Sunday, June 10

Today did not get off to a great start. I weighed in at 145.6, a pound above yesterday. I am guessing I just ate a lot of heavy food. Even though I didn't go over in calories, I ate way more meat, bread, and rice than I normally do so that was all sitting in my stomach. It made it a lot harder to stick with my current plan today. But I did. I didn't record my calories today because calculating dinner would have been hard!  Here is what I had:

• 1 slice of breakfast pizza
• Japanese curry and rice made by my brother-in-law. It had carrots, onions, potatoes, and chicken. 
• A few slices of pineapple
• A glass of milk
• 2, yes 2, Doritos :)

I don't have any idea what the calories were in the dinner, but everything else adds up to less than 400 calories, so as long as my rice and curry was less than 800, I feel pretty safe. Let's hope I have gone back down when I weigh in tomorrow morning! Wish me luck!

7 pounds!

144.6 this morning! Yay!

Thursday, June 8

This morning I was at 145.4. Not a great number compared to other days. But still heading in the right direction. Here is my food for today. (Carrie, if you see this, I know, I am under calories. But not too far! Don't check me in to your facility just yet!)

No, I have not given up

(Written Thursday, June 7)

In fact, I am doing very well still! I just got busy with the last few days of school. Still no soda, still no sweets, still lots of fruit. And, thankfully, still going down on the scale! And the best news: only one week until I go on my cruise and get a break! Tuesday we went over to Chris's sister's house so Chris could help take down some trees and she made us chicken and steak. It was supposed to be chicken and steak kabobs but she ended up just making it on the stove top. I wouldn't even know how to count the calories, but for my dinner I had chicken, steak, and baked carrots. Everything else is listed below. This morning I was at 145.6. I am not going down quite as fast as I was in the first place, but I am still going down! It has been very hard the last couple days. So many of my students got me Dr. Pepper and delicious-looking treats, but I resisted. Last night we went out with my parents and they went to JCW's to get rootbeer freezes and I resisted. I have been unbelievably good but it has been unbelievably hard. Oh well, like I said, one more week. Then I get a break. Then I will come back and get right back on it.

Sunday/Monday

Ok, so yesterday (Sunday), I didn't record all of my food because trying to figure out the calories in Chris's mom's cooking would be 1: Very hard, and 2: A little depressing. But I am pretty sure I stayed under my daily calories because I only ate dinner yesterday since it was fast Sunday. And even with Mary's fabulous ribs on the table I still tried to be careful. When I weighed myself this morning I was at 146.8. So I lost .4 pounds. Hey, it's still a loss!
I can post my food for today, since I am done eating. For dinner I made taco salad. I tried to make it healthy by using ground turkey instead of ground beef. I shouldn't have had cheese. Or chips and guac. But even with all of that I still came in under my daily calories due to an awesome game of teacher vs. student softball game today. (OK, it wasn't really awesome. The teachers got CREAMED!) Well here is my food intake for today.

I'll update you on tomorrow's scale when I get there!

Saturday, June 2nd

When I woke up this morning I was a little worried because yesterday was the first day I went over on my calories. On top of that, I didn't do any running or working out. Don't get me wrong, I was not lazy by any means, I was on the move all day, which is probably what saved me in the end. When I weighed myself I was 147.2. Another .8 pounds! I wish I would have done this whole "no junk food" thing the first time through. It has been hard, but as I see these results it is so worth it! Here is how I did yesterday.

Today is fast Sunday, which would be good, except that for dinner we are going over to Chris's mom's house and having BBQ ribs. His mom is the queen of making BBQ ribs. My plan is to stick to 1 or 2 and then lots of salad. I'll update you tomorrow!

Friday June 1st

Yesterday was day 3 of trying to eat really well. I am craving anything junk: burgers, fries, ice cream, cookies, the sprees we have in our cupboard, etc. But I am staying strong. I know that the minute I let my guard down all will be lost. Plus, the results are great!  I am down to 148 even this morning (Saturday), so another .8 pounds! Another great thing that happened is we went to Zupas for dinner and I got soup and salad. I was full before I finished half of either, so I stopped! I never do that. I usually get full and then keep pushing myself to finish the meal. It was great to know I didn't have to eat all of it. And now I have dinner for tonight! Here is my food for today.

