Its a little crazy to have the time to blog... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. Well I do know that I will probably be blogging at least 3 times a week goodie!! So I'm looking to do something that will help me make a little extra money. I'm exploring a few options, I'm trying the Young Living Oils, I'm trying out some IT Works products so we'll see. I would NEVER sell or try to get someone else to sell something that I personally don't believe in. So at this point I'm still looking. I can say that I LOVE the greens from IT Works!!! Best sleep of my life without Benadryl or a sleep aid! I also am really liking the oils so I'll keep using different products from these companies to see how I like them. Even if I don't sell them you should try greens!! They will change your life, if only your sleeping life. I look forward to going to bed at night now! BUT there is a caveat, you must find the right mixture or they taste awful! I use 8oz. of water, greens, and 1 whole packet of Crystal Light Peach Mango Green Tea and it tastes wonderful! I think it tastes a little like a Flinstone vitamin. Trust me you won't be sorry you tried it! Last night I made Cauliflower pizza for dinner. It was very yummy! Sam (who hates cauliflower) said I hit it out of the park! So that is a win! I don't feel like writing the recipe...I'm super lame right? Basically I put cauliflower in the food processor - microwaved after for 8 minutes - let it cool - added 1 egg, salt and pepper, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese - squeezed together and mixed - pressed into a Pam sprayed pan - baked for about 15 minutes at 425 - added pizza sauce, cheese, turkey pepperoni, heirloom tomato's, mushrooms, olives, and fresh basil - put back in the oven and baked another 10 minutes - sliced and ate. There you have it! HA HA if you really want to know the exact deets let me know and I'll tell you. It was yummy! Try it today! Super easy! BTW I was in bed at 9pm last night! Yippee!!! Everything else went well. Working on keeping up the fight! Have a fab day my friends!!! Let's rock it together!! But first lets go get a green tea from Starbucks!! XOXO

Ha ha!!! I actually don't dread Monday's too much! I don't love getting up early but I do like my job so it is not so bad. So here is how the weekend stacked up... We had a fun time at tball and had a two hour batting practice later Saturday afternoon at the park. Momma is a good batter, we actually all had some fun using the pitching machine at the park. Mommy and Daddy had a contest to see who could hit the furthest and we even had a little straggler join us. We had a great time Saturday just hanging out. Sunday we went to Church and bbq'd at home. Nice and relaxing weekend! He is so cute in his little uniform! Our little princess Ice cream smiles are the best! Today is buddy's best friends birthday... We love this little dude! Happy Birthday friend!!! This weekend the only goal I really kept was going to Church. But at least I got the most important one done. Oh and my words were pretty good also! So here are my goals for the day and week: 1. Drink a gallon of water (today and each day this week) 2. Be in bed by 9pm (everyday - I did this last night yay) 3. Have my cleaning done each day (I'm doing a little each day, we'll see how that shakes out) 4. My words... (everyday) 5. Eat within my plan (everyday) 6. Hit my goal number (I'll keep this to myself, but I will let you know if I hit it!) Anywho, that seems like a good start! Happy Monday Folks!!! XOXO ~kisses

So I guess I should start out this post by stating that I am so excited to say that since my last post back in February I started a new job! I am so happy to be doing something I love! I actually wrote the previous post entitled "Change" as a writing sample for my new job. The people are wonderful and I feel like this is going to be something great. The only thing I can honestly say that I am unhappy about is the fact that I completely set aside my goal of getting back into shape and losing the weight that I gained. In fact I gained some more. I am really unhappy about that. I am really hoping that I have the resolve to commit myself back to being where I want to be. My goal for the month of April is to be consistent. Stick to my plan and hopefully see results. I've added a few things into my plan to help me out hopefully. I'll let you know more as I go. I am not doing any craziness, but I would like to see how things progress before I put it out there. I will say I am back on my gallon of water a day. This picture is my new head shot for my new job. I am please with how it turned out! My little buddy broke his arm about a month ago which threw a wrench in our baseball season, but we are hopeful he will get to finish the season. I had my birthday! I was very nice! Got some flowers, dinner and fun! Ok well this is a short post... gotta run get my mom and dad at the airport. But I will keep you posted about the month ahead! But I'll leave you with this sweet pic. XOXO

