Have you started thinking about your resolutions or goals for 2009? I hope so we are just under a day away from the start of the year!

photo credit: Ikhlasul Amal

I wanted to set different goals for myself for the next year, small ones that can be easily met and then move on to the next goal. I’m sure I’ll be rewriting my list as time goes on but I really want to make this next year a year of getting and staying healthy and losing weight. I’m disappointed that I gained back the weight that I worked so hard to lose, I haven’t gained any of the five pounds I lost during December back, but wish I lost more then I did.

Here’s how I feel – I was so happy about losing twenty pounds and just about quadrupling my wardrobe because of it being in storage when Chris was in his various schools. Now since I gained that weight back (I’m up five pounds since we moved here) I don’t feel comfortable wearing all the clothes that I have. Which is not fun to have a closet full of clothes and not want to wear any of them!

So my first goal – get back to the weight I was when I left Montana at the end of June. I am going to do this by watching what I eat and exercising daily. I want to follow the “Body for Life” program and hope that I can, however I’m not going to hold myself to this (other then not eating a bunch of junk food!). I don’t foresee that I will not follow the program, but we are going back to meal/menu planning so we’ll see how I do.

Yesterday was the first day I went back to working out in a couple of weeks – and afterward I felt great! However, once I got home I felt like I wanted to eat all day. It felt like no matter what I ate, I was still hungry. But I had a strange headache most of the day so maybe that contributed to feeling hungry? I’m not sure. I am going to work out again this morning andmay not eat that great because we are planning on appetizers and hanging out with friends tonight.

What is your first fitness goal for 2009? Let’s do this together!

• First goal – lose five pounds.
• Second goal – lose 15 pounds (on top of the five, so 20 total)
• I want to be able to wear all the clothes I have in my closet which are two sizes below what I’m wearing now. I can do this!

I cracked. I broke. I ate popcorn with m&ms.

photo credit: robertpaulyoung

I know, I know!

Yesterday was rough. I wrapped Christmas gifts*, hung out with the kids, did laundry – all the normal things one does during the day. Except I didn’t follow my diet plan. I ran out of bars and shakes so need to run to the store. Lame excuses. LAME!

I didn’t work out yesterday either. So it was flat out a loss. Today I am off to a better start! I ate breakfast (eggs and a piece of toast) and plan on taking Chris to work out with me. I definitely need a partner in this. My friend will be on vacation for another week or so and I feel that I will continue to struggle until she gets back.

I need to be able to do this on my own! Considering I love to make lists and be organized I think I will make a weekly food and workout chart. Then I can cross things off, plus have a grocery list to follow. Working out doesn’t have to be hard, you just have to do it.

*I hate that I am so late with Christmas this year. I am usually so prepared, so ready to send things out! This year not so, I just got my family’s gifts in the mail today. Sure priority mail and with luck they will get there in time, but Christmas happens at the same time every year! I should be ready! I’m not sure what happened this year. End of rant.

Monday started week three of the Body for Life program that my friend and I are following. Only, really it should be like week two. Last Tuesday I hurt my back and didn’t work out for five days. I’ve hurt my back this way before and the result is always the same – I have a heck of a time walking, much less doing anything else. I hurt it Tuesday morning during that days workout and spent that day and most of the next day in bed or stretching. It was a rough couple of days!

Wednesday night was a Christmas party for Chris’ job and my friend and I agreed that night would be our cheater night and then we would cheat a little again on Sunday. So I ate mashed potatoes that night and she had a roll – we live on the edge! The Christmas party was SO much fun! We really had a great time hanging out with co-workers and friends and are already trying to plan another party for the springtime.

Sunday we cheated due to throwing a surprise party for a friend! It was great considering we had just a few hours to throw everything together. I made a cake, we had appetizers and food and even a handmade gift by the time he arrived. He was embarrassed but happy and is teased that he is a man now since he is 25 years old.

My friend is gone for the Christmas break and I admit it’s hard doing this alone! Yesterday was our 8th anniversary so we went to dinner – where I ate cheese fries! I felt bad after doing so! I worked out at the house and am planning on hitting the treadmill today. It’s raining right now or I’d just take the kids, their scooters and my iPod out for a walk! Maybe the weather will clear up in a bit.

Anyone else think I’m crazy trying to lose weight aroud the holidays? I haven’t made cookies or anything like I usually do. I am going to try to make cookies starting today so it will be a test of the willpower. Maybe I’ll just jump back on the scale as I like seeing the few pounds I lost gone.

I’m getting sick. Which for me usually (in this case, yes) means I lose my appetite and don’t drink nearly enough water. I have eaten everything I should today (dinner is cooking now) but not nearly drank enough water. I’m working on that! I will do better tomorrow, for sure!

photo credit: chispita_666

Really, I’d just like to sit on the couch with a blanket or two and watch movies. Or recorded tv. Here’s hoping it goes away fast!

It’s ‘just’ a head cold so I can stil work out. Tomorrow is cardio! It’s only a 20 minute workout so I can easily get that done and then allow myself to be a bit lazy. Both kids have colds too, I blame the weather. It’s been in the 70s and then for a few days in a row it was in the 50s and 60s. Of course today it was back to almost 80, but let’s not get upset. I mean not like it’s actually Christmas day or anything! I know it won’t snow, but as long as it’s cold during Christmas, I’ll be happy.

