LADDventure

WAIST Management 1.3 1.4

Current Weight:  182.8
Weight Lost This Week:  1.4 pounds!!!
Total Weight Lost: 3.2 pounds

I am particularly proud of that 1.4 pounds moving in the right direction in light of traveling, PMS, Wisconsin, cheese curds, enough said.
I was dreading the scale when I got back Wednesday night so it took me until today to weigh myself.  We will be jeeping all day on Sunday (excited squeal, it's been way too long), so I thought I would just weigh in today for the last two weeks.  I was honestly just hoping I didn't do too much damage, but was pleasantly surprised to see a loss, a 1.4 pound loss to be exact!
I usually have a very bad habit of thinking of everything in terms of all or nothing.  And, when it comes to trying to lose weight, that doesn't go over well.   
Here is the biggest thing I am learning..THE LITTLE THINGS MATTER.  I didn't have the perfect 2 weeks, but these are some little things that apparently worked.

• I chose fruit.  Ok not every time, but most of the time when ordering in a restaurant, I chose fruit as a side if it was available.  A side salad just seems like a poor substitute for fries, but if I think of the fruit as dessert, then I feel more satisfied.  

• I ate half.  Quite a few times, while eating out, if I really wanted something I would order it, but just eat half.  I would cut that burger, or sandwich in half before I even started eating and have them take the other half away when I was done, so I wouldn't be tempted to nibble.  That way I didn't feel deprived , but if I truly paid attention to my body, I was full and satisfied, and didn't need double the fat and calories.  

• I drank water.  Lots of it, with every meal and in addition to any other beverage.  

•  I had help.  This is actually something I previously thought of as a little thing, until I started sharing this journey on the blog.  I used to think that support from friends and family would just be annoying and feel like everyone was checking up on me, or that it wasn't really necessary because it was my own personal journey.  Not anymore.  This is a big thing.  Reading your tips and encouragement and knowing you'd be checking back in has been a huge motivator.  My friends and family were too sweet back in Wisconsin also.  My mom and dad had all kinds of fruit in the house when I first arrived.  My sister and brother-in-law had pre-cut all kinds of veggies to make salads and bought me diet coke.  My brother and sister-in-law made vegan enchiladas for dinner one night.  My other brother and sister-in-law were so thoughtful to ask if an awesome vintage burger joint was ok for dinner, which it was, but just their consciousness of it made me more conscious of it.  That's what prompted me to only eat half.  My dear friend made me a yummy veggie omelet with fruit and yogurt after a long walk early in the morning to catch up.  I have definitely wildly underestimated how important that support is, and am extremely grateful for it now.

 Thanks for checking in and I'd love to hear what you are doing to lose weight/get healthy in the comments section below.  Every week I will post a question and would love for you to answer it and share your wealth of knowledge!  
This week we are wondering ...

What "little thing" do you notice makes a big difference in your own journey to lose weight and/or get healthy?

Proud Big Sister

Siblings are the best gift my parents ever gave me.

    

 From left:  Kelli, Me, Ben, and David (My niece Emma wondering how we got so weird)

Growing up, siblings teach you many important lessons in life:  how to share, how to be patient, how to settle arguments, how to jimmy someone out of a laundry shoot with a broomstick.  No one makes me laugh harder than my brothers and sister.  I'm the oldest, but even now as adults they are still teaching me important life lessons all the time.  My little sister has taught me so much about being honest and about being the kind of mom I hope to be someday.  My little brothers taught me something just today.

From left:  Josh and Ben, then my brothers David and Ben.

My brothers David and Ben are in a band, Citizen Way, with two other brothers Josh and Ben.  They have been playing together as a band since 2004. David plays drums and Ben plays bass, and they are both self-taught and crazy talented.  After 8 years of blood, sweat, tears, and long weekends away from home, they signed a deal early this year with Fair Trade Services, one of the biggest christian music labels in Nashville! While it's exciting, it has been a whirlwind of recording their first single and traveling the country for radio promotion which has meant more blood, more sweat, more tears, and long weeks away from home.   But it's working.  They have been very well received and are getting some serious airtime on the radio. 

