Craftiness!

I am taking a break from the clean eating posts after a quick week two weight update…
Sasha: 162
Jonathan: 178.4
Weight loss has slowed down and the clean eating is running closer to 75% over the last few days due to work functions. We are going to try to get back on track and add back exercise this week.

Now into the point if this post… Craftiness!! My mother in law has kindly lent me her sewing machine and I have been taking lessons. I have made two projects so far, a small tote bag and a pillow! I am also signed up for a three zipper bag and quilting 101 in July. Right now I know how to read a basic pattern and do basic stitches on the machine. If any of my friends see out there, I’d love recommendations for simple projects that I can take on to build confidence!

Work day nibbles!

I thought I would share an example of the food I am taking to stay full and away from the vending machine all day at work! What we have pictured for today is:
Half an avocado
Salad with romaine, cucumbers, bell pepper, homemade peach vinaigrette, and a sliced hard boiled egg
Almonds
Cherries
Cucumber, jicama, carrots, and green beans

Yummy clean eating snacks for my workday!

One Week In – Progress Update

Jonathan and I are one week into this challenge. We’ve already blown it. I want to be up front and honest about the fact that we were not perfect this week.  If I had to give us a score, I’d give us maybe a 90%. Which is pretty good — in school I would have been marginally pleased with a 90%. So why did I spend two days trying to decide whether we should just give up on this since we couldn’t even do it for a week? 

Then I read this blog post, shared by someone on my facebook feed. I have no idea who this person is, but their words spoke to me. 

http://jlgerhardt.tumblr.com/post/86313682822/no-more-perfect-days-on-starting-over

In recap, she emphasizes how by human nature once we ruin a perfect day, we feel like that is our permission to give up on that day and on ourselves. Then she decides to start starting over. So I have been trying to do that, even when we get off course. 

Well, Jonathan and I are not giving up. We might have had a crazy busy weekend, didn’t plan appropriately and ended up grabbing hamburgers one day because, well, it was past lunchtime and the hopes of going home and cooking a nice, pre-planned, perfect meal just didn’t pan out. It’s okay. I considered saying, forget it, we already had hamburgers, let’s just have pizza for dinner. It’s fast and easy and we are both tired. But I didn’t. We stuck with it and ate a clean dinner. 

We are eating about 90% clean at this point, and that’s 100% because we are doing this self-imposed challenge. Without it, we would have already lapsed into our regular bad habits. 

So, at this 1-week mark, I wanted to share our weight progress and some thoughts from each of us: 

June 9,2014 Weigh In

Sasha : 163.2 (down 4.4 lbs) 

Jonathan: 181.2  (down 3.6 lbs)

Thoughts from Sasha: 

Each day, making healthier decisions gets easier. I felt exhausted and a little sick after that hamburger. I feel like I am getting better at reading my body and what I need. Also, I believe that you can become desensitized to the amazing flavor of fresh fruits and vegetables when you overwhelm your palate with too much sugar and chemicals.  Today, my raspberries and blueberries tasted as sweet as candy to me.  I am enjoying rediscovering a variety of produce and how great they taste on their own. I eat raw veggies daily with lunch, and have enjoyed jicama, green beans, carrots, cucumber, and zucchini raw. I have also had the chance to get creative with meals. The jambalaya recipe that I shared last week was so great that I remade it tonight! I also made a chicken/coconut/sweet potato stew and chicken with brown rice pasta. I don’t usually do so much cooking, so it has been sort of nice to give Jonathan a break and get creative. 

Thoughts from Jonathan: 

It’s odd, never feeling full but never being hungry either. It’s weird to be eating the same portions as Sasha, but it seems to be working. I’m slowly losing weight and I don’t feel like it’s in a way that is unhealthy or unsustainable (other than the cost). It’s tough to be prepared for every day, but hopefully with some practice that will be easier. Some days I want to just be lazy and get something delicious for lunch, but knowing we’ve bought the stuff and it’s waiting in the fridge makes it easier.

 

So here we boldy go into week two. We’re eating roughly the same things as week one, but cycled ever couple of day in alignment with the Fast Metabolism Diet. 

Does anyone else ever get into the mentality of wanting “Perfect” days? 

 

28 Days of Clean Eating

I haven’t written in awhile, but Jonathan and I are challenging ourselves to healthy eating for 28 days, so I thought it was a good topic to start a blog series about for the month of June. We’ll be doing weekly weigh ins, before and after measurements, commentary on how it’s going, and sharing recipes. So here goes, the first post of this blog series! I hope you’ll follow along and cheer us on for the next 28 days!

DAY ONE 

Jonathan and I are committing to 28 days of clean eating. We are using the Fast Metabolism Diet (which has a handy app) as our road map for our meals, but we really believe that the key to its success is healthy, fresh, natural foods.

