Life is Good

E and daddy after her bath, she's so happy to be clean! Feb 1, 2015

Her new mattress. This is as good a picture as I could get of her reaction when she first saw it. Feb. 3, 2015

 

Eating an E sized ice cream cone(with a little ice cream in it, if getting a new mattress wasn't enough...)

Enjoying cuddle time with Daddy, watching her favorite show. Feb. 7, 2015

The mattress and the frame together at last! Still not sleeping on the bed consistently, but now she can get used to it being there. Honestly, I'm not ready for her to sleep in a toddler bed, she'd be up and getting out of her room at all hours. For now, we give her the option of which bed she wants to sleep in, and so far she still chooses the crib/Pack n Play.

Yes, that is green grass. Yes it is February. Yes, it is very weird to me that my child can go outside in basically a t-shirt right now. Feb. 12, 2015

How much broccoli can a family of 2 adults and 1 toddler eat in a week? I don't know, but we're about to see if we can cram 20 pounds of it in before it goes bad... it might end up going to friends and family to help spread it around. Happy Valentine's Day to me! I get a box of broccoli! Feb. 14, 2015

E enjoying a pickled beet at Costco. She was wary of it until I told her that "Nana Nette likes pickled beets." Pretty sure she ate more of the sample than either Dan or me combined. Love her cheesy smiles!

Day1

I'm not sure if I'll be posting daily, but I at least want to post once a week. At the beginning I'd like to post as much as possible to keep me excited about it. I find that when I'm excited about something, I do better with it, but if it becomes a chore... not so good.

Last time around, I attempted to do the challenge without having actually read the challenge. I meant to, but it never actually happened. I had a good idea of where to go because I'd read about half of Eat to Live, and could draw upon the nutrition classes I took in college, but I didn't have the specifics. I think that's part of why I didn't lose as much as expected. I did get rid of 20 pounds, but they weren't all within the 6 weeks like I wanted and expected, and my weight loss dramatically decreased when I started puttering away from the main concepts of Eat to Live.

This time, though I've still not finished the entire book, I skipped to the chapter that has the 6-week challenge so that I could familiarize myself with it and follow it. That helped a lot. I learned about the 90/10 rule, where when you're done with the 100% 6 weeks of plant food,  you eat 90% of your calories from plant based foods, especially greens, with a healthy amount of onions, beans, legumes, mushrooms, peppers and other colorful fruits and vegetables thrown in. 10% of the calories from non-vegetable based things. To clarify, here's the quote from Eat to Live,"The Life Plan diet should aim to be made up of at least 90% unrefined plant food. My most successful patients treat processed foods and animal foods as condiments, constituting no more than 10% of their total caloric intake."  I like that it's percentage of calories, because so many times, we talk in grams and that can get confusing, especially if you don't measure your food in grams. Calories, though, most people understand.

So far today, I've had 1.5-2 c frozen blueberries (defrosted) with a small amount of plain almond milk and a whole banana with about a tablespoon of raw, shelled,  sunflower seeds and about the same amount of ground flax seeds for breakfast. Normally I start getting hungry for lunch around 11 (which is what time it is currently as I write this) but I'm still feeling satisfied, though I can tell that lunch should come up soon.

Since the 6-week challenge states that you should not snack between meals, I'm going to make sure that I eat sufficiently during meals and only drink water between meals. Even though I'll likely have a slight headache at the beginning because of not being used to that, it'll be better for me because between meals, when my stomach is empty, is the time my body can finally start repairing itself from the toxins I've eaten and been exposed to my entire life.

I'm glad that yesterday was Fast Sunday for me as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because it meant that for spiritual reasons, I went without food for two consecutive meals, and was an excellent way to prepare my body for this eating change once again. I was able to refocus myself not only mentally and emotionally for this challenge, but also spiritually, because we are spiritual beings, and when our bodies are sick, chances are our spirits aren't as well as they could be.

6-Week Challenge take 2

I (kind of) did the Eat to Live 6- Week Challenge that started in April and went til June. I did lose about 20 pounds, but not all of them were within the 6 weeks. I hadn't actually read the bit about how to do the 6-Week challenge, so it was somewhat of a flop. This time I intend to  take the challenge and go with it. I start tomorrow. Right now I've got beans soaking, getting them ready for making into tastiness, and my fridge is still full of half wilted vegetables from all the stuff I buy and don't get to in time because of the last challenge and not doing as well with it as I'd like. This time, I intend to make the food and eat it better than last time. We'll see how it goes. I still intend to get rid of about 20 pounds or more, but this time I'm going to go for losing more weight until I get to where my body is happy and healthy. Currently, I'm pretty sure I'm 80-100 pounds away from that, but I'll let my body determine what a healthy weight is, and I'll give it what it needs so it can be happy.

Here's to health!

