This weekend flew by like a jet plane! I worked a 12 hour shift Saturday and I did really well with my eating while there. One thing I did notice was that since I didn't eat a "good" sized breakfast I was hungry ALL DAY. I ate a lot of very healthy snacks but I really feel like had I eaten more of my calories in the morning then I wouldn't have been so darn hungry all day! It was pretty slow at work also so that makes for more time to nibble and munch :( . Sunday I did great...until Ci Ci's. I had cheese toast (wheat) for breakfast and lots of water until lunch time. We ate a late lunch and I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't want dinner! I had 4 slices of pizza, a salad, 4 breadsticks and a piece of dessert pizaa :( Oh I felt like crud!! Dinner was never even thought of...I was even sick at bedtime. Yuck! BUT on a good note, I only gained 0.2 pounds over the 2 days. That is not ANYWHERE on track but I really thought it would be worse! So....today is a new day. Off on a better foot. Wheat cheese toast and a small serving of hashbrowns/eggs for breakfast and coffee with splenda. I WILL exercise today! Yesterday I must have sweated out anything extra I would've gained! We have chickens and I was busy outside making a fang dangled waterer! It was HOT! Here's hoping today is great!!!!


Amanda

Counting Calories

Good morning! Off to a later start today. My sleeping schedule is such a mess. Surely if I could sleep normaly I would have a much better day.

How does everyone else count their calories?

I use this program on my Android phone (love it!) that counts my calories for me. You can even scan an item and usually it finds it and puts it in the food list for the day. It tallies everything up so you know how much you have left to eat. I actually went to bed last night with a few calories to spare! According to this program for my height, weight and activity level (non existant!) I need to consume 2000 calories. Initially I thought this was a lot! But, now that I see that even eating 2000 calories I was STILL hungry and really wanted to make some bad food choices I can see where this is probably a large decrease in my daily intake :( and thus the reason for my obesity....I hate the sound of that.

My food choices for the day:

Breakfast:
1 Slice of french bread with cheese

Lunch:
Hotdog on a white/wheat bun
1 serving of baked french fries /w ketchup

Dinner:
Zaxby's house salad /w grilled chicken
1 packet of light ranch dressing

Snacks: (my downfall)
15 Wheat thins
1 serving of Laughing Cow cheese
1 cup of watermelon
1 Activia Strawberry Fiber yogurt
1 cup of cherries /w pits
1 spiced chai tea /c skim milk and splenda

I got up this morning and the scale said........254.8!!! I must of done something right!

Have a great day everyone!

Off and running....well walking...

I have to say that I am off to a good start. One day down, a few hundred more to go! Water increased..yes! I got up this morning and walked outside for 20 minutes. Grocery shopping is done. I have to say, I am a very frugal grocery shopper and it has always been dificult to shop on a budget and buy healthy foods. Fortunately there are a lot more options out there now than there has been in the past. I bought Activia Fiber yogurt and it is great! I was full after eating it for an after dinner snack tonight and wow was I suprised! It is definitely worth the try AND there are coupons out there now for $1 off just click here
Try it out! Good stuff!
http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?bt=vi&tqnm=zeulecv89641328&o=63784&c=DN&p=BbdAhzK2

Starting out

Ok, this is my first time doing this. I want to give a whirl. I have been reading a lot of blogs from others and it is inspiring. I have never been a great writer but there is a first time for everything!

I am tired. I'm tired of being tired. Tired of having no energy. Tired of feeling like I am missing out on my children's lives. Tired of fighting high blood pressure, anxiety and the fears that this extra weight is giving me. I'm just plain tired.

This is difficult but I am going to do it. Today I got on the scale and I weighed 256 pounds. I have weighed more. The highest was 276 this go round. In February my parents and I got onboard with the South Beach Diet since my father was fighting heart failure, 2 years since his massive heart attack that nearly killed him. We were all doing really well, him and my mom especially, when he died suddenly in his sleep. I had lost 20 pounds easily. You would think that this would be a major awakening for me. How can I live like this? Why do I do this to myself? Do I really want to live in fear of a heart attack or heart disease? Not any more!

I have fought my weight since kindergarten. As long as I can remember I have been overweight or battleing to stay thin. I remember kids in the 3rd grade teasing me because I had "boobs" already, but they were kind enough to let me know that they weren't REAL boobs...they were fat boobs! My mom decided when I was in Jr High to sign us both up for Jenny Craig. We did it and it worked! For the first time in a LONG time I was thin! 135 pounds!! Shopping for size 5 clothes was awesome! I finally fit in! Over the course of a year the weight piled back on. In highschool I got active, riding my bike everywhere and the weight fell off again but in my senior year I got pregnant.

I believe I weighed close to 276 right before I had my first son. I was young and had the mindset that "I'm going to get fat anyway!" This was great since I had always battled my weight and now I could eat anything I wanted! WRONG! I carried that weight for nearly 2 years when I started exercising a LOT, rollerblading, going to the gym. The weight fell off. But, weight yo-yo'd like my relationship with my now ex-husband. While I was pregnant with our 2nd son I did great, I didn't gain a lot of weight but I was still big. I divorced my ex-husband after the years of torment of an on-again off-again relationship. I started nursing school and was introduced to the Atkin's diet. It worked great! The weight dissapeared and I got down to a very comfortable 175, size 14 and kept it off for a few years.

When I met my current husband I was about 185 pounds and felt great. I had a great job and now an even more wonderful man in my life! Life couldn't get any better, or so we thought! After 6 months I got pregnant and vowed I would NOT gain all that weight back. The cravings were intense. I did really well only gaining 25lbs the first 33 weeks until my blood pressure went up and I had to stop working. That last 5 weeks I gained nearly 20 pounds! Diet pills and exercise dropped it back down to nearly 200. Just when everything seemed on track my dad had a heart attack. I felt led to take a full time job at a cardiologists office and loved it. I especially loved all the wonderfully delicious and very UNHEALTHY snacks the drug reps brought us. Breakfasts, snacks, candy, lunches, snacks and more snacks! Sometimes there would be double snacks! It was so hard to fight off the urge to eat and the food won, like it always did. By the time I left there I had gained nearly 50 pounds.

It is my hope that blogging about this will open my eyes and help me see how I got to where I am today. I need accountability. I am vowing today to start a food diary for the next week and doing some sort of physical activity every day. Next week I will reassess and see where to go. So many people have done this...shoot..I HAVE DONE THIS...I know I can do it again! I have to. I want my kids to enjoy their childhood with their mom by their side, even in the pictures. There are so many stories like mine. If you look through the photo albums mom is only there during the times she was thin. I want to be there all the time. Starting today.

Please, follow me on my journey and let's do this together. One baby step at a time.

Step 1: Food diary and MOVE every day, at least 20 minutes