These are a few of my favorite things. . .

Today marks my 25 lb loss! I have knocked almost 4 points off my BMI, lost 3.5% of body fat, and I have lost two dress sizes! It took all week to work off that last pound! I thought in honor of my success I would reflect on some of my new healthy lifestyle favorites:

Dryers Fruit Bars - No Sugar Added


Diet Green Tea with Citrus from Costco (Lipton is pictured but Costco Kirkland brand is cheaper!)


Yoplait Berry Smoothie Mix


Light String Cheese


Non-Fat Cottage Cheese (Low Fat Pictured)


Rosarita Zesty Salsa Non-Fat Refried Beans


Fresh Ripe Cherries


Jello Sugar Free Pudding Cups (Chocolate & Banana, Dulce de leche, Vanilla, etc.)


Premier Chocolate Protein Shakes (30 grams protein, 1 gram sugar and very cheap at Costco!)


Subway 6 inch on wheat - Sweet onion teriyaki chicken or chicken salad


Quaker Instant Oatmeal - Weight Control


Italian Squash


Plastic Baby Spoons (Eating with these forces me to chew my food better and eat slower; plus they are sooo cute!)

Stuck!!!!

For the last week I have had this great blog post saved to celebrate my 25 pound loss and I am so frustrated because I am stuck at the 24 pound mark. The worst part is I totally don't know why??!!! I had great workouts this week (yoga, lap swimming, jogging, elliptical work) and I have been eating well (1000-1200 calories a day). I am going to mix it up this week and add some weights, more yoga, and more intense jogging and eliminate some more carbs from my diet. When I finally lose that 25th pound I'll post my special blog entry. I will NOT give up!

Chuck-E-Cheese is the BEST!

Last Friday I got to babysit my friend's 2 1/2 year old, Blake. Taking a cue from Sam and Kristen, I decided to give Blake the best day of his young life! We went to Chuck-E-Cheese at 9 am and were the first ones there. I cashed in our coupon of $10 for 100 tokens and then we were off! Skeet ball, roller coaster simulator, air hockey, slides and tunnels, you name it we did it! Three hours later we had spent every one of our tokens. Blake's favorite part was putting the tokens in the machines and holding "his monies". We ended up with 307 tickets which we cashed in for 1 rubber red snake, 1 Chuck-E-Cheese football, 1 sheet of stickers, and Blake's favorite an orange Chuck-E-Cheese spoon. We had soooo much fun! I told Dan that I am going to be calling up all of my friends asking, "Can your kids come play with me at Chuck-E-Cheese?" Such a fun day. . .

Progress

Dan said I that I needed to update our blog so let me sum up-

Walking for exercise was a good start but it was soon not enough for me. I LOVE to lap swim and I have been enjoying the gym in our community as well. Now I am beginning to run a few times a week which is great because to be able to run again was a goal of mine. I also bought two biggest loser DVDs (yoga and boot camp) that are led by Bob and they are great! Today Dan and I began to clean out the garage which included four bins of "skinnier" clothes from the past years. I was able to fit into some of my stuff and have some cute former clothes to look forward to when I lose a few more pounds. Well that is all for now!

Pedometer Challenge April 8-14

Apr 8 - pedometer was lost today (I found it later that night)
Apr 9 - 3609 (not good - but this day was way stressful!)
Apr 10 - 10,203 as of 3pm
Apr 11 -
Apr 12 -
Apr 13 -
Apr 14 -

Weekly Count =
Pounds Lost =
Total Pounds Lost =

Weekly Reflections:

Apr. 10 - After finding my pedometer I got back on track today and celebrated my first day of Easter Break with a long walk. I was feeling so good that I decided to do 10,000 steps in one walk! It was totally doable and I am stoked that my legs are not getting sore anymore!

Pedometer Challenge / April 1-7

April 1 - 8400 (50 min evening walk)
April 2 - 9125 (30 min morning walk / 45 min evening walk)
April 3 - approx 2000 (no walks. . .opps)
April 4 - 9427 (35 min mid morning walk / lots of walking around at Biola)
April 5 - 4980
April 6 - 6543
April 7 - ?? (I lost my pedometer in the morning at work but I did a 30 min evening walk and my legs didn't hurt!)

Weekly count = I don't have a calculator
Pounds Lost = 2

Weekly reflections:

Apr.1 - I am always surprised how quickly the steps can add up. My shins were burning about 10 min into my walk but then they warmed up and got numb and felt better. Using my mp3 player helped make the 50 min. fly by. I can't wait till I can run again.

Apr.2 - I finally did it today. I woke up at 4:30am and did my morning walk. I am a morning person so once I'm out the door I'm good and I love my walk. I'm having major pain in my outer shins though and I wonder if it is shin splints. I might have to get my steps done on an eliptical for awhile.

Apr3 - I was physically very tired today. My legs are sore. Dan says I need to stretch more.

Apr4 - I forced myself to take a walk even though I didn't want to. I took Jersey and that helped a bit. I need to have Jersey's attitude about exercise. She always acts so liberated and exuberant when we take her for walks.

Apr 7 - Well, my first week is finished. I lost two pounds which is progress. I lost my pedometer today but Dan said he would buy me a new one tomorrow. Good thing they are only $5!

Tomorrow is Today!

I bought a pedometer not long ago on the advice of a friend. My goal is to get back into running shape one step at a time. I've decided to start by walk/jogging 10,000 steps everyday. So far I have not been very successful. Do you know how many steps I walk on average? Only 1,800. . .the entire day. Sitting at my desk and 90 min in traffic everyday is not helping me much. In order for me to meet my goal I have to wake up at 4:30am to walk/jog for 40 min. then walk/jog another 45-60 min when I get home from work. I lost six pounds a few weeks ago when I stuck to my routine but then company visited and work got busy, blah. . .blah. . .blah...same old story. So once a week I'm going to post my steps and pounds lost. Well, my old internal motto is "I'll start tomorrow." and my new motto is "Tomorrow is today!" so I'm headed out to add some mileage to my pedometer. Those school papers will just have to wait till later to be graded and that movie Dan rented for me will just have to go unwatched for now. I'm tired of my yesterdays being full of missed opportunities. Pray for me. . .this is going to be a battle.