Catching Up (Day 536)

Hi all!

Happy Monday! How is everyone doing today? Did you all have a good weekend? Mine was wonderful, busy but wonderful. I just want to say thank you to everyone who commented on my blog yesterday about me revealing my current weight. You all are amazing and so encouraging! I was really nervous about revealing my true weight (not sure why because I have my highest weight out there and how much weight I've lost). But nevertheless, I was nervous. All of your encouragement was so wonderful, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. So thank you!

This morning I did not want to get up, so I slept a lot later than what I normally would (well sort of). The time change made it look as though I slept an hour later, I woke up at 8:30. So before the time change, that was in my normal time frame. But that just means that the morning went a lot faster than normal. Probably didn't help that Abid decided to call me at 12:40 this morning, it was 10:40 in the morning by him. He felt horrible that he woke me up, but that's the best way I could have been woken up. Anytime I get to hear his voice, is a wonderful thing.

I just finished up my workout, and I'm feeling amazing. It's amazing how great I feel after a workout, even if it's just a walk and a little upper body strength training. My pedometer is amazing, I found the perfect spot to wear it while walking where it very accurately counts my steps/mileage. It was just this little cheapy pedometer (because I can't afford much right now), but it's doing the job. 1.05 mile walk today in 20 minutes, my time is improving again. Today I didn't really have a real "goal" of how far I was going to walk or mileage or anything. My back/hip was starting to hurt right around 16 minutes, so I pushed myself to 20 minutes and then called it a day.

Yesterday was a high carb day (you all know how much I love those days), it went fairly well. I was under all of my goals, even after I adjusted my numbers because of my weight loss. Last night I was so dang proud of myself, my brother, SIL, and their 4 youngest came over for dinner (that's pretty typical). And of course the kids wanted hot chocolate pudding on ice cream, well I turned down the ice cream and just had a small portion of the hot pudding. That was a total win. It is a step in the right direction for me mentally with my weight loss. Here's a recap of yesterday:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	399	399	85
Used	285	155	50
Left	114	244	35

This week I have a very light homework load, a little reading, writing a thesis statement and outline for a future paper, a discussion post, and responding to others outlines/thesis statements. The reading is already done. Plus my outline is about done, just need to write the thesis statement. So all I really need to do is write out my discussion post by tomorrow and wait for others to post their outlines so I can respond to those. I'm hoping this means that I can catch up on the blogs I follow, finally! I've been such a bad blogger friend lately, I've barely read any blogs. But hopefully today I can catch up on all of them!

I should start my thesis statement quickly and maybe start on my discussion posting. Then I promise I'll start catching up on those blogs. Plus I get to watch my Brewers this afternoon. :) So until next time.

~Sara~

Weigh-In (Day 535)

Hi all!

Happy Sunday! How is everyone doing today? It's a rainy day here, but I won't let that get me down. I'm sitting here with my delicious coffee and thinking about how excited I am because it's weigh-in day. :) But before I get to that, I want to be more honest with you all. In the past I have hid my current weight, because it's a number I don't like. No more of that though, it's time to start being 100% honest with you all about my weight. So here it is (and this is how it will be from now on):

Starting Weight: 315
Last week: 289.2
This week: 285.4 

That is a loss of 3.8 pounds! Right?!? How awesome! The carb cycling is working, quite well.
Speaking of carb cycling, it is a high carb day today. But I did adjust my numbers since my weight decreased, so I think I'll be doing that from week to week with my new weight. The numbers didn't change a ton, just a few grams lower than last week. Here is a recap of my numbers yesterday:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	173	347	144
Used	154	141	76
Left	19	206	68

Oh and I tried out my new protein powder and I absolutely love it! Honestly, when you warm it up, it tastes like hot chocolate. :) How awesome is that?!? Plus I brought it with me to church last night and added some coffee to it, so it was pretty much a mocha. It is one of the new staples in my diet, especially now that I'm adding strength training back into my routine.

Now on to today, I got to try out my other new toys today. I'm doing the Couch to 5K program (just walking right now), and I'm on week 2. The goal today was to walk for 25 minutes, so it wasn't too hard. So I put on my pedometer and picked up my weights and started walking, I even did some upper body strength training while walking. I'm so glad to be able to exercise some again, I was really yearning for it. And it's really nice to not have to count my own steps because then I can't do anything else really. Now I can just focus on walking and upper body strength training. Today I did two sets of 20 of these exercises: bicep curls, lateral shoulder raise, chest press, tricep extension, shoulder row, and hammer curl. Those were the easiest ones to do while walking, plus I want to add some wrist curls next time. Even after I was done with my strength training, I still held onto the weights while I was walking. And now I can't wait until my workout tomorrow. I've planned more walking, 1.75 miles. Not sure how long it will take me, but that's the longest I will have walked in awhile.

So I don't know how many of you are baseball fans, but every day I've been watching the World Baseball Classic pretty much every day. Because I'm obsessed with baseball, it's one of my passions. I could watch baseball every second of every day, and honest, I do watch it most of the day while I'm at home. :) If I could get paid to watch/talk baseball, I totally would. I love it in general, no matter what teams are playing. But tomorrow is going to be even better because I get to watch my Brewers! It's their first televised games of the Spring, and I am more than excited to watch my boys play. I can even workout during the game if I want, just be walking around my living room while the game is on. :)

Time to finish up my paper and the discussion posts for this week. Week 4 is about to start, I can't believe it!  I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday! So until next time.

~Sara~

New Toys (Day 534)

Hi all!

Good afternoon, sorry this is later than normal but I've had a busy day. How is everyone doing today? This morning I had a wonderful coffee date with my best friend and then as soon as I was done with that, I went shopping with my mom, one of my nieces and my nephew. So we just got back unloaded everything and I can finally relax a little bit. So I have on the World Baseball Classic (Canada vs. Mexico), not really cheering for anyone in particular. Tonight's game will be interesting though, I'm torn. Do I cheer for Italy (the team I've been cheering for all along) or USA (where I live). Oh well, whatever happens, will happen.

Today is another low carb days, but it was crazy. We went out for lunch, I got a salad with grilled chicken, apples, and cranberries, but I didn't realize there was bleu cheese on it. I absolutely hate bleu cheese, I tried to pick it off but it was just crumbled on it too much, so I barely touched my salad. I didn't let that derail my low carb day, I just ate when we got home. Atkins Beef Merlot meal and an Atkins nutty fudge brownie. :) They were both delicious. I did fairly well yesterday, my protein levels were still low but other than that I did wonderfully. Here's the recap:

Type	Carbs	Protein	Fats
Total	173	347	144
Used	148	117	102
Left	25	230	42

But I'm excited, now I get to talk about my new toys. :) Today I got my chocolate protein powder (I can't wait to try it out!), I got a new pedometer, and some 2 lb weights. With my back, I can't be lifting too hard, and when I do the 30DS 2 lb weights are all I can handle right now. I cannot wait to try all my new toys out! :) Now when I'm walking I don't have to count my steps and I can be walking with some weights in my hands, it'll all help out. Plus now my protein levels will be up higher. I'm planning on trying out my protein powder tonight, so I'll give you a little review of it tomorrow.

I've got to cut this one short. My paper is not done yet (eek!) and it's due tomorrow. So I really need to finish it up so I can get all my proofreading done. Plus I'm still not even close to caught up on the blogs I follow (oops). I'll try to get caught up after my paper is done.

~Sara~