Please Pray

Patrick’s grandmother’s cancer has spread to her spine. Patrick informed me Friday evening that she will not be making it to Thanksgiving. So my heart feels just completely broken for him and his family. She is an absolutely amazing woman. She lives several hours away, but I told Patrick we need to go visit her. Now. I would have given anything to spend more time with my grandmother before she passed.

So we are going this weekend. I will be bringing a meal and I plan on cleaning her apartment, doing some shopping for her and any various errands she needs run while Patrick and his brother visit.

I know Patrick is very sad about this, he has been very quiet ever since he found out. I just want to hold him until the world dissolves away.

So, if you believe. Please pray. If you don’t, please keep him, his family and specifically his grandmother in your thoughts. Thank you to everyone who does.

~Mere

Weekly Update

Oh Lord, am I tired.

This week went by in a flash, thank god its the weekend because I barely have enough energy to finish this work day. It doesn’t help that my boss called us in to an early morning meeting… and then we didn’t meet! (Don’t ask, no energy to explain.)

I weighed myself today, as per usual, and I only lost a pound this week. I know I shouldn’t be disappointed, but I am. I have to look at the bigger picture here though. I wanted to lose 8lbs this month (2lbs a week). I lost 9. That is great! Last week I lost 3 lbs instead of 2. So it makes sense my body would stubbornly hold onto a pound while silently screaming ‘We had a deal! TWO pounds a week, not 3. I am holding onto this for now!’ .

I think I need a bit of perspective. This really isn’t the time to mope. SO, here are some facts I would like to focus on:

1. I am 5 lbs away from halfway to my goal.
2. I have now lost 45 lbs, an amount I have never lost before in any of my “diets”.
3. I can fit into my favorite pair of jeans (Though, the waist is still pretty tight, I think I will wait another 5 lbs before I wear them)
4. 45 lbs divided by 15 weeks equals 3 lbs a week. That is way more than my goals. I am doing great!

During my walk last night, I realized I had not thought of what my reward to myself would be for reaching A) 50 lbs, B) 73 lbs and C) 100 lbs. At this point I really need to scramble and figure it out, because 5 lbs could be 2-3 weeks at this rate!

I have a pretty hard time picking out things I want for myself. I have a few rather large things I REALLY want… and then a lot of tiny things that I want. Since my birthday and Christmas are both coming up though, I can’t buy myself stuff that others would buy me. Still, here are the lists:

Big Ticket Items

1. A puppy
2. Contacts (No more glasses!)
3. **Secret**
4. Trip to Disney World (okay, this is a HUGE ticket item)

Mid-Sized Desires

1. Nice tennis shoes ($100-200 range)
2. Prismacolor Pencils

 

Small Wishes

1. A menu chalkboard, Examples: This or this or this.
2. Foot Shower Thing
3. Shower Mat
4. Chalk Markers

 

 

Budgeting On A Diet

So, phew.

I have done weekly and bi-weekly meal plans before, but I have NEVER done 31 days of meal plans. Especially when each week cannot go over $50.00. It was a huge challenge, but I think I really conquered it. I only repeated one meal and that was only because I had two recipe’s worth of the meat. Plus it is one of our favorites!

I originally thought I would only be able to do old recipes that I am familiar with… but I got over that. I made sure I am making at least 1 new healthy recipe a week still! I also pre-made all my grocery lists so there is no question as to what I need to buy. It took a couple of hours, but I really think it was worth it.

I wont list out my meal plans, but I did want to list out the new recipes I am going to make:

Herb Crusted Pork Chops (with blueberry salad)

Skinny Chicken Fajitas (with pico, beans, lettuce and guac)

Lean Taco Salad (with pico, guac and greek yogurt)

Sticky Garlic Chicken (with steamed broccoli)

Honey-Beer Chicken (with Patrick’s garlic green beans)

Sausage Eggroll in a Bowl (with Eggdrop Soup)

Sausage and Cabbage

Creamy Parmesan Tuscan Chicken (with Patrick’s garlic green beans)

Chicken Rollatini Stuffed with Zucchini and Mozzarella (with brussel sprouts)

In other news. I have gotten back to walking. WHOOT! Last night I walked 12,000 steps alone, combined with my 1500 steps for the work day (I spent a looot of time sitting yesterday) that brings me up to 13,500! WHOOT AGAIN!

