Sorry so late

Ok, I'm crappy at getting my posts up on time. But Linz, I loved your last post. I failed on the accountability part this week because I didn't put up my results, but I will be better. For my goals from last week, I didn't do so hot.

I stayed in my calorie limit 3/7 days. 

I had a treat 4/7 days. 

I did work out 3 times and they were all an hour long, so that was good.

I only wrote down all my calories 2/7 days, need to do better on that. 

I lost my one pound, and nothing more! :)

I think that was all of them. I am copying and adding

Don't eat after 8 pm

because this is the time when I am most tempted to eat crap. It is good to see our numbers and what we need to improve on. I will add one last goal

Post on time, by Monday at the latest

Ok, happy Friday!

my weekly evaluation

I am going to evaluate my goals in this post.

Last weeks goals and how I did:

Keep track of all my calories and stay within my limit. I didn't keep track as well as I should have. However I did better than I did from the previous two weeks combined.
Exercise 5 times-at least 30 minutes each. I only did two official 30 minute workouts again better than I did the week before. But I took a walk 4 out of 7 days on top of the 30 minute workouts.
Start getting back in to running, even if it's just once this week. My main workouts were running this week. Of course since I haven't ran in a while it was my own variation, well a program that I found online to help work me up to running 20 minutes straight. It felt really good to run actually.
No eating past 8:00pm. I did this maybe 2 out of 7 days. I need to work on this one.
Drink 8-10 glasses of water daily. I didn't get 8-10 every day but I almost did. I kept track of my water and put forth the effort to drink more.
Lose 2 pounds by next Monday morning. check!

This weeks goals:
I'm actually keeping with the same goals as last week. But I'm going to really focus on not eating past 8:00 and exercising. I really didn't think I did that well this week but as I evaluate myself I'm feeling more confident and realize I need to focus on the things that I did do rather than those I didn't. I'm starting to feel my habits change recently too. I bought some very yummy chocolate from this Christmas expo I went to this past weekend. When I got home I opened it and Michael, Noelle and I shared some pieces. I was able to limit myself to 1-2 pieces instead of completely losing control and eating 10. That was kind of a breakthrough for me. Yesterday something happened that got me pretty discouraged. I don't really want to share it but it kind of opened my eyes. I was sad for a little bit and mad at myself again for all the things I haven't accomplished, weight loss wise, and for letting myself get this overweight. But as I evaluate myself this morning I'm reminded that I've accomplished little things this past week. And though I wasn't perfect these little things will add up to a lot in the end.

'tis the beginning of a season

Lets not talk about the last two weeks of my life as far as eating goes. Let's just say part of it was due to my daughter's b-day and Halloween. Anyway. I realized this last Friday that the beginning of the "eating season" is upon us. Our ward had an early Thanksgiving dinner and I had to make some things for it. My egg nog pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheese cakes and my sweet sweet potatoes. I thought, "Oh no, it's here and I haven't even gotten very far in my weight loss." But as Nina's last post said "We just need to get back on track." So I'm feeling optimistic. One reason I think I'm feeling this way is because I weighed myself this morning and even after two not very good weeks I haven't gained any weight. I was totally shocked. I think it's due to walking a couple of times a week. I'm not even close to my "big goal" that I set. I was really ambitious back then and thought I could lose weight faster than I have been. So I'm going to have to set a more realistic big goal. For now I will share my smaller yet important goals for the week:

Keep track of all my calories and stay within my limit.
Exercise 5 times-at least 30 minutes each.
Start getting back in to running, even if it's just once this week.
No eating past 8:00pm.
Drink 8-10 glasses of water daily.
Lose 2 pounds by next Monday morning.

Can I add some different kind of personal goals as well? These might not be as measurable but I need to put them somewhere so I can personally see how I did.

Turn my negative thoughts in to positive ones.
Play with my kids more this week.

Re-evaluating

So I've been thinking about this blog and how we can better use it to help us towards our goals. I felt like we were so motivated at the beginninmg and it has gotten harder to know what to blog about except our frustrations. That is definitely a part of this, being here for each other, but we are lacking the accountability that we said we wanted in the beginning. The goals we set are still great, and we made them realistic, but they are still so far, it is hard to stay focused. I realized we need to set goals in a smaller time frame, like week to week. Since we are trying to post once a week, I think that is a good start. I really think this blog is so great and I don't want it to fizzle out, so let me know what you think.
I know this sounds like we're back in elementary school, but I just want to put down for myself the necessary components for setting and accomplishing goals. They need to be specific. Our big goals have specific numbers, but not how we are going to get there. This is definitely something I'm lacking. They have to be measurable. Not just meaning pounds lost, but examples are calorie counting, how many time per week we've exercised, etc. The last three are achievable, realistic, and time-targeted. I feel like we really have been doing this, but if we shrink it down to one week increments, it will help us work towards our overall goals so much better. It is realistic to recognize that we are losing the weight over time and don't have to lose it in 6 weeks, but sometimes it's hard not to cheat when our goal met date is so far off. So overall, we will still have set them for our dates set up before. But we will set our smaller goals each week. It is up to each person how many exact numbers they want to share, but I will say that the more specific and the more we share, the more the accountability part works. If I set a goal to lose 2 pounds this week and I don't, I don't really want to share that, but I know that if I put it out there and have to publish real numbers rather than just saying I didn't do well. I'm not saying we want to make each other feel bad, but I know I'll feel more pressure (in a beneficial way) to do well if I have to write numbers down. Again, there is no pressure to put it down if you don't want to, this is just what I'm realizing will help me more. I just know that it is easier not think about it when I mess up, so this is a helpful way to stay focused, but not get so overwhelmed.
So for this week coming up, here are my goals:

Exercise 5 times a week; each day at least 30 minutes/day, but I would like at least 3 of those days to be 1 hour/day.
Stay within my calorie limit 6/7 days. I am not going to post what my calorie limit is, but I will be posting next week how much I go over if I do mess up to help me stay focused. Do NOT do this if it will only make you more stressed. This is just something I'm trying to see if it helps me.
Only have one cheat meal/week. Keep this goal through the weekend!
Only have one treat/week.
Lose one pound by next Sunday.

