i joined a gym...

I don't like to run on the street. When I first started out running and I was pushing a double stroller, I didn't want to worry about dodging cars or trash cans and having to go up and down the curb...that's why I went to the track. And since we moved, I go to a park that's close by that has a path around it. {Yeah I know...I drive three miles there, run for three miles, and then drive three miles back home...but it's worth it to me} 

Anyway, I used to take the kids with me when I ran. I would go during Conner's morning nap time and he would take his nap while I ran and Owen would be chill with goldfish and his apple juice. It worked out perfectly.

But then Conner stopped taking morning naps. And Owen finally noticed that there was a park there, so he was done with the whole staying in the stroller thing and he just wanted to go play.
And that's when I went from running three days a week to one...if I was lucky.

About three weeks ago I realized that without running I hardly had anytime to myself. So we joined a gym.

Best. Thing. Ever.

They have an amazing daycare and the boys love going. {And they're socializing with kids their own age, which is something that they desperately needed.}
I'm working out regularly again. And getting a few minutes to myself a couple days a week. Priceless.

paleo

In November of last year, I was kinda stuck in a rut with the whole weight loss thing. I plateaued and was starting to lose interest in counting calories. I was on Pinterest and saw that one of my friends had shared this link:

30 Day Paleo Challenge

I had heard of Paleo before, mostly just from seeing it on Pinterest, but I didn't really know what it was. After doing just a little bit of research on it I decided to give it a try. 

{I didn't really follow the challenge word for word, though. We were on a tight budget and I didn't have time to get too fancy with my meals. For breakfast I mostly just did two eggs and two slices of turkey bacon. Then for lunch and dinners I would do either tuna with avocado or grilled chicken and a vegetable.  If I got hungry in between meals I would have a banana or a couple of almonds. And I drank A LOT of water.}

I did it for about three weeks and I lost 10 pounds. It was hard for me to stick to it though. After the three weeks I started having "binge days" when I would have a piece of toast or have some pizza. It would make me pretty sick and I would always feel like crap afterward, but, as much as I tried to resist, I still did it.

I went to Arizona for three weeks around Christmas, and during those three weeks I ate anything and everything I wanted. And I paid for it. I gained those 10 pounds back plus a couple extra. But when I got back home in January I started at it again (except for a week at the end of January when my in-laws came to visit) and I have, for the most part, stuck to it since then. It's gotten a lot easier now that I don't really crave the crappy food anymore and -thanks to Pinterest- I'm finding more Paleo recipes that satisfy the cravings that I do have.


BTW-- highly recommend the Jillian Michaels 6 Week Six-Pack workout. Such a good workout! So hard though...I would honestly rather go run four miles than do that video...but it works!

how i did it...weight loss part 3

**just a little disclaimer...I am in no way telling you what to do, I'm just sharing what I did and what worked for me**

It was in October of 2012 that I started running. I weighed 225 pounds. 

I went to the doctor in March of 2013, I stepped on the scale and saw that I was 212. I had only lost 13 pounds. It was better than nothing, but after five months I kind of expected it to be a little more.
That's when I realized that I needed to keep better track of what I ate. {And that I also needed to buy a scale!}

When I got home I downloaded a calorie counting app on my phone and I started counting my calories the next day. For the next six months I kept track of my calories {I stayed around 1200 calories a day} and continued to run a couple times a week. On September 18th I weighed in at 178 {3 pounds away from where I was when I got married...yay!} and I was so excited! I worked so hard to lose those 34 pounds!
I know that a lot of people are able to lose weight faster, and it is possible to lose more weight than that in six months. But for a mom of two toddlers who can't even pee by herself....I thought 34 pounds in 6 months was pretty darn good!

One of the biggest things to remember when you're trying to lose weight is to not get too discouraged when you step on the scale. Those little numbers can fluctuate a lot. Which is why a lot of other blogs that I read said to only weigh yourself once a week. But for me, weighing myself every morning helped me keep on track. If it wasn't changing, I worked harder. If I was losing, I worked harder.