We “test drove” this diet for two weeks in April and had awesome results: increased energy, weight loss, clothes fitting better. And we weren’t being 100% serious about it either. So now we are going to give it a real go. The Fast Metabolism Diet asks you to give it 28 solid days, so that is what we are doing.

We’re going to blog about how it’s going as a way to stay accountable and to share how our habits and lives are changing as a result of being organized, disciplined, and simple about our meals and eating.

Today is Day 1, so I wanted to start with our BEFORE stats…

It’s taking us both a lot of courage to be share, but I HOPE that by the end of the month we’ll have something less embarrassing to show for it. So without further ado, here goes:

June 2nd, 2014

	Sasha	Jonathan
Weight	167.6	184.8
Waist	40	36.5
Hips	39.5	38.5
Upper Arm	12	12.5
Shoulders	43.5	44
Thigh	24	24.5

 

As a disclaimer, I am not really trying to “sell” this diet to anyone.. I’m not getting paid and I don’t benefit at all if anyone feels like giving it a try. I firmly believe that every body reacts to food, exercise, and the combination thereof differently, and so I don’t believe any specific diet or meal plan or eating plan will work for everyone. You have to find something that works for your body, for your lifestyle, for your preferences, etc.  For example, I can think of lots of eating plans that I for sure would lose weight on, but I’d end up not eating at all because I hate everything on it. That is not a healthy result.

That being said, we have tried so many different diets and methods for being healthier and losing weight. This one worked really well for us when we test drove it because the app made meal planning simple, I felt free from calorie counting, and we got results in a way that seemed relatively sustainable over the long term. I never felt sick from hunger and after the first 4 or 5 days I stopped having intense sugar and junk food cravings. So all in all, that was a win. So if you stick with us on this journey, and this specific food plan appeals to you, feel free to check out http://www.hayliepomroy.com/diet/, since that is the plan we are working with. Or ask me more about it and I’m glad to share.

Or if you want to join us in our fitness journey, feel free to commit to SOMETHING for 28 days and put it in the comments!  We’d love to see some more people commit to being healthy in some small way in the month of June. 🙂

 

Where has the last month gone?

Well, it’s been busy!

Last post, I was in Kentucky visiting my little sister for family weekend! She is already a rockstar in her program and I am super proud of her!

I came home on a Thursday, and on Friday, we left for a birthday camping trip for my hubby. We had 20 people go all together, 7 of which were kids! Wow! What a group! It was a ton of fun! Jonathan has the pictures on his phone, which I do not have. So, hey! Jonathan! Send me those pics! haha

The weekend after that, I had my enrollment ceremony into the Missouri bar! So my dad and Alysha came to St. Louis to watch me take my oath and get my certificate. I am officially an Attorney and Counselor at Law! Whoohoo!

And then the next week, I had interviews galore. Which worked out, because in ten days I will start my new job! I am super excited!

So I have ten days as of now of FUNemployment. What am I doing with it?  I cleaned the livingroom, bathroom, basement, and kitchen yesterday. I am working on finishing a picture book for my friend, Laurel, with pictures from her baby shower. I am going to start (and maybe finish?) a scrapbook of our trip to France. I am going to add a page to my anniversary scrapbook. And I am going to WORK OUT and do some meal planning so that when I start working I can try to keep my progress.

Speaking of working out/progress… october began my “THIS TIME I’M SERIOUS” weight loss plan. Yeah, yeah. You’ve all heard that before. but… but.. this time I’m serious! haha

I have lost 3 lbs in October, so that is a nice, healthy rate. I had been hoping to lose 8 this month, but I guess that’s not happening.  I didn’t actually start til Oct. 8th, so I’m still happy with it.  I just need to keep on track.

So, yeah. That’s what’s been up. What has everyone else been doing? 🙂

Weight Watchers Milestone + Christmas Ornament Picture

So, I got busy and forgot to blog yesterday… oops!

On the other end, I feel fully recovered from my illness and my weight has seesawed its way back up and has stabilized over the last few days, so I am feeling good about it!

I track my weight on Sundays, so I was glad that I felt like I had a somewhat stable number to put in today. And guess what? I reached a new milestone on Weight Watchers… 5% ! Yay me!

 

I am also about to go buy books for school, and that means I am about to have a lot of homework. So no more crafting / fun times for awhile for me … so in honor of that, I am posting a picture of the salt dough ornament I made for Alysha!

She took a pic and emailed it to me awhile ago, but I hadn’t gotten around to posting it yet… here it is!

 

This was the one that I thought was most successful. The shape is a Dala horse, which is an iconic horse from Sweden. She had bought me cookie cutters when she studied abroad in Sweden, so I used them to make a horse ornament for her!