Tanner's goals are:

Record calorie intake daily.
Stay within calorie limit 6/7 days.
One cheat meal per week.
Lose 2 pounds by next Sunday.

Tanner and I were talking today and one of us said, "I'll start on Monday." The other person said, "We are already started, we just got off track." We don't have to think of it as all or nothing, do it or blow it big time. If we go out to eat, enjoy it and we can eat better the rest of the day. Weekends are so hard for me right now. Here we go, it's going to be great!

I'm still discouraged that I can't seem to "stay on track." However I've come to a realization. Even though I haven't gotten the results that I've wanted or have gotten in the past I feel I'm more successful this time around. And this is because of two things 1) I realize when I mess up and actually have a desire to do better and 2) I haven't quit all together. I did really pretty well this past week except on Saturday. But even then I didn't "blow" it, well not as much as I have in the past. I also have realized a few other things. I had a baby 12 weeks ago. That's really not that long ago, so I have to give myself a break. I have a lot to be grateful for in my life, and if I focus on the negative things I don't have time to enjoy the good. I probably won't accomplish my percentage goal by the end of the year, but that's okay. I have to work out and eat healthy at the same time. If I try to eat well I can't stay on track as much if I haven't worked out. I have to make working out a priority as well. I've been trying this Special K program lately. And it's been going pretty well. I know it's just a matter of counting calories and portion size but it's what I need right now. I need that "this is what you have to eat" kind of thing. It works for me. And I enjoy the food. Now I just need to cut out the bad stuff and I'll be doing good. I'm starting to make little goals for myself each week. Such as "I will not eat after 7pm" or "turn negative thoughts in to positive ones." I have to be successful at these little things. I'm sick of being hard of myself. I know that I've been hard on myself my entire life so I can't change over night. But I hate not enjoying my days because I'm worried if I'm staying on track with my diet. I'm just starting to feel that these habits are controllable and for the first time in like 6 weeks I'm feeling optimistic about my health. I've decided to make a goal or two each week that I am really going to work on and I'm going to share it here. Goal 1: turn negative thoughts into positive ones. Goal 2: Work out purposefully 3-4 times this week.

So we made it to month #2 and we're still here. Two of us anyway. :) Just kidding Aly. I've invited Dad, so we'll see what he has to say.
So I've had to sit down and look at what I'm doing and go over it again. I was doing really well calorie counting and between work and taking care of the family, I feel like it is the easiest thing for me right now. I just need to get back on it again. It is so much easier said than done. Even though I know it was only a few weeks ago I was doing it and I felt so much better doing it. On some things I'm being more specific. I'm still using that website from before to calculate my calories. Then I have two options for breakfast and two options for lunch each day. It might sound boring to eat the same thing most days, but it really isn't that bad. I just picked something easy that I like, usually a sandwich. It is nice because I already have figured out how many calories are in it and I can just plug it in to my spreadsheet. On some days that I really am craving something less healthy, I have a cheese quesadilla on corn tortillas, because even though it's more fattening, it ends up being about the same as my usual sandwich, then I am only allowed to have a piece of fruit or a vegetable to go with it. Then for dinner Tanner and I have regular meals, but we cut down on portion sizes. This has been hard for us. But I'm starting to simply make a little less, so it isn't tempting to just finish it.
Other things I've had to just go with it. If we do cheat or blow it at dinner with some friends, we just keep going and remind each other that we're trying to eat healthy overall, not just kill ourselves. I'm not looking at numbers this week because after last week, the few pounds I have lost are almost all back. But I'm not going to stress myself out over it. I can't be thinking about food all the time and worrying, or when I do blow it, I get so down on myself about it. I have to just say that it's okay and keep going. My goal this week is to stay on track and not have more than one big cheat meal. I'll let you know next week how it goes!

frustration

Well I don't know if I'm still going strong. This has been the HARDEST thing for me. I can't seem to stay on track at all. I do well for like 3 days and then I blow it. But not just for a day, it's for like 3 days. I can't stick with any one program. I start out all motivated and start strong and then it just blows up in my face. I feel like right now I can't control anything in my life. Except my attitude I guess. In the morning I think, "I'm going to make a shake for breakfast." Then life happens: Noelle screams at me because she's hungry, Michael starts crying and is also hungry. By the time everyone is fed, changed and satisfied it's like 10am and I'm hungry. So I go for something that is fast and easy. But I don't seem to go for the really healthy option. An egg sandwich. A bowl of cereal. Sure a bowl of cereal can be good, but not when I like triple the serving. What is my problem? Food has really got a hold on me. I don't know what to do anymore. I know I could do any program if I really put my mind to it, but am I really as committed as I should be? I think deep down I am waiting for it to eventually become easy and it'll just be like second nature to eat healthy. Maybe I should pray for the thyroid disease that makes me lose weight (I really don't mean that cause I know people who've had it that have been really sick, but I kinda mean it). I can't seem to get over the fact that I've let myself get this unhealthy. I can't seem to move forward. I kind of just want to scream. Sorry guys to be such a downer. I just feel so frustrated and am very close to just quitting and becoming a professional peanut butter taster.

p.s.-You guys are my inspiration. Keep up the great work!