I also have kept up with my planner three weeks in a row, kept to my budget, started knitting a beautiful baby blanket for my unborn nephew…man, I am kicking ass lately! Haha!

Only 27 days until Vacation! *Dances*

 

 

Updates, Budgets and Vacations

Well, again I am late. Not that it matters, haha, but there is a lot to post and not a lot of time to type it all up.

I ended the week on a high note, lost 3 pounds making my total 44 lbs down. I recalculated my goals to match, since at this point I am about 6 pounds ahead of the last time I did such.

I have not been able to walk in the evenings for over a week due to rain. It is just getting worse and I am very frustrated with the weather at this point. However, I am still losing weight. Counting calories, ftw, am I right?

So, moving on to something FAR more important than my weight loss…. my Vacation!!

So in basically 31 days, I will be going to the Beach! WHOO! I realize that I wont have a bathing suit that fits… I wont have shorts that fit… I will still want to diet when I am there and it is only in a teeny condo efficiency… but Patrick and I are over the moon excited!!

Anyways, I will need to try on the bathing suits I own sometime soon, because this year I plan on actually getting in the water… WITHOUT A T-SHIRT (*gasp*!). If my bathing suit fits decently then I wont be buying a new one. If it doesn’t, well crap. I will have to try some on at Torrid.

More importantly, I need to save money for this trip. It should be a relatively cheap trip, but we probably will both be spending several hundred dollars on it. See, usually we take camping trips, so this is our nice trip of the year. I decided a big way to save money is to make an extensive meal plan for the next 30-ish days. This is going to be a very strict meal plan, counting every dollar the recipes require. I have done this in the past, but stopped during the diet. It is kind of difficult to both save money and diet when you want variety.

Long story short, my big goal these next two days is to make an in-depth meal plan for the next 30 days. I will be spending only $50 a week on groceries. Wish me luck!

 

“The Best Goddamn Salad I Ever Had!”

So my sister’s Gender Reveal Party was this weekend. I spent about 80% of my time helping prep for it, which included (but was not limited to) slow cooking two giant hunks of pork butt, hanging adorable onesies up on clotheslines, picking up a two-tiered cake (the star of the night!) and picking out a side dish to make.

Well, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all my duties… so I picked a random salad from Pinterest for my side dish. I thought ‘Hey, this sounds decent, easy and relatively cheap!’ .

Oh my god, I never expected a SALAD to get so much praise. Particularly a salad I put little to no thought into, FORGOT an ingredient for and one that required no effort other than slapping ingredients into a bowl! Seriously though, so many random people sought me out to either A) Explain how ‘To die for’ the salad was or B) Ask for the recipe!

Anyways, I wasn’t going to post the salad to my blog, but obviously it earned its keep.

All thanks and credit is due to Lemon Tree Dwelling . I do want to say I couldn’t actually find Golden Balsamic Vinegar, so I used a particularly delicious balsamic from HEB (click the link if you are curious). To make up for the change, I also added a bit more honey. At my sister’s request, I added a bit of salt to the dressing as well. OH, I also forgot the almonds (haha!), in the crazy of throwing it together five minutes before the food line was opened to fifty hungry souls.

Blueberry Feta Salad with Lemon Poppyseed Dressing

*Photo from the website!

Prep time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

Author: Cathy Trochelman

Ingredients

• 6 c. mixed greens
• 1 c. blueberries
• 4 oz. crumbled feta cheese
• ¼ c. almonds
• red onion slivers, to taste
• For the Dressing:
• ⅓ c. olive oil
• ⅓ c. golden balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp. poppy seeds
• ¼ tsp. pepper

Instructions

1. Layer salad ingredients in large salad bowl or platter.
2. Prepare dressing by combining all ingredients in a container with a lid; shake vigorously to combine.
3. Toss salad with dressing.

Recipe Backlog List

So I have a ton of recipes I keep forgetting to post. This is just a place to keep a list of them for now, because I am seriously back-logged!

