“The most important thing about goals is having one.” Geoffrey F. Abert

It’s time to set some goals for the month of August. I have done a lot of debating over how I want to set my goals. Did I want to aim large or small? Daily, Weekly, or Monthly? Weight loss specific, or diet and exercise related? In the end, I decided for “all of the above“

The breakdown is as follows…

MONTHLY GOALS

• Weight Loss: Lose 10 lbs (goal weight August 31st: 133 lbs )
• Exercise: 1,000 minutes (any exercise)
• Diet: Daily Food Journaling (no excuses!)

WEEKLY GOALS

• Weight Loss: Continue Friday weigh-ins (6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th) with a “bonus” weigh-in on the 31st
• Exercise: weekly plan as follows…

1. Sunday: active rest day (Tai Chi, Yoga, or walking with kids)
2. Monday: cardio, chest & abs
3. Tuesday: cardio, arms
4. Wednesday:cardio , back & abs
5. Thursday: legs
6. Friday:cardio , shoulders & abs
7. Saturday: cardio

• Diet: weekly focuses as follows…

1. 1st-7th: Calorie counting! Get back in the habit of tracking calories (range of 1200-1600 daily)
2. 8th-14th: Water! Minimum of 64 oz daily, goal of 96 oz daily
3. 15th-21st: Fruits and Veggies! Minimum of 5 servings daily, goal of 9 servings daily
4. 22nd-28th: Clean Eating! At least one clean eating meal or snack per day
5. 29th-31st: Perfect Streak! All of the above for three days straight!

DAILY GOALS

• Weight Loss: NO SCALE except on designated weigh in days. I will not become a slave to the scale this month
• Exercise: MAKE time to exercise every day- if circumstances do not allow for planned workout- create a plan B!
• Diet: Plan meals and pack a lunch at the beginning of each day. Also, take a daily multivitamin.

Starting Weight: 145 lbs (6/25/10)
Last Weigh In: 140.8lbs (7/9/10)
This Week: 143.6 lbs (7/30/10)
Weekly Loss: + 2.8 lbs
Total Loss: 1.4 lbs

I am not shocked by the gain, though. I am actually a little happy about it. Not that I gained- but that I didn’t gain as much as I thought I had! I peeked at the scale when I got home- and it was higher than my starting weight. I’m glad to see I didn’t gain it all back (plus some!)

“Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire- you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away.” -Denis Waitley

Right now I am really excited about Labor Day in September. It’s the weekend after my husband and I celebrate our 8th anniversary, and also the first weekend away together that we will have in our marriage. Sure, we’ve had the occasional week or weekend without the kids, but we’ve always spent them at home. And home means work: our jobs, house work, yard work, etc…

This year we are planning to go out of town for a night or two, just the two of us. I cannot wait!

My excitement about this has me thinking a lot about what I want for the weekend. And while most of my anticipation is geared toward having the time alone together- part of me is really hoping to go on this trip feeling really confident and sexy.

I’ll admit, my motivation was lagging a lot while I was on vacation with the kids. But now, thinking about our anniversary coming up, and the little black dress I would love to toss into my suitcase for our trip- I am feeling that motivation come back full force.

A good portion of the day has been spent planning. Not just what I need to do to get this trip organized, but also what I need to do in the month before hand. I have been working on some goals for August- a workout plan, some new recipe ideas, and just general health/wellness concepts I would like to focus on. I will probably post them at the end of July, to keep myself accountable.

I am hoping that my enthusiasm can last the entire month! I don’t want to slack off, which is something I do all too often. But I’ve been dreaming about a weekend away together for so long- and I can already see it on the horizon!

It’s time to get busy!

“What may be done at any time, will be done at no time” -Scottish Proverb

Aaaaand, I’m back. The theme of my vacation was…

Procrastination.

Yep. I did nothing. Well, I didn’t do anything I planned, anyway. I brought a “gym” with me and my cookbooks. I didn’t have the access to a DVD player that I was counting on though, and didn’t have the desire to sit in the house planning menu’s. I did, however, find plenty of time to eat junk. Lots and lots of junk.

I kept telling myself “I’ll go for a run later” And later just never magically appeared on the bedside clock. I made time for one three mile run the entire two weeks. To be fair, though- I did a LOT of walking each day. I never did get around the opening the pedometer, but with the beach, and the boardwalk, and the playground, etc… I think the kids and I averaged at least 5 miles most days.