I've been listening to the radio the last few days with baited breath, waiting for their song.  I feel like my 11 year old self who listened to V100 for hours in my room, just so I could hit record on the tape player as soon as my favorite song came on.  (What a little music pirate I was.)  And finally it happened.  I heard it.  I was pulling into my driveway with Jeremiah, frustrated that I kept missing it, and confident of the fact that it would of course play as soon as we went inside, and I heard this on KLOVE national radio network,  "Here's a brand new song from Citizen Way, two sets of brothers from the Chicago area.  This is dreams coming true right now. "  Cue me jacking up the volume and wildly texting my whole family and of course choking up.  Even though I know this is just one of many steps in their career, it's a big one, involving millions of people hearing their song.  It's exciting to see others recognizing their hard work and talent.  I am inspired by watching them take the next step in faith knowing that this is not an easy or glamorous road, but one full of unpaid bills, long road trips, and missing families.  It will be worth it though no matter what happens, to have walked through the door that was put in front of them, and to have lived the life they were meant to live in this moment.  Today they taught me not to settle for a life of what if's, and to follow dreams, even the ones that seem impractical one step at a time.  

So here comes some shameless, proud-big-sister promotion...

 Check out Citizen Way performing an acoustic version of their single, "Should've Been Me" for one of the radio stations.

Also the song will officially be released on itunes a week from today, June 26th!  Go get it!

WAIST Management 1.2

Current Weight:  184.2
Weight Lost This Week:  Gained 0.4 pounds (boo hiss)
Total Weight Lost: 1.8 pounds

I weighed myself every which way possible this morning, but the fact remained.  A 0.4 pound GAIN.  Grrrrr...Ok still down overall from 186, but it is hard not to be disappointed when you see a gain in Week 2.  I know this is all part of the process, and I could have made even better choices, and your body starts to freak out a smidge when you change things so radically and store fat cause it thinks it's starving, and maybe next week will be a really big loss, blah blah blah.  I am consciously trying to break my all or nothing mentality of the past as in, "See, I was so careful this week and it's not working, so I guess I'll just eat half a pan of brownies."  No.  It is frustrating, but I am choosing to focus on what I can still improve in terms of my diet, other healthy goals, and keeping up the things that I know are working well for Week 3.

My Goals for Week 3:

1. Just keep tracking, tracking, tracking (sung to the tune of Just Keep Swimming from Nemo).  Tracking my food with exact portions is so important and it works so I need to keep it up.

2.  Move my body every day.  Some form of exercise needs to happen for at least 30 minutes every day.  This will be tricky as I am traveling this week back to WI, but I need to really get in this habit.

3.  Get enough sleep.  I had a very difficult time falling and staying asleep this week, and I don't think that helped anything.  I need to make it a conscious effort to get 8 hours of sleep.

4.  No fast food.  I haven't had fast food (other than Jimmy Johns) in the last 2 weeks.  Traveling for me, especially back to the Midwest, makes that tempting.  I will avoid the airport Wendy's, or Tacos El Rey and Infusino's back home.  I know my weaknesses, and although there are better choices to be found at these places, I tend not to make those better choices when I am there :-)


5.  Plan ahead.  I find myself starving after an airplane ride, or running around my hometown to catch up with everyone and then just eating whatever.  I will pack healthy snacks and be mindful of not letting myself get so hungry that I want to eat everything in sight.


I will be checking back with a weigh in next Wednesday after I get back to Ariona, so I'm using the same scale consistently.  Unless of course I find a scale in Wisconsin that tells me I've miraculously lost 10 pounds in which case I will be posting sooner. Here's to a great week of travel and just making the next healthy choice one at a time!


Thanks for checking in and I'd love to hear what you are doing to lose weight/get healthy in the comments section below.  Every week I will post a question and would love for you to answer it and share your wealth of knowledge!  

This week we are wondering ...

What are some of your best healthy travel tips?