 

First weight loss goal reached!

I officially reached my first goal on WW… I’ve lost five lbs! It’s exciting!  I also was able to put another pair of pants back into my wardrobe rotation…. they haven’t fit me since last spring,  and I wore them again last night! so that was also exciting!  My next goal is 10 lbs, and then my 10% goal, and then 20 lbs and then my final weight goal. So here is hoping I can keep making progress!

 

in other news, I’m about to go take my first exam of the season! After that, I just have a group paper, two take homes, and one more in class exam to get through in the next week! Plus crafting this afternoon  as a stress relief (I always give myself the afternoon after an exam off if I can. And I think I can because I have all day tomorrow to study study study!)

And… a Christmas party, a Birthday party, and seeing the Christmas lights at the park.  Super busy! 🙂

 

 

Work outs and Fitness Posts

So if you know me, you know that trying to lose weight and become more fit is something I have been working on for a long, long time.  I’ve been an on again off again dieter for probably about eight years. 

I had been keeping a blog with all of my food and exercise related experiences, pitfalls, triumphs, and ideas. And then I started doing weight watchers, which takes up plenty of my time on its own. And between doing that instead of a Sasha-created plan, and being buys, I wasn’t keeping up with that as a separate blog. 

So I’m going to integrate my weight-loss and fitness blogging into my everyday journal. Hopefully you guys don’t mind too much. But, if people leave comments telling me they’d prefer the weight-loss stuff on a separate tab, I’ll be happy to do that. 

 

Onto what I want to write about today. I am becoming a work out addict. Not in a bad way, so don’t worry. In a fabulous way. In a “I like to get 30 minutes of light exercise at a minimum most days because I feel more awake, more focused, and more alive” kind of way. I had decided not to hit the gym today (i worked out on Monday and Tuesday) but then I ended up driving right by the gym, and I was wearing gym clothes, and it felt like fate. So I popped in for 40 minutes on the bike. tomorrow I’m going to do 30 mins cardio and 30 minutes of core/back exercises. 

Don’t worry, guys. I’m not overdoing it. Sometimes I pop in for 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill.  I know when my body needs some recovery. 

I have just never, ever enjoyed working out in my life. And now, I love it. I love how focused I feel when I study after a good workout. Or better yet, when I go to class after a work out.  I love how much more energy I have all day. I love feeling like an active person instead of like a giant couch potato. 

My work out “routine” is pretty sporadic. The gym I go to has a lot of classes, and I like taking those when I can. Between the classes and my own workouts, I try to do weights twice a week, and I try to make sure I am working my upper and lower body evenly.  

Does anyone have a work out “routine”? It would be interesting to know what other people do or don’t do! 

Car Maintenance and McDonald’s

So I’m a good steward of my car, I take it to the dealership regularly for its scheduled maintenance. I take it to the dealership because I like to just waste extra money that Jonathan and I have… no just kidding. I take it there because our warranty requires that… how convenient.

Except it’s not convenient at all. The dealership is 45 minutes away (an hour if you get stuck in traffic.)

So I get to the dealership at 7:59 for my 8:00 am appointment. I’m a good little law student, I’ve packed a stack of notes that need to be typed up. I figure that should entertain me for an hour and then I can surf the web for thirty or so minutes and be done.

 

No, no. This service is going to take 3-5 hours. Really?  REALLY?  You couldn’t have warned me?  If you had warned me I would have brought an arsenal of study materials.  And snacks. healthy snacks.

Nope. No warning. And I was hungry. And now cranky.  And super, super irritated.

so here I am, sitting at the McDonald’s, and logging into weight watchers.  HOW IDIOTIC.

Oh well. Atleast it’s delicious. I know I’ll regret it for the rest of the day.

Of course, I will be so frantic from getting so far behind on my exam study schedule that I probably won’t even think about eating for the rest of the day anyway 😛

Weight Watchers is Working for Me!

I know this post is going to sound like an advertisement, but it’s not. I’m just excited. By sticking to weight watchers and tracking every bite I eat, I am seeing results in a way I never have before!  For the first time, I feel active and like I can finally achieve my weight goals!

Weight watchers also just added an activity feature, where it sets an activity goal for you, which encourages me to work out!  I’ve been working out four times a week, and I’m getting to the point that I love my work outs.

Anyway, I’ve been seriously doing weight watchers for about three weeks and I’ve lost five pounds. It does require discipline to stick to, but having the structure has been great.

And I found a website that has great weight watchers recipes. It’s skinnytaste.com. we made the coconut curry butternut squash soup last night and it was rich and delicious!  I highly recommend it! 🙂

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/10/coconut-curry-butternut-squash-soup.html

 

(of course, I recommend everything on that website! Everything we have tried has been delicious!)