I'm back!

It has been over a month since my last post. I might have slipped a little. Nieces came and the end of school year stress came and motivation went. I still tried but just not as hard. I did manage to complete a half marathon on May 19th! It just about killed me though because I hadn't run a long distance in a while. I walked funny for a few days. Chris kept asking me to walk a few feet behind him because apparently I was a little embarrassing! But I did it and am proud of it! Now I am back on the wagon, though, and doing great!
Chris booked a cruise for us to the Southern Carribean that leaves June 16th. That gave me motivation to start losing weight again! I weighed myself Monday night and was 151.6. I have been eating really well and trying to still have the energy to exercise and today (Thursday) I was back down to 148.8. That's almost a pound a day! I finally decided I needed to do something more drastic with my eating. Up until this week I was trying not to cut anything out completely, but this time around I am really being careful. I am not just going by calories, I am trying to really eat better. Here is how I have done the past two days.

And here is proof that I did finish the half marathon!

Back on the wagon

I think. The past few weeks have not been good. I started getting a little careless with my eating. The running has still been going well, last week I ran 6 miles in 58 minutes!! I made my April goal! This week at school we had our Shakespeare performances (which were awesome, by the way) so by the time I got home each day I was exhausted! That, combined with a stressful week and the onset of a cold made me lazy. I didn't run once. Chris and I did go out for a walk/hike one day though.
When I weighed myself this morning I was at 148.8. Not good. Starting this week I am back at it and if I am not down a pound then next week I will be blogging daily about everything I eat. So wish me luck!

Great news!

Well, my goal of making dinner Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday is shot. How is that good news? Because we have been up at the hospital each night! Still not getting it? Well Sunday night Carrie's water broke and Monday morning Camryn Addison Bostrom was born! She is perfect! Anyways, my parents were supposed to be gone all week and, since it is spring break for me, it was supposed to be a relatively boring week. That was how I was going to fit in lots of work outs and dinner-making. It ends up that this week has been anything but boring. I still have gotten in some good exercise so hopefully this week won't be horrible when I get on the scale tomorrow!

Week 8

As of Friday I am down to 146.6! And its good to be back! Now I just can't go back up. This coming week I am on Spring Break so I will have plenty of time to exercise and make dinner. My goal is to make dinner Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday Chris and I are taking a weekend vacation to Casper, WY so this weekend will be a real test as far as eating and exercise goes. Wish me luck this week!
I realize this blog is pretty boring to most people because my weight loss is slow and, some weeks, nonexistent. But for me this blog has made a huge difference. When I write my exercise and eating goals it gives me a lot of motivation to know I can blog about it when I accomplish the goals. The fact that I have stuck to it for 8 months is huge. It hasn't been tough most of the time but I have had moments where I just wanted to lay down on the couch with a box of girl scout cookies and skip the gym. But knowing I would have to face (and blog about) the results has gotten my butt out the door. So thank you to my three followers for giving me extra motivation!

Met my goal!

I did it! I ran 4 miles in under 40 minutes! I am pretty beat now, but it feels great to have met that goal! I really didn't know when I wrote my last post if I would be able to do it. I had already told myself that it was OK if I didn't do it. Then I got on the treadmill today and just decided to do it and get it over with. So now onto my next goal. By the end of April I want to be running 6 miles at an average pace of 6mph. So 6 miles in 60 minutes. Wish me luck!!