Blueberry Feta Salad

Roasted Vegetables

Stuffed Philly Chicken Peppers

Baked Parmesan Mushrooms

Loaded Vegetarian Sweet Potatoes

 

Updates Galore

Not that anyone is sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for my posts, but I apologize for disappearing there for awhile. Mostly the apology is to myself. This blog is supposed to help keep me motivated, I post here for a reason and I owe it to myself to continue with this journal.

Don’t worry, I didn’t “fall off the wagon”. I am still going strong on my diet. I just had a crazy week that prevented time fillers like writing for my blogs. Hell, I barely had time to walk and really didn’t walk much last week at all. I had a movie date with Patrick, a work conference that lasted two days, a day to prepare for the Gender Reveal party for my sister and then the day of the party to help throw it together. It was a really fun week, if you can’t tell (that is not sarcasm, I love throwing parties!) .

Long story short about this weekend, my sister is carrying my NEPHEW and I totally cheated. (There was potato salad, is that really my weakness??) . I probably ate about 400 calories over my budget. I don’t feel bad though, one day out of three months? C’mon. That is fine.

I should mention that I officially lost 2 pounds during the 13th week of my new lifestyle. My last post was how I hit 40 pounds lost, well now it is 41 lbs. It is honestly exciting! I feel great. My sister informed me before the party, as she waddled alongside me to buy wine for the guests, that she hoped people knew she was pregnant and not fat. (Uhm, Morgan, you are 5’2″, MAYBE 125 lbs and you look like you are smuggling a watermelon beneath your dress, you look pregnant.) I responded with ‘I hope people think I am fat and not pregnant.’ in a joke, as we both were wearing adorable maxi dresses. She informed me swiftly that she has never seen me this ‘skinny’ and that she is having trouble wrapping her head around the idea of me continuing to get skinnier. A.K.A, no one will mistake me for pregnant.

Well, no one did (I think, haha), but I didn’t get any comments on my weight loss either. I was a bit disappointed, for maybe five seconds when I realized this. However, my excitement over my nephew overcame the disappointment quite easily. You know, these people don’t see me often. I am not close to them. I have lost 40 pounds, but they probably don’t realize how big I had gotten before I changed my lifestyle. I bet once I hit 100 lbs lost, they will definitely notice!

I jogged a bit last night. When I say jogged, I mean for thirty seconds at a time, maybe four times, out of a 45 minute walk. I know, not much, but it made me realize I could do it! I really think I should go buy some nice shoes and a couple of good sports bras, because it was actually FUN!

 

Anyways, I only have one huge goal this week and I am really, REALLY, going to try and hit it. I want to sleep eight hours every night from today to Sunday. This involves me going to be at 10 pm, waking at six am and doing what I want for an hour in the morning. NO big deal, right? Well, being a night owl this is easier said then done. We will see <3.

 

 

 

Forty Pounds Lost

***First of all, I want to thank every person who has ever ‘liked’ any of my posts. Each like has been encouragement to continue on with my transformation into a healthy, happy woman. So thank you. ***

I have lost 40 lbs in a little under 13 weeks and I feel amazing. When I look in the mirror, I no longer flinch at the body I have. I instead envision the body I am sculpting. When I step on that scale, I no longer fear the number. That number is so meaningless these days! Whether it shrinks or stays steady, I am defeating it!

Scale, you can be a sneaky bitch sometimes, you know that? You have so many of us convinced that your number is of the upmost importance…but guess what? I know better. I know that some weeks your number might not move as much as I want, while others it will plummet. As I build muscle, you try to trick me, but it wont work.

I now weigh 232 lbs. 13 weeks ago I would have told you that I would never make it here, and if I did, I would quit by that time. I look back on my first post here on this blog and I see a desperate, depressed woman with little to no hope.

I know that I still have a long way to go. I have 60 pounds to lose to get to my first goal. I have 33 pounds to reach Onederland. There will still be struggles in my future, but I have lost 40 lbs and hell, I am going to celebrate.

My back feels straighter, my body lighter. I wake up in the morning smiling. Each day I get more compliments from the people surrounding me. I feel their support and their love and it makes me want to jump up and down.