I absolutely hate when I get off track! And how sad is it that I got off track in week 3??!!! I have no good excuse, I hit that time of the month, but seriously if that is what is going to derail me... Bottom line is I didn't stick to my plan and I didn't keep my promises. However, I really am committed to losing this weight. I want to wear leggings this winter, I want to feel good about myself! Surprisingly at the request of my 6 year old we went to the gym last night. I did a decent ab workout, with some dead lifts and squats thrown in. I work with two different trainers (when I work out with a trainer) Crazy that in the last two days I have spoken with both. One at the gym last night and the other one contacted me, ha ha probably because he knows I've already paid him for 5 training sessions and haven't seen him in months. (insert scared face here) I told Anthony (my main trainer) last night that I had really just lost my motivation. I still am struggling to get back in the gym and to work out. Last year when I felt and looked my best I was working out 3 to 5 days a week. So here is my plan... eat right and get in my water (i have sucked at that the last week) and get into the gym. I made two training appointments and would like to try to jump into the boxing class my gym offers. There is basically a week and a half left of the diet bet so I need to get on it. I'll let you know how the weekend goes! My fingers are crossed! But so far so good today!

So yesterday I wrote about goals and promises. Well of course I promised myself yesterday that I would do something active... I did, and I didn't. I went out to lunch yesterday with my friend for her little girls birthday. I ordered Chicken, Shrimp, and Veggies. No soda even though I was dying for one. I'm thinking that the sauce that was on the chicken was a little too much for me because I got really sick last night. It was also really stormy in San Diego yesterday (not at my house so much just windy) so I had to take down the canopy on our gazeebo, and then I carried 5 heavy cinder blocks to my back yard to secure Buddy's trampoline. (it blew away a few months back and I did not want a repeat of that) Believe me, it was 100 degrees outside and those blocks were heavy! I honestly was thinking to myself this is active. It wasn't really what i planned though. I was down this morning but I didn't eat more than some crackers and cheese last night and Pepto Bismol, so the number doesn't really count. My stomach cramps last night were insane. Today is a new day! My promise to myself today is to do 100 squats. I can and most certainly will do that! I'm also hoping to hit the gym while Buddy is at AWANA tonight but we'll see. Things happen.

Ok so here is the run down, Friday through Monday. Since I'm covering four days I will not go over everything that I ate, because honestly its not crazy important. I will tell you the facts about those four days though. I've been at this now for a week, I'm down 5.2lbs. I weighed in this morning at 144.4. I am completely ok with that. I focused all week on eating lots of protein, veggies, and not many carbs. My main focus was getting in a gallon (or as close as I could get in) of water a day. I did VERY good at this during the week, and by week I mean Monday through Friday. For some reason I just have a harder time getting in my water durning the weekends. Probably because I'm running around and it just is not as handy. Food wise I did really really good. I ate exactly how I wanted. I had one cheat meal on Friday night and it was so yummy! Calazone from our local pizza place. I'll be honest, I jump on my scale almost every single day. I'm just one of those people. I plan on changing that a little through this process. Part of the reason I do it is so I can see how each day shook out, but honestly you really should only hit that scale once a week. I know this, and like I said I plan on sticking to that more throughout this process. I will still jump on it, but maybe not every.single.day. I can tell you that Friday I weighed 143. something, (right now I can't remember if it was 2 or 4) and on Saturday morning after my Calazone I weighed 145. I was not discouraged by this at all. Here is why, first off I enjoyed my dinner! Second, if I limit myself forever I will never stick to anything. I know this about myself. And lastly, I knew that I planned on eating good the rest of the weekend, and I did. I packed in lots of protein and veggies/salads. I was super proud of myself by the end of the weekend, they have always been the hardest for me! We headed down to the beach on Saturday and stayed until heading to work/school yesterday. We had such a nice weekend trying to escape the heat. 104 at my house all weekend! The beach was great. We rode our bikes there on Saturday, 8 miles round trip. So I was happy I got a little exercise in! I do plan on doing more of that, the exercise thing....but the heat here has been almost unbearable. I will do it!________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ So this week I am going to be setting some small goals for myself. I started reading Choose more lose more for life by Chris Powell, and I will be starting the carb cycling soon. I would like to read a little more so I can't say for sure whether it will be sometime this week or next but soon. In the meantime I will be sticking with my protein cuz it works for me. One thing I read that I really liked was making goals/promises to yourself that are within reach. Not huge or vague ones that are untainable. I'm not going to say I'm going to lose 40 pounds or that I'm going to go to the gym every single day. It is not something that will ever happen and then I've just set myself up for defeat. He talks about SMART goals... Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound, this makes a ton of sense to me. So while I'm still getting further into the book I plan on setting some SMART goals for this week. I actually will also be setting some daily goals as well and I will keep you posted on how I do. I plan on starting each day with a promise to myself! I'm holding myself accountable through this blog even if I'm the only one who reads it. Ha ha... So here are the first of my SMART goals... __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Today's promise to myself____ I will do something ACTIVE!________________________________________________ *****This weeks goals/promises***** 1. NO soda this week (yikes, I love me some diet dr. pepper) 2. Exercise at least 3 times this week 3. Be at 136 by October 7th - that equals out to 2.8 down per week 4. Get in my gallon of water (even on the weekend) 5. Goal weight for 9/23 (next Tuesday) 141.6 Here's to a great week!!! XOXO