Week 7

I guess we are now technically into week 8, but it was a busy weekend so I didn't do my week 7 post on Friday. We threw a baby shower for Misty on Saturday which we worked on Friday afternoon, Friday night we went to see the Hunger Games, then moved Bryan and Carrie into their new house Saturday afternoon. I guess I also have to admit that it wasn't a good weight loss week, which is another reason I wasn't super anxious to get on the computer and blog. I gained again, back up to 148. I didn't feel like last week was that bad either. My leg started to hurt Wednesday so I took it easy Thursday and just rode the bike. That just doesn't burn as many calories though. I didn't work out Friday or Saturday because we were busy getting ready for the baby shower. It is a little depressing, but all I can do is just try harder this week. I have been running 4 miles most of the time that I run but I am not up to a steady 6mph yet. I ran 2/4 miles at a 6 the other day, but it is tough! There is a huge difference between 5.5 and 6 miles per hour! Well, if I want to achieve that goal I have until Saturday to do it. Wish me luck!

Week 6

This past week was not great. I'm not sure what happened, but I guess I just took it easy. When I got on the scale Friday morning I had gained weight (not surprisingly, since we went to Salsa Leedos the night before). I was pretty bummed. Saturday I weighed again and was back to 146.8. This week it is back on again though. Starting right now I am going to say "no" to sweets (I will allow myself to have one piece of cake for my sister-in-law's birthday tonight) and I am going to try my hardest to not eat after 8. Those are my two goals for this week and hopefully on Friday I will be down a little more.

This week wasn't ALL bad. Wednesday I ran 4 miles at the gym at a 5.5 or higher the whole time! I was so excited! I did hurt my leg in the process, so Thursday I rested and Friday I stuck to the elliptical and bike.  But thanks to my amazing pre-physical therapist husband, by Friday it was feeling much better so I am excited to get back on the treadmill today!

Week 5

I was really worried going into this week. Parent Teacher conference week is always stressful and stressful=comfort foods. I knew that I had to do something big to avoid gaining weight this week. So I decided to cut back on sweets. When I got on the scale this morning I saw that it paid off... pretty big too, if you consider the first 4 weeks of this adventure. I am down to 146.8. That means I lost almost 1 1/2 pounds this week! All together I am down 3.8 pounds! I have to say, it was bitter-sweet when I got on the scale this morning. No, I am not secretly wishing I had that pound back. I just didn't change anything this week other than *almost* getting rid of sweets completely. That tells me that to continue getting these good results I need to continue skipping out on sweets. This week was hard enough and the only thing that got me through it was knowing that I only had to go one week. Well, I guess I will just have to be more careful in the future when it comes to sweets. On that note, here is my picture for the week.

I got up early so that Chris could take this picture before he went to work today. I know most people probably don't notice a difference. I saw something on Pinterest once that I loved and I didn't pin it, now I can't find it. But it said something about how I will see differences in 4 weeks, my husband and close family will see changes in 8 weeks, and everyone will see them in 12 weeks. I noticed changes in my endurance when working out after two weeks, but it has taken me 5 weeks to notice changes in my body. That means at this rate by the end of April my family and friends will be able to see changes. By the time I meet up with Chris in Casper in June, I am hoping to be down near my goal weight. Right now I am feeling good about it. Let's see what next week brings!

Bunless Burgers

Thursday night we had my mom over for dinner. We made bunless hamburgers and Sun Chips. I realize this picture is less-than-mouth-watering, but I was hungry, and didn't take time to stage my food before devouring it.

To make the hamburgers we got 1lb of hamburger, and mixed in the following spices:
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp onion powder
a dash of cayenne pepper
a dash of garlic powder
a dash of onion salt

I mixed all of the spices in with the hamburgers and formed 7 or 8 small hamburger patties. Chris grilled them, then we put a tomato on them and wrapped them in lettuce. We each got two, which was good because they were small. The burgers are about 140 calories each. We had Jalepeno Jack Sun Chips with it (15 chips = 140 calories) for a total of 420 calories in the meal.

We loved these and will DEFINITELY be having them again!

