Still in the Game! Come see a great resource for healthy eating!

I am excited to say that I am still working on my new years resolution! Woot!! Hey, for me this is a big deal. Most of my resolutions have been pie crust resolutions, easily made and easily broken, and by this time in the month of Jan I would have already fallen off the wagon as it were.  

How am I doing it? 

Well...I have an exercise buddy 

(Hi Kari!! :)) 

She actually introduced me to some free exercise classes being held 5 days a week in a church gym and we are going 2 times a week and then I am doing exercise at home the rest of the week. 

AND 

I have found a wonderful, inspiring website for help in the food dept!! 

Have you heard of 

SKINNY MOM?? 

She offers a supper club with full months of healthy dinner ideas including shopping lists and everything! 

AND

ITS FREE!!

All you will need to do is join her free membership to get access to the supper club.  Its pretty cool! Did I mention all the recipes have all the nutritional stats and even have WW pts if you are doing that?? 

Check her out HERE!!

PS did i mention the meals are actually tasty? So far my kids haven't even realized they are healthy!

PSS I am not being compensated by skinny mom at all. She doesn't even know I exist (unless by maybe my name on her membership list)I just think shes awesome and wanted to share.

LOVES!! 

weight loss

That picture literally has nothing to do with this post. But I love a good selfie as much as the next person. This post is an update about my weight loss journey so far. DUN DUN DUN!!!

The first week I rocked it. I was an animal! I was so disciplined. That discipline payed off in a big way. I lost 11 pounds and 9 total inches. What?! The second week not so much. I gained 2 pounds. Wah wah! You know what was weird though? I still lost another 2.75 inches. Explain that science.

So what changed from the first week to the second? In short I got lazy. I went from being strict and on my diet to lax. I went back to work and didn't prepare my food before hand. Before heading out the door I would try and scramble to get something together but it never really happened. Which then forced me to get take-out. Yeah I was forced. I stopped drinking the water like I should. I could go on but really I cheated. I am a cheater! UGH! The sad thing is that I just cheated myself. I traded in my long term goal and happiness for a tiny moment of fake happiness.  

You would think that after the success of the first week I would be so pumped and rock my second week. What was the difference? What can I say? Old habits die hard. Real hard. I have learned already that weight loss is an extremely emotional thing for me. There have already been many feelings that have come up. Anger at myself and at others! Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Joy! Happiness! But mostly anger. HA! There are things that I clearly need to work out. I am not sure how to work through them but I will figure it out. My hope is that the sweat and tears will be cathartic and help me to wrap my head around the emotions. The funny thing is that I think I deserve better than the body that I have created for myself. I deserve to be able to chase my kids around the yard. I deserve to go on hikes, walks and runs. I deserve to be strong and healthy! That has to be a step in the right direction! The next step is knowing that I deserve more. I need to know it deep down in my heart.

Any helpful and kind tips and advice are so welcome! 

8 weeks

This is going to be one of those posts about weight loss and feelings and stuff. Just warning you! Yesterday I started a 8 week weight loss program with a personal trainer. She also happens to be my friend which makes it super awesome. This has been a long time coming. I don't want to get too into the details and the emotions that brought me to this place but I will say that it got to the point where something had to give. I was clearly unhappy with my health. I haven't felt good for a long while. I had my heart checked and had a super basic physical. There was nothing wrong but my weight. Nothing wrong but the way I have been treating my body. I have yo-yo dieted for my whole adult life. Up, down, up, down but never really making any real changes. 

So I am committing to 8 weeks. 8 weeks of making the right choices for me. It should be awesome, right?! I am still trying to convince myself. Something has changed in me though. Something has clicked. Usually when I start a weight loss program I get antsy. I start worrying about what I can't eat. That is a bad place to be! This time is different. I feel calm.  

You know the craziest part? I am less worried about my weight and more worried about how I am going to feel. I want to feel good physically at the end of this. That is not to say that I don't intend to weigh myself. I am going to be weighing myself once a week and doing my measurements the entire 8 weeks. There is something about having the number on the scale go down that is super motivating when you really want to give up. Not too mention that when you send your weight and measurements to a good friend you want those numbers to go down every week. Holy motivation yo! 

Would anyone be interested in updates? I love reading about peoples weight loss journeys!