Oh day 4 how i love you!! Ha ha just kidding. It was just an average day. I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, and lets be honest...I'm the only one reading these posts so you (figuratively speaking) really don't mind if all i tell you is what I ate yesterday and what I weighed in at this morning. So here goes... I weighed in at 143.4, I am down 6.2lbs. since Monday. I feel good, less bloaty and contrary to what you may think I am not hungry at all. Yesterday I had a protein shake for breakfast, talapia and Kale salad for lunch, and hand full of dark chocolate covered blueberries in the afternoon to cure my sweet craving, and I had green chili fajitas for dinner (this was beef fajitas, green chili's, jack cheese and salsa, so yummy) I drank just about the full gallon yesterday, plus one Trenta Green Tea from Starbucks! Quicly I will say that my protein shake is 8oz. fat free milk (I used to use almond milk, but regular milk has more protein), PB2 (powdered peanut butter), honey, and ice. It tastes amazing!!! It tastes like a bit o honey candy, so yummy! My talapia is Gortons, easy peazy! 80 calories for each piece and I just pop it in the toaster oven at work. So today is Friday which means you will most likely not get a post from me until Monday. I am going to work really hard at staying on track, but typically how the weekends go for me is this... I don't get all my water in (i'm lame) and its way easier to cheat on food. I will try my hardest to be consistent. That is my theme word for this little endevor, consistant! I'll let you know how it goes! Also, this weekend I will finally be getting some exersize so yay me! Talk soon! XOXO

Ok, so I will start with where i landed on the scale this morning. I was at 144.4! Down 5.2 as of today. Again, I feel like i have to emphasize that I know that this is going to slow WAY down. I'd drinking almost all of my water ( I was a little short yesterday, but I picked up the boy from school, got him a quick dinner took him to church, headed to back to school night, hit the grocery store, Starbucks for and Iceed Green Tea, picked up the boy from Church and arrived at home by 9pm) So I missed a little water, but not much! Here is what I ate: 1. Eggs, low fat mozzerella cheese, apseragus, tomato scramble 2. Salad, gyros, chicken (2 squares of pita) 3. Handful of Almonds 4. Handful of dark chocolate covered blueberries 5. 1 cup of coffee with sugar free vanilla creamer, 1 diet dr. pepper, 1 green tea I know, I need to eat more food. I'm working on it. All of the water this week has made me feel pretty full! Yesterday there were cupcakes at work... I didn't eat any. Win for me! I was extremely tired yesterday and got woke up in the middle of the night. So I'm tired today. I feel like tonight is my night for an amazing nights sleep though! I definitely feel less bloated. You figure, I'm a carb o'holic and I was pretty bloated so that 5.2 and water are making me feel a little better. This weekend I am planning on getting busy with the exercise, so I'm hoping that I have a great week next week too! (In reality though, I'm only expecting 1 or 2 lbs. but I'll be ok with that). Anywho, that is it for today. XOXO

So the top picture is before I went on a little road trip a few weeks ago, I am definitely not happy with the legs or the giant roll when I sit down...hence this journey/challenge :) So day 2 was a good day. I finished all of my water yippie (and I'm off to a great start today! Half gallon down and its only 11am) I jumped on the scale this moring after legit being in the bathroom all day yesterday. And was at 145.4, so I am down 4.2lbs as of today. I am completely aware that is water weight and I'm totally ok with that this week. It will tapper off I know. All the water definetly makes me less hungry which is good because I have sorta become a snacker (grr...) I did not snack yesterday or cheat at all!!! Win for me! You will find as you follow this if anyone ever follows that I don't eat conventional so I just thought I'd tell you up front. Here is what I ate: - 1 Cup of Coffee with sugar free vanilla creamer - stew meat (i cooked in the crockpot on Sunday) and Kale salad (Breakfast) - stew meat and kale salad (lunch) - Protein Shake (dinner) So, was this enough food? Well the portions were big and honestly I wasn't hungry so for yesterday it was enough. As I move into next week i will be adding more food intermittently but my focus this week is getting in my water and lots of protein and low low carbs. Buddy had tball practice so there really was no physical activity yesterday either. I pretty much suck! There you have it. The next time I take a picture on that rock I want to look thinner dang it! For reference these two pictures were clearly around Halloween last year, I believe in these pictures I weighed in about 134. I felt good! I am searching for that again! Until tomorrow... XOXO!

