Josh's Journey: The Trouble With Stress

About a month ago, our family got together and decided to work on getting healthier.  I figured that I'd have the easiest time.  I had already been going to the gym, was trying to eat healthier and getting a decent amount of sleep.  I was so wrong.

I came to the realization that maybe I wasn't as in shape as I thought.  Especially after tracking what I was eating.  Soon after, I started to falter.  And I fell hard.  I started to eat really badly.  As far as the gym, well let just say I was paying them to keep the dust off my locker.  Work was really starting to get stressful with big numbers to hit and my sleep declined.  I was tossing and turning all night and getting up early for no reason.  I just could not sleep.

But, this is a new week and I need start some place.  I still have a lot to do at work and since I am still getting up early,  why not go to the gym and use what I am paying for?  I know that it always makes me feel better!  One of the perks of going super early to the gym is that there are very little people there so I am not fighting for equipment.  I have a good routine, start with cardio then free weights.  Abs on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, back on Thursday, free day on Friday to hit what ever I missed. 

I might only have 30 to 45 mins to workout every morning but I am going to get back to it.  This should help manage my stress at work and at home which in turn will improve my sleep.

Luckily my gym is right next to where I start my day.  Overall this should be one of the smartest and healthiest decisions I have made.  Well until next the time keep on smiling and remember everyone starts some place so let keep encouraging those around us and we'll see how far they all can really go.

Weight Loss Journey: A Month Without a Scale

On September 1st, I weighed myself, took my measurements and hid my scale in the bottom of my hope chest, vowing not to take it out again until October 1st.  Things were getting too obsessive for me.  I was weighing myself daily and little set backs were causing me way too much mental anguish.  I decided to let myself relax this month and see what happened.

What happened was a much happier Kristy and still a 7 lb weight loss.  I am now 93 lbs down and not one bit miserable.  I let go of the obsessive thoughts.  I let go of always having to know what i was going to eat.  I became more spontaneous and enjoyed eating again.  I still kept track of my food, but not every day and I still went to the gym at least 3 times a week.

Guess what?  I ate out, I ate fast food, I drank and I had chocolate cake.  And I didn't fail.  I lived life and that's what this is about.  "Even if you stumble, you're still moving forward."  I made smart choices, had smaller portions and didn't deprive my cravings.  Guys, I am a changed woman!  I'm never looking back.

Weight Loss Journey: Back to the Doctor and FitBit Fun

For the last few weeks, since I started doing treadmill workouts, my hip has been really bothering me.   It doesn't bother me while I'm on the treadmill, just after I get back to work and sit for a little bit.   It gets even worse after I get home and try to relax and watch tv.  Another problem I am having is that my foot begins to cramp/hurt after walking for around 5 minutes.  I have been pushing through it but It was a bit concerning.  I also, secretly, wanted to weigh in  and get my A1C checked again.

82 lbs down

Back in December when I first had my A1C checked, it was 6.9 and in February is was 6.2.  Now it is down to 5.7 which is the lowest number they consider to be pre-diabetic.  I am really happy to have dropped it so much but that doesn't mean I can let up.  I now have to maintain a good A1C so I can stay healthy and off medication.  I am currently down 82 lbs which is a little over 16% of my beginning body weight.  Being a numbers geek and Accounting major, makes me work everything down to percentages and number crunching.  I want to lose 50% of my beginning weight.  I am 33% there, 1/3rd of the way, in 7 1/2 months.  I know it will get tougher as I lose more.  But I am well on my way to a happier healthier me.

Back to my doctor visit.  Apparently my hip problem is called Bursitis and I just have to deal with it.  My foot is a ligament that is being stretched and doesn't like it.  I also just have to deal with that.  So here I am dealing with stuff.  I found some stretches for both problems but they don't seem to be working yet.  I took three days off from the gym this week to see if I could maybe rest up a bit.  When I went back on Monday, I wasn't in hip pain but the foot pain persisted.  After coming back to work, the hip did bother me but not as much as before.  It wasn't until I got home and had been relaxing for a bit that the pain returned with a vengeance.  However, I did do squats yesterday so that may have been part of it.

Here is a report from my FitBit on my work out from July 27th.  My average heartbeat is 128 bpm with half my time in a cardio zone and the other half in the fat burn zone.  My resting heart rate is around 70 bpm.  I burned an average of 15 calories a minute with a total of 504 calories burned.  I love all the information I get form this little device.  Below you can see other parts of my Dashboard.  You can see my sleep, my short term weight loss goal, my total calories burned, my active minutes, my distance, my floors and a badge I earned.  I don't understand how the floors are calculated.  I don't do many stairs and sometimes it says I have done six floors.  I just disregard that one.

