Back at it

Well, its has been awhile and I am back at it.   Have yet to find success in keeping the weight off and now I find myself at my highest weight ever and it feels awful.   Physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I have yoyo-ed these last few years.  Losing weight, getting pregnant, gaining weight after pregnancy as I eat my feelings and stresses and lack of sleep as a mom, losing weight again, gaining it all back....the cycle continues.  After the twins were born I gained and gained.   I had some success in losing but it was only temporary.  I am tried of it, but it is so hard.  So, I am back at it.  I picked up the book Made to Crave again, dusted it off, and have joined a bible study that meets weekly to discuss, support, and pray with one another about our shared struggles with food. I am trying to get back into this( blog writing) to help me be accountable more then anything, but if there is anyone who stumbles across this and wants to join in the journey with me, please comment! 

Anyhoo, these are the ramblings of my mind at the moment in between wiping noses, butts and fetching snacks for little ones.  Peace.

Back and Bigger then Ever (and not in a good way)

So it had been almost two years since my last post.  A lot has happened since then.  What happened you might ask?  Well.....this happened:

 Which resulted in this:

Yup, twins! 

Back in the spring of 2012 when I was having all the weight loss success, my husband and I decided to try for another child.  "Trying" to have children for us has never been easy.  "Trying" to have another child means pursuing fertility help.    I though I was ready spiritually and emotionally for it, but turned out my weaknesses got the best of me and all my hard work was lost.  Food became my refuge again.  But God blessed us with twins that were born in April of 2013.  The last nine months have been all about survival, and I have been using sweets and all other kinds of food as my comfort.  But enough is enough.  I have reached my highest weight ever and can no longer use the babies as an excuse.  I am tired of my clothes not fitting, of feeling sluggish, and not wanting to look at my reflection in the mirror.  Tonight I have my first personal trainer session.  Its going to be tough, I am already dreading the pain that will follow from not working out in so long, but I really need to do this.   As my girls are starting to become mobile I want and NEED the energy to keep up! 

If you would like to encourage me I would be most grateful.  Please pray for me as I turn from my current idol of food and back to God. 

Friday Weigh In!

So I would like to apologize to all 7 of my followers for not blogging in the recent weeks.  No good excuse, just letting other things distract me.  You might be thinking, "Sara hasn't blogged in awhile, I wonder if she has fallen off the wagon?"  I am happy to report that I have not!  Below is a picture of some goals that Rick and I posted on our cork board months ago, probably in the fall.  Notice that one of my goals is to lose 20 lbs...(I thought 20 lbs sounded more attainable then 100 lbs at the time)... well I am happy to announce that I am 1 lb away from reaching that initial goal!  As of Friday, March 30, I have lost 19 lbs!

 So whats next?  The hubster decided to help me out when I got serious in January and has the next goal all ready for me for when I rip off the "LOSE  20 LBS" in glorious victory hopefully this week...here is what's underneath...

yeah, going for the gusto this time!  

I had a very successful week last week and I give it all back to the Lord!  Without Him none of this would be possible!  Since we were on vacation a few weeks ago, I kind of lost the groove for logging my food, but am still finding success.  I think that after 8 weeks of logging I might have actually learned some good eating habits and I have been seeking out the Lord more and more.  I am still wearing the Body Bug to measure calories burned, and as long as I continue to lost weight, I think I will not record everything that goes in my mouth.  If I start to gain, back to work logging food.  A great scripture that I have come across that I think sums it up is:

Philippians 3:13-14
"Brothers and sisters, I do  not consider myself yet to have taken a hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

AMEN!

Total weight loss since January 7, 2012 - 19 lbs!

lots of stuff rolling around in my brain, more blogs coming!

  

Friday Weigh In!

Really it's another Saturday weigh in.  The good news is, down another pound!  To be honest, I didn't think it was going to be a good week.  We were off on vacation this week and I wasn't able to log my calories for part of the time due to no internet access, and then I just didn't want to waste my time trying to figure out serving size, calories per serving stuff.  I did try to have self control over this past week, but that is hard when vacationing.  Probably what saved me was a day of spring skiing at Killington.

My body bug wasn't working right that day, which really bums me out, but I probably burned close to 4000 calories.  There was a lot of snow but when the temps climbed into the 60's it was VERY heavy to ski through.  My muscles were aching!   One trail we skied was at least 3.5 miles long!  The view was one of the many great things that made it all worth while. 

 

That and the good company I was skiing with!!!

After our skiing day we headed up to Burlington to visit one of sister in-laws.  She took good care of me by cooking low cal, low fat recipes while I was there.  YUM!  (We won't mention how she took me to Lake Champlain Chocolates too!) 

Total weight loss since January 7, 2012 - 15.5 lbs!!!!

When being heavy isn't so bad.......

So last night we drove up to the ADK's to begin a great visit with family.  For some reason the quick, heavy snowfall that hit our area and melted right away, hit the roads in the mountains and stayed put, and being that it was only a few inches, the local municipalities were not out in full steam getting them cleared up, so our trip was taking a little longer then usual, and was a little more stressful then usual.   Our little car was not handling it real well and we had some trouble on some of the hills.  Then came the big one, an old familiar friend from my youth, a hill that has caused my family and friends some trouble over the years, and now it was out to strike again....As we ventured up that hill, we kept slowing down and eventually the little car would go no further.  My hubby backed down the mountain and was getting ready to get the best running start we could when the plow came down on the other side.  So we tried going up the freshly plowed side, but to no avail, the plow didn't seem to make any difference and we didn't even make it as far as we had the first time.  Back down again.  The third time we still couldn't make it up and the little car just sat spinning tires.  Other people had whizzed on by us leaving us there in their dust(snow spray).  As we sat there tensions and anxiety were running high.  My husband was at his wits end, we were in the middle of nowhere in the snowy mountains.

