minus 3.0

not too shabby. that sounds like a lot my friends, but it was over three weeks. haha. i've had a crazy couple of weeks, with my kids getting sick and going to disneyland with my family, so blogging took the back seat. i guess a pound a week is okay (slow and steady wins the race, right?)... i just get so impatient. i just need to think of it as a lifestyle change and not a diet, because if i keep eating the way i am now, i will just gradually drop the weight. and it's not like i'm deprived... last night i had a bowl of that dreyer's slow-churned cookie dough ice cream. man, that stuff is to die for. you'd never know it has less fat and calories in it. if any of you dieters out there are in need of a little treat, go and try any of those slow-churned flavors... you can't go wrong.

i decided that i'm going to make a mini-goal of losing at least 1 pound by next week. hopefully that will help keep me motivated to just keep going with the weight loss instead of always feeling like it's too hard and too hopeless and i have so far to go. how about you people? what do you do to stay motivated?

countin' some points

so, i started weightwatchers today. after i had worked so hard last summer, and got down to 132 pounds, i gained it all back... and a little more. at the end of august, we moved out of our apartment in utah and stayed with family for almost two months. then we moved to california, stayed with more family for a couple weeks, and then hit the holiday season where we stayed with even more family off and on for several weeks... i just couldn't establish a routine for my eating habits and my exercising went down the tubes. after the new year, i started exercising again and training for another marathon with my husband, which helped me feel a little better and get some tone back, but i just couldn't motivate myself to stick to a food plan long enough to lose any weight, so i decided to try something new. i'm doing the online plan because i don't really have the time to go to meetings right now, which means... i need a little support from whoever tunes in to this here little blog. i'll post my stats every week after i weigh in on tuesday nights after my yoga class.

starting weight: 143 pounds

first goal weight: 130 pounds

ultimate goal weight: 125 pounds

so here i go...

pregnancy goals...

Wow, it's been awhile since we've posted on this thing. Seeing as how I am pregnant, I don't have any current weight loss goals, but I do have some fitness goals, as I feel that I am becoming a whale much too early on in this pregnancy, and I want to help my labor be nice and easy by doing a little exercise. So...

Goals for the remainder of my pregnancy...

Do something active for 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week

ie. go for a walk with Asher, (maybe even add a little speed walking, so long as it doesn't feel like the little guy will fall out of me!), prenatal yoga dvd, go for a walk around the mall, stretches, etc.

This is a very small goal, and you would think it would be easy, but so far it is not, and so I turn to the blog to help me be accountable. I am going to try to talk about my pregnancy workouts a little and how I feel during and after, etc, etc. It should be a thrilling ride, and I could definitely use all the encouragement and tips I can get. 

Wish me luck!

it's good to lose some things...

...like extra pounds. :)

i weighed in after yoga class last night and was pleasantly surprised. here's my stats:

current weight: 133 pounds

goal weight: 125 pounds

pounds to lose: 8 pounds

that a 1.5 loss since last week. woohoo! i AM making progress, even though it's slow. i guess slow is the best way, though. although, i think my diet needs some tweaking... i'm training for another marathon with my husband and i just feel so tired during my runs. i have a feeling i'm not eating enough calories to support my running activities, but i just don't know how much is too much. any suggestions?

yoga made beautiful

okay, yoga is already beautiful and wonderful, but why not make it a little more beautiful? i'd like to get a new yoga mat because my current mat is about 5 years old and is getting kind of old and crusty... ewwww. after searching the internet, i found these two that i really love.



green....









...or brown?



delicious! if you want one, too, you can find both mats here.

plus one half

well, i weighed myself yesterday and i had gained half a pound. i was grateful it wasn't more, though. on the 4th we had some friends and family over for a BBQ. there were three different desserts present and i'm not going to lie to you... i had a full serving of each one, plus more. yikes. so here's my stats as of now:

current weight: 134.5

goal weight: 125

pounds to lose: 9.5

i'll just keep plugging away. i'm leaving for washington in a couple of weeks and my goal is to lose at least a pound a week until i leave. i'm also going to need to have a plan of attack for when i'm in washington because when i stay at ben's parents house, all reason and self-control just fly out the window and i can't seem to stop eating. they have so much junk food around... all the time. at christmas time we were there for just over two weeks and i think i gained something like 8 pounds. yeah, totally ridiculous, i know. but i will prevail this time!

ben and i ran the provo freedom run 10k on the morning of the 4th of july. it was great. i absolutely love running. it's definitely my favorite way to exercise and i love the way i feel after a really hard run. you can click here to read my full report of the race on my family blog.

break through!

this week i started running again with a vengeance. i had been taking time off speckled with runs here and there because my right knee had been bothering me since i ran the marathon. i decided it couldn't wait any longer, though, because ben and i are running the provo freedom 10k on july 4th. the thought of running a race without being prepared does not sound fun to me. anyway, i started running on monday and my knee hurt slightly by the end of my run. but i just kept stretching my IT-band before and after runs and paying really close attention to my form and at the end of my run this morning, i realized that my knee didn't hurt at all! totally wicked awesome cool. i've had someone at my local running store tell me before that the best thing to do for an IT-band problem is to stretch it A LOT and keep running regularly, but i guess i didn't believe him until i had no other options. i totally wasted a month of training time. pretty dumb. oh well. we live and learn, right?

