God DOES work in mysterious ways...

Well, it's Sunday morning of my big FAMILY weekend. I've been surrounded by food for about 52 hours now and I've eaten hardly anything. Why?, you ask? I've been plauged with nausea since I woke up Friday morning. While most people would consider this a negative----I am actually giggling inside thinking "so God, is THIS your way of keeping me on track with my eating?" ha ha ha Whatever, I'll take it. It's been bad enough that when I'm not cooking or cleaning something, I'm laying in bed or on the couch...but not so bad that I've been bent over the toilet puking. I have sat-out from playing a few board games because of it where I'd normally be in the center of action...but with this many people around, I don't think anyone is really missing me. Let's see...we have mom dad me matt brook grant doug pudgy chantel paul teresa jessica kyen sidney kim craig anthony danielle melissa devin rita megan moses miles stephanie cody toni michael alexis---so that's 29 people total!!! 6 short of my 35 estimation--but of course, in my family, we never know for sure who all is coming until they do or don't show up.
Anyway, I just thought while I had a second, I'd let ya'll know that so far-so good on my eating. Guess I better get up from here and get my family ready for church. I don't know what the rest of the crew is going to do today, but I need to get out of this place for a few hours!

804

...is the number of calories I burned this morning! Oh ya baby! Even if I don't make it to my goal weight by next Thursday (which I won't unless a miracle happens)--I know it's not from being lazy. I've been working my booty off during my workouts these past couple of weeks. I think the most calories I've ever burned in one work out was 937 and that was the day I did 3 straight hours of Zumba. Today I burned 804 in 2 hours...so I'd consider that quite an accomplishment. I don't know why my body is holding onto this extra weight but whatever. All I can do is my best. I'm sure if I got super-strict with my diet (calorie intake) I'd see some better results...but it's just not. gonna. happen. My ginormous family is coming into town starting tonight and we'll be eating non-stop. My only salvation is that I am going to try to surround myself with healthy choices so I (hopefully) don't succumb to the pressure and eat all the JUNK that everyone else will be eating. Nothing against anyone in my family, I love them all...but they are NOT healthy eaters. I mean...not even close. It's funny because when I know everyone is coming to town, my grocery cart looks entirely different than normal. I have all different varieties of soda, chips, cookies, unhealthy lunch meats, white bread....etc. But hey, that's what they like and it's cheap. I figure there is no sense in feeding them all my expensive healthy stuff when they'd rather have the junk anyway, right? Although I do feel bad for the couple of family members who look to me as an example (for healthy eating) and see my house full of all this stuff. Hopefully they'll watch what I actually EAT and not just what I set out for everyone else to eat.
Okay...off to clean house...got lots of sheets to wash before all my beds are occupied!
Oh and by the way..whatever that "bug" was I had on Tuesday is completely gone now (with the exception of the nasty cough) but other than that, I feel great! YAY! I SOOOOO do NOT have time to be sick! :o)

The BL trash talk

Okay how many of you were asking yourselves this on Tuesday night: "WHAT was AMY smoking?" Can you BeLiEvE she voted Coleen off instead of Vicky? I mean..I was just completely and utterly flabbergasted. The ONLY explantion I can come up with is that maybe she thought her 8 pound weight loss was fueled by the tension going on with Vicky and she wanted to see if it would work another week....!!?????? I dont know--but nix the hug I was wanting to jump through the screen and give Amy for last weeks elimination--now I want to give her a big slap and say WAKE UP!! Vicky is nothing but evil and doesn't care about anyone as much as herself (not even her kids or her husband!) Grrrrr.....
Anyway, I had to get my 2 cents in. I feel better now! :o)

Stickin it out...