Now I weigh 165...which is what I weighed when I graduated high school! {Of course I have it in different places now that I've had kids--my stomach used to be flat-- and I'm not nearly as muscular as I was then, but I'm working on it!}

I know 60 pounds in 17 months doesn't seem like that much, but I am so glad that I started when I did! The time will pass whether you're doing something or not, so you might as well do something!

And now...just for you...here's my before and during picture! I've lost a few more pounds since then and I'm still going!

running

Like I said before, I always thought it would be cool to do a marathon. I had never really run before though, and I never thought I would. I did track in high school, but there wasn't much running involved with shot put and discus. 

When I had tried running in the past, I would just run for as long as I could. It was hard and boring. I would do it once and then not even think about it again for months. 

But with the app that I downloaded you start slow...super slow. This is what day 1 looks like:

When I first saw it I thought running for 1 minute would be easy. I mean really...how hard could it be to run for a minute?? But running for one minute six times while pushing two kids, one of them in a car seat, in a double stroller that wasn't made to be pushed so fast....I thought I was going to die. 

But I did it.

And before I knew it I was able to run for two minutes, and then five, and then...gasp...I ran a half mile without stopping. It started getting easier. I was getting stronger. And it got to the point where I would actually look forward to doing it....never thought I would see the day!

And in July of last year I did my first 5K! Crossing that finish line was pretty much awesome, it made all the hard work so worth it!

So here are some of my tips for running:

 {again, I am definitely not an expert, this is just what I have learned and what helps me. I'm not anywhere close to where I want to be, but I'm a heck of a lot closer than I was two years ago...}

download an app. There's quite a few of them and it makes it a little easier. It's almost like having a trainer with you telling when to walk and when to run. It helps. A lot. 

listen to music. When you first start, it really sucks. But when you listen to music, especially your favorite songs, you don't think about it so much. I used Spotify, it's about $10 a month but it is so worth it!

good shoes. Good running shoes are rather expensive, but it can make such a huge difference! I highly recommend going to a running store and having them fit you for shoes. You don't necessarily have to by them there, they might be a little more pricey, but they should be able to help you choose the best shoe for you. {I absolutely love Aesics, but that's just me! They're not very stylish but I love em!)

keep going. There were a lot of times when I really had to convince myself to go run. But you never regret going, so just do it! 

don't get discouraged. It's hard. I had to repeat a couple of the weeks on my app because I wasn't quite ready to move on. And when we first moved to Texas a year ago I went about two months without running and I had to start over again. It's amazing how fast you can lose your endurance.

And lastly...just do the best you can! It's always going to be better than not doing anything at all!

why i did it...weight loss part 2

One of the major points that I want to get across here is that, in my opinion, the most important thing is how we feel abut ourselves. That is the main reason why I decided that I wanted to get healthy...I didn't feel good about myself. I didn't have the energy to take care of my boys. I never wanted to go anywhere. I was extremely irritable. I wasn't happy with myself. 

I would log on to pinterest and scroll through the health and fitness section, and just say to myself "one day I'm gonna do it." I was looking for a quick fix though. I would see something like 'how to lose five pounds a month' and I wouldn't read anything else about it cause I wanted to lose more than that. So I kept looking for a quick fix...

What finally did it for me was deciding that I wanted to run a 5K. 

As a mom, I very rarely have time to do something for myself. My world tends to revolve around my kids. But I realized that not taking time for myself, and doing something just for me, was keeping me from being a better mom. I had always wanted to run a marathon, but it just seemed so far fetched that I never really did more than occasionally think about it. But one day I downloaded a couch to 5K app on my phone. The next day I loaded up the kids and the stroller and drove to an old high school football stadium and walked/slogged around the track. 

After a few weeks I started to notice a huge difference. I had so much more energy. I was more patient with my kids. I started eating better {because I wanted to and not because I felt like I had to.} I just felt happier. 

The whole running thing really sucked at first. But finally feeling good about myself again was all the motivation I needed to keep going. 

Weight loss

It's about to get real personal up in here. 