Evalynn part 1

This was taken just a few days before Evalynn was born. This will be basically just a list of videos and pictures that were taken around the time Evalynn was born, which is very nearly a year ago now.

My mom and dad got us a camera/video, so this was taken the morning after Evalynn was born.

Now pictures and videos of Evalynn!

Day Four- Laid Back...

Last night the power went out at our apartment complex because of a converter blowing (Or something technical like that, my husband could explain it much better). So we spent the evening in the dark, with the occasional candle and cell phone for light. Instead of stewing in the darkness, we got some raspberry plants from my friend's inlaws, then went to bed.

So far today, it's been fairly laid back. That same friend that I usually exercise with got attacked by a vicious migrane, so instead of going out to exercise, I did the dishes. For over an hour. Yeah... I'd been neglecting the poor things. Nearly every dish was dirty. There are still a few more that need washing, but I ran out of room and didn't feel like drying them.

Thankfully, my friend gave me homework in cases such as these- practice all of the18 things she's taught me in karate so far, and do 50 leg-lifts and 50 crunches. I got all but the leg-lifts done currently, and plan to do those before the day is over. Probably when I get tired of writing the essay I'm procrastinating...
I've also taken this lovely procrastination time to read a few articles about health and weight loss. Two of which are written by one of my friends:
The first is about Detox:
http://health.abc4.com/provider_article.php?ar=1318&pr=4548&geo=ut

The second is about healthy eating tips:
http://health.abc4.com/provider_article.php?ar=358&pr=4548&geo=ut

Enjoy!

And for future reference:
I think after this first week, I'll be making a blog post once a week to give updates to my friends and family. I may post more often but I don't plan on it being a report on this goal every single time.

Harry Potter Work Out

I'm as big of a nerd as many, so I decided to re-discover this work out to make me feel less guilty if I ever decide to do a marathon of these movies. I'm sure there are many people who claim to  have created it in the first place, so I have no clue who to give the  credit to. I can say, though, that I am the one who modified this version. I have bad knees, so I need something different than  squats, lunges and jumping jacks to do, since those are all hard on the poor limbs.


Harry Potter Workout
Modified for Bad Knees

A spell is cast.........................................................................10 jumping jacks /leg-lifts/ swimmers
Anyone is awarded points......................................................10 leg lifts (full 90 deg)
Points are taken away............................................................10 swimmers
Hagrid says “I shouldn’t have said that”..................................30 jumping jacks /leg-lifts/ swimmers
A painting talks......................................................................15 crunches
Someone says “He-who-must-not-be-named”.......................10 situps
Or someone says “You-know-who”......................................10 situps
Ron says “Bloody hell”..........................................................10 Swimmers
Someone cries.......................................................................20 crunches
Someone says Voldemort......................................................5 push ups
Any pet is shown..................................................................10 Leg lifts
A ghost talks.........................................................................5 pushups

Alternatives to sit-ups and Crunches- Plank for the same amount of time.

Original
A spell is cast.........................................................................10 jumping jacks
Anyone is awarded points.................................................................10 squats
Points are taken away.......................................................................10 lunges
Hagrid says “I shouldn’t have said that”............................30 jumping jacks
A painting talks..............................................................................15 crunches
Someone says “He-who-must-not-be-named”.................................10 situps
Or someone says “You-know-who”...................................................10 situps
Ron says “Bloody hell”.......................................................................10 lunges
Someone cries...............................................................................20 crunches
Someone says Voldemort................................................................5 push ups
Any pet is shown................................................................................10 squats
A ghost talks.....................................................................................5 pushups

Day Three- Assessment

Today I had two things set up, at 8, I did a full body assessment on campus, then at 9 I met with a personal trainer, also on campus, with my friend.
During the assessment, I found out how many sit ups I can do in a minute (66) how many push ups I can do properly in a row (8) how much I can bench press (85 lbs) and what percentage my body fat is (not putting that up, but I have 158 pounds of lean body mass if that tells you anything)

A lot of the information she gave me after  the assessment I already knew, calories in, VS calories out, etc. But now that I know what my body mass is, I can more easily get to a healthy size that's specific to me. My goal of 199 is good. 175 is better. But because I'm a girl, it's better that I have about 15-20% body fat, so trying to get to 160 pounds is not likely to be healthy. Unless things change and my muscle mass goes way down. Or my bone mass. Neither would be good.

Directly after, I went to the gym and met with a trainer. We started with a warm up on a treadmill, walked for a while, stretched, then proceeded to commence the work of pain upon my arms, core and legs. An hour later, I stumbled out of the gym and walked a part of the way with my friend, then trekked up the massive hill towards my apartment. Don't get me wrong, I've walked that hill many a time, but never after nearly 2 hours of physical exertion.

Now I'm home and have to remind myself to not binge, even though I've worked hard.