I hate waiting, am I skinny yet?

I see that so many times. People trying to work out and not seeing results right away and getting discouraged and giving up. DON"T GIVE UP!!! It takes 4 weeks for you to see change, 8 weeks for your friends and family to notice and 12 weeks for the world to notice. I know many of you may have seen that on a pin or what not but it is true. You can't expect change when you don't do something. I am guilty of it! There's been plenty of times where I feel like I'm just working out all the time and i feel like I'm not getting anywhere, especially when I'm in a "fat mood"! On those days when you don't feel like doing anything just do it and get it done. if it feels like you didn't put in any effort then you probably didn't but at least you got your heart moving which is always good. Last week i was walking a lot, because of my knee, and got my 2 miles to 20 mins. With that walking i've been strengthening my knee and it hasn't hurt so I'm going to start running again until it hurts and then rest ect ect ect. I miss running and am excited to get back into it. I told myself 6-9 months ago that i was going to lose 10 lbs before we move, then it was 3 months away and I said I need to lose 10 lbs and now i'm  a month and a half away and i still haven't lost what I wanted to! See...Lazy!! i'm human and all but i hate it, I don't hold myself accountable and I make excuses. If I really wanted it then I wouldn't do either of those. I sit here and try to help anyone who reads this and I suck at doing basic things. You could say the whole easier said then done but it's not that hard to work out, it's hard to get started and stay going. Well heres hopuing to a better time, I've already made the smart choices today when it came to eating ( banana for breakfast, carrots for snack, chicken for lunch, and I'm making Tilapia and brussle sprouts for dinner) and tonight I'm going running. heres to a new new new new new new new new beginning and saying goodbye to the before picture!  

the bees have better knees then me!

So my knee has been messed up since I ran a marathon in Feb 13', but recently it has been really  bad. I went to the Dr. and he took an X-Ray but found nothing. I find that hard to believe seeing that it seems worse then normal. Without knowing what's wrong I've been very wary about what exercises I do. Squats are killer and running is out of the question. I'm going to start doing flutter kicks and just walk more. Today I've walked 3 miles and man oh man do i miss running but it's better then having to get surgery on my knee (eventually). it took me about 45-1hr to walk it and it was pretty nice and cool, even with the humidity it was nice. I was talking with my hubs the other night and I really just need to go cold turkey with the food, I can't just have a little something here and there cause It doesn't work for me. I've decided instead of saying "I can't have that" I'll say "I don't eat that", maybe a mind trick on myself will work.

Boy am I out of shape!

As I write this I must warn you, I am listening to a one direction song. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME!!!! 

Okay I'm better.

I've been gone lately, not gone anywhere just off the webbernet. I don't really know what happened, I was doing good, eating great and then all of a sudden it stopped. My knee is totally messed up and the Doc can't seem to find anything wrong with it, yet it still hurts. So my running is gone right now and it sucks cause I miss it! I think in my head i was like, "oh my knee hurts i can't do ANYTHING", not smart i tell ya, not smart! I'm almpst willing to wear the brace all day and run in the afternoon and ice it the rest of the day! I'm not even going to start about my eating habits. It's like i have NO control and I see food and have to eat it, even when I'm not hungry. So I guess it means I buy things that are good for me and the family can eat it or they can not but bread, and tortilla chips and crackers they all have to go. We buy relatively good for you things, it's just when we splurge and get a pizza more often then not, I eat it like crazy. I think I need to work on my control as well as working out! 

Today I did 50 squats and 40 standing supermans. normally I do those in plank position but i wanted to be able to do them, my planks are pretty shaky. 30 second planks and a ladder of 5 pushups, thats a total of 30 pushups. 

I'm not quite sure how the food will go today, I don't usually eat breakfast. I've had a glass of orange juice today but for lunch We'll (my son and I) will probably split a chicken breast and ill have tomatoes and grapes and he'll have corn and grapes. dinner if it's not left over orange chicken stir fry we'll have stuffed mushrooms my fave!!! If you want the recipe just let me know.  Hopefully this time around i can keep myself accountable.

running man

I haven't written lately, I've been kinda busy and now that it's Labor day weekend and the hubs has had 4 days off in a row I've been hanging out. I've been waking up early and running 2 miles, hoping to make it to 3 this weeks. The kid has been waking up and running with me before school which I love cause that means she's interested in running! I'm still at 157 but i can tell that my inches are going down which make me happy. Baby steps, baby steps, It took more then one day to put the lbs and inches on it's going to take more then one day to take them off. Thats all I really care about are the inches. I want to be healthy and look healthy and I'm on the right path! 

