my 21 day challenge

January thru April were crazy busy for me this year.   But since we have gotten back from our vacation, I've been able to spend the month of May simply relaxing and taking care of my family and things around the house.  It's been really nice!  During my downtime I'm realizing that I needed to make my health a priority and now is a great time to get serious about it since I don't have too much extra stuff going on.

I truly wish that I could tackle my weight with the same passion and dedication that I tackled our debt.  It was so much easier for me to say "no" to spending money and "yes" to savings/debt reduction than it is for me to say "no" to food, and essentially saying "yes" to weight gain/poor health.   I've tried thinking of my extra weight as extra debt and it was a great kick start, but old habit eventually crept back up and the weight, of course, came back on.   What seems to work best (which is truly common sense) for me to lose weight is to eat whole foods, exercise daily, and have someone hold me accountable.  If you've read my blog for a while, you know that I'm constantly recommitting myself to weight loss.  And if you haven't been following me, you can simply do a search of "weight", see what comes up, and see that it's been an on-going struggle.  Will this time be different?  I honestly don't know.   But, I've got the time to focus on it now and I have you guys to keep me accountable. 

So, what's my plan?

I'm giving myself a challenge for the next 21 days.  I'm challenging myself to follow an eating plan that my (longtime ago...) personal trainer gave me in 2004.  The thing I love about this Meal Plan is that is shows what types of foods I need to have at each meal, along with how much I need to eat.  It's about 1450 calories a day.  For example, breakfast consists on 1 fruit (usually I would choose a banana, grapes or blueberries), 2 servings of milk (yogurt), 2 meats (2 egg whites and a string cheese), and 1 fat (a slice of bacon).  It ends up being a lot of food and a great way for me to start the day.  When I eat this way for breakfast I rarely need a snack before lunch!   Will I do this perfectly?  No...I know of a few social functions on the calendar where I'll want to eat something other than what's on the Plan.  But, my goal is to get right back on track after I have a fun night out.

Along with my Meal Plan, my goal is also to follow the running schedule that my marathon coach gave me back in 2003.  I haven't been exercising much this year, but the first 3 weeks of the running schedule are great for easing back into running.

Do you notice anything?  Back in 2003-2004, when my children were little, I had a trainer at the gym and was part of a running team with a coach.  Being healthy and having a healthy weight were so much more of a priority to me then.   I turned to exercise to relieve stress.  Now I turn to food and wine not only to relieve stress, but when I'm happy, when the weather's nice, and when I need a special treat!

So - 21 days, 3 weeks to commit to a healthy diet and exercise plan.  Of course I'm hoping to lose some weight, and in 21 days I'll be happy with the results and come up with a new challenge for the next 21 days.

If you have something you'd like to challenge yourself to over the next 21 days, let me know and we can support one another!

5 a day update - day 10

I have not been the best participant of this challenge I have to admit!  While I am certainly getting in more fruits and veggies than I would be without the challenge, I haven't been diligent about meeting my daily goal of 7 and of checking in with Carla with my progress!

I'd say I'm averaging 5 a day.  Most of my 5 are coming from fruits and I need to do better about adding vegetables into the mix!

On of my favorite snacks (when I'm prepared with the ingredients on hand...) is to take Melba toast, smear a bit of low fat Laughing Cow cheese on it and then top it with with tomato and perhaps a small slice of turkey.  Adding some green onion to it is also a good way to add some extra flavor.  That and a handful of grapes will usually count for 2 fruits and veggies.  And around 3:00 in the afternoon it's a perfect pick-me-up!

But have I had this snack lately?  no....

Last week I went to my GP for my annual blood work.  I "suffer" from high blood pressure and I have a hypo-thyroid.  I got a call back from his office yesterday saying that my thyroid count was higher than it should be (even with the Rx I take...) and that my cholesterol count was 230.  I was very surprised that my cholesterol was this high since I've kinda been watching what I'm eating and have been exercising more.  But...apparently kinda isn't as good as it needs to be!  This may be just the kick in the rear that I needed to get back on track with having a healthier lifestyle.  I go back in December to have it all rechecked.  So...until then, I will have to be even more diligent with what I put in my mouth and how I'm exercising.

Shortly after we moved here three years I was extremely successful at losing weight (I lost about 10 pounds in 3 months).   I was even about 3 pounds away from my "dream weight"!!  I went to Weight Watcher meetings weekly and I ran, ran, and ran about 5 days a week.  Then...I started playing tennis.  Tennis interfered with my WW meetings and it cut out 2 days of running in the beginning, and then I stopped running all together and hung out on the tennis courts.  While playing tennis is great exercise, unfortunately I don't burn enough calories for my body to lose weight.