Weight Loss Journey: More Zaycon, Father's Day and Eating Mistakes

BACON

Yes, I just opened my weight loss blog with bacon.  I'm evil like that!  You've heard me talk numerous times about Zaycon and their products.  We recently split a box of bacon and a box of boneless skinless chicken breast with my Mom.  The bacon came in 12 - 3 lb packs and we paid $3.49/lb.  It is really fantastic bacon.  Our first package I thought was a little salty but the second package didn't seem that way.  The Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast we got for $1.69/lb, which is a phenomenal price.  If you'd like to order, here is our referral link: zayconfresh.com/refer/zf361074 .  You can go there and check out what they have in your area.  I promise, you won't be disappointed.

The chicken comes in a large box, separated into 4 -10 lb bags.  The breasts are connected.  I quickly trim them and put 2 breasts per bag.  Each breast half weighs, on average, about a lb.

I want to warn you about reading labels.  I had bought some ground turkey, thinking, it must be better for me than ground beef.  After reading the labels, I found that the turkey have more calories and fat per serving than the 93/7 Zaycon Ground Beef.  I did find some 99% fat free ground turkey.  It's a bit expensive, $5.99/lb, but it works really well on salads.  I put about 4 ounces on a salad so it lasts 4 days.

For Father's Day, we went and hung out with my Dad at the river.  It was such a gorgeous day.  We had a BBQ and I brought this really yummy dessert.  I had frozen a bunch of strawberries after we got a flat earlier in the month.  I took 4 cups of those and put them in a greased 10x13 cake pan.  Then I sprinkled a box of yellow cake mix over the top of them.  After that, I shredded a frozen stick of butter over the entire thing.  I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 350, then took it out and made sure all the cake mix was moist.  I baked it for another 30 minutes and it came out golden brown and delicious.  For 8 servings, its 428 calories each.

A few Fridays back, I woke up with a killer headache so I decided to stay home from work.  I got up early anyway and cleaned the house up.  Around 11, Roger texted me and suggested I take my Suburban in to Les Schwab to have it checked out.  After 2 hours, and a walk over to Fred Meyer, The conclusion was that I needed a new front hub and my tires were separating.  The tires are under warranty at Wal-Mart so my next trip was to them.  I dropped off my vehicle and walked around the store for an hour before I went back to the Tire Lube Express.  The guy came out and told me he couldn't find any leak in my tires.  Well, that wasn't why I brought it in so I sent him back to check out the real problem I brought it in for.  Turns out my tires were out of balance.  They fixed it, at no cost but I was there for 2 hours.  So my final stop for the day was to our friend Al's Auto.  He quickly changed my hub and did an oil change.  I was so grateful not to have to sit around much longer.  He had it all done in an hour.

Now that the long part of the story is over, I can tell you what I did wrong.  My first mistake was that I hadn't ate breakfast.  So I had a bag of popcorn at Les Schwab.  While at Fred Meyer, I grabbed 2 bags of chips.  I was tempted by the candy bars at the check out but I restrained.  If I had been smart, I would have just walked over to the Grocery section and grabbed something healthy, but I wasn't.  I ate one bag at Les Schwab and then didn't touch the other until I was at Al's, 3 hours later.  I also had a Diet Coke and a Diet Pepsi.  Again, I should have made smarter choices, but these things happen.  I guess my point is, don't let slip ups get you down.

I have been doing really well though.  I am eating good, sleeping better and feeling better.  I am able to do things at the gym that I wasn't able to do before.  My FitBit is awesome.  I find myself trying to beat my previous days or set a new record.  My cousin called me a few days ago to ask me how I had changed things and what I had done.  She needs to lower her blood sugars.  I explained what I had done but I told her, in the end, it's all a mind game.  And I am serious about that.  It's all in your head.  I have a constant inner dialogue about not eating a certain way, pushing 2 more minutes on the stationary bike, 3 more reps, or get off your butt and clean up from dinner.  Anyone who has tried to lose weight can tell you that once it clicked, it was easy.  You can think you are ready a million times but when you are truly ready, you will know it and feel it.

Weight Loss Journey: Eating Out, Failure and a Progress Photo

My updates will be every two weeks, unless something super duper awesome happens.  I have got this down to a set routine now so not much changes.  I do meal prep on Sundays and take meat out of the freezer for the week.  I wanted to show you all this progress photo.  I was hanging out with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and he pointed out that he could really tell my progress from my face. I see myself every day so I didn't see it until I put these two photos side by side.   The first one is from about a year ago and the other is from a few weeks ago.

We have made a few extra trips north in the past two weeks so some of our meals have been eaten out.  I have talked about this before but you just have to be smart and not afraid to ask for what you want.  Below is an example meal from Wendy's.  It rings in at 415 calories.  It's an Asiago Ranch Chicken club with no bun and no sauce with a small chili.  Wendy's chicken is by far the best fast food chicken around.  It is an actual chicken breast, not a patty of ground up chicken with extra crap.