As a result, the scale is showing me back where I started. However, I am pretty confident that some (probably not all) of that weight will be off by Friday, since I know I didn’t drink nearly enough water the last couple of days, and some of it is going to be due to increased sodium with fast food stops on the two day drive home. But, realistically, I am expecting a gain on Friday. It’s disappointing, but I know I “deserve” it.

Today I have been just trying to get back into the swing of things. Restocking the kitchen, buying school supplies for the kids, easing my way back into work, etc… I’ve been looking over our “to do” list for the next week and a half (the kids start school a week from Thursday) and trying to figure out what our routine is going to be after they go back.

I’m definitely going to have to figure out a way to carve out more time for cooking and working out this school year. It should be a little easier, since they are in the same school now (last year my daughter’s daycare was on the other side of town from my son’s school.) That’s going to cut at good 30 minutes out of my morning commuting. The plan right now is that I will drop the kids off at 7:15, be at work by 7:45, and have an hour to workout before I need to grab a quick shower and be in the office. (Lucky I work in the gym!)

The cooking thing is going to be a bit harder to fit into the schedule. I really need to find some quick, easy clean eating recipes, or at least meals that I can cook over the weekends and then freeze for when I need them during the week. I don’t know if anyone reads this but, if you do…

What are your favorite “clean” recipes? What are your go to healthy meals on busy days?

I’m putting myself on a deadline here! Because I know that, if I don’t get a plan in place before school starts, it will never get done. If I keep saying “I can figure it all out later”  then later is never going to appear.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”

I set a goal for myself this month to be sure and workout while I am on vacation. This is something that I was really worried about. I am enormously spoiled when it comes to exercise opportunities at home.

For starters, I work in a gym! I have access to several types of cardio equipment, top-of-the-line strength training machines and more dumbbells, weight benches, exercise balls and mats than I could ever get around to using. Any type of workout that I want to do- I can do. As long as I get my butt in before my shift starts, or stay after it ends. (I am not allowed to workout while on the clock, more’s the pity!) Coming in early/staying late doesn’t happen as often as I would like.

But… I am spoiled at home, too. We have a fantastic home gym set-up that we have built over the years. Several yoga mats, resistance bands, a pull up bar, two pieces of cardio, a bench and adjustable weight set, plus a massive DVD collection that I have acquired in the last four years!

As you can see- when I don’t workout, it’s not because I don’t have the opportunity- it’s that I lack the willpower and/or motivation to just do it! However, going to a new place for 2 weeks had me worried. I really wanted to commit myself to exercising, but was afraid it might not work.

So, instead of setting myself up for failure, I made a plan. I know I will have access to a DVD player, so I am bringing along a few of my favorite workout videos (and some that the kids like as well). I wanted to travel light, so I’m limiting the equipment to a set of resistance bands and a jump rope. Ta Da- instant travel gym!

I would love for this to be the first time that I come back from vacation maintaining my current weight (or losing- that would be good too!) And, for once, I am not going to be in the “plans to fail” boat!

“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.”  ~Earl Wilson

(I am adding a few pre-written posts to my blog right now, so it doesn’t sit idle while I am on vacation.)

I am taking my first trip in over four years (somewhere in the car as this is being published!) I am driving from MS to NJ with my mother and two children to visit my Aunt, (whom I haven’t seen in over 5 years) This will be the second time she has seen my seven-year-old, and the first time to meet my five-year-old. I cannot wait to see her again.

The kids are mostly excited because she lives near the beach. Her town is very small, and everything is walking distance: the beach, the playground, the boardwalk, the water park, etc… They can’t wait for all the fun things they will be able to experience.

I am looking forward to this trip for the same reason, but also as a chance to slow down, and re-prioritize. I am bringing resistance bands and running shoes with me, and some of my favorite healthy cookbooks so I can work on meal plans for when I get back. I cannot believe my good fortune, to have two weeks to actually work out!

This probably makes me odd, doesn’t it?

My “real” life has a lot of distractions though. I work full time, and between the two kids, my job, personal training and volunteering with Scouts in my spare time, and then taking care of the dog, house, and yard- I find it very easy to make excuses and not find time to workout. I’m busy, certainly, but lately I have been using that as an excuse to not take care of myself.

