A minor setback

   I know it's been a while since I posted anything. I had been out of action with my foot, which I am pleased to say is back to 100 percent. I should be right back in the pool, but the end of this month has a number of non-monthly expenses that need to be handled Among those is renewing my membership at the YMCA, I have to put that renewal on hold until early June, but rest assured, I want to get back in the pool. I miss my pool.

   I was also dealing with my Dad's Memorial Service on the 26th which turned out to be a wonderful experience, if you can call something like that wonderful. I saw so many relatives that I haven't seen in over 35 years so that's what made the day managable, along with having Jenn up from Tennessee with Rob and Austin. It was a time to remember Dad and really is a nice touch that was also Memorial Day weekend since Dad was a WWII veteran. Also had a number of friends of our family that I hadn't seen in so long and they helped to share some wonderful stories. I think the one by Nora (a secretary from the power plant that Dad worked at) was especially nice as she recalled my Dad coming to work the first day after I was officially in the house.

   I could go on and on about all of that, but you want to know about my working out. Since I haven't been to the pool, I have been watching carefully how and what I eat so that I don't regress. I have enjoyed hearing people at work noticing that my face and neck have thinned out and my waist has been doing the same thing. I still can't weigh myself, but the waist of my pants have been pulled up much higher and my belt is pulled in as far as possible and it is not helping keep my pants up very well. I may need to do some shopping soon. Yipee!!!! I will be happy when I can report to you my weight and that will give me another measuring mark to work with. I can also say that I still can't walk long distances easily yet, but the short ones don't hurt my knees as much so the combination of building back some muscle and shedding some pounds is having a positive effect that way.

   Speaking of losing weight! Congratulations to Jenn. I know she posted here that she lost 10 pounds, but Saturday, she told me it was actually 11 pounds now. I AM SO PROUD OF HER!!!!! Her idea to do this long distance fitness journey together has truly been a great idea. I am glad she got me into it and I am glad that we are both having good results. I knew she would do very well and she should kick my butt in the long run because she is younger, but, you know what, it's not about how much we lose (that is nice though), it's that we are both working to become healthier adults and that is truly most important because we have other people who depend on us being there for them and we want to be there for them for a long time. Again, THANK YOU JENN for getting me into this, I am so glad you did!

   I guess that will do it for now, but I will be back with more updates as soon as I am back into the full routine again. I plan to kick some daughter butt yet with this old body.

A Milestone….

I am so flipping excited…I'm down a total of 10 lbs! And all I have seriously done was change some eating habits. It's amazing that with just a few small changes, it can help you lose weight. I really don't have anything else to say. I haven't tried any new recipe or done anything differently. I do know I have to start drinking even more water though, but I'm ok with that! I'm sure once Planet Fitness (PF) opens up I'll have more to say, but for now, I'm just happy with this news! Hope y'all have a wonderful Sunday! :-)

And Another One….

Another pound that is…go me! I'm pretty sure it would be less, but mother nature decided to be cruel by making me bloated and retaining water. Not to disclose TMI, so I'm sure y'all know what it means. I wouldn't put that in there normally but giving the fact that my number is probably lower I had to put why; plus, all the cravings I usually get for salty, sweet and fried foods, I've not giving into and I'm damn proud of myself for that! So going just by what the scale says however, I've lost 8 lbs total! Like I said in a previous post, I can see it in certain areas, but Rob said you can definitely see it in my face now too. :-D

On Friday I decided to cancel my membership to the Y for a couple of reasons. One, I wasn't going anymore and after being charged last month for nothing I decided I needed to either start going or cancel. Two, we received a flyer in the mail that Planet Fitness was opening near our house! I know they've had one in North Syracuse, but I don't believe it was there when I was, or I just didn't care lol. Anyways, since everyone knows what a fan I am of The Biggest Loser, I was beyond excited! I love their philosophy of being judgement free and no lunkheads. I can say that at The Rush there are people who do  and are both of those. The staff gives judging looks and their are members who throw their weights and grunt and yell and it's like, really? I'm not saying All staff and members are like that, because there are good people of each, but the more I started going there, the more I noticed it and it made me feel uncomfortable. Anyways, on top of that, our Planet Fitness is going to have 45 treadmills, 24 elliptical, some other equipment they mentioned and I can only remember something about arc trainers. They also have a 30 minute circuit area which has a red and green light to tell you when to stop and go, and I believe they'll have a 12 minute ab center. I'm not completely sure about the ab center, but I'm hoping so!