Last week, my weigh in was a tad disappointing.  Not sure what I did wrong but I was up 3 pounds.  And of course, I got a little depressed because I have been working really hard.  So Friday, I bumped my food intake down and my workout up.  Saturday's weigh in had me down 2 lbs but still more than last week.  We went to the Packwood Flea Market with my sister and her family on Saturday.  We had McDonald's on the way up, Mexican for a late Lunch.  Then we just snacked after we got home.  We did walk a total of 2.84 miles according to the fitness tracker on my husband's phone.

I've discovered that at my gym, in the locker room, when I take off my shirt to change, it signals the older women to start a conversation with me.  I've heard stories about diabetes, cheating husbands, the woes of retirement and weight loss.  I don't know why but my husband and I collect weird.  We must look approachable.  I was really proud of myself this week.  When I was doing the 30 minutes express last week, I actually used the steps.  My knees were really sore but I did it.  That was a huge achievement for me.  The photo below shows what the 30 Minute Express room looks like.  Another achievement was that I lost 16 lbs this month.  I am down a total of 69 lbs.  I had challenged myself to lose 15 lbs this month.  I think that is why I got so depressed last week when I was up.

I wanted to share a recipe that I tried this week.  It was my friend Jamie's birthday and she is allergic to gluten, soy and dairy.  Needless to say, a traditional cake was something she couldn't have.  I searched high and low for a good recipe for her.  I found this Lemon Drizzle Chickpea Cake.  The only cages I made were that I made a glaze of lemon juice and powdered sugar instead of the honey and I put raspberries on top.  The texture will not be for everyone but my husband and I both really liked it.  The lemon flavor is really pronounced.  Let me know if you give it a try.

March Goals Week 3

After posting my last blog, my cousin commented that the weight I lost is equivalent to her almost 4 year old son.  Putting it in those terms are crazy to me.  I lost a 4 year old.  Today I am wearing jeans that actually zip and button.  I can't tell you the last time I wore jeans that zipped.  I have been wearing stretchy pull on jeans for a while now.  I always try to look put together when I leave my house.  I am not one of those people who will wear their pajamas out in public.  My logic behind it is that I am already fat, why give someone more ammo to look down on me.

I have really been giving a peek into how my brain works.  I hope that it helps someone else reading this know that they aren't the only ones feeling or thinking this way.  Lately I have caught myself saying can't pretty frequently, like, "Oh, I can't eat that".  I feel like this is a really bad thing to say.  No one is telling me I can't have something.  I'm not even telling myself that.  I am choosing to change how I eat.  I have been consciously trying to replace can't in my vocabulary.  Nobody cares what you can't do, they want to know what you can or are going to do.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday and it turns out, the pain I was having is from Acid Reflux.  More specifically, Dyspepsia.  So, another new prescription and a list of foods to try to avoid.  The funny thing is, peppermint was on that list.  All week long I had been drinking peppermint herbal tea to calm my stomach.  I did get a high five from the doctor on my weight loss so that felt good.  She is pretty positive about my progress.  All my vitals and stuff were good, my blood pressure was excellent as well as my pulse and oxygen levels.

I did a seated YouTube exercise video Tuesday while editing photos and downloading content off my phone.  I made it through the entire 25 minutes with no problem.  I feel like I have been kicking ass at life lately.  My house is clean, I am organized, I am on my way to a healthier life, both mentally and physically.  I have crossed quite a few projects off my "Wanna-Do" list.  I even got photos hung back up in my house.

However, Thursday I didn't eat so well.  It wasn't a terrible day.  I only went over my calorie target by 100 but I ate the wrong stuff.  I had a Light Beef Bologna sandwich when I got home and then we had dinner with my Mom, Bruce, my sister Kari, Josh and my nephews Logan and Landon.  We went to a Mexican restaurant right next to my Mom's work .  I had saved about 1000 calories for the meal.  I had 750 but when I went home, a few hours later, I had a second bologna sandwich.  I can feel the difference in the type of food I ate.  When we got home last night, I had no energy to do anything and that led to sitting on the couch, watching tv and making that second sandwich.

I got up early on Friday morning and did a short 15 minute aerobic video before work.  I'm not really a morning person.  Sometimes it is hard enough to get to work by 7 am so I don't know if morning exercise will be my friend.  But, there isn't enough room anywhere but the living room to move around so unless I wanna interrupt my husband's night, morning it will have to be.  Saturday I did 20 minutes of a new resistant band routine.  It was fine but it didn't really challenge me so I won't do it again.

