Top 10 foods I keep in my kitchen!

1. Apples

I love having apples around because they are sweet, refreshing, and have fibre in them!!  Chop one up in the afternoon and pair it with some protein, and I am good to go!

2.  Fibre One Bars

Fibre one bars are like my guiltless guilty treat!  They are delicious, full of fibre and pretty easy on the calories!  I usually have at least one a day!

3.Vitatops!

Oh my goodness, this things are GREAT!  100 calories, lots of fibre, YUMMY.  When my husband went out to buy some and saw them on clearance... I literally cleared out the store.  I gave him strict orders "No soldier (meaning boxes of vitatops) left behind!"  They are an AWESOME snack at the end of the day if you really have a sweet craving, and want to be a little naughty... throw some cool whip or 1/4cup vanilla ice cream on those bad boys and you are set!

4. Cheese Strings  

These babies are the perfect little dose of protein and only 60cals and 6g of protein!

5.  Blue Menu Turkey Bacon!! 

NOM.  For only 30 cals and 4g protein a slice, it's pretty darn good. It's also lower in sodium than a few other brands I have tried.

6.  Skinny Cow Ice Cream Cones.  

MAN these are good!!  150 calories, low in fat and absolutely delicious!  I usually have one of these cones, or one of the vanilla ice cream sandwiches for desert every night!

7.  Cutie oranges.  

80 cal for two, they fix my sweet cravings and get 290% of my daily intake of Vitamin C

8. Lean Ground Turkey (especially when its on sale/reduced like this pack was).  

Ground turkey is awesome!  You can do most of the same things with it as ground beef, but with less fat.  I use it for Turkey Meatloaf, Turkey Tacos, Turkey Burgers, Turkey Chili... Its great and versatile! 

9.  Egg-whites

30 cals for 1/4 cup and 7g of protein.  Almost every morning I make myself an egg-white and turkey bacon wrap.  Egg whites and pretty much pure protein and help keep me full until snack or lunch-time. 

10.  BodyWise wraps.  

80 cals each I use these bad boys at least once a day. I usually have them for breakfast, and sometimes lunch or dinner when I'm making a steak and feta or chicken wrap! 

There are a lot more, like feta cheese, a good salad mix, turkey pepperoni, diet root beer, and so on, but these are probably my top frequently eaten foods that I make sure I have on hand!  

Swearing! (Absolutely horrible language, you've been warned)

Ok, so this is a little off-topic, but as I was cleaning today I got really pumped.

**Sorry if I offend anyone, but this is just a part of me**

As I was saying, I got really pumped.  When I get pumped, I start to swear.  Don't worry, my kids were down for a nap, no under-age eardrums were violated during this endeavour.

I don't know about anyone else, but swearing make me feel like such a bad-ass! (FYI, I was totally by myself, but if you're with me when I'm pumped, you will witness the same phenomenon)  So here I am dancing around my house cleaning up, totally PUMPED, and I'm saying to myself "That's right bitch, you're going to fuckin kill this weight loss journey", "Look at this clean ass kitchen you got going on!", "That fruit on display looks fan-fucking-tabulous", "Check out this sweeping action... MUTHA-FUCKA (mutha-fucka is said in that high little voice, because that's the funnest way to say it)".

Yep this daycare lady has a potty mouth.  I dunno, maybe its because around the kids, and ESPECIALLY around other peoples kids, I gotta keep this shit on lock-down, but once there are no babes around and I am pumped... there is no stopping this bitch. Even typing it is fun!

I read a study once that said its a stress reliever!  I definitely felt relieved.

Have a great week :)

You is kind, You is Smart, You is Important

I have always battled with confidence.  You know, that thing people have, where they actually believe in themselves?   Apparently it's really empowering.

I watched a movie last night called "The Help".  Its about a woman who writes a novel about African Americans who worked in white people houses.  These women basically open up and tell all these crazy stories about what they encountered in their work that they would NEVER normally tell because they were afraid of what the repercussions would be for them and their families.

Now the part of that movie that stuck with ME last night, was one lady who was a house-maid/nanny.  She would look at the little girl every day and say "You is kind, you is smart, you is important".  She gets the little girl to repeat after her everyday. She makes this little girl feel great about herself.

Later on when my Husband got home, we had a talk.  I think one of the most important things I want to give to my children is confidence.  We started talking about our younger years.  I was a pretty good discus and shot-put thrower back in my day, but I didn't really work for it too much. I relied on my natural ability, and I was pretty good. When I think about how hard I am working NOW, and how little I did THEN, it seems CRAZY!.  How good could I have been, if I had only put my everything into it?  An everything I didn't even know existed in me?   Jeff was saying basically the same thing, except he played baseball.  He relied on the ability he had, but didn't work as hard as he could have to get to his potential.