Man, I feel awful today. I got a flu shot and a tetanus shot yesterday and I don't know if that is what is making me feel so crummy or what but I just feel miserable. I expected the aching and soreness in my shoulders (at the shot site's) but I feel like I suddenly have a head cold and my neck hurts and I feel drowsy and dizzy and just BLAH. On top of that, I have a cough deep in my chest that makes it hard for me to get a good full breath.
Despite how I felt, I pushed through and went to the gym today for my weight lifting class and my cardio class. I actually did fairly well throughout the classes considering my lack of energy but now that I'm done and I've showered, I feel completely exhausted. I want to do NOTHING. I know I'm not feeling great when I don't even want to do something fun! I just want to lay on the couch and not move.
So I'm wondering, is it bad or wrong to go workout so vigorously and intensly when your body is not in tip-top shape? Am I compromising my healing/wellness by pushing myself so hard? I don't know. I do know that even when I am sick and I work out..I'm still SO GLAD I did it and I usually feel better afterwards--if nothing else at least mentally because I know I got my work out in.
This is just a side note...but one of my friends from the gym ran a marathon Saturday. She's in great shape and is a "runner" by nature but during this particular marathon, a fellow runner collapsed mid way and died!!! It turned out to be a 21 year old guy who'd been training for this marathon for a full year and was about to enter the Navy. No one is quite sure exactly what happened just yet, except it is assumed that he must have had a heart attack. Renee, my friend, said she saw him laying on the ground and his legs were jerking but she didn't know what was going on so she just kept running. She came to find out later that he had died. What a tradgedy. What a freak incident. I mean, who expects a young, in shape guy to just keel over mid-marathon? Crazy.
Anyhow, I can't decide what to do with myself for the rest of the day. As I said, I don't WANT to do anything---but my house is in dire need of some cleaning--at the very least the dishes and laundry need to get done. Why is it so hard for me to relax and just rest? I feel guilty and I can't shake the notion that I'm "wasting time". grrr.....
Guess I'll go fold the laundry and then "allow" myself to rest for 15 minutes or so. If I feel better, I'll get up and do more. If I don't---I'll try to make myself stay on the couch for a while longer. We'll see....

A first for me...

So today I went to the gym as usual and did my hour of "Pump" (weight lifting) and then did my Zumba (latin-dancing) class. But about 15 minutes before the Zumba class was over, I decided to walk out on it and go hop on the treadmill. The teacher of the class was OBVIOUSLY somewhere else mentally and she was totally messing up the whole class--missing steps and lacking any kind of attitude or zest for the class. It was really wearing on my energy...so I skipped out early. (even though I did do a solid 45 minutes of it).
Anyway, I got on the treadmill next to an accquaintance and we started chatting about Biggest Loser. As you all know, I can get really into talking about that show...AND...I just get really into talking. Period. When I talk and drive, I almost ALWAYS end up somewhere other than where I was going. I can't talk and do much of anything else--which is probably one reason I HATE talking on the phone. HATE!!! IT!!!!
If I talk while cooking, I ruin the food. If I talk while scrapbooking, I get NOTHING done. If someone tries to talk to me while I'm working out, I will either ignore you or whack at you and say SHUT UP!! because I am concentrating. So today when I got on the treadmill and started jogging and talking about Biggest Loser I was SHOCKED when I looked down and saw that I had been running for 25 minutes and had gone over 2 miles!!!!! That is a first for me. I (usually) hate running and especially hate running on treadmills. (which is why I got rid of my treadmill and got an ellipital machine instead)....but today....was a whole nother story. I LOVED IT! Even after that 25 minutes, I felt nothing. I wasn't tired, my legs didn't hurt, I wasn't breathing hard...it just felt comfortable--right---good~! I REALLLLLY wanted to keep going but I had to call it quits and get home so I could get Grant to school on time. Anyway, that was such a cool surprise--so I hope maybe next time I'm there, I can try that again! If that is what running is like for you girls who do it all the time...no wonder you love it! Apparently talking while running was the perfect distraction!! (although I will say when I upped my speed to 6.2, I was NOT talking anymore). :o)

Thanks Bob!

So on last night's BL show, Bob challenged his team to see who could run the farthest in 3 minutes. The winner got to have a banana fudge sundae with him. I knew there was a catch...just like they did. So anyway, it turns out it was the Jello Sugar-Free variety with cool whip on top. Well, I'm not a BIG pudding girl...but the thought of having something "naughty" and only spending 60-80 calories was very enticing for me. So, I went to Wal-Mart and got me some. I decided on the Dark Tuxedo Chocolate kind and I got the Lite Cool Whip.

Oh. My. Gosh!