I can feel changes happening in my body.  I can tell right away when I have had too many carbs.  I get very lethargic.  My work is really paying off.  I weighed in on Sunday morning and am down a total on 43 lbs since December 9th.  My goal for 2015 was 50 lbs so I am sure I will get there.  My energy level has been down this week, especially Saturday.  I think PMS is creeping up on me.  My positive attitude has really improved my life as a whole though.  I didn't realize how unhappy and grumpy I was.  Finally making myself the focus is really helping.

I want to especially thank all of my Facebook friends and family for being so supportive.  With so many people in my corner, this change has been easy for me.  Even though the guys at work torture me with their junk food habits, I had been strong.  I know I have said it before, but this isn't a diet.  It is a lifestyle change.  I have made changes that are easily incorporated into everyday life.  I am still cooking regular dinners and eating out when it is necessary.  I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are struggling, know you are not alone and that you don't have to change your entire life just to lose some weight.

So, for my final week of March Goals, I am going to stay positive and get out of the house.  I am going to say 5 positive things that happened during the day before I go to bed and let the negative float away without wasting any of my time.  I am also going to do something after work 2 days this week.  Usually I race home and once I am home from work, I don't leave again.  This week I am going to either go for a walk, go shopping or hang out with friends after work.

Lessons Learned From Making a Baby Quilt

It's time for us to take a break from all the Diabetes and Diets because we here at the Pink Elephant Sisters are more than just that.  We are crafty chicks.  If you have ever wanted to make a quilt, or wanted to prove that we are not perfect, this is the post for you.  While making a baby quilt doesn't seem all that difficult, and this wasn't even our first time doing it, we managed to run into a few problems and learned some lessons along the way.  

The first place to start is choosing your fabrics.  To me, this is the funnest part of the whole process!  I could walk the aisles of the fabric store for hours!  However, I have 2 small boys that don't care for that certain store, so they force me to make quicker decisions.  I came home with 7 different fabrics that I strategically selected.  And here is where we learned our first lesson: always have back-up fabric.  Once I got them home and shared them with my sister, we decided that they just didn't all work.  But luckily I have a rather large stash of fabric and found the awesome owl fabric that I forgot I had.  Easy solution to our first problem.

Now comes, in my opinion, the worst part of the process: cutting out all of the squares.  It is SO time consuming!  This is where we learned our second lesson: whenever possible, purchase pre-cut squares.  When we made a Dr. Suess themed quilt for my son, we purchased pre-cut squares on etsy.com (because the local craft store didn't have Dr. Suess fabric at that time)....we had no idea how great they were until we began cutting all of the squares this time.

Next we laid all of the square out on the floor to decide on a pattern.  We definitely compromised on this part.  I love a random pattern, but Kristy's OCD demanded that there be a very strict pattern.  As you can see, she won.  The lesson we learned on this step: don't let your 4 year old anywhere near this.  While he seems to be just innocently walking by...nope.  He purposely kept moving the blocks around with his feet and messing up the pattern.  So he was then banned from the room!  :)

This next step, sewing all of the squares together to make rows, is where we learned out biggest lesson: don't trust your sister's measurements!  While we agreed on a 1/2" seam allowance, I assumed that Kristy would actually measure...nope.  Kristy started at the top, I started at the bottom and we met in the middle.  Sounded like a grand plan at the time.  We would do half of the sewing so it would be done faster, right?...nope.  After both halves were completely finished, Kristy said "why are my seams smaller than yours?"  Well, that is because she was actually sewing with a 1/4" seam allowance instead of 1/2".  This was a hard blow after working on this for several hours that day.  We ended up just re-sewing her part to make the seam allowance the 1/2" it should have been.  It all worked out but this was a lesson learned the hard way for sure!

The next step was to sew the diagonal lines to hold together the quilt front we just made, the batting, and the backing of the quilt.  When we made the Dr. Suess quilt we did the diagonal lines as well and I don't remember having any trouble.  However, this time it was a struggle (I know, seems to be an ongoing theme for this quilt, huh?).  About the 5th line into it, I kept getting puckers on the back.  It didn't seem to matter how well I pinned it, the fabric just kept bunching up.  

After several days of struggling, I learned our next lesson: ask your mother-in-law for help!  I wish I would have asked her sooner because she had one of these amazing little tools, the quilt basting gun.  This thing was a life saver!  It punched these purple little plastic things through the quilt and held it together perfectly.  I finished sewing the quilt in no time at all...and no more puckers!

Next I just needed to cut off the excess batting and add a border of some kind.  Luckily, we didn't seem to have any trouble of this step (surprising, I know).  We used double fold bias tape and it worked great and was easy to sew. 

Of course, in true Kari-style, I finished it the day of the baby shower!  

Either way, all lessons learned, our cousin loved the quilt we made for her new baby girl.  Now hopefully we will remember these lessons for when we make a quilt for my new baby boy!