So far all I've written about is pretty much milestones my boys have reached or what they have been up to. And I noticed that's all I mention on Facebook as well. All I ever seem to talk about is my kids {which doesn't bode well for my vocabulary skills...you like that word, eh? bode. something i would never say in a normal conversation. definitely need more adult conversations in my life} But I have been working somewhat hard over the last 15 months or so to lose weight. Like really lose it. Not just a 'diet' where I gain the weight right back as soon as I start eating normal food again. 

But first, let me back track a little....

I have always been a little bigger. 

Through middle school I always felt like I was bigger than other girls. I knew I wasn't obese or anything, I was just a little overweight. But when your 13 and going through the most awkward stages ever, being a little overweight definitely made things just a smidgen worse. Every summer I told myself that I was going to lose weight before school starts for real this time! 

During my sophomore year I started to feel more confident. I was on the track team and I had started lifting weights. {And I'm sure getting my braces off and finally figuring out how to do my hair helped too.} But I finally stopped caring so much about what other people thought.
While I was in college I didn't really worry about my weight at all, and the pounds slowly started packing on again. And then I got married and I really didn't worry about it. 

Fast forward a bit...after a year of being done with school and not being able to find a job and being home all day with nothing to do but eat...I gained about 20 pounds. By the time I realized it and started to do something about it I found out I was pregnant (surprise! we were super excited though.) 

Fast forward just a little bit more and I have two kids, 13 months apart. I had gained way more weight than I needed to and was for sure the biggest I had ever been. 

Now- I'm really nervous about doing this, but I'm gonna do it anyway-- I was 225 pounds and a size 20. But Conner was in the hospital and I had an 18 month old at home and I honestly couldn't have cared less. 

A few months later I saw this picture of myself...

Seeing this is when I finally realized that it was time to do something.
  Anything.  

So I decided, now that it's two years later, I want to share a little bit more about my journey to being healthy. I want to share my story. 

And of course I'm not certified in anything, or anything like that, I just want to share what I did (and am still doing...it's still a work in progress)

Catching Up

When I was in high school I was super good at writing in my journal. My senior year I pretty much wrote everyday. I could probably tell you exactly what I did on March 22, 2006. I wish I still had the desire and the interest, and the time, to write things down like I used to.. Now that I have kids, I spend my days doing puzzles, making grilled cheese sandwiches, changing diapers and watching Super Why. When the little diaper fillers finally go to bed all I want to do is sit for 20 minutes uninterrupted. I'm bummed that I don't write in my journal like I used to, and I really want to work on that, but in the mean time I'm gonna try and play catch up on what's been going on lately....

Conner is 2. And huge. 95th percentile for height and weight and his dr. is still hopeful that he'll grow into his head. 

He is such a funny little kid. He has such a fun personality and I'm still amazed at how different he is from Owen. 

He's very social and loves to play with other kids. But he's also super sensitive and cries pretty easily.

He mimics anything and everything. He'll pretty much repeat anything you say. It can be very entertaining. 

He knows most of the letters and can almost count to 5 {waaan...tuuuu...nine...four}

He and Owen kind of have their own little language, I don't know if they can really understand each other but it sounds like they're speaking the same language.

His favorite phrase is "no mine" which is a lot of fun. 

Owen is 3 and still a little behind with his speech. His dr. was worried about autism but after a few tests he said that if he does have it it's very, very mild. What he was "diagnosed" with was isolated speech delay, which his dr. isn't too worried about and said that he will grow out of it. 

He is such a sweet little man (most of the time). I absolutely love watching him play with Conner. He is such a good big brother!

He does have just a little bit of a temper. I think he gets frustrated cause he's trying so hard to talk and I have no idea what he's saying.

He is so smart. He loves doing puzzles and is starting to read. I've been teaching him the alphabet in sign language and he thinks it's the coolest thing ever. 

Other than the boys growing up, there's not really anything too exciting going on. The boys and I got to go to Arizona for Christmas and flying by myself with 2 toddlers is something that I do not want to do again. {And yes, we left Daddy alone for Christmas, he had to work anyway}

It's been a year since we have moved here and time is going by way too fast! It's hard being so far away from family, but Tome absolutely loves his job! I am so grateful that he works so hard and I'm able to stay home with the boys!