Broiled Parmesan Tilapia

This is a recipe Chris and I have had several times and I love it! I got the recipe from AllRecipes.com. To go to this recipe on allrecipes.com click on this link:  Broiled Parmesan Tilapia

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
• 2 pounds tilapia fillets

Directions

1. Preheat your oven's broiler. Grease a broiling pan or line pan with aluminum foil.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Season with dried basil, pepper, onion powder and celery salt. Mix well and set aside.
3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on the prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Flip the fillets over and broil for a couple more minutes. Remove the fillets from the oven and cover them with the Parmesan cheese mixture on the top side. Broil for 2 more minutes or until the topping is browned and fish flakes easily with a fork. Be careful not to over cook the fish.

This is only 225 calories. We also had grilled asparagus (50 calories) and a Lipton Rice Side, Butter and Herb (1/2 cup is 125 calories). The total calories from this meal was about 400 calories. Not too bad!

Week 4

It was a GREAT week! I achieved my goal of making two healthy meals this week, and I lost ... Drumroll Please... 1.2 pounds! So I am down to 148.2!! I just about killed myself doing it, but I did it and that is what matters. I have decided to weigh myself Friday morning instead of Saturday morning because Friday night we usually go out to dinner and, even if I eat healthy, I still have the food sitting in my stomach Saturday morning. This week we have been getting my parents moved into their house so we have been at their house every day. Other than Tuesday I managed to get a good work out in every day. Thursday I ran after school and then did Zumba Thursday night. I worked really hard! Fortunately on Friday I only had to work 4 hours because I had just enough energy to run at the gym, and get a little cleaning done at home. At 4:00 I laid my head on my pillow and do not remember anything after that. Each day I have run at least 3 miles at the gym and I the past few days I have been running at a 5.5-6.0 mph rate. My goal is that by the end of march I will be running 4 miles at a steady 6.0mph rate. I love seeing how easily I can run 3 or 3.5 miles now, when at the beginning of February I thought I was going to die before I reached a mile! I also secretly enjoy typing 148lbs into the treadmill instead of 150. I know it is not a huge difference, but it still makes me happy! :)
Like I said earlier, I did make my two healthy meals this week. I will put each of those as their own separate blog post. I didn't get a picture of myself this week because by the time I got up and weighed myself Friday morning Chris was gone. That is the only drawback of weighing myself on Fridays. I will have to wake up earlier. Oh well, hopefully it will be worth it and it will all keep paying off.
My goal for this week is to back off of sweets. I might have to ask Chris to hide our "treat bowl." Each day I will post what sweets I have had during the day. My hope is that this will make me want to eat little to no sweets. I am a little bit nervous about this week because it is parent-teacher conferences, which means it will be a high-stress week. It also means that Wednesday and Thursday will be tough days to get in a workout. I will have to try to be creative in class and find ways to move more.

End of week 3

Ok, so I have been at this for 3 whole weeks now. When I weighed myself yesterday I was 149.4. I have lost 1.2 pounds in 3 weeks. Not great. It isn't for lack of working out. I went to the gym every day last week except for Thursday. The low weight loss is completely due to bad eating. This week I have a new goal. I am going to find two HEALTHY recipes and make them for dinner. This will be hard because Chris and I are both picky eaters, but I have faith that we can find something that will work for us.
Although I am not seeing great numbers on the scale, I am noticing some major changes in my exercising. I started out struggling to run a mile. I attribute part of that to the fact that I am running on a treadmill and I get bored easily, but, come on, a mile?! That was hard for me to see since I used to really enjoy running. After two weeks of running almost every day, I ran 3 miles yesterday and could have gone further if I had more time! I ran most of those three miles at a 5 mph rate, so now I want to work on running faster.
Well, on that note, here is my picture for the week.

I realize this is not the most attractive picture. I took this right after going to the gym.