I know that my vacation workout schedule will not fit into my “real life” routine- but I think that spending two weeks reminding myself how great I feel when I do workout might make it easier for me to over come those excuses once things are back to normal!

Plus, I think it would be nice to actually be able to sit and read through some cookbooks, and do some menu planning at a more leisurely pace. Normally I am trying to scribble out a grocery list in between tasks at work so I can rush to the store and home again at the end of the day. Being able to look over some new recipes, and make a plan should really help with getting back on track with the clean diet!

Too much stress, too many bad foods, and too little exercise. I can’t take what I’ve been taking. So I’m taking a vacation!

“If we’re not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn’t settle for junk food.”  ~Sally Edwards

(this post copied and pasted from another blog I experimented with not that long ago. Pre-posting while on vacation!)

I’ve been thinking about food a lot lately. Mainly to try and figure out why I keep reaching for the ready made, easy to come by, all too often horrible foods, instead of what I know I should be eating. The problem is- I really don’t know why.

When I first got married, I didn’t know how to cook. As a result, my husband and I survived mostly on junk. We ate out several times a week, and “cooking” consisted of pre-heating the oven, and then inserting whatever pre-prepared foods were in the freezer.

I slowly learned to change that. Moving from fish sticks and tater tots to shake-and-bake and hamburger helper. From that to actually cooking. When I discovered calorie counting many moons ago, I began experimenting with healthy recipes. I started cooking more vegetables, eating more fruits, paying attention to the ingredients that went into each dish, and cooking more from scratch so I could control what went into each meal.

We’ve moved a couple of times since then. This last move really threw me off track. I started working full time at a local gym, and also personal training in whatever spare time I could come up with. Which really should have inspired me to keep eating healthy. Instead, I became so busy that I fell back into the “easy” habit of grabbing take out, or buying pre-made dinners to heat up.

The more I force myself to really look at my diet and exercise habits, and my life in general- the more I realize that I am not happy. I don’t like the way I feel when I eat crap. I don’t like knowing that I am feeding my kids junk. I don’t like feeling worn out, lethargic, stressed, and over-worked. This is “junk living” and I don’t like it!

In two days I am taking a much needed vacation. I am bringing my cookbooks and favorite recipes with me. I am hoping to use the time away from work to really focus on exercising more, and actually slowing down and cooking again. Hopefully those two weeks will give me time to evaluate my “normal” schedule as well.

I need to see where I can cut back on stress, and add in my healthy habits again. It’s time to wipe my diet slate clean and get rid of all the junk.

Starting Weight: 145 lbs (6/25/10)
Last Week: 142.6lbs (7/2/10)
This Week: 140.8 lbs (7/9/10)
Weekly Loss: 1.8 lbs
Total Loss: 4.2 lbs

4.2 lbs down, 25.8 lbs to go, 14% of the way to my goal.

“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”  ~Mary Engelbreit

I thought that I should begin at the beginning, so to speak. My unhappiness with my weight is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has changed. I have changed. A lot. Over several years.

It wouldn’t surprise me if every woman can remember a time in her life that someone called her fat, and how hurt and unhappy she was with that. The first time I can remember was when I was 10. I still remember the boy in my class who said it, too. As a child and teen, I was not very active, and was heavier than most of my peers. Looking back, I don’t think I had a serious weight problem, but through most of high school I wavered on the edge of my healthy BMI- sometimes “healthy” sometimes “overweight”

May 2005- 178lbs

Getting married and having children young didn’t help that, since I never really had a chance to learn to cook and change myself before my body started changing for me. Not knowing how to cook meant a lot of eating out- and a lot of unnecessary weight gain. I gained 50 lbs with my first pregnancy, lost about 25, and then gained 50+ lbs with my second. My journey to really change my life started then, although slowly.

Six weeks after having my daughter, I weighed in at 178 lbs- heavier than I was my entire pregnancy with my first child. I realized at that point that I needed to do something. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really sure what “something” was. I Started cooking more at home, but I wasn’t watching calories or portion sizes as closely as I needed to. I also started working out. Well, kind of. I bought a pilates DVD that I would do once or twice a week- and a few times a week I would load the kids into the double stroller and take a short walk around the neighborhood.