No eating after 8pm??

I read an article that said if you eat after 8 your body has a harder time digesting the food and you're more then likely to go to bed with it just sitting there.

I also read that it doesn't matter what time you eat, it matters WHAT you eat.

Now what's the truth? Can they both be true or only one?

"While there is no scientific evidence that eating after a certain time of the night can make you gain weight, people who habitually eat their main meal late in the day do tend to have more difficulty controlling their weight. Research does suggest your body burns calories less efficiently later in the day. And the fact that most of us are less active later in the day – watching television, relaxing, reading or sleeping – makes you less likely to burn those calories."

So there you have it, if you are feeling snacky and it's after 8 pm grab something healthy and small, and side it with a glass of water. I promise you wont turn into a Gremlin!!

Speaking of calories, you want to burn more then you are putting in. For health reason, height and weight, you need a certain amount in your daily life

For example I am 157lbs and my height is 67" (5'7") if I want to be lets say 130lbs I would have to intake 2050.2 calories per day to maintain your current weight without exercise.
1935.3 calories per day to reach your goal weight slowly and maintain that weight without exercise
If you reduce your current caloric intake to 1550.2 calories per day you will lose one pound per week without exercise.
If you increase your current caloric intake to 2550.2 calories per day, you will gain one pound per week

this based off About.com nutrition. http://nutrition.about.com/library/bl_nutrition_guide.htm

Weight:157lbs
Exercise for the day: moving planks, 30pushups, 30squats

It's only Saturday and I'm already STARVING

Oh weekends. I find those to be the hardest for me. Everyone is home and my normal routine of me and Dean and our schedule is off so every Saturday my eating gets thrown off. Everyone is home and doing so many things and nothing is calm, not to mention I like to have a couple drinks with the hubs once the youngest has gone to bed then we watch movies or tv shows and have some snacks. Last night we went out for some drinks with some friends and I only had 2 drinks and ended up coming home having a cheese stick and going to bed. Today though I'm already craving chips and cheese and bean dip and pizza and everything that I shouldn't be eating I want. I wish I knew how not to cave into the foods I want. There's times where I wont buy it thinking oh I'm just craving, it'll pass I'll eat something else, but a week later I'm still wanting it and then I over do it and end up eating so much more and feeling sick and guilty and I NEVER learn! My thought is maybe I don't need to cut out the bad stuff, maybe I need to portion it, and keep working out. BTW I hate portioning foods, to me, it seems like I have NO control and I need to baby myself and I want to think that a 30 year old doesn't need to do that. We did though just put some stuff in the house, trail mix, some freeze dried fruit called "Crunchies" (Soooo good!)so maybe if I eat those I'll get the crunch sound that a chip would make and maybe it will do. It's a day by day process for me and I do as best as I can. I can't get down on myself because I ate something unhealthy I can just try to not eat so much unhealthy and eventually cut it out all together. 


Weight: 158
Food: bacon, 2 BLT wraps, pineapple Crunchies, and a cheese burger

workout: none

  

But Primal eating is gonna suck!

That's exactly what I thought when my husband had first suggested it! He came home from the Dr and said that he recommended this "Primal Blueprint" book and it was about cutting out carbs in your diet. WHAT!?!?!? I couldn't even think about eating food without some sort of carb whether that be the main course or a side of bread or whatever, I most certainly didn't think I was going to like this.

At first it was hard, the cravings and the being hungry ALL THE TIME! If you know me, you know that you don't want to be around me when I'm hungry! We replaced all the food that had carbs, no bread, no chips, no sugar, no white flour. We used instead coconut flour and almond flour, Stevia for sugar, Nuts and berries for the chips, and a fridge full of fresh veggies and fruits. Now we always had veggies and fruits for an option (not a fan of scurvy), but we had tons! Also trying to get the kids to eat them all the time in replace of their normal snacks was crazy hard. I remember bringing my mom boxes of snacks, granola bars, fruit packs, cereals, veggie chips all sort of stuff.

I thought I am not going to be able to bake anything, and I'm not going to be able to cook! Well about a week or two into it I realised that the cooking part wasn't much different then the way we always ate. We just didn't use the carb part. Fajitas but in a lettuce wrap same with burgers. we had lots of salads and different veggies. We always left the table stuffed and it wasn't because of breads or anything that would be bad for us. As far as baking I found some uh-mazing recipes. two are cupcake recipes ill post a link at the bottom. 