     

Random Reading

The last couple of days have been filled with doing two things that are so important and often neglected for me (well three things if you count cleaning the bathrooms):

 #1 Spending quality time talking with some of my favorite women in life...my grandma, my sister, my best friend, good friends and coworkers.  I am not a "girl's night out" kind of girl usually.  I like my husband, I like guys around, I like being home in sweats if I'm being honest.   So, I often do not put in the kind of effort I should into my female relationships, but am so glad when I do.  They refresh me, they are an outlet for me, they support me, and we can talk about things that I just wouldn't otherwise.  I have been less than a model friend or family member this year.  So, making the effort, showing up, and just being more available are things I want to work on in my friend and family relationships.  

#2  Reading, reading and more reading.  Just like when I write, when I read I am a better person.  Period.  I am more reflective, creative, and open when I'm actively literate.  I've burned through 3 books since school ended, and am downloading left and right to my Kindle (best invention since the wheel).  I am also soaking up all kinds of hilarity and wisdom from the internet.  My favorite thing to do in the morning is make myself an iced coffee and catch up on all my favorite blogs.  So here is  a collection of the best things I've come across in the blogosphere this week for your weekend clicking and reading pleasure.

One Year Olds (Honest Toddler)
This entire blog is hilarious, all written from the perspective of the toddler.  But, this particular post I find hysterical because it expresses my chihuahua, Buddy's exact sentiments toward one year olds.

Wild & Precious (Shauna Niequist)
Shauna is one of my favorite authors and a major inspiration to me in writing and life.  I love her voice, her outlook, and her honesty.  I eagerly await each blog post and this one did not disappoint.

Club Unicorn (The Weed)
This guy, this family, this post completely blew me away.  Such a brave, humble perspective about homosexuality and how we treat other people.  This is a long post, but well worth the read.  Pour yourself another iced coffee.

The Jesus Dream (Tamara Out Loud)
A guest post by Renee Ronika Klug, about truly seeing and understanding Jesus and people...the two most important things in life.

Penelope  (Saturday Night Live)
And just for funsies, thanks to an aforementioned friend who spontaneously invited me to coffee this morning, I spent the next hour at home watching clips of this familiar one-upper.  Everyone knows someone like this, and I heart Kristen Wiig.  Enjoy!

WAIST Management 1.1

Current Weight:  183.8
Weight Lost This Week:  2.2 Pounds!!!!!!!
Total Weight Lost: 2.2 Pounds

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words after this initial post in which I bared it all.  That was a difficult thing to do, but you all made me so glad I did.  You have totally been an encouragement to me already, and a source of accountability as I thought about the fact that I would have to post this week's results here today while my husband ate cheese and crackers last night and I drooled.  I am thrilled with my 2.2 pound weight loss this week, and you better believe that .2 counts! The little things matter.

Some little things I did this week that made a huge difference:

1.  Tracked my daily eating in Weight Watchers Online.  I do not go to meetings (you guys are my version of meetings and I like you better quite frankly).  But, entering everything I eat or drink makes me conscious of it, thus prompting me to make better choices.  That's why I do love Weight Watchers.  It's just a tool to make intentional choices about food.  No magic or pills involved.

2.  Menu planned and stocked up on lots of organic fruits and veggies Monday at Trader Joe's.

3.  Ate a lot of said fruits and veggies.  Fruits and vegetables are worth 0 points on the new Points Plus Weight Watchers system.  Which, I love because it reinforces the most nutritious choices.  So, I can eat all the fruit and vegetables I want.  It makes sense because no one ever got fat on fruit and vegetables.   I found myself reminded that yes, I can just eat fruit for breakfast, and I didn't need to have some sort of bread product with it.  Bananas and mango can be breakfast, and a tasty one at that.

4.  On Wednesday, made a very low point value, but tasty lunch to go with my afternoon cocktails on my pool day with Jess to balance out the cocktails.  (Enter veggies and fruit again).  This is the other thing I love about Weight Watchers - no deprivation.  I just have to make good choices.  I knew I would be having a couple of cocktails, so I had fruit for breakfast, mostly veggies for lunch, and then even splurged on a Jimmy John's turkey sub for dinner, but just accounted for all of that.  Nothing is "off limits."

5.  Drank lots of water, which is easy to do when it's 100some degrees outside.

6.  Looked at the online menu of a restaurant I was going to meet a friend at for lunch, made a good choice, and then stuck to it when it came time to order.   I am very proud of myself for this one because I do enjoy a french fry but opted for a salad ahead of time.

