Post Your Points Here!

Post your final points!!!
And if you haven't looked at the post below you should. We've all been called out by Becky! Who's going to step up to her challenge? I AM. You should too!

Catch Me If You Can!!

I'm probably going to regret writing this because it just sounds obnoxious and maybe a little premature for the points total of this ending session, but this is the only thing I can think of to post about in the middle of the night so I can get my commenting/posting points for the last day of this session.

Okay, ladies, I feel like I have dominated the challenges pretty much for the past two months. So, I'm anxious/excited/nervous to see everyone bring their A-game this next session. Show me what you've got, and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!!

Also, I've decided to do Cat's Challenge, and I feel inspired by her idea of having sponsors to award prizes at the end of the challenge. Is anybody out there a card-maker/giver or scrapbooker who would like some free stuff? I'll send you a fun little mini-scrapbook or small pack of cards if you can beat me this next session!! Game on, sisters!!

Back at it again, II

Yesterday, I was sitting on the floor with my daughter reading a princess story when suddenly my back revolted. Some key lower back muscles said "Well, if you're not going to exercise your back muscles regularly, sorry, you can't just expect us to do our thing after a core workout again. Lady, you're not 16 any more." After crawling around the house for 30 minutes and walking around the house leaning again walls and chairs for another 30 minutes, I was finally able to stand up straight. So no gym today, just stretching exercises and child's pose.

Paying the price for slacker choices is no fun at all.

I Did 2/3 of a Triathalon Today!

Okay, that's a BIG WORD - Triathalon.

Let me explain.

I was coasting around the internet yesterday, and was checking up on aliedwards.com. I came across her post about doing the Seattle Danskin Triathalon. I thought, "How cool it would be to be able to do that someday!" Her triathalon was an 800-yard swim, then a 13-mile bike ride, and last a 3.1 mile run (hello, that's a 5K!). And I thought, "Hey, 800 yards, that's just under half a mile. I ran 1.75 miles, followed by 0.625 mile swim (1100 yards) on Saturday." As I stood there today in front of the treadmill, ready to run 2 miles, I thought, "Yeah, I bet I could run 3 miles." So, I did it! I tell you what, I was clinging onto the treadmill off and on about the last half-mile, so I don't know if that counts entirely, but I kept picking up my feet, nonetheless. Then, after drinking the rest of my water and walking around for a couple of minutes, I dragged myself huffing and puffing down the stairs to the locker room, where I changed into my swimsuit, stood under the shower to wash off the sweat, and then headed out to the pool. I swam 880 yards (1/2 mile) in 26 minutes (yes, I am super slow, but steady). Then, I threw in another four laps (220 yards), just because. So, I did 2/3 of the Danskin Triathalon today!! Holy Monkeys!!

Okay, yes I know, compared to the Ultra distance triathalon, or IronMan Triathalon (3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride, 42.2 km run), the Seattle Danskin Triathalon is what is known, according to Wikipedia, as a Sprint distance triathalon (interpretation - Sissy Triathalon). But darn it, I'm going to feel a big sense of accomplishment anyway. Yey for me!!!

Random quotes:

"It's too big a world to be in competition with everyone. The only person who I have to be better than is myself." Colonol Potter-MASH - I definitely have to ascribe to this one, because I will NEVER win an athletic competition. I'm just too darned short, long torso & short stubby legs. But I can always compete and finish the race!

"The only place 'success' comes before 'work' is in the dictionary." Vince Lombardi - Thank you, sports drill sergeant, but it's so true.

Slow Week?

Is there anybody out there? Have you all fallen off the wagon? Are you going to be ready to start again next Tuesday!?!

I hope you are all ok? I've been hanging out with my boys at the poo (Umm, I'm really tan, it's kind of crazy), meeting teachers, buying school clothes, shoes, and oh yeah reading books. I finished MockingJay and The Girl Who Played With Fire in 5 days. That's CRAZY for me! I'm not a fast reader.

Don't worry I'm working my way up to eating healthier again. I didn't have any fruits or vegetables in my house for 5 days! Crazy I know. But I'm getting back in my grove and next week the boys start school which means less lazy days and a more consistent schedule. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Let me know how you are doing. Talk to those local to you and let's get this ball moving again!!!

At it again

Back at you with today's healthy lunch. I haven't had time to fix myself a healthy new veggie {new recipe} lunch in quite some time. So I felt positively pampered today with a bowl full of lima beans, some salted heirloom tomatoes and those sweet seasonal concord grapes. That's right, you read correctly, lima beans. Never been a favorite of mine. But these were seriously simple to make and tasty. I mixed the cooked beans with some feta crumble, fresh chopped parsley, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And the best part is I actually liked them. Didn't choke them down at all. Incredible, I know.

I also got back to the gym today. Boy did that ever feel good. School, I love you.

It's All About Portion Size

I've discovered that I don't have to eat "diet" food all the time. In fact, I eat "normal" food for dinner nearly all the time. I just control my portion size, and will often add extra veggies to make sure I got my veggie requirements for the day. For instance, I made stir fry tonight, and needed some extra veggies for the day, so I nuked 1/2 cup brussels sprouts to put on top of my serving of stir fry. I'm sure there are better stir fry recipes out there, in fact I know there are. But by dinner time, I often need a no-brainer when it comes to cooking, something with few ingredients and not a lot of prep. Thus, my easy stir fry recipe:

Chicken Stir Fry - recipe to feed my army
13 oz. or 3 cups chopped cooked chicken breast, about 3 chicken breasts
2 16oz. bags of frozen stir fry mixes
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 cups water
cooked white rice (2 to 1 ratio, 2 measures of water for 1 measure of rice, then cook)
OR cooked brown rice (increase ratio to 2.5 water to 1 dry rice)

Put the 2 bags of veggies in an extra large skillet with deep sides, or in a large pot. Pour 2 cups of the water over the top and steam the veggies. Put the remaining water, the soy sauce, the brown sugar, and the cornstarch together in a bowl or measuring cup and stir together until smooth. Then pour the mixture over the veggies. Cook until the sauce thickens. Then serve it over rice.