There are two different memberships, either $10/month with no contract or $19.99/month with a contract and some extra features. The extra $9.99 a month is worth it for us, so that's what we went with. Now, we could've just done one membership but we decided to each get one so we could both take advantage of the extras. You do get unlimited tanning and red light therapy. Now, I'm not about tanning anymore, but the red light therapy is interesting to me so I'm going to have to try it. It's supposed to rejuvenate your skin, do something with the collagen in it, help clear acne and reduce fine lines, wrinkles and blah blah blah. Also with the PF Black Card, you get to use the massage chairs, get 50% off cooler drinks, go to any Planet Fitness in the U.S, and you can bring a guest an unlimited amount of times. Which for us, was a big selling point. When we get Austin he likes to go workout with us, so now he can. The Rush lets you bring a guest but it's limited how many times you can bring them, with Planet Fitness, there is no limit. The only thing that sucks is it won't be open until mid-June. We took advantage of the pre-sale however. We each only had to pay $1 to enroll, and the annual fee that comes with all wonderful gym contracts, won't apply to us until NEXT June. Since they won't be open till halfway through the month they didn't charge us the annual fee. This also made sense because it's cheaper than us having a membership at The Rush, and it's only $8 more than what I was paying at the Y. Meaning for $8 more we both can go. It would be between $60-75 for us both to go to the Y.

I know my Dad mentioned in his post that he had hoped to get me to go workout with him, but due to time constraints and everything, a father-daughter workout just isn't doable. It sucks, and we talked about it last night, but he understands that I have to cram a week worth of visits into 2 days, and one of those days is my grandfather's memorial so I have one day afterwards to get some visits in. Only 12 more days till NY! I'm sad about the main reason, but I'm happy to see friends and family that I haven't since I moved. :-)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there…human or furry! :-D

Bummed out!

As my daughter said, I'm laid up for a few days with a bad foot. Not sure if it was a blister that ulcerated or what, but I woke up in the middle of the night (Thursday morning) and couldn't step on it to walk. Went to the doctor that afternoon. She had me get an x-ray, didn't see anything except a small hole (hence the x-ray to see if I stepped on something), put me on antibiotics and rest until Monday. Also, soaking foot three times a day. This means no pool Sunday or Tuesday until I see the doctor again Tuesday afternoon. Bummer!! I love my pool time!!!

As for my workouts, I am sticking to the mile and one-quarter distance for now, but cut back from five 17 and 16 laps segments to four 21-lap segments. Still doing the 20 squats in between each segment, but also doing some leg stretches as well. Those really help my lower back and calves feel better while walking in the pool. I know I am making progress because my face does look thinner to me and my waist must be getting smaller because my pants have really gotten bigger and the waist of my pants are above my stomach and not below. Yipee!!! Eventually, I should be able to weight myself again to see how my weight loss is going. I am feeling better physically about that.

I am getting nervous because two weeks from today we will be holding a memorial service for my Dad, one day after what would have been his 90th birthday. Lots of emotions between then and now. I am happy that Jenn and Rob will be here so I will get to see my little girl for a couple of days. Maybe I can get her in my pool during her visit. LOL!!!!

Well, I'll say goodbye for now. Will update on the foot after my doctor's visit. Love ya Jenn!

Dad

Another One Bites The Dust….

Another pound down! I'm so freaking excited! I'm hoping that buy the time I check the scale on Sunday that it'll be another one to two. 2 more lbs and I'm back to what my weight was about a year or two ago. Yeah, I'm so not posting it my actual weight but whatever, I don't have to so :-P lol.

Just wanted to give that quick update.

Also, Papa T is suffering a minor setback. Something happened with his foot and the doctor has ordered him to stay off it and keep it elevated for a little while. I know he's upset that he's missing pool time but I also know that once he's back in that pool he'll be kicking ass!!!!

Love you Dad!

It's Been One Week

I now have that song stuck in my head lol. Seriously though, it's been a week since Rob and I started changing our eating habits. There were a couple times that we didn't really eat the best we should've and let me tell you, we paid for it. Our bodies were not feeling crap food once we started giving it the healthy food. That's one thing that will help keep us on track. I'm not saying we won't give in to temptation here and there, but it won't be any fried fast food again.

My biggest motivation factor for sticking with this though, are the results I'm already having. I've always heard that losing weight and being fit is only like 10% exercise, 90% mental (meaning how and what you eat), and I've never really believed it….until now. In this past week alone, I've really only walked one day, but my eating habits were different, and I've lost 6 lbs! That may not seem like a lot to some people, but I'm so freaking proud of myself. It lets me know that I'm on the right path and it makes me want to make this awesome lifestyle change. I know once I add workouts to my routine, I'll be able to lose even more. I can actually see where I've lost those extra pounds too, and it was in an area that I thought would be the hardest to lose, so double yay!