I don't know if it was the build up of anticipation I had or the fact that I was SUPER hungry or what...but that was like HEAVEN in my mouth. Despite that I bought $128 worth of groceries, I came right in (before unloading the groceries!!) and opened one up, sprayed on my cool whip (which by the way only has 15 cal. / 2 tbsp.) and enjoyed every second of it. Thankfully Grant didn't notice the pudding all over my chin and nose from me trying to stick my tongue in the container to get every last lick!! ha ha

It's a bummer that this pudding is so expensive though. It was $2.78 for a 6-pack and then 1.98 for the Cool Whip. I figure that comes out to about 50-75 cents per serving depending on how much cool whip you use. I only used about 1 tbsp. on mine--but will probably put more next time. Anyway, just wanted to give my "2 thumbs up" on this little delicacy found in the refridgerated isle!!

Veering off course....

Gahhhh.....why is food so DANG YUMMY? I've got the working out thing down pat...2 hours a day for the past 2 1/2 weeks (minus Sunday's) but the eating part is totally sabotaging my goal.It seems like every day starts out the same--healthy breakfast, workout, good lunch, snack and them BAM! someone wants to go out for dinner or my mom brings over cupcakes or I bake a pound cake or the halloween candy grabs me by the neck and stuffs chocolate down my throat! I mean, what am I supposed to do? I can't be good ALL the time. :o)I went back through the early days of this blog and looked over what I was eating way back when---when I was ACTUALLY losing weight and WOW! I forgot how good I was then! One day I wrote "I ate perfectly all day except for 2 little doritos at lunch"! Man...where did that willpower go?
Okay and now to switch subjects and talk about something else...THE BIGGEST LOSER!WHAT is UP with that show? It's like they 've taken my absolutely favorite thing ever (working out and eating healthy) and mixed it with my absolutely LEAST favorite thing ever (junior-high drama). Gross! I am so disgusted with Vicki (and Brady) that I seriously have un-Godly feelings toward them! I have never disliked anyone on TV so much. I was SO FRIGGIN FRUSTRATED last night with all their snickering and hateful comments towards Phil that I could NOT sit still on the couch. I got up, took off all my clothes, put on my tennis shoes and did the elliptical machine for the remainder of the show in my bra and panties--on level TWELVE! I've never done level 12 on my ellipitcal before...but that is how much "ARUGHHHH!" I had inside. I had to do something to get it out! Boy is my butt sore today~! (which is a wonderful thing!)Anyway, I KNOW Kate and Kandy will be thinking the same thing as we all share a DISGUST for the blue team. But one thing I have to mention is WAY TO GO AMY!!!!!!! I was SO SO SO Proud of her for voting off Brady last night! I just wanted to jump in the screen and hug her (and pop Vicky in the nose).Another thing: I SO TOTALLY would have won that 1,000 step challenge if I had been on there. I'm a step-0-maniac at the gym. Plus, nothing in the WORLD would have stopped me if it meant keeping a blue team member off. But I do give PROPS to Stacy! What a hard-worker!~ I wanted to see her beat Ed SOOOO BAD!Okay, I've gotta quit rambling on and get the kids ready for school. Just wanted to take a second and spill my thoughts.

I'm proud of me!

Although the scale hasn't showed any more weight loss for me...still at 135...I am proud to say that I worked out for a minimum of 1 1/2 hours EVERY day last week (with the exception of Saturday and Sunday--but I did clean the whole house over the weekend.) So far this week, I've kept up with my goals and have worked out every day for nearly 2 hours! Usually I'm bad about either taking Wednesday's or Friday's off....but I can't afford to do that anymore. It's crunch time (literally!!). Thanksgiving is only 3 weeks away! Even if I don't reach my 130 goal, I will be proud and satisfied if I can keep up with my workouts and (mostly) healthy eating (dang halloweeen candy!!). I'm going to Reeeeeealy try to get a work out in for the next 3 Saturday's to help boost my results. It's hard to think of working out EVERY Saturday...but if I tell myself it's only for the next THREE Saturday's--well then that just seems more attainable.
So, how are y'all doing? Hope you're not succumbing to all the pumpkiny-cinnamony goodness this season offers...??!? I'm doing my best to stay away from the desserts...of course, the 5 gallon bucket of halloween candy in my pantry is driving me nuts. Luckily, I've just about eaten all the good stuff up (read: chocolate) and now all that's left is suckers, gum and skittles...ha ha ha ha ha
Oh and I thought of something TOTALLY corny on the way home from the gym yesterday..and while I know it is totally dorky...there is some truth to it:
Snickers. Why do you think they call them that? Because the more SNICKERS you eat...the more SNICKERS you get!! (from other people watching your BUTT grow with every bite!)
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha