Healthy Living

We're now in July and just as it seemed our lives were working themselves back into normal, businesses were ordered to close up again (with the exception of outdoor seating and to-go options in restaurants), with no sight upon salons and the like being able to re-open.  Though life outside has continued to fluctuate, we have been able to continue with schedule adjustments and family time. Praise God we don't have outside commitments, besides church and hubby's work. We have been able to keep life pretty constant here and the ability to continue to fellowship and gather together at church has been such a blessing!  That being said, I am joyful in the ability to create consistency in my fitness and health regimen. Everything I have learned from several sources has given me the ability to continue in a downward weight trend and keep up healthy habits that support the goals I have for becoming healthier and stronger.  That's not to say that I haven't had a lot of strugg...

The first week I began intermittent fasting I had a somewhat lax attitude toward my nutrition. I set goals and basically did intuitive eating practices. I lost over 2 pounds the first week.  Starting week 2, I decided to pick up my physical activity and get back into the swing of exercise. It wasn't terrible, but my hormones were also all over the place. I attained an injury and decided to take a break for a couple of days; then gave into a couple of temptations of overeating and ended up gaining back a pound. No big deal, initial losses are generally water weight anyway, so I'm really not worried about it at all.  As I came into week 3, I realized how much I really like breakfast, so I am going to keep doing 16/8 IF, but start earlier in the morning and just drink something with my family during dinner time. I made this decision last night when I realized I was still super hungry and that I would need to set timers to remind myself to have snacks throughout the day and I just...

Hey Friends, It's been a while since I've posted an update. Baby boy is just over a year now, my body was adjusting pretty well around that 1 year mark, but things still felt a little off. Hormonally, I have been all over the place and it's been a real challenge for weight loss and consistency. I decided to start birth control, and I'm starting my 8th week now. It still feels like I'm adjusting, but I definitely feel a difference in this 2nd cycle. I emailed my doctor this week and asked his opinion on intermittent fasting. After doing a little bit of research, I have found that it can also cause hormonal side affects to a female body, so I wanted to get a well-rounded opinion. He suggested being on the birth control for at least 1 month before trying IT, so I am going ahead with it and plan to follow up with a physical once the CoVid-19 crisis calms. The crisis, on another hand, has been a major mental challenge for me. I am a total extravert, I love going ou...

We have had our rough patches, but you know what, we can work things out. The numbers aren't always going to tell me what I want to hear, they do, however, always tell me what I need to hear. Honestly, though, where am I getting my assumptions of what I want  to hear, anyway? Why are there certain numbers that I would prefer? Am I trying to accomplish perfect macros? I say no, and yet I check the macro chart anyway, excited to see relatively limited carbs. What are perfect macros, anyway?  Is someone going to reward me for staying on MFP's directed target number of calories for my day? No! MFP has tons of challenges they run and there are prize winners, and let me tell you something: I complete most of those challenges, and accomplish their intended milestones pretty early on, and they don't even reward me. So, yeah, no one is giving me accolades for the numbers I accomplish here. Look, the thing is, the numbers help me see what I am taking in. They show me the reason...

When I say, "breaking up," what I really mean is, "taking a break from..." I don't like numbers. They confuse and sometimes discourage me. The scale is a major number, though I am not taking a complete break from that. The real numbers that have been bothering me lately have been on My Fitness Pal. The calories. The minutes exercised. The number of steps. The burned calories. The macros... O, the macros. All this to say that I know I need them to lose, but I have been maintaining for a solid month by simply writing down what I am eating. This month, I'm going back to the weights and measures, but still holding off on the calories. Probably until January. Without judgy red or over-achiever green numbers staring me in the face, it has been easier to work on other habits and not be distracted. For example, I have been more consistent with sitting and eating my food off of a plate, as opposed to grazing while cooking or impulsively bingeing on whatever passes ...

There is an unspoken pressure in our society to have it all together and know how we want to contribute to the world. Here's a little secret: nobody has it all together and and it's actually quite challenging to know what you want out of life and how that life is going to contribute to the rest of the world. When did all the things  become something more than simple? Two of my favorite books that I plan to go back to this Fall are Grace Not Perfection and The Simplified Life  by Emily Ley. She breaks down what it is to truly make room in your life and home for the most important things. The funny part is, those things  aren't "things" at all, they are people. People, family, friends, relationships... those are the most important things  in life. So, when my work, my menu, my workout schedule, my chore list all get in the way of my kids, my husband, my family time, my fellowship at church, my friends... That is a problem.  When I was a kid and people a...

Sometimes we have to accept that life happens, family trips are fun and filled with a lot of treat foods, and we will have high calorie days - sometimes several in a row. I am learning, again, that plans are held with open hands and in every aspect of life, the Lord is sovereign - even in my striving toward a healthy lifestyle. On Saturday, we went to the zoo. It was so much fun! It started out a little bit stressful though. We left later than we planned. I forgot my snacks and dinner in the fridge. We did not prepare well for how we were going to navigate the maze that was the zoo! We got there 10 minutes before opening and found a pretty great parking spot. I allowed myself to enjoy the day and ate what everyone else ate and did not allow it to derail my minimum healthy habit: tracking and drinking 100oz of water. I did not get my veggies and protein in for the day, but life. Yesterday, I recognized that I truly struggle with dinner at parties. I still stuck to my minimums and ev...

I made the mistake of doing a 3-day cleanse. I got what I paid for, I lost some weight and I stuck to the strict diet for 72 hours. I also got more than I paid for: lessons. Some good. Some bad. Overall, I will not be putting myself through another cleanse. I learned that sleep is important and I will commit to giving myself a nap 3 days a week while my kiddos nap. I am an early riser and have not been prioritizing sleep for myself as well as I do for my littles. I learned that I do  enjoy vegetables and I will spend more time making creative sides and snacks of them instead of reaching for packaged items first (or primarily). I learned that I do not like celery or cucumbers. I can tolerate celery in smoothies, but I do not like eating it by itself or with almond butter. I do not really like almond butter. It's peanut butter or nothing! HA! I am far too dependent upon coffee. Prior to said cleanse, I was consuming somewhere between 150 and 350mg of caffeine per day. Since...

36wks 3rd pregnancy vs 36wks 2nd pregnancy Well, let's see, where do I begin? Hubby and I found out last May that we were expecting our third baby! It was exciting and scary, also, I did not know how to navigate a healthy pregnancy. After several months of losing stamina for fear of working out and even longer of losing self control giving into pregnancy "cravings," I was able to pull the reigns back in just after Halloween and landed a position with my online weight loss community in November. Though I struggled through my pregnancy, I was so grateful to be able to go back to my community and share and work through it. I ended up gaining 30lbs. So, after my 6 week PP clearance, I was back at 203. My baby boy is now about 3mos old and I am teetering between 199-200. 3-4lbs lost is not bad in about 6-8 weeks. My energy is up, my mood is way better, and life is beginning to shift into balance. Meeting Heather Robertson, Founder of Half Size Me Last September h...

I like food. Whew, I'm glad I could get that out there. Has anyone who LOVES food (probably more than we should), and being "health conscious," ever fasted? It is very difficult. Sometimes, I confess, I have fasted for the most wrong of reasons (is that a phrase? Let's say that it is): because I over -indulged and I am "effectively" punishing myself for not staying on plan. Because depriving myself of EVERYTHING will get me back on plan, right? No. Here's the thing, last week, I fasted with my church for a very right reason. However, I knew that in the past (and was heading toward this again), I had the wrong mindset around food. So, I fasted from social media and main meals. This meant that I had breakfast (6:30am) and snacks (the fast was 24 hours 8am-8am). It meant that I would not deprive myself of anything, I was just going to limit my time frames and was aware of my intake. There was still an evening struggle at small group with the snack table, ...

I would like to take a moment to talk about plateaus. Most of us begin to feel frustrated when we hit them (and we all hit them). I have decided to take the time to enjoy the maintenance aspect. I was initially taking a maintenance break, now I have began lowering my calorie intake again in order to lose. However, I am still maintaining, and that is okay. Here is why: I am healthy, I have no physical ailments that I cannot deal with which might be impeding on the norms of my life. I am strong, I can carry both of my 25# toddlers in my arms up 3 flights of stairs and into their bedroom (or down and into the car) without pausing several times up/down the steps; I can also carry all of my groceries from several stores up and down the stairs without being too winded to put them away after I bring them up. That is a sufficient amount of strength for my current employment ;) I enjoy my workouts! Many people dread the gym or have to force themselves to get their workout in because th...

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "How is it 4:30pm already? Where has the time gone and what have I been doing for the past hour?!" Me too. It seems like I open up Instagram for a quick scroll and pop over to Facebook for a short scan, then I close them and look up and my afternoon is gone, the babies are waking up from their long nap waiting for their snack. I also found myself having short spans of time, checking my messages then - by default - tapping that Facebook icon or hitting the Instagram app. I admit, these are my two most commonly opened apps (besides My Fitness Pal), and it is amazing the amount of time that was being wasted throughout my day. So, in light of this, I decided last week to take a 48 hour social media fast. Day 1: I scrubbed the bathroom, deep cleaned the kitchen, reorganized the fridge, swept the floors and "mopped" without a mop (that is on my hands and knees with disinfectant wipes on my laminate floors). Day 2: My phone batt...

Hubby had an extended vacation due to the holiday, so we had a fun time at my family’s house and a good drive up to Reno to visit his sister! I was so surprised at how well our little ones did through the drive up and down, we were so blessed with the timing! The most difficult thing was the food. A lot of it wasn’t even really that tempting, but my poor habits are tough to break. When there is food: I eat! When I’m stressed: I eat. When I’m bored: I eat. When I’m angry, frustrated, feeling out of control/anxious, etc: I eat! Food is an addictive coping mechanism and breaking it is one of the hardest things to do.  I’m working through it, though. We were in Reno from Friday early morning through Monday late afternoon. I went with my hubby, his sis, her boyfriend and his brother for a walk and did a few quick HIITs and yoga stretches on the trail. The  next morning, things were (once again) beyond my control, and I did a brief yoga session before eating anything, so t...

On Sunday I took my two year old, AJ, to Disneyland by myself. We headed out after church and arrived at 2:20ish. Loading her in a Tula carrier on my back, I front-face our backpack filled with water, snacks and diapers, and headed for the parks. I like to get the extra steps, so I prefer not to take the tram. We climbed down 3 flights of stairs, trekked across the Pinocchio parking lot, passed the Downtown Disney parking area/Lilo parking lot, and walked through Downtown Disney before reaching the turn-style into the Magic Kingdom. Knowing her excitement for Moana lately, we headed straight to Aladdin's Oasis to see if she would be there, perfect timing! A 20 minute wait before she came over and 3 minutes in line once she arrived! After this, we darted over to Fantasy Land to ride the carousel, AJ cries out, "Horse!" She really enjoys it. Then we rode the Teacups for the first time (mommy does not spin hehe). She LOVED them! Alice in Wonderland was not a ridiculous l...

These past couple of weeks have been beyond accomplishment! I have been building up speed in cardio blocks during Team Training at my gym, Chuze. It has been so amazing to endure 3 minute stints of jogging just over 4.5mph! That may not seem like much for some, but I have never been able to keep up speed at an actual jogging pace for more than 30 seconds. Even those 30 seconds were constantly counting down and checking the time to see when I could just start walking. The first time I took it to 5mph to max out my effort in the middle of the cardio block for 1 minute. I almost began to cry in the middle of the workout because I had never done it before! I did cry after training ended and I was in my car. If you are part of the Half Size Me Community, I shared a * video on the Facebook group about it. That was what I worked on last week. This week was more focused on endurance, so we increased inclines (which was rough) and the strength block was about heavy weights. My personal bes...

Being in a position of needing to move, looking for homes, finding a place, running all of the errands, dealing with all of the unpleasant correspondence, still keeping up with all of the day-to-days and caring for 2 toddlers is stressful. I am grateful for my wonderfully supportive husband and for God's faithfulness through all of this, but these things do not make the reality less hard. Just more bearable. Working toward weight loss (and even maintenance) and a healthy lifestyle that is still in progress is really tough through this process. I have given into a lot of temptations and struggled against a lot of mental blocks over this last month. Tracking my workouts and food have suffered, grazing has reared its ugly head, lack of self-control has made justification after justification, and exercising has fallen by the wayside or been far less intense with the wrestle it has been to even get a decent start to our morning prior to 7:00am. Thank you all for going on this jour...

Knowledge is just information, unless it is paired with action, at which point, we may call it Wisdom. Did you know that proper rest and sleep are absolutely necessary for weight loss? We all know that under-nourishing our bodies (aka - not eating enough) will cause our bodies to go into survival mode, storing fat for nourishment, uncertain as to when it will receive more of the necessary nutrients to keep it going (if you didn't, then there you are). Anyway, when we deplete our energies and deny our body sufficient time to fuel up from rest, it does the same. Storing up nutrition for energy reserves until it is able to relax after a decent amount of sleep. Now, I am by no means a medical or nutritional professional. So, please feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt, I am merely forwarding my experiences and recalling information from my college nutrition class. However, let me share my week with you. After several weeks of operating on an average high of 6 hour...

It has been quite a while since Heather Robertson shared this point on the Half Size Me show, but it still rings true and continues to be a type of mantra for me:  1. Barely made it out of bed./2. Oh well, guess the day is just going to be "survive."/3. Workout done, kitchen cleaned, girls napping, ready to tackle the day!  "Motivation does not cause our actions,  motivation comes when we take action." It is quite difficult to balance life when you have such a heavy goal in weight loss (see what I did there?). Anyway... I began this journey on January 9 at 251 pounds. On June 9, when hubby and I took a short vacation, I had hit 187. It is almost August and I am maintaining between 183 and 185. My emotions have been all over the place with this:  Okay, maintenance, this is new Let's up the calories a little bit while we increase movement Let's switch up the food Maybe I'll change my exercise Okay, now I'm a little frustrated Ins...

These past few weeks have been difficult to get on a plan and to be self-controlled. I ha ve found myself over-indulging with food, slacking in my work, and losing focus on my goals. Then I realized this week that it is because I have too many of them; which actually translates, "I have no goals at all." Have you ever sat down, made a to-do list, stared at it with overwhelming stress and anxiety, promptly set the list aside and then did nothing? Well, that's what having too may goals is. My focus is scattered, I cannot see progress in anything, I am frustrated by the sinking feeling of defeat and then I simply give up. Earlier this week, I realized the foundation of my problem and hit the reset button. After sitting down and spending some cleansing time in prayer and Bible reading, I made the most cleansing decision I have practiced in weeks: I deleted everything from my Google calendar. As I clicked, "Are you sure you want to delete this calendar, this action c...

Today vs 6 Months Ago So, last week was a tough one. I found myself stuck on the same pound for about 6 weeks. Calories were increased to 1600, protein intake was increased, simple carbs were decreased, fat content is limited; workouts were in the midst of being changed up... Everything that I knew to do was being done. I must express my immense gratitude for the Half Size Me Community here, because these people have been a key part of my journey up to this point and I will continue to lean on them as long as they allow me to seek their encouragement. I posted about my frustration and they responded by reminding me of all the things that I would say to my friend who may be facing the same challenges. I had to reflect on how far I have come over the last 6 months. So, I am going to share the fact that I am grateful for what my body has done for me. It has given up 65 pounds in 6 months. It has strengthened enough to enjoy my children so I am able to crawl on the floor and be the...