A quick follow-up to my "8 week challenge"

Okay, I was looking at my last few posts and realize I really am not portraying the right picture of myself! I see that I began a couple posts about an "8 week challenge." It looks as though I gave up and never completed them because I didn't blog about it. 

Not true!

I did complete the challenge. In fact, I won the challenge! 

There was a little pot of money involved and that was fun :) 

I wound up finding myself eating sugary treats only once a week - which is huge for me. 

I also found I had a little more energy than before. The energy part took a few weeks to kick in.

I was pretty low on energy when I first began. My goal with this 8 week challenge was to go all out crazy and start a new work out routine and start eating healthier and avoid sugars. I needed to start with one newly focused habit; or I knew I would not succeed. 

My goal was to just to focus on what I ate. 

It was awesome. I lost weight and gained a new happy habit in return.

After the eight weeks I decided to incorporate working out.

This was just one new habit. After all, I had already been settled into a new eating plan that was going well. It was time to keep the upward momentum going. 

My body was happy, I was happy. I'm not sure that I was actually accomplishing much more on a day to day basis. I felt good on a day to day basis. Not sluggish, energetic. Ready for bed. 

That was/is so important to me. 

I wanted to follow-up on this, because the strides I made during that time - are notable.

So, It's been TWO years!

It's been two years since my last post. Yikes! I am in definite need of some consistency.
I'm not sure why I can't quite get it together. However, I've been getting the bug to do some "vlogging". I've been toying around with the idea, but I don't want to invest the time if it's something that I'm not really committed to - like this blog.  I had such hopes!

So, my goal for now, is just a few updates here and there. Keep it simple like before. No stress. Just a simple online journal, riiiiight!? 

We'll see where it goes. Again.....

8 Week Challenge - Day four - Week One

Not sure if I'll have time to post tonight, but I will say that I finished my morning jog after having toast with Almond butter and a little honey. I've downed 40oz. of H2O and I'm feeling good. Drank a fruit smoothie when I got back home from my jog and I'm off to the shower now. I hope to start posting more pics with my posts- the meals I have been making have been delish- if I say so myself.

8 Week Challenge! Day Two &Three-Week One

So it's day three and I am doing pretty well. I am getting all my healthy meals in and exercising is back up to an hour-yay! I had a southwestern burrito on a whole wheat tortilla for breakfast, followed by a fruit smoothie for a snack. For lunch I didn't get much in today, I mostly snacked today- I'm not sure why, but I had half a granola bar with some veggie sticks. Then a delicious slow cooked, bonless country rib pork, which I covered with onions, salt and pepper; and a homemade bbq sauce of: ketchup, mustard & honey..yum! I served it with rice and peas with carrots. I got 100oz. of water in and I am still thirsty. I worked out this morning by way of jogging for an hour outdoors-it was really cold, in fact colder than I thought it would be, but being out felt great, and I'll hit the trail again tomorrow.

I thought since I didn't recap my day two yesterday-it was a busy night; that I'd do it now.

I worked out for 45min. via the treadmill-I hate jogging indoors! If I had been outdoors I would have jogged an hour, but I wimped out-out of boredom, I know it's pitiful.  Yesterday’s menu went as follows: 

Whole wheat  toast w/ almond butter/honey

Turkey & Whole wheat Wrap w/ spinach

Smoothie

Protein shake with almond butter

Granola bar

Sorry about the ugly menu, I just copied and pasted it from my electronic food journal because I’m feeling lazy =)

Well, there’s my two days in a nut shell. I still have to fight it out with my cravings for chocolate and sweets in the late afternoon/evenings. But I am holding strong, this is the part I don’t want to mess up. I know I can do it!

8 Week Challenge! Day One-Week One

Today was my first day on the 8 Week Challenge. I think I did awesome! I ate well(whole grain toast with almond butter and a little honey for breakfast, nuts for a snack, roasted veggies for lunch, a banana for a snack, then dinner.) I drank 80oz. of water, because I needed it, we only need to drink 64oz.
I was busy today. I worked out for 30min. and I usually work out for about an hour, but today was an exception. I have a friend who is dying of cancer and in home hospice, so I spent most of my day there today, cleaning and visiting. I came home midday today to watch four of my nieces and nephews, and I still had my own house to clean and a soup to make from scratch(Chicken & Gnocchi Soup, from allrecipes.com, yum!) I do have five children of my own, and today two of them came home not feeling so well. Needless to say, by 7:30pm I was really getting a craving for some chocolate-this is usual for me. Buuut, because of this challenge, I am determined to take each day at a time and not give in.

8 Week Challenge!

Okay, so a friend of mine posts an open invite to anyone who would like to join her for an 8 week weight loss challenge. She found an interesting points/reward system from a blog called the sixsisters. Their site even gives you free downloads of journals to keep track of your food choices and points. I decided to join her along with five other women and we start tomorrow.
This is basically how it goes:

"This is an 8-Week Challenge that starts on a Monday (you pick what Monday to start on)
-Decide an amount that each person pays to enter the challenge (we did $25 a person)
-There is a weekly point calendar for each of the 8 weeks. You earn points by eating healthy, exercising, drinking water, etc... It's not just for weight loss!
-Beginning on Week #2 there is a double point challenge (highlighted in yellow)
-You can exercise each day, but you will only receive points for exercising 5 days a week.
-You can choose to not each sugar/treats each day, but you will only receive points for not eating sugar on 6 days (everyone needs a free day!).
-There is a sample food journal that you can use or you can use your own kind of food journal to keep track of what you eat.
-Weight yourself anytime each Sunday and tally up all points by 9 PM. Make sure that you weight yourself under the same circumstances each week (for example: Morning/Night, Empty/Full stomach)
-Choose someone in your challenge who will be the one you send a weekly email/text to with your totally weekly points and totally weight loss points for the week. They will have to keep track of everyone’s points and then have them send out an email or text with everyone’s standings on Mondays. We said that all points had to be emailed/texted by midnight on Sunday. If you didn’t send an email/text by that time, you received no points for that week. So each week you will send in 3 numbers: Your weekly points, you weight lost for the week, and your total points for that week.
-Daily contact with teammate: It’s amazing the strength that comes from encouragement from your teammates! We decided as a team that you could email, call, or text someone on your team to encourage them to have a healthy day. It helps knowing that you are all in this together and makes you accountable for what you do or don’t do.
-Example of weight loss points: You will get 5 points for maintaining your lowest previous weight AND 10 points for each whole pound. For instance, if you gained weight, you will report 0 points AND you don’t get any weight loss OR maintenance points in future weeks until you return to the lowest weight you had already achieved. If you maintained your previous lowest weight, you report 5 points. If you lost 1 pound, you would get 5 points for maintaining plus 10 points for that pound, so you would report 15 points.
-Cash prize money will given to the person who has the most total weekly points.

So here goes everything!

Oh no! It's a blog train!

Have you ever clicked on a picture or article or link and it took you to a really great blog?
Once you get there, you start reading about what you clicked on and theeeeeen. That's when it happens. Your eyes start to wander..like, over to the sidebar, where of course there are other links to other great blogs that you can click on and check out.

You move from one blog to another gathering tidbits of information that's informative, fun, creative, even touching. All of sudden, an hour has gone by and you realize that your on the blog train and you can't get off! After all, there are all these great ideas and interesting stories and, and, and, take a deep breath. I know, It's all too much.