in other news, i weighed myself after yoga last night and was quite pleased with the outcome.

current weight: 134

goal weight: 125

that's a loss of 3.5 pounds since last week. only 9 more pounds to go...

a pretty good weekend

i had my parents in town and my friend, janaya, which always means more eating out and more treats around all the time. plus, my cousin, aaron, got married on saturday and we attended a BBQ on sunday after the baptism of an old friend of ben's and then proceeded to another friend's house for dessert. it was a long weekend filled with lots of sugar just staring me down saying, "eat me!" i did pretty well, though. i didn't have any wedding cake, no m&ms, no cheese cake, no brownies, no snickerdoodles... all of these were things that i had at my dispense this weekend. the only sugar i ate the whole week was the last gathering of the night on sunday. it was oreo ice cream pie... um, how could i pass that up? but i was proud of myself for doing as well as i did. it's really hard to have self-control when you are eating what other people put in front of you. even if i don't have a huge amount of weight loss this week, what's most important is that i feel great because i have been eating so well.

First 2 days...Success!!

So the first 2 days of el dieto have gone smashingly. I ate only what I said I was going to and nothing more. Even though both days I have wanted to snack snack snack! But I have resisted the urge! It is so hard. I guess I don't realize how much mindless munching I do. I will just have a graham cracker here, a popsicle there. And watching Casino Royale without popcorn was pretty much torture. The buttery smell just kept teasing my from across the room! Hopefully I will get a little more used to paying better attention to what I eat. I am also excited for next week when I can eat fruit. I feel like just the little bit of sweetness that fruit gives me would make SUCH a difference.

So our parents are coming into town tomorrow, and I am a little bit nervous about eating well. But I think it will help that me, whit, and my mom are all trying to eat better. I am also baking cakes this week, that I know I will be tempted to eat, but I shall prevail!!

Now I just need to be better at my exercise regime, and I'm good to go!!

Off to a good start...

So, Day 1 of the diet went well for me. For my exercise, I ran 4 miles in the morning. Here are the meals that I had planned and I stuck to them perfectly (yeah me!):

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs and a piece of whole wheat toast (no butter, of course!)

Lunch: Spinach salad (about 2 cups of spinach), with one red bell pepper and sprinkled with feta cheese, pine nuts, avocado and 1 Tbsp. Italian dressing - this is like my favorite salad in the world and it's totally scrumptious!

Dinner: at Morg's house, Chicken Marsala, brown rice and salad - also totally yummy!

I'm off to a good start. Hopefully I'll have the self-control and determination to stick with it until I reach my goal weight - actually, let's just say that I WILL stick with it until I reach my goal weight. If I'm positive about succeeding, I'll reach my goal!

Today also went well. I purposely didn't run today because I've been having some IT-Band problems on my right knee. It usually just hurts me for the last mile or so of a run, but yesterday it was bothering me a little more than usual, so I wanted to rest it. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my knee feeling better VERY soon, because running is my preferred choice of exercise, plus I have races coming up that I would really like to run. Here's what I ate today and I'm proud to report that I didn't eat anything extra... none of my kids' fishy crackers, none of their leftover yogurt... just what I planned.

Breakfast: 1 cup Kashi Go-Lean Crunch with 1 cup skim milk

Lunch: Whole Wheat Tortilla with 1 Tbsp. shredded colby-jack cheese, 1/4 c. black beans, half of a chopped tomato, 1 cup romaine lettuce, and 1 Tbsp. of guacamole

Dinner: Easy Balsamic Chicken (recipe below - you have to try this, it's super easy and fast and tastes like it took you forever) and a spinach salad

I rode my bike to yoga class tonight and weighed myself afterwards. This is basically my starting weight since I just started yesterday and wasn't able to make it to a scale before that.

Starting Weight: 137.5 pounds

Goal Weight: 125 pounds

I was a little bummed considering last time I weighed myself before I left for all my trips, I weighed 133. I guess I was a little out of control. Woops. So, there you go. Now the whole world knows how much I weigh. It's a good thing hardly anyone reads this. Haha! I only have 12.5 pounds to go. That's a totally attainable goal. Feel free to leave any comments of encouragement for Morgan and me. We need all the help and support we can get.

Easy Balsamic Chicken
Prep: 15 minutes, Marinate: 1 to 4 hours, Grill: 10 minutes, Serves: 4

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 1-1 1/4 lbs.)
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

Place each piece of chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound to 1/2-inch thickness with a meat mallet. Discard plastic wrap.

Add all ingredients except chicken to a zip-lock bag and mix together. Add chicken to bag and seal it. Turn the bag to coat the chicken with marinade. Marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 4 hours, turning bag occasionally.

Grill chicken for about 10-12 minutes, turning once halfway through or until chicken is no longer pink. If cooking in the oven, place chicken in a shallow roasting pan and roast for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Okay, this has been WAY longer than I wanted it to be, but I do want to be completely honest about all of my eatings and doings. :)