1 cup of the stir fry mixture is 126 calories, and 1 cup cooked brown rice is 244 calories, for a total of 370 calories. Not bad for a meal, I say. And it's all about portion sizes.

And use smaller dishes! We've probably all trained ourselves to fill up our plate when it comes to dishing out food, so just change the size of your plate or bowl. You might not miss the extra food. This is how to eat ice cream:

Get yourself a cute little dish, emphasis on little (this one only holds 1/2 cup, bought it at Walmart), and fill it up with ice cream. It will come in under 200 calories, every time.

P.S. I wrote a post about this three years ago, if it interests you. See what I mean, Cammy, about building up muscle when you are working on change? I've been putting the pieces together for years, in this long process of change.

Summer Distractions

Here's my post for Challenge #2. I got really distracted this summer from my original goals, mainly getting my Medical Transcription coursework done. The basic problem was that my husband's work schedule changed, and we'd been getting by on all the overtime hours. I've known for months that we need me to bring in extra income, but when I could see that we wouldn't be able to pay the bills and put food on the table, I went into emergency mode and put my attention on selling more of my craft stuff on my eBay store, and establishing a small anchor that could get us through the basics, financially, until I finish my course work. It's kind of just a bandaid, not really a cure, but I sacrificed the long-run to take care of the short-term needs. I will spend the next few weeks furiously putting up my mini scrapbook album kits and cardmaking kits in order to finish laying the foundation to bring in extra income through my eBay store, and then I will refocus on my Medical Transcription, while I let the eBay store run more on its own, so to speak.

Plus, I've found that while 3 of my 5 children are pretty self-sufficient (2 teenagers and my 5-year-old), they still took enough of my time this summer that now I'm looking forward to getting them all back in school. Even though my teenagers are helpful with the little ones, they also require attention and help of their own, so it was kind of a double-negative in the time department. Their help was canceled out by their needs. I'm not saying I don't love my children, or that I regret in any way the time I spend with them, but the reality is that I think I'll get more done when they are at school. At least, I'm hoping that will be true.

Goals! Why it's important to write them down even if you don't complete them when you thought you wanted to!

So I went back and looked at my goals that I set for the summer and I was surprised by how much I had accomplished and did not get discouraged by those I didn't.

I posted earlier about my bike riding. One of my goals was to ride my bike more often this summer than I did last summer, which I did. In fact I'm getting up before dawn tomorrow to ride my bike because I completed another of my goals which was to sign up for two races this fall. Which in my mind makes me an athlete all be it a novice. I'm feeling really good about completing the 120 mile challenge by CAT and that my exercise stayed more consistent this summer even with vacations and kids home.

But there are several goals that I did not finish...

So why am I so optimistic? Well, a couple of reasons. The goals I didn't complete I looked at and thought, yeah, I still want to do that. Writing down goals is just a reminder.

I know people who talk and talk about what they want to do but never do it. I feel that sometimes writing down shows that you are seriously going to do it. Not that it happens right away but that you mean for it to happen.

I feel like making smaller goals to reach a bigger goal are essential. We all take a bigger bite than we can chew now and then, if we can make things more manageable then we have a higher success rate.

So take a look again at those "mini" goals you set at the beginning of the summer. You wrote them down which means not only did you want to do them but you wanted other people to know you wanted to do them. Pick yourself up and stop feeling like you didn't accomplish anything this summer. Summer is a bag of tricks and figuring out how to put yourself first and have all your kids home and schedule ever changing. It's still important that you take care of yourself...so then you can take care of others.

Do you still want to complete those goals? If so make a plan. If not, make some new goals!

You guys are awesome and I love you all and want you all to succeed.

Keep looking up and moving forward.

Motivation

Why is it that some {days, weeks, months} we are so motivated and excited and bursting with energy and others we aren't? Why is it that other's failures or successes can have an adverse and/or inversely positive effect on our own motivation depending on the {day, week, month}? Why is it that our hormones can sabotage us again even though we say to ourselves, this time will be different? How then can we motivate ourselves to stay motivated?

This I know, motivation is one of the great mysteries of the universe. I also know this: that with three or four kids at home all summer, I haven't had the mental space, the internal emotional organization and the necessary blocks of time to maintain a steady pool of motivation {let alone the healthy eating habits and exercise that come from said motivation}.

But, for everything there is a season and the season is about to change. Oh yeah baby!

The LOW down

This weekend it happened. It has happened on a smaller scale a few times but this time I honestly feel like giving up and quitting. I get tired of being good, tired of depriving myself, tired of spending my days struggling to maintain control and yet feeling like at any moment I am going to snap and go off the edge. Counting calories and my health seem to consume my thoughts and I just want to rebel and not think about it anymore. Does this make sense to anyone else?

Lately, I feel like my healthy weight is unattainable. Logically I know this isn't true but I just can't seem to convince myself of this. There are a few things I know are contributing to my frustration. One being that I have been on a weight plateau for two months now but poor sleep and that time of the month I know are contributing as well.

I don't want to be a quitter and give up but I might need to approach this differently. I am taking myself out of the rest of this challenge, not to give myself an excuse to go hog wild but because I feel like I need to step away from the numbers. Maybe this is the wrong way to go about things but I am going to try it. Sorry for the vent session, but writing this has actually seemed to help.

Don't worry, I'm not giving up just taking a small sabbatical while I figure things out.