Here are some things I can do better this week to keep up the weight loss momentum:

1.  Track every little bit of food or drink that crosses my lips.  I am familiar with Weight Watchers, so sometimes I got lazy this week knowing approximately how many points I had eaten and forgot to track it.

2.  Tracking it more exactly would help me budget my points a bit better, so I have more weekly points left at the end of the week.  (See above...used almost all my weekly flex points on Wednesday)

3.  Walk the dogs.  A simple walk every day is a great way to start adding in more activity to my daily routine.  The bonus is I get to add in points for activities, which means I get to eat more, which obviously I enjoy.

 4.  We started a weekly subscription to Chow Locally's Chow Share  box of locally grown, organic produce, so I will be planning around that.  My goal is to use up each and every fruit or veggie in there this week. On a side note there is rhubarb in this week's box, and my Midwestern heart is happy!  I have literally had a 3 year craving for rhubarb.  Crisp anyone?

5.  Less alcohol.  Not that I had a kegger or anything, but those poolside cocktails add up.

Thanks for checking in and I'd love to hear what you are doing to lose weight/get healthy in the comments section below.  Every week I will post a question and would love for you to answer it and share your wealth of knowledge!  

This week we are wondering ...

What is your favorite summer fruit treat?
      Mine:  Frozen mango.  Snacks all week came from  a big bag of frozen mango from Sam's 
      Club that I ate still half frozen.  It's already cut up, and tastes like a refreshing, nutritious 
       popsicle.

The Home that Hospitality Built

 
Photo taken by Ian McVea 

A house is just a house until someone makes it a home.  Truer words have never been spoken when it comes to this lovely oasis in Eau Claire, WI.  This 1907 farmhouse belongs to the parents of my mom's best friend from childhood, Dawn.  Dawn and her family would come up from Texas and we would meet them at her parents' house to join them for a long weekend.  We spent a couple of summer weekends there that have stayed with me to this day.

I was at that somewhat awkward phase of life, between childhood and adulthood. And at first the house seemed too old, too boring, too lacy for my taste.   Its sitting room with no T.V. should have been a place where no teenager would have wanted to spend time. But it beckoned with its comfortably worn rug and rocking chair to sit and stay awhile.  As the kids all played on the floor, the warm breeze floating from screen door to screen door carried the tones of catching up and slowing down. The wood floors creaked and audibly sighed with contentment as dads talked cameras, moms giggled, and old stories mingled with the clinking of cubes in sweating iced tea glasses.

The sprawling wrap around porch was more than an entrance.  It was a welcoming hello and a lingering goodbye.  It was the apron of the house, the lap you could crawl up into and rest in. The younger kids squealed from the front yard, but I envisioned myself too mature to get underdogs on the epic tree swing. So instead, my red converse dangled from the porch swing opposite the wicker loveseat where my mom and her friend sat reliving, reminiscing, and regretting together in hushed tones.  They knew I was listening, but didn't shoo me away, and I pretended not to be as I soaked up life lessons and lemonade.

This inviting homestead boasts everything I love in a house:  hard wood floors, a formal dining room, wrap around porch, and all the nooks, crannies and character of an old house.  But, its real pride and joy is the couple who lives and loves inside, affectionately known to us as Uncle Don and Aunt Eunice.  They were old-fashioned in the best of ways and young in all the rest.

Aunt Eunice was perpetually in the kitchen.  Big breakfasts and Sunday dinners were a staple.  She still cooked enough for hungry farmhands, but set the table for royalty.  From the garden or from scratch was the only way, and she took pride in feeding the brood.  But, then she sat at the dinner table afterwards and doled out wisdom, intelligent debate, and witty remarks with a gentle sophisticated smirk and showed me that a real woman can be both nurturing and feisty.

Uncle Don believed in hard work and the Bible, and told war stories around the table. But, if his wife's place was "in the kitchen," his was right beside her making peppered bacon while she formed the cinnamon rolls.  With rolled up sleeves and sudsy hands he affectionately kissed her on the cheek as he helped clean up after supper.  He had smiling eyes, tan hands and the youthful grin and cowlick of a mischievous boy. He never stopped moving as he enthusiastically bounced babies on his knee and taught my brothers how to fish and shoot a gun.  He showed me that a passion for living life knows no age. 