 "What are we going to do?" he asks.
 "Well, we may have to just go back down and wait until the snow plows clear the roads better, find someone who will let us use their house (because there is no cell phone coverage out in the middle of nowhere in the ADK's) phone to call my parents, and just wait,  OR...I can sit on the hood of the car to give us some more weight in the front of the car to help us get up the hill."

Yup, that was my big contribution to the problem, back in the day my grandparents had a very long driveway which was downhill to get to their house.  Every winter cars would have trouble at some making their way up the hill to leave.  I remember people pushing, sanding, but what worked the best for me once was when my Uncle Bob hopped on the front of my car and I was able to get up with no problem, it worked then and guess what...it worked last night!  I hopped on the front, held on to the hood up near the windshield wipers and the car was able to make it, slowly and surely up the hill.  It was a beautiful Adirondack night, stars were shinning, snow was glistening in the moonlight, and I was riding the hood of my husband's car.  lol.  (And boy was my heiny getting hot!)

Getting to the top of that hill was a huge relief and we made it to my Gram's without any further complications.  (Well, except for getting my hand stuck in the door as I hopped back in the car) BUT, the first thing that I said after I yelled about my hand being caught in the door and stopped chocking back tears was,
"Good thing I haven't lost all my weight yet!"  Yes there is a an advantage to being heavy if you are ever stuck on a snowy hill!"

Friday Weigh In!

Down 1.5 lbs this week!  yahoo!!  Last week was discouraging but it also made me change some things, like smaller portion sizes at meal times, tracking my calories better, and making sure I get some exercise in.  It is getting harder to drop the pounds.  The first few weeks seemed to go pretty easy as long as I had a calorie deficit, now it is requiring a little more work as far as getting the exercise in too.

So talking with my brother this week, I was happy to learn he is reading my blog!  Shout out to my baby Brother!  Can't wait to see you in a couple of days!

Anyways, my brother and I were talking about my comments in last Friday's blog about feeling exhausted and he suggested that maybe I am eating too little calories for the exercise I was doing.  I have been thinking about that a lot this week, and while I think I am okay on the calorie consumption, I am thinking that the cause of my fatigue may be due to the type of food I am eating.  I haven't changed my diet too much other then eating less.  The author of Made To Crave cut out all sugar. No sweets, very little carbs.  While that may have worked for her, that is not for me.  Since I am finding success without having to cut the good stuff, I am going to stick with that, but I still am not eating enough veggies.  This week I actually kicked it up a notch and had MANY veggies.   (and a piece of cheesecake and two cupcakes, minus the frosting).

I have also changed my exercise this week.  I was doing the EA Active 2, which requires a lot of running in place and A LOT of jumping.  My knees were not handling it well.  This week I climbed on my bike which is on a trainer in our guest room and peddled away while watching videos.  The weather has been so nice and spring like, I have actually thought about getting out there and running again.  YES, RUNNING!  I never thought I would want to go running!!  Not sure how my knees will handle it, they did fine before the half marathon last October, but seems like since then they get sore pretty easy.

Monday I am skiing for the first time in years, and listen to this....you might think I am hitting a small slope like Swain or Oak Mountain for my first time out in years, but no, I am headed to VT to ski at KILLINGTON! Go big or go home friends......thank goodness I lost some weight, I can fit into my ski pants! Hopefully my knees will hold out and I can enjoy the day!

Off to pack!

Total weight loss since January 7, 2012 : 14.5 lbs!!!

Friday Weigh In

No "!" today following my weigh in.  Today I was the same as last week, no loss.  Although...I posted the weight loss from Saturday last week because I wasn't happy with Friday's weigh in, so tomorrow I will weigh myself again and based on the results maybe it will become Saturday weigh ins and not Friday weigh ins.  I have used the word weight a lot in this post already and its not even that long.   Oh well.  Working on little sleep here after a late night and a VERY early morning with the little one.  So back to the topic....it was a challenging week of not making the best food choices.  I can feel myself slipping back into my old habits.  I haven't been logging my food for the day until the next day which causes me to forget stuff that I ate.  Wednesday was a rough day where I showed little self control.  I had a bunch of left over egg yolks from making an angle food cake from scratch.  I have a recipe for sugar cookies that uses only egg yolks, so I figured I would make up a big vat of that dough and freeze it.  Well, let me tell you...that is some mighty fine cookie dough to eat raw, I probably ate at least 5 cookies worth of dough.  I baked some to have for dessert that night, we had company over, so of course I tried some fresh out of the oven.  I felt very convicted that I had no self control.  I have also found this week that I am eating pretty large meals, and need to trim them back down.  I am using the Body Bug to help me monitor my calorie intake vs calorie burn, and I have learned that most days I am not burning a whole lot of calories while at home.  On busy cleaning days I burn a ton, or when we are out of the house running errands, but in my normal routine I am not burning as much as if I was still teaching.  Keeping that in mind, I need to eat less.  Although...I did have a calorie deficit every day this week, but then again, that is based on how well I kept my log which I have already admitted to not doing so well this week.  Another issue this week is I have been feeling very fatigued and not wanting to exercise, plus when I do exercise, the day after exercising my knees have been super sore.  Lots of excuses here, huh?  Maybe I should take some ibuprofen and just suck it up.