I'd love to tell you that day 1 was a smashing success,but lets be honest...I think the first 3 to 5 days of any new regimen are hard. I did good all day until I made Buddy's dinner. Mac n Cheese... I did some spoonfuls to make sure it tasted ok... My plan for the first week is fairly simple, eat very low carb and mostly protein, drink a gallon of water a day and take my Bio-Cleanse. We have lots of activities scheduled this week, tball practice, AWANA, back to school night, tball game so I don't know honestly how much physical acitivity I will get to. Most likely that will be my focus this weekend. Ideally I would like to drop 5 pounds the first week (I'm a realist, I know that it is water weight the first week) After that I would like to lose 2-3lbs. per week. Honestly I'd like to wake up tomorrow 20lbs lighter but that ain't gonna happen so I'll settle for slow and steady. Here is what I ate yesterday (Don't judge me): Protein Shake Italian sausage with carmelized onions and bell peppers Stew meat I made in the crock pot on Sunday mixed with a kale salad A little more stew meat and a couple spoon fulls of mac n cheese 1 sugar free jello pudding 1 Diet Dr. Pepper and only 1 bottle of water :( but, I didn't plan on the gallon until today. I will most likely step on the scale everyday. I may or may not post the number. This morning I was at 147.5 and in the event you didn't do the math yesterday my weigh in weight was 149.6, so down 2.1 lb. since yesterday. But lets be real, I went to the bathroom a lot yesterday (my cleanse), so I am not surprised by this number. I in no way believe i will lose 2lbs. per day, nor do I think that is healthy. So we are officially off, I'm a good chunk into my gallon of water so that is a bonus. (***note- if you start drinking a gallon of water a day, you will notice changes in a few things. A. you will feel leaner B. after the first week your skin looks like crap, but it does get better by the second week C. you will be surprised you could do it! Honestly, i think that the easiest way to do it is to get a gallon jug and set hourly goals. I do every two hours. I also find that if you start with a big glass of water in the morning it starts you off right and you will drink it the rest of the day. If I forget to have a glass of water in the morning I may not have one until mid afternoon. So just try it, you will be pleasantly surprised that this is as easy as it is to do, even if you don't like water.***) Anywhoo... gotta run (but not litterally ha ha) xoxo

The nice thing about a blog you seldom post in is that you can post something random and chances are almost no one is going to read it. So why post? Well, I actually plan on posting more. But I want to get back into it by starting with a little challenge for myself. Last year I got really focused on my weight and working out. I was working out with a fit group and really liked the results that I was seeing. I hit my goal weight just before Christmas of 129lbs. That made my year! So much so that I'm sure I treated my self to something yummy! On top of that yummy treat, my job slowed down and I had to cut out my workouts with my group, add in a holiday and you have a recipe for disaster :( So, now here we are 9 months later and guess what. I weigh what I did when I started my weightloss a year and a half ago. I'm so sad. And I've honestly not been super motivated. We do lots of hikes but eating a lot and not working out regularly have killed me. So, that being said I am going to start over. Today I weighed in to do Mama Laughlin's diet bet it runs until October 6th. I don't want to have a huge goal other than the 4% you have to lose in that time to win. So by October 6th I need to be at 143.6, I'll let you do the math ha ha! Here is the reality: I guess it could be worse, but then it would take twice as long to fix. So, my plan is to do my diet bet but also to hold myself accountable I will post everyday to update my blog and myself as to my progress. Hopefully this will help me. So each day I plan to write, good or bad what occurred the day before. What I did activity wise, and food wise. Starting tomorrow I will be shooting for drinking a gallon of water a day. (i've done this before and it is totally doable) I'm also going to be doing a cleanse So I guess I should tell you (ha ha as of right now there really is no you) to stay tuned. I'm hoping to have this miraculous transformation. I'm going to label this little journer #fit2fab so if you find this somewhere sometime you can follow the whole thing by searching that label! See ya soon! xoxo