I've also come to the realization that I've been relying on Rob for workouts for too long. I want to do this for me, no one else, so if he's working his night job after our day job, that doesn't stop me from taking a walk. I've set a schedule for schoolwork and housework, so I'm just going to throw my workouts in there too.

Since a simple :-D type emoticon will not show my excitement…

This hands up in the air, cheesing grin should show a glimpse of it!

Update Time!

So things have changed a little since the last entry I posted, but it's all good! First of all, Rob and I decided to do the Couch-to-5K on our lunch breaks instead of at night and we have another person at work who is going to join us! We decided to start yesterday and yeah, so not happening. But that's not a bad thing. We're going to walk everyday for the next week and decide on Monday if it's a go. If not, we'll walk for another week straight and then that following Monday we should be all good. Also, since the C25K is only 3 days a week, which for us would be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; we decided that on our off days, we're going to walk for a half hour as well. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen circumstances with our lunch breaks today, we weren't able to go for our walk. :(
But! We will tomorrow, so yaaaaaayyyyyyyy!

As for eating better, we have started the process and we're only on like day 3, but we're loving it and I have pictures to go along with what we've started! I'm a dork, what can I say. :-P

Sunday

This was our first day of being more careful of what we were eating and everything, and of course I just didn't know what to make for lunch, so we decided to order from Jimmy John's. I'm not sure if NY has a Jimmy John's but they soooo should! They make gourmet sandwiches and they're just delicious. Here's the link if anyone wants to check out their menu: http://www.jimmyjohns.com/

Anyways, I decided to go with the Club Tuna on 7 grain bread and added some avocado. You of course have to add a pickle to the side, which are huge!

Monday

For lunch on Monday we just decided to take leftovers from Sunday night's dinner which was chicken, mac & cheese and corn. They were all really small portions, so I was surprised when I couldn't even finish my piece of chicken for lunch! I'm hoping that means that this is working. I do have granola bars twice a day however. Once for a morning snack and then again for an afternoon snack. We did have BK for breakfast since we were running late, but at least I only had a chicken biscuit. Btw, chicken biscuits and biscuits and gravy have become my weakness for breakfast since moving to the south. 

Anyways…since I hadn't taken any meat or chicken out of the freezer to thaw out while we were at work, we had no idea what we really wanted for dinner besides salad. After wandering around the store for what seemed like forever, we decided to try turkey burgers! We also decided to add chives, onion and radishes to our salad along with the usual tomatoes, carrots and cucumber; and try a new low calorie salad dressing. 

This dressing only has 40 calories and is now my favorite. 

Yes, that's the rest of my pickle from the day before lol. It may not look it, but that burger is huge! (Side note: I just realized I've said huge a lot during this post…hmmm.)

Turkey burgers are very filling in case you didn't know. Ours were also seasoned already, and it was a sweet onion flavor. They also came pre-packaged which was convenient, but we do want to experiment and try our own versions using regular ground turkey meat where you have to form the patties on your own. If you're wanting to try the sweet onion ones though, they're from Butterball. Jenni-O makes them too but I'm not sure of their flavors. Also, Jenni-O's were like $2 more! Of course, because I remember Dolvett from The Biggest Loser talk about Jenni-O's a week or two ago, I wanted to try them, but the hubby didn't think that it was a valid reason. -_-

We did make an extra 2 burgers last night so that we would have a good lunch today, and that paired with a couple apple slices…not only delicious, but filling again! 

Today we decided to do a simple breakfast with bagels and melons. I love everything bagels with chive & onion cream cheese, and I'm not giving that up lol. The melons were watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew. It was part of a melon trio package from the store. So to me, that was a pretty good breakfast. And like I said, we had leftover turkey burgers and apple slices for lunch, so it's been good so far today.

We did decide that for dinner tonight we wanted to try ground turkey in our spaghetti sauce instead of regular ground beef; and also turkey Italian sausages instead of regular pork sausage. I tried some of the sauce a few minutes ago and it is better than regular ground beef! We did get the Italian seasoned ground turkey since it has a label that said it was best for pasta and stuff like that. It definitely has a little kick to it…yum! Rob can't go without garlic bread when we have pasta, which I admit, I love it too, but I wanted to of course try something a little healthier in that aspect. We ended up getting Texas Toast's Garlic Knots (they remind me of the garlic knots from Gino & Joe's back home…sigh), and I only won that one because they're 30 calories less than the regular garlic bread. 

I promise I won't always post pictures of what I ate, unless it's something new I've tried or something like that lol.

As for Papa T…my dad is kicking ass! I'm so proud of him!!!! It has been hard with the loss of my grandfather, but I'm so proud that my dad has channeled his emotions into the gym instead of food. We're both emotional eaters, so this is a big thing for us. Keep up the awesome work daddy, I love you!