My plan is to re-adapt (is that a word?!?)  my way of eating and exercising from 3 years ago when I lost the weight I wanted to lose.  I will find a Weight Watchers meeting that works best for my schedule and will actually follow the plan.  Just following the WW plan will force me to get in all my fruits and vegetables!  And...I will exercise more.  One of my goals for September was to exercise an average of 30 minutes a day.  Another goal was to lose 3 pounds.

By being disciplined and working on these goals, I feel confident that I can lower my cholesterol by my December appointment.

follow-up to comments:

Carla & Sft - Thanks for the encouragement!

jpkittie - not having my wine at the end of everyday is a tough habit to break...but I've gone without for 3 days now!  Am counting down the hours until the weekend!

Sharon - I'm new to the Rosetta Stone software, but so I far really like it.  It's nice to have the flexibility of doing it at home (I can do as many "lessons" as I have time for in a day).  There is a microphone that comes with it so it corrects your pronunciation of the vocabulary words.      I wish I was 142# also!!  Am hoping that cutting back on my wine and increasing my exercise, that I'll be there by the end of the month!

discipline & eating right

I've been thinking about my goals for the remainder of the year and what my goals will be for 2012.  I've got goals for our finances, for my health, for my personal and home life, and for my spiritual life.   I will go into details on a different day as to what exactly my goals are, but without some discipline in my life, I won't be able to achieve any of them.

If you're like me, you know how tough it is to maintain weight after losing it.  Like getting out of debt, the fun is reaching your goal, not staying there!   I find that when I'm eating right and exercising consistently that I don't care as much what my weight is because I feel so darn good!   As a result of eating right and exercising, I usually do weigh less, but it seems the importance of the number is lessened by the awesomeness of the way I feel.

I've been a bit slack the last couple of months with my healthful eating and exercise.   And I could stand to shed a few pounds.  Carla over at My Half Daily Dozen is having a challenge over the next two weeks to eat more fruits and vegetables.  I'm joining her in this challenge (it starts today!) and hope to eat at least 7 fruits/veggies each day.  My goal, more specifically, is to eat 1-3 servings of fruits and 4-7 servings of vegetables.  If you want to join in the challenge to, just go her site to see the details! 

home sweet home

Home from vacation!!!

We had back to back vacations this year.  One week in Punta Cana without the kiddos and then one week on North Captiva Island WITH the kids.  Needless to say, we had a GREAT time and came back with some brown skin.  It's been 4 years since we've had a long vacation with the kids (where it was JUST the 4 of us) and we had the best time.  Lots of fishing, shelling and island hopping.  And...a little bit of relaxing.

Now we've been back for a solid week and the laundry is caught up and we've made it through the long 4th of July weekend.

One thing that I wanted to do this summer and that we just started working on last week is eating FRESH and LOCAL food.  We're lucky in the fact that we're kinda in the country so finding roadside farm stands is pretty easy.  We're on the search for the best farm stand this summer.  We stopped at 6 last week alone...we had a "tomato tasting" between 3 of the stands!  Anyway, it was a great week back and we had fun shopping on the "outer aisles" and farm stands and getting some really good, local fruits and vegetables. I'll post some of our menus and recipes another day.

Another thing that we're focusing on this summer is driving less.  We live in a golf cart community and are able to get anywhere within the city limits on a golf cart.  Since Memorial Day, we've had 20 days where we've only driven the golf cart.  I'm hoping that we can get the number to 40 by Labor Day!

Anyway  -  this is a short post.  We're on our way to the swimming pool (in the golf cart...) and the kiddos are waiting.  Just wanted to check in and say that I'm still here (or that I'm back from vacationing...) and am looking forward to sitting down and catching up on all of my favorite bloggers posts!

tainted muffins

In order to get my kids to eat healthy, I sometimes have to be sneaky about it.  In fact, sometimes I flat out lie to them about what ingredients are in their food and why their food sometimes might look different.  And, you know what?  I have no problems lying about this. 

After reading over at Premeditated Leftovers about how ground flax seed could easily be substituted for eggs and/or vegetable oil, I decided to try it and see if I could sneak it into my kids diet.   I first tried Blueberry Muffins.  Well...these weren't a hit with my kids.  Not because they didn't like the way that they taste, BUT...because they didn't like the way that they taste.  Turns out that they just don't like Blueberry Muffins.  Well, my husband and I love Blueberry Muffins so we were happy to eat them.

I remembered that my kids LOVE Chocolate Chip Muffins. I made these next.  I turned these into a healthier version by substituting the 3 Tablespoons of oil with 6 Tablespoons of ground flax seeds.  My oldest son asked why they were darker than normal and I said that they are made with some whole grains.  (The flax will make the batter a little bit darker making it look wheat instead of white.) They LOVED these muffins!

So - In the future, I will continue to taint our muffins and will be branching out to cupcakes and cookies and anything else I think I might be able to sneak a spoonful of flax into!  Try it for yourself if you haven't already...you're in for a treat!