September 2006- 160lbs

This lasted about a year-and-a-half. In September of 2006, my husband was gearing up for a deployment, and we decided to have family portraits made. I was thrilled about this, thinking I was going to look sooooo much better than I did in the portraits that were done after my daughter was born.  But when we got the proofs back, I wanted to cry. I hated the way I looked in every. single. one. I stepped on the scale that day and realized that I was still 160lbs. It had taken me almost 18 months to lose just 18 lbs!

At that time I committed to learning everything I could about eating right and exercising, and I used the time my husband was away to really change myself. I discovered calorie counting, started exercising at the base gym, bought more DVD’s to do at home and actually started to use them, and even experimented a little with weight training. In the four months that my husband was gone, I lost 30 lbs and felt fantastic!

January 2007- 130lbs

130lbs was a lower weight than I was at when I graduated high school, and I became very comfortable with my new look. I got a little too comfortable, though. The strict diet and exercise routine I started when I was alone was hard to maintain when my husband came home. Slowly over the course of that year the weight started creeping up again. I didn’t really notice it at first.

I would skip a workout (or two, or three) one week, or make one or two “quick” dinners (quick= unhealthy, ready made meals) each week. Little by little I started to slip until it was a rare did that I did find time to exercise, and our dinners were more and more often convenient instead of healthy.

December 2007- 150lbs

I’m a very visual person, and it took another family portrait session for me to realize just how far I had let myself go again. We had pictures done in December, 2007 and I was having a lot of trouble fitting into the clothes I had picked out for the session. I weighed myself that afternoon and realized that my clothes didn’t fit because I had gained back 20lbs!

This realization came before a big move for our family, and I decided to recommit myself to a healthier life when we got to our new home. I went back to my “old” healthy habits, and made a lot of changes as well. I started incorporating a lot more fresh fruits and veggies into our family meals, and changed my workouts. I dabbled with running (doing the Couch 2 5K program), gave yoga a try, and started doing more strength training. The biggest change though, was discovering how much I loved being active and healthy.

June 2008- 125 lbs

I lost 25lbs when we were living there, and also made the decision to pursue a career in fitness. We moved again in November 2008 (back home to MS) and I got a job working in a local gym. I also gained about 15 lbs, but I wasn’t too worried about it. It didn’t take me long to lose 5 of that, and I wasn’t worried about the other 10.

At 135 lbs, I was more active and a lot healthier than I had ever been in my life. I was working out 5-6 times a week, eating right, and absolutely thrilled with the changes I could notice in my body- and my life.

In April of 2009 I became a certified personal trainer. I felt that I was finally in a position to do what I really wanted with my life.

February 2010- 135 lbs

We moved (again!) in July 0f 2009 (please Lord, let that be the last move!!) and I was fairly comfortable with my weight and lifestyle. I was working in a gym still and personal training as well. I made an effort almost every day to be active and eat right, and I got my kids involved as well. I started running again, and in February 2010 ran my first 5K race- I was definitely bitten by the running bug!

At that point, I was pretty confident that I had changed my life for good. I stayed in what  I considered a fairly comfortable maintenance range with my weight. 135 was higher than I wanted to be, but I felt strong and confident and I didn’t worry too much about it.

June 2010- 145 lbs

The problem, as always, is that I had gotten too comfortable. I stopped racing in May, and pretty much stopped working out altogether, due to a lot of work and personal stress. I became so busy with work and the kids during the summer that I wasn’t making time for what I knew I needed to do. And, slowly but surely, I fell back into my old eating habits.

Which brings me to where I am now. I saw some pictures taken at the end of June getting ready to go out with friends one night, and realized that my few weeks of eating junk and not working out had played a definite tole on my body. I am back up to 145 lbs, and determined to stop that in it’s track before it gets any worse! It’s only been a few weeks, and I know that I can put a halt to this.

I don’t like the way I look, or the way I feel. And I know that there is only one thing to do if you don’t like something.

Change it.

It’s time to revitalize the weight-loss blog! I will be working on pre-writing some posts over the next few weeks, and hopefully will have this fully “up and running” by the end of July. I won’t be posting with any regularity before then due to a much needed vacation that starts this weekend!