Anyway I'm getting off topic. The point of the "Primal Diet" is to take carbs out of your life and replace them with meats, nuts, berries, anything that a caveman would eat. A caveman isn't going to have bread ya know. Also exercise, you never saw a "fat" caveman. once again think back to the caveman era, they ran...a lot! they did squats, they did push ups, they did planks. Using their own body weight as the weight. When you don't eat carbs your body has to make energy from something, so it burns the fat in your body and BAM energy and weight loss. Never do anything that will make you so out of breath you want to die. you should work out to get a good sweat and then let your heart rate come down. 

when I was using "insanity" I couldn't believe the amount of "legs" we did, but after reading this book my sister had bought for me "You are your own gym" I realised why. When you work out your high muscle areas, you are going to be burning fat all over your body. That's why when I was running AND eating strictly primal I was loosing inches and weight. 

http://www.tgipaleo.com/2012/02/12/red-velvet-cupcakes/

http://www.thewannabechef.net/2012/01/16/paleo-vanilla-cupcakes/    My favourite!!

You are your own gym : Mark Lauren

Primal Blueprint : Mark Sisson
http://primalblueprint.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I do have the primal blueprint on a pdf so if you are interested in it let me see if I can send it to you. Just let me know




  

Walking like Frankenstein

Yesterday i decided to do some stairs. I have 19 stairs I did them 5x, up 5 and down 5 then after dinner i ran 3 miles. when I walked through the door i swear my legs felt like JELL-O! It was one of those uncomfortable, heck yeah i did it pains, took me about 5 mins to walk normal. Now today the outside of my hips hurt but thats a good thing when it comes to working out, that means you're doing something right haha. Now yesterday I ate pretty well until it came to about 8:00pm. Lets see breakfast i had greek yogurt with berries and a little sugar (I hate sour berries), and lunch was 2 BLT's no bread and dinner was 2 Tyson Chicken Nuggets that Dean didn't eat. I wasn't hungry for dinner,obviously, but when I came home from running and burning it all off i was, so i did what any normal person would do, I drank a bottle and a half of water then had 2 beers and some Jalapeno Cheetos, they are my weakness. Not a very good idea when trying to lose weight, but I am human and full of weaknesses and one of them being food. 

Todays agenda is

30 squats

a ladder of 5 pushups, total of 30

20 flutter kicks (ugh)

2 min arms.

5X stairs

It can be hard to work out in the house with Dean but we just got him a pair of gym shoes and he thinks they can make him do anything so he's been wanting to workout as well. So hopefully I can do everything in the same block and not spread out through the day! I know I said I would post a picture but I have to find my camera first I'm guess Dean might know where it is! It reminds me of when we first moved to GA I couldn't find my camera anywhere, everyone thought I lost it and was upset, come to find out my 6 year old Angel took it and put it in the backpack of her doll. I knew I didn't lose it!!! 

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

I wanted to create a blog for many reasons.

1. To hold myself accountable
2. So I can look back and view my progress
3. If it's on the internet and there's a possibility that other people may see this I feel I'll have to stick to it! 

I love food, and by that I mean I enjoy the taste of well prepared food. I also enjoy the taste of junk food and processed foods which is why I'm 161lbs and can't suck it in any further. Ladies and gentleman let me tell you something, you CAN'T suck in back fat! 

I've never been a image kind of girl, I never really cared how I looked (thank you dads metabolizm)  but then I had my son and gain quite a bit and have been having a hard time taking it off. This has been for 3 years now.

I've done many things that HAVE worked. I did "Insanity" with Shawn T by Beachbody which made me lose inches and gain muscle but i pretty much stayed the same weight of 160's. I've also trained for a marathon and did a primal diet during that process and dropped down to the high 140's. I thought this is great if I keep running I can reward myself with something every once in a while. Well I ran 26.2 miles and my knee started messing up which made me take off from running longer then I wanted, and I stopped being so primal with my eating, and here i am 6 months later and back in my 160's. Now before I go any further I want to make myself clear. I, in no way think I'm "fat", I think I am at an unhealthy part of my life and my shape (when I gain weight I start to look pregnant) is not what I want it to be. 

My goal is to lose inches and gain muscle. No I do not want to be a muscle builder, not my cup of tea, I just want to look healthier. I want to be an example to my daughter and son that eating healthy and exercising isn't just for athletes. I've been watching "Extreme Weight Loss with Chris Powell" and I'm going to give myself a year. every 90 days I'll post a picture of how I'm doing and in the mean time I'll post what I'm eating, what workouts I'm doing, my weight and my sleep schedule. I will also let you know about the primal diet and other nutritional information I have read, seen or experienced in my life. 

I'm excited to take this journey and have you along with me.

Courteney