What surprises me the most is how I have come from the mentality of “I need to start a diet.” to “I need to start a healthy lifestyle.” . Cheat days? You no longer exist. What would I be cheating on? I make good choices. I have found that I actually LIKE healthy food. Cooking meals that are not only healthy but filling and delicious is something I look forward to now. I don’t want the chips or the fries or the chocolate anymore. I want to eat light enough that I will feel good when I take my 5 mile walk in the evening.

Jeez, who the hell am I ? I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I am so happy! SO happy that I want to cry.

I know it is only three months in, but I don’t think there will be any going back this time. This has to be the first time I have decided to make a change, and I can actually see myself achieving my goals. I am not going to quit. I feel amazing.

Weekly Update

Weighed myself this morning, I lost 3 pounds this week. That is 39 lbs in 12 weeks. I am starting to wonder how exactly I am losing so much weight each week… but I don’t want to question it too much. I don’t go hungry and I am not exercising so much that I am in pain… so I can only assume this will slow down.

I feel rather apathetic about my weight loss this morning. It is hard to get excited about such when I am sitting here brooding about yesterdays events. Events I don’t have any desire to dig into here in this journal. I will just continue to wish they had not happened.

Three pounds IS exciting news and any other day I would be jumping up and down. I will just hope that when I tell Patrick/my friends/my parents that they will help get me rather excited about it.

In other news I feel very sore from work yesterday. I helped Debbie haul plants back and forth for half the day. I don’t think I was lifting them right, not with how painful my back is right now. Still, it was good work and we got a lot done. Hopefully it will make things easier for her, but we are not finished. I just could not imagine trying to do more today. It will have to wait until next week.

 

Wednesday Progress Update

May 12th, 2016: Received my Fitbit in the mail, weighed myself in at 272.5 lbs, immediately started my new healthy lifestyle!

May 20th, 2016: One week in and have lost over 10 pounds, weighing in at 262 lbs total!

May 27th, 2016: Two weeks in, weighed in at 258 lbs, with 14 pounds lost!

May 28th-June 17th 2016: Struggled after a particularly hard week at work, lost track of my goal…stumbled forward and found my way again. Weighed in on the 14th at 256 and on the 17ths at 253, with 19 lbs lost! I decide that I will not be taking anymore cheat days.

June 24th, 2016: Officially six weeks in, 250 lbs and 22 pounds down! I am out of “Severely Obese” territory, with a BMI of 39!Patrick notices my weight loss, my pics are taken and- I see nothing different. Instead of being discouraged, I push onward!

July 1st, 2016: Seven weeks, weighing in at 246 lbs. That is 26 lbs down! I begin to notice my clothing is much too large.

July 8th, 2016: Eight weeks in, weighing in at 246 lbs. No weight loss, but I discover I have gone down a shirt size and a pant size! I purchase a pair of jeans, three shirts and a pair of capris. Most importantly, I begin to see a difference in my reflection! First measurements are take of my chest and stomach. I also received a compliment from a co-worker who had not seen me in awhile!

July 15th, 2016: Nine weeks in, 242 lbs. 30 pounds down! Celebration of losing 4 pounds in a weak, begin to see a difference in my face.

July 18th, 2016: Began strength training. Can’t do any type of modified push-up, can’t hold myself up in a plank for the full 30 seconds and struggle to lift 5 lbs (for each hand) 20 times.

July 22nd, 2016: Ten weeks in, 240 lbs. So close to the 230s I can taste it. Start looking up pictures of previous diets because lack of difference in tummy is frustrating. Looks like my tummy really starts shrinking at around 225 lbs. That is only 15 lbs away! I can definitely get there <3!

July 29th, 2016: Eleven weeks in, 236 lbs. Passed the 35 lb mark. Can easily plank for 30 seconds at a time,  still haven’t figured out a way to do a push up (grr), added lifting 10 lbs (5 lbs per hand) for 30 seconds every round.

July 31st, 2016: Began a vitamin/skin care regimen to help with loose skin.

August 3rd, 2016 (Today): 1.5 weeks from my goal of 40 lbs! Don’t see any progress from Vitamins, but only 3-4 days in.