Weekly Post

My weekly post is a little bit late this time around.  We left in the morning yesterday and didn't make it back home until 1:30AM. I did weigh myself and was down to 149.6, so not quite a full pound. It was not a good week. We didn't cook one night this week. Tuesday we ate at Desert Star Theater, Wednesday we got pizza cause Chris's friend came over, Thursday we went to Ruth's Chris (and you can bet we enjoyed every bit of that!) Friday was Cafe Rio and Saturday we ate at Sonny Brian's.  So the fact that I still lost weight is good with me. I joined the Golds Gym Express and worked out EVERY SINGLE DAY this week. My legs are dead today. I have decided to lower my goal. My goal now is to lose .5 pounds each week. I feel like I have been working pretty hard and don't want to feel like I am never reaching my goals. I would love to lose more than that, but I am lowering it simply so that if I don't lose a pound I am not completely disappointed in myself. I don't have a picture of me for this week, but just so you know, I look pretty much the same! :) Instead I will leave you with a picture of something that has made it a breeze to pass up on Dr. Pepper. I still drink the D.P., of course, but not NEARLY as much. I go days without even craving it now. Here is my secret:

Valentines Day

Yesterday was a great day! I ate well and even went to the rec center for an hour!  Today...not off to a good start. My students are WAY to good to me and I have a pile of candy and Dr. Pepper sitting on my table. I broke and ate a sugar cookie, which isn't a bad thing except that I am afraid that is just going to set a  low standard for today. I am still planning on hitting the gym after school but I still need to be careful!

Weekly Update 2.11.12

I am a little bugged this week. I thought I had done so well. I had maybe 2 cans of Dr. Pepper, significantly decreased the amount of sweets, and worked out more than I usually do. So when I stepped on the scale today and saw only a .4 pound decrease I was a little bummed. I mean, its a step in the right direction, and I am sure I am building muscle, but still, .4?!? Well I guess that just means I have to work harder and eat smarter this week. We will see what happens next week, but next week my goal is to be at 149.0. Not 149.2 or even 149.1, but 149.0! Wish me luck and if you see me this week, make sure I am being smart. I REALLY want to reach this goal!

Namesake

This picture is the inspiration for the name of my blog. When I was young, I was quite the pork chop. A family friend gave this to me as a joke. I didn't get it. In fact, I remember wearing it, thinking I must be thin to be given such a gift. Sarcasm doesn't work on 3 year olds.

Choices

I am almost through a week of this and I am feeling REALLY good!  I think part of it is that I am not making any drastic changes. I am just making better choices. I have learned one major trick for myself: Make great choices in the morning. As long as I make good choices in the morning it is so much easier for me to make better choices later in the day. If I pass up candy in the morning, the next time candy tempts me it is that much easier to say no. Most of the days, I have gone for Crystal Light in the morning and by the time it is gone, so is the Dr. Pepper temptation. Not completely, of course, but it is much more manageable. Like I have said before, I am not trying to give these things up completely, but if I start my morning out with candy or a D.P. like I normally do, then my ability to say "no" later on decreases significantly and unhealthy choices take over.
On another note, tonight I went to Zumba. A girl in our ward teaches Zumba so we get together once a week and work out. It is a great workout and gives me a chance to meet people who don't have three-year-olds (I teach 3-year-olds at church, so those are the only people I get to know).

BLT Meeting

Just the name of it sounds bad! Fortunately, it isn't what it sounds like, although I wouldn't mind if it was! It is a "Building Leadership Training" for a school committee I am in. It is an all day training, and as I was getting ready this morning I decided to nix breakfast, thinking they usually have fruit and water or juice in the morning. So I was a little disappointed when I showed up, not to a table full of fruit, but a table of just water. To make it worse, this is what was placed right in front of me on my table.

Well it is 10:45 right now and I can happily say I have avoided that candy bowl. I was starving because all I have had so far is a glass of water with a Crystal Light powder added to it.  So when Mr. Anderson pulled out a bag of some type of treat I thought "there is no way I can avoid that." Fortunately, it was apples!

I am sure my coworkers think I am a weirdo for taking pictures of candy bowls and apples, but I now think I will be able to make it to lunch!