Peace out!  -AnneMarie

Our Garden

 Any gardeners out there? Put your hands in the air like you just don't care!! Having a garden is one of the all time most satisfying things I have ever done. Like in my life. No joke! Planting little seedlings and then watching them grow into something that can sustain your life is pretty rad. It amazes me how a little seeds can become veggies. It blows my mind! I wanted to share it and my total obsession! 

This is our humble garden. It is in great need of some weeding but life gets in the way of that sometimes. Whomp whomp. I love walking out, talking to the plants and checking on them. Am I getting a little weird? We built the garden boxes a few years ago. I think that an upgrade is going to be necessary next year but for now they are just perfect. 

These tomatoes are Cherokee Purples. They were grown from seeds by kids at my sons school. I really love that! What a cool thing to learn.  

These are yellow bell tomatoes. They are crazy good. I have been eating them straight off the plant. These also came from Nicco's school.

Oh tiny little jalapenos! I am in love! They are only like an inch long right now. Some are even smaller. It is so neat to watch them start to appear out of their tiny flowers. 

Sweet Bell Peppers. I was expecting these peppers to be bigger but they are growing to be the size of my palm. Little and yummy. I was hoping to cook these up in some recipes but so far we are cutting them up and eating them. We can't seem to wait long enough to cook them! 

Zucchini! This is a Black Beauty zucchini plant. I am so pumped that these bad boys are growing. A lot of people aren't zucchini fans but we really enjoy them around here. I actually wish that we had planted two plants! 

                            
This is a spaghetti squash. Which is actually my favorite plant that we grow. I can't get enough of it! When these little squashes start showing up I am going to do a little dance!

                           
                            
This one is a cucumber. This is our first year doing cucumbers. We have done lemon cucumbers before with great success. So we decided to go for it.

And last but not least, our T-Rex. He watches over our garden and keeps it pest free. A little concrete bird watches over our garden as well

I have a couple tips to share:

• Sprinkle eggshells in your garden. Our grandpa always did this so I always have as well. Turns out it keeps slugs and snails at bay.
• Use a sprinkly sprinkler to water your garden. I always put it on really low and then move it as needed through the garden. The water soaks in better than if you just put the hose on. I actually really want to get an irrigation or sprinkling system set up but for now the sprinkler works. 
• Water at night.
• You can use a mixture of water, dish soap and cayenne pepper to spray as a natural pesticide. Bugs hate it! Just don't forget to wash your veggies really well.

Do you have any gardening tips? I am still a novice and would love to hear!!

I am hopping on the bandwagon

This blurry picture was taken by my son. I am sad to say that it is one of the ONLY pictures taken of me in the last few months. Literally. I like to be behind the camera not in front of it.  

Emily's post yesterday about DietBet made me think. It reminded me of the one pull up goal I made and then promptly threw aside. Well in all fairness I did do the upper arm workout once. ONCE! Ugh. I am here to recommit to my cause! No more waiting around for it to be cooler, hotter, morning, night, after dinner, before breakfast etc... I have an excuse for any time of day. The only time I have is now. I intend to use it more wisely.

As a family we have decided that it is time to stop eating sugar and fast food. Solidarity! We decided to do that mostly because my husband and son have sensitive stomachs that can't handle it. Really though we all need to lay off the sugar and fast food. Their poor stomachs are a great reason for us to make better health choices. None of us really feel well and that is largely due to what we put in our bodies. I am excited for the challenge of not having sugar. I am also scared shitless! The inevitable weight loss will be an excellent side effect but really I just don't want to feel like crap anymore. I feel like I need to say that we will not be giving up sugar entirely. Our plan is to cut it way back so when we have a special dessert it is a treat instead of an everyday occurrence.

Plus also as well! The time has come to recommit to my one pull up challenge. At the very least I need to be doing some kind of workout. So yoga with an emphasis on planks, lots of push ups, dumb bell rows, bananas and reverse bananas and inverted rows. I want to feel strong. Of course some cardio thrown in there too. Probably walking and jumping rope.

It feels empowering to take back your life. I have a long row to hoe. There are going to be times that I want to quit but I am hoping I can keep the enthusiasm up! Or at least fake it until I make it.

What do you do for workouts? Do you have any good recipes? Help a sister out!

-AnneMarie