How did the week go?

With ice and snow here all week and school closed part of the week, some of you maybe wandering how my week went. It was interesting to say the least! Check out the family blog for more information on that:)

I started calorie counting on Monday, and I started writing my food/exercise journal again. I must say, I did a GREAT job all week recording all of my food intake. I wrote down everything, even the cinnamon roll I ate on Tuesday.

It would have been really easy this week to fall off the wagon. The kids were home from school on Tuesday and Wednesday. Kevin was home. They wanted cinnamon rolls. I only ate ONE!!! That is huge for me! I did great on my calorie intake and I have managed to workout each day since last Saturday. I feel like I really accomplished something great this week! Just working out everyday has made such a difference!!

I have also been carefully monitoring my fluid intake and been writing it down. I have successfully drank my required allotment of water everyday. I have not had a diet coke in almost one week (it will be one week tomorrow!!!). That is huge for me! To go from 4-5 a day not even a month ago to 1 in the last two weeks! And I don't miss it. It doesn't sound good anymore. When I drank one last Saturday, it took me four hours to complete it. It used to take ten minutes.

We are also eating better as a family. I have taken a nutrition class, and I am schedule to take another one next Tuesday. It was eye opening to me. My Calorie King book is also one of the best things I have ever bought. It has almost every food you could think of in there with the calories and fat grams, and it has over 200 hundred popular dining restaurants listed with their most popular food choices. It has become my bible for weight loss.

I am eating apples, celery, carrots, oranges, whole grain rice, and protein bars instead of chips, diet cokes, white rice, and candy. It is small changes that have made a big difference in the way I feel. I have never eaten peppers or onions on anything. I cook them in margarine for Kevin because he likes them. Last night, we made beef fajitas together. We cooked green, yellow, and red peppers in 2 Tbsp of light olive oil and added some cumin and curry along with pepper....I added them to my corn tortilla with a green sauce and a little bit of cheese, instead of my usual flour tortilla, sour cream and cheese. IT WAS AWESOME!!! It is something I would definitely eat again.

In the coming weeks, we are also planning on cleaning out our entire pantry. I haven't gotten the nerve to do it quite yet, but I am going to strip it down to NOTHING. We are going to start planning meals and buy only what we need in order to fix those good, healthy meals. Stay tuned for that in the coming days and weeks! It ought to be an interesting time in our household to say the least!

Calorie Counting...AGAIN!!!

I am going back to Calorie Counting. I tried it when I first started. I then went to a protein based diet. I am now going back to Calories. I have had a hard time. I love food...That is the biggest problem, but who doesn't, right?!?!

I have also weaned Kinsley in the last four months, so my hormones are trying to adjust to that being over. And then the lovely holidays came rolling around. I couldn't win for loosing. LITERALLY!!!!:)

So, I am going back to the calories, the food log, the exercise journal, and water intake/sodium watch. Who knew that when you were trying to loose weight, you had to become more obsessed with food? Seems backwards in so many senses to me, but I understand the reason why.

I know if I make myself more accountable for what I am putting into my body, then it will become easier to loose. It just seems ironic to me that in order to loose, I have become a gatekeeper to my mouth!!!

I have done good in the last 36 hours. I have ate low fat cottage cheese, fresh carrots (with LIGHT ranch dressing) one slice of cheese, whole grain rice, three protein bars, 1.5 grilled Chicken wraps, and NO DIET COKES!!!! They don't even really taste good anymore, and I am now at the point (THANKFULLY) where I am craving water!!!

I also braved the ice covered roads and went and worked out this morning. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave the house. And I sure didn't want to drive the twenty miles on the ice patches to go work out. But I did. It wasn't so bad when I got out there and got started. The worst part was afterwards when the parking lot was glazing over. It is up hill and I started to slide back down. That was pretty comical with Kinsley's stroller!!! But the queen of clumsiness didn't fall!!!

I just have to remind myself that everything is a choice and that I have choices when it comes to eating. I don't have to eat what everyone else is in my household. I don't have to eat just to satisfy boredom. I don't have to eat just because something is sitting there staring at me.

I have taken up the hobby of knitting again. It is to keep my hands busy. I like to do it and it keeps me from getting bored. It is better than TV watching because it requires both of my hands in order to do it...So I can't snack and knit!!! Or I can't do it easily at all!!!

Going the other WAY!!!

The weight is going the other direction again! I got on the scale this morning and it was back down again to pre-water-swollen-level. I will just have to be more careful since I am now drinking so much water and my body is hydrated the way it is supposed to be. It was a good lesson in the mechanics of our body.

I haven't posted about my virutal assistant practice much since I started this blog. I think the weight is easier to talk about somehow. I know that is hard to believe. It is for me too. I think it is one of those things where I can't believe I talked about my weight issues, and now that I have, I feel very free and open to discuss the weight challenges in my life.

Virtual Assistance is something that I really wished I would have found years ago. I have always had a nagging sensation that something had to be out there that I could do from where we live and still be fully involved and present in my family's life. My children need that. My husband needs that. I NEED THAT!!!

Virtual Assistance also focuses on helping others achieve their dreams and further their success. It gives entreprenuers time to focus on the part of their businesses that is most important to them. Therefore, it gives me the ability to do something that I love doing: helping others.

I really could talk for paragraphs and days about being a virtual assistant. Instead, I will add tidbits here and there. I will weave it into the fitness/weight posts and am considering eventually starting another blog dedicated solely to being a VA, because life isn't crazy enough that I need something else to keep up with!