First "Normal" Day

Ok, there aren't really any "normal" days, but Saturday I started 1/2 way through, and yesterday was Fast Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, and we had a baptism/party to go to. I still tried to be smarter and I think I did pretty good but it was hard to track all the little snacks.
So onto today.  I had my normal glass of milk for breakfast. I know it isn't the best breakfast, but it is fast, and sometimes I feel like if I eat breakfast I get much hungrier much earlier. As we were eating lunch I was talking to the other teachers about my blog and they asked a question I have been asked a lot: How are you going to do it? I think they are looking for a diet plan, things I am going to ban, and then a solid workout plan. And of course they asked me that as I was eating my baked potato with sour cream. Well here is my answer: be smart. I have learned I can't make huge changes. I can't "ban" certain foods. And I definitely can't quit Dr. Pepper. My strategy is just to take it in moderation and to be smart about my choices. For example, I brought an orange with me to work today. We happen to have a stash of candy in our back room. I chose to eat an orange instead of eating candy. I was hoping my orange would satisfy my sugar craving and I would be happy. Not so much the case, but I still stayed away from the candy. I am not trying to quit candy, I am just trying to eat less of it.
Another smart change I made today was NOT going home, turning on Dr. Phil and getting into bed, with the intention of only laying down for a minute, then getting up and doing a deep clean of the house, only for 7:00 to come around and decide I will do it tomorrow (Yes, this IS the normal routine). Instead I went home, turned on Dr. Phil, and MADE my bed! I did that so I wouldn't be tempted to get into bed. What a huge difference that made. I cleaned the whole upstairs of our house before Chris got home from work. I am happy with that! I feel like I accomplished something today and cleaning the house kept my mind off of eating something.
I am starving and excited for dinner (taco soup), but I am hoping that starving feeling will go away at some point and I won't have to be constantly snacking.

Day 1

Not my best picture. Then again, not my worst either!  

Here I am on Day 1 at 150.6 pounds. I realize I won't see a result every week, but hopefully after a few weeks I will start noticing changes. 

Goals

There are several things I want to achieve while on this journey. 

Goal 1: Lose weight.  Of course I want to lose weight.  My goal is to lose 25 pounds in 25 weeks.  That is an average of 1 pound a week for those of you who don't like doing math. I know there will be some not so great weeks, but I am hoping there will be some really good weeks and they will offset each other.

Goal 2: Feel good.  I want to feel good emotionally and physically. I don't necessarily feel "bad" but I am pretty sure I can feel better. 

Goal 3: Run another 1/2 Marathon. I ran a 1/2 a few years ago and felt great. I want to go back there. My goal is to run the Top of Utah half at the end of August. 

Goal 4: Exchange bad habits for good ones. I don't have any specifics here, but I just want to find more healthy snacks, beverages and activities that I enjoy just as much as my old ones, but that will help me reach the three other goals.

Why?

I have always prided myself on the fact that I had been out of high school for several years and never gained weight.  I went all the way through college and never gained the "freshman 15." I LOVE food, but I also learned that I enjoyed running, so they offset each other. Then I got married. I am not saying that my husband is to blame for this, I am just saying that that is the time when things started changing. I gave up my gym membership because we don't have a Gold's Gym near us and we also couldn't really afford it.  I also started eating less healthy. We always made fun of my mom for not cooking a lot, but now I'm 10 times worse. Part of that is that it is tough to cook for 2. Part of it is that unless we want to eat ramen, mac and cheese, or frozen pizza, eating out costs just as much as making dinner, sometimes less. And part of it is that by the end of the day working I just don't have energy or motivation to make dinner, and restaurants just taste better. Anyways, with the combination of less working out and more eating out, I have started gaining weight. I have never been really skinny, but I was at least comfortable with myself at one point. Not so much anymore. Ok, I will get to the point. I have tried to work out and eat better but I am weak and Chris is a little too forgiving. So I have decided to create a blog as a way to hold myself accountable and also to share my journey. I thought maybe if I knew people could be watching I will be more likely to stick to it.  I will be uploading pictures, my food, and exercises.  Wish me luck!