Blogging Through the Alphabet: E is for Exercise

As I continue down this healthy living path I have been attempting to increase my exercise again. After each baby I get lazy, sit around too much, eat unhealthily and gain weight. Not only am I trying to improve my diet, I know I have to get moving to burn calories. 

Really, I have no excuse for not exercising now. No excuse but pure laziness. 

When I was trying to lose weight years ago, the only exercise I could really do was walk. Walking around town before work was my daily exercise. Unless it was raining, then I had that excuse not to exercise. Then I purchased an aerobics DVD from First Place, which helped me to exercise when I couldn't get outdoors. This was years ago, before I met Harold, while I was still working at the Montessori. 

In recent years I have been alternating between the DVD, walking and our new toy, the Wii Fit Plus.There was a time when I was doing a bit of the WiiFit Plus and the DVD, though that has been a while. I love the WiiFit Plus, but it is hard to get a good cardiovascular workout in as even with the "aerobic" exercises you constantly have to stop and wait for the program to go through giving you your points and telling you how many calories you burned and then you have to choose a new exercise. I'm not knocking the WiiFit Plus, it has been there for me quite some time, but there are definitely some things that could be improved upon. It is great for a beginner though. 

I have been following my own made up routine these last couple of months, though I have been sporadic and that needs to change. I like to start with My Routine, where I can select my yoga and strength exercises. I do about 18 minutes of this for warm up purposes. Then I move on to the Stepping and the Rhythm Boxing. I follow that with some bicycling and the Obstacle Course. Then I cool down with some more stepping and balance activities. 

I like to get my exercise out of the way before the children wake up, otherwise I rarely find time to fit it in. When I do exercise with the children up, they tend to distract me and I don't do as well. Especially when a certain little boy keeps getting underfoot. But the constant bickering doesn't help either when it comes to me being able to concentrate.  

So, here is the plan for the next 30 days. We are finishing up the first round of our Biggest Loser Challenge in our Facebook Weight Loss Accountability Group in two weeks. Then we will be starting up another challenge. These challenges really do keep me motivated. To help me along with this challenge I have accepted Amanda's "Spring into Fitness" challenge. Amanda blogs over at Honor Your Health and she is starting this neat little challenge to exercise for 30 minutes every day for 30 days in an effort to regain the habit of exercising. I think I will take a picture of my activity log to share daily here on the blog. Maybe I will include what I have eaten during the day on this post, but maybe not. It takes a lot more time to write down what I am eating than it does to upload a picture of the exercises I completed. We'll see.

If I exercise using the DVD or take a walk I will log that to share. I am really hoping to alternate between all three so I can keep from getting bored. 

If you would like to join in on this challenge, head on over to Amanda's blog Honor Your Health to see the details and her reminder of exercise precautions. 

Here's to getting moving and improving our health!

Blogging Through the Alphabet: D is for Diet

Diet...not in the terms of "I'm on a diet."

But, from dictionary.com- the food and drink that a person or animal regularly consumes. 

I have tried going on different diets in the past. But, as is quite common, once I was off that diet, the weight came back. I really, truly want to be able to change my eating habits and be able to continue with a healthy lifestyle. I've heard it said that it takes 21 days for a habit to form. When I looked it up, I discovered that time frame is actually a myth. I read that it could take closer to two months or even a year (or more) to develop a habit, to make it a part of your life. 

I have to say, that took me by surprise. I figured, if I could consciously work toward making these healthy lifestyle changes for 3 weeks it would be easier and easier to continue with them. Now, it appears, that the conscious decision making is going to be a lot harder. 

So, what habits/lifestyle changes am I wanting to change in regards to my diet?

I have started to juice again and I would like to continue. It surely would be easier if I didn't have to prepare food for the rest of the family and if it didn't take me so long to prepare the juice. But I plan to persevere. My first week and a half were great. I lost 7 pounds in one week. I was juicing in place of eating dinner. Then it started to go down hill with family coming over bearing food and wanting to make sweet desserts. Oh, and going to the movie and chowing down on popcorn probably didn't help. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to stay faithful to my healthier diet since that weekend. 

Here is what I want to get back to.

Breakfast:

2 egg whites with veggies (spinach, mushrooms, bell pepper and grape tomatoes)

This is either served with a fruit (preferable blueberries) or in a wrap. 

Green Tea

Lunch:

Big salad (If I had a wrap at breakfast, I have the salad with salad dressing. If I didn't have the wrap at breakfast, I make my salad in the wrap which I first spread with hummus.)

The salad may consist of: Romaine, baby spinach, mushrooms, pepper, onion, tomato, cucumber, sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower,with some dried fruit on top. I add a serving of vinaigrette dressing.  

Dinner:

A few cups of veggie/fruit juice which I juice with my Champion Juicer to get those living nutrients out. I have been using a fellow blogger's recipe for Kid-Friendly Green Juice (though the girls don't like it).  Marcy at Juicing Momma has several other recipes that I would like to try. Plus I have found some other recipes online that have intrigued me. I plan on sharing more about those at a later date. I actually found an article titled, "Best Juicing Recipes for Weight Loss." After I read through it some more I will start implementing and sharing.

Then I may have a bit of the dinner, though I have been known to not have anything besides the juice. 

Throughout the day I drink lots of water. The goal is at least 9. If I feel really hungry between meals I have allowed myself to eat some crackers. The problems start when I give in to the unhealthy choices. 

As you can see, I am trying to cut out meat and dairy again, along with limiting the carbs. I would slowly like to get rid of sugar, salt and white flour as well. These are some things I did without when I was following the Hallelujah Acres "diet" several years ago. 

Hopefully, I can start to be more faithful to my plan.