I was not there every weekend or even every summer, but this place has had as much influence on me as any other.  I learned the right way to serve tea and to serve others, what it means to grow old together, and that homemade and homegrown matter.  I learned how little touches like fancy dishes, fluffy bath towels, and a slice of lemon in a glass of water make people feel special.   The adults would joke about Norwegian hospitality, but it was more than that.  It was people who loved God and each other, loving other people as a way of life.  There is nothing like slices of lemon and a big front porch to point people toward Heaven.

Thankful Thursday

Things I am thankful for right this moment...

-Pink peonies and rhubarb to remind me of home

-Freckled cheeks and shoulders after the pool and italian greyhounds yesterday with one of my favorite people to talk to

-A husband who is a master pool chemist and thoughtful Jimmy John's delivery man

-White pajama pants with a tiny anchor print that I plan to stay in until lunch with my pal

-2 loyal beasts who love to sleep in as much as I do

-Encouragement in unexpected places from unexpected faces

WAIST Management - Getting Real

This was supposed to be Sunday's post.  It has taken me 2 days and lots of excuses to work up to writing it.  I ran into this post on Mama Laughlin's hilarious blog, and it inspired me to share.  My new direction is a response to what I felt was a lot of waste in my life. I have been wasting time, relationships, food, space, money, my house, creativity, talent, opportunities.

One of the largest things (pun intended), that I feel I've been wasting is my youth and relative health.  By relative health I mean that there is no disease or disorder I am struggling from that is out of my control at this point.  I have become increasingly aware of the fact that there are other 31 year old women who have cancer for example, or M.S., or who are wheelchair bound.  I am not one of them.  I should be using this able body to get  healthy and live life.  I am overweight, stressed, and lazy quite frankly, none of which are beyond my control to change.

So here is my current state of affairs when it comes to my WAIST management...

186 pounds currently (yikes I just typed that out loud). 

Size 14 pants (complete with muffin top).  

Shorts are nowhere to be found in my closet (but elastic is plentiful).

14 in dresses and skirts (and heaven forbid it hits above my knee).

XL in tops or anything with no number size (enter elastic again as yoga pants abound, but no yoga is being done in them).

I couldn't even tell you my true bra size unless there's a size ill-fitting (my cup overfloweth).

I have slowly gained weight over the last 10 years or so and told myself the following:
"I'm just curvy" (which I am even at a size 4, but my curves are now hidden under fluff)
"I gain weight proportionately"  (but there is nothing proportionate about 5'3" and 186 pounds)
"I'm confident with who I am" (and by confident I mean crying in my closet and avoiding pictures)
"I'm perfectly healthy" (cue migraines, back and neck pain, IBS, exhaustion)
"I'm just too busy" (crap no excuses now, I just quit my job)

 "I'll start losing weight and getting in shape Monday, or after the holidays, or when summer starts." (or when this zombie apocalypse is over.  You get the picture.   Always making it an all or nothing even though I know deep down that I can start now with my very next food or activity decision, and those little things add up to true weight loss.)

I have been a smidge heavier, but I've been WAY lighter and healthier and need to get back there.  It's not just about the number.  If I was 5'11" and looked and felt my best at 186, then I'd be thrilled with 186.  Not the case. My goal weight is 130 pounds - 50ish pounds I would eventually like to lose.  But along the way I will celebrate the small successes so I will be checking in every Sunday with my WAIST MANAGEMENT post.  Sunday is my weigh in day, and I will include progress pictures every 10 pounds to keep myself accountable and hopefully inspire a bit along the way. I'm enlisting the help of my online peeps to encourage me, share tips with me, and tell me to put down that doughnut.  So feel free to comment and cheer me on!

So with an adventurous spirit, here are the BEFORE pictures...

In the interest of full disclosure, I chose to take the picture with the disarray that is my current bathroom visible as well.  

And here's to the last time I will see 186 in the mirror or on the scale!