We both believed that at least part of that was confidence.  Even if we put everything into it, it wouldn't make a difference so why bother? I was also too busy feeling like the fat girl, and trying to make myself feel better that I didn't really have the drive to make myself physically better in an athletic nature.  Um, HELLO, boys don't like me. All my pretty friends will hang out with me more if I do things for them.  They are "cool". I spent a lot of time wishing I could live in this alternate universe where I was pretty, boys liked me, and I was COOL.

Ok, ok I know that's part of how teenagers think... but seriously, I wasted a LOT of time on nothing productive.

I've come a long way from then.  I actually AM pretty darn cool. I can be funny, I can be a good friend (without compromising myself, ok maybe I hold back a little now because I felt so taken advantage of in the past but that's another blog post), I'm pretty well-rounded, I'm open minded, I've met many different kinds of people, and I like to have FUN.

Bottom line, is I want to keep working on it to set an example for my kids, and I think I'm on the right path!

When my son got up this morning, I told him.  "You are kind, you are strong, you are important" probably 10 times.  I even told my daughter, but she wanted her bottle instead ;)


Here he is showing me how strong he is :)

Times are a changin!

NOTE: For those of you who don't know me personally, and even for some of you that do, I am not perfect.  I make mistakes, my strength is intermittent, and although I try, sometimes I fail.  In this blog I will celebrate my successes, but I will ALSO share many of my failures.  I do this because I am working on putting ME out there and not just the good side.  I also do this because I want to show that failure doesn't have to hold us back, and that we can learn and conquer even if we aren't perfect.

With respect to weight-loss, so many people (including myself) when faced with disappointment completely jump off the wagon, and run the other way.  They might have a weak moment and have something that is not on their plan, might not work out one day, might completely BOMB one week and then they think they screwed it up.  YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO SUCCEED AT WEIGHT-LOSS, YOU JUST HAVE TO KEEP TRYING!

• Maybe its not coming off as fast as you want, but it will still come off eventually if you keep trying. 
• Maybe you fucked up and ate a cake, but if you keep trying you'll burn off that cake and the 2047 other cupcakes that got you where you were when you started.
• Maybe you got injured and can't do your normal exercise, but if you keep trying you'll find there are 890 other exercises you can do and will be able to be in better shape when your injury is healed.
• Maybe you slipped up every day for two weeks, but if you keep trying you'll stop slipping up!

Every DAY is a new beginning people!!  Guess what!!?? It doesn't MATTER what you did yesterday any more...  What matters is what you do today!!

So, in other news:


I've mentioned before how when my hubby would go out to play poker, I used to eat to "get back at him".

Well tonight is Friday night.  For the first time in over a month, my husband will be leaving me to go out and play poker.  In the last month I have realized that I actually LIKE the time to myself.  I have missed my Friday nights doing my own thing.

So what are my plans for tonight?  I don't plan on ordering pizza, or making him bring me home desert.  Tonight I am excited to get my shred on, followed by The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout for Kinect and Just Dance 3!  If I'm still feeling like staying up after, I'm going to watch a chick-flick!

Ok, so I know its not wild and crazy, it might even be a little lame, but I am going to enjoy myself!

I am currently on day five of the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels.  My New Years Challenge is to do the 3 levels of this workout for 10 days each in January, in addition to 3 hours of cardio per week.  I'm doing pretty good so far, it keeps challenging me, but is easier mentally to accomplish because it goes by quickly so the entire workout is like a count-down.

First Post of 2012, Success!!

December was a ROUGH month!! I was challenged in a lot of ways! I made a lot of bad choices. Between time-off, injury, having my co-worker leave for 3 months (yes there is only one person I work with), holiday goodies, and stress, I think I actually did pretty good! I'm down 7lbs for December! Sure it could have been more... If I was perfect.

I'm not perfect though and losing while facing challenges is a big success for me!

Originally in September I wanted to hit 240lbs by January 2nd. In early December I realized that would most likely not be realistic for me, an decided to change my goal to 245.

In hind-sight it would have worked out if I didn't have such a rough patch for two weeks, if I hadn't ever decided to have a "spike week". But maybe it will help me long term, who knows.

This morning, I HIT my mini-goal!!!

42lbs lost in 3.5 months!


Now, onto the present. January is going really well so far! I've been under on my calories, and have everything pre-logged for the week, and today I finished my first day of the 30 Day Shred!! Here I am post-workout and still smiling.

Jillian had my heart rate up around 170-180 the entire workout!!! WOW.  

I'm feeling so positive right now.  I *CAN* do this.  I feel like I'm just starting and the last 3 months was really a week. I'm not sure why. I don't know when you're supposed to feel like a veteran weight loser, but I'm not there yet. 

One thing I can see being an issue is that I still see my 300lb self in the mirror. I still think of myself as that same larger woman. I mean I am definitely still large, but I'm nervous that there will come a time where I am not obese any more and I won't be able to see it. Maybe it will just take time.  

For now I am enjoying my Skinny Cow Ice Cream cone and prepping for another morning with Jillian!