Since it’s been a few months since posting here I figure I better do a baby update! I also wrote one on my craft blog ~ me being crafty.

It’s been over a year now since our son died. I went to his grave a few times when we were home earlier this spring. He doesn’t have a headstone yet but we’ll probably get one next fall. My Grandma died this past August and the family will get her headstone next year too so I figure we’ll do it at the same time.

It’s still hard. I suppose it always will be. I have moments where I want to talk about him to my friends here but my husband made the decision that it is our business and he didn’t want to tell others here. I respect that decision of his though I have told one friend. We haven’t talked about it since telling her, but just telling her made me feel better. I know if I wanted to I could tell them and Chris wouldn’t care. So maybe I’m just not ready yet, ready to spend that time explaining and crying and hurting like it is fresh. In due time.

In the meantime my kids are doing great – Alice and Jake are both doing great in their school work and love to play together. Sure they may get tired of their mom sometimes but they are good.

We are done with week one following the Body for Life program!

One big difference with this plan and others I’ve followed in the past – getting used to the eating. What I mean is this – really, we need to get a lot of food during the day. Every plan I’ve ever tried I end up surprised at how much food one needs to consume. I thought this was going to make me lose weight, what’s up with the eating of everything in the kitchen! Of course then we find that we do lose weight on these plans.

The first couple of days I was stuffed. I was not hungry when it came time to eat again, but I did anyway. By Saturday I didn’t feel like I was starving when the few hours passed, but I knew a few hours had passed because I was slightly hungry. Not even hungry, I just knew it was time to eat again!

I did cheat once – I had one piece of chocolate with caramel inside. I wasn’t craving it but I was annoyed that I had to stick to the food plan, so I ate it. Afterward I realized that was not the smartest choice. I didn’t feel good that I ate it – I mean, I wasn’t feeling that “ohhhh chocolate….” feeling that we sometimes get. But doing it once made me realize I’m won’t have a hard time sticking to this.

The workouts were tough. Focusing on one thing each day almost made it harder! My arms were sore the day after focusing on upper body, legs after cardio and then legs still after lower body. But yesterday was a cardio day and I felt really good.

I try to not obsess on the numbers but I feel skinnier. And according to that pesky scale I lost four pounds. How awesome is that!

My friend and I are both ordering the Eating For Life book because it is full of recipes and the Body for Life website recipe search function isn’t that great.

Today is our cheat day! I had a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast and then pizza for lunch. I’m not even hungry. I mean I figured I’d want to eat junk food and chips and chocolate – and I don’t. Another friend said that was good but man, I really wanted to cheat today!

Tomorrow starts week two. Here’s to a couple more pounds down by this time next week!!

On Sunday evening a friend came over to teach me how to make turkey pot pie. I knew it wasn’t hard after her telling me the ingredients but didn’t realize just how truly simple it is!

Ingredients:

• leftover turkey, chopped into pieces
• 2 cans of cheddar cheese soup (I bought the campbell’s brand, but there is probably another available if you look around)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• cup of milk
• few stalks of celery
• two small onions
• leftover corn
• leftover green beans
• phyllo dough or puff pastry or pie crust
• salt and pepper

Basically it is a montage of your Thanksgiving leftovers!

First we put the chopped up onion and celery in a pot so they could cook just a bit. Then we added the two cans of cheddar cheese and can of cream of mushroom soup. We also added the milk to thin it up, but it was still fairly thick. Let it warm up a bit then added the turkey and corn (there were no green beans leftover to add!).

We had a lot so poured it into two casserole dishes – one square (I think 8×8 or maybe 9×9) and one round (same size). The filling came about halfway up the sides which is why we used two dishes, we figured using just one would cause a mess in the oven!

We used ready made pie crust and topped the turkey mixture with the crust, poking holes in the top. Then bake at 350 degrees for around 30 minutes – really it is until the top has browned.

Simple! It was so good. What we had made enough for eight adults and three or four kids – which is just us and our friends and seconds and lunch the next day. It was just enough that we loved it and didn’t get tired of it since we had been eating leftovers all weekend anyway. This is a great way to use up everything before it goes bad too. We had a 22 pound turkey on Thanksgiving and still had a lot on Sunday when this was made.

Sorry there are no pictures, but I will make this again (if not at Christmas then with a chicken one of these days) and even if there were pictures, it would be the empty dishes, hahaha. Enjoy!

Catch up to where we are today: I’ve gained weight back. Not all the 20 pounds I lost this spring, but easily 10. I try to not obsessively weigh myself and that 10 can sometimes be five and sometimes be eleven! But ten is what I’ll say because more often then not, it is anywhere from 8-10. Anyway, we have a small gym (really a workout area) at our community’s main office and I started working out a few times a week in October. That few times a week slowly became once a week and then the last two weeks, not at all.

That has changed as of today! Over the weekend a friend told me about the Body for Life program. I don’t think I’d heard of it before she mentioned it but it sounded good. After thinking we’d have to buy the book to follow the program, she found the website and from there we got a week one menu plan as well as a shopping list!

Basically you follow this eating plan and also work out for six days of the week. On the seventh day you get a cheater day – you don’t have to exercise and you can eat whatever you want. By browsing the website we found several of the champion food plans and lots of success stories. (

Today I had a breakfast burrito – whole wheat tortilla, eggs, cheese and low fat (or maybe it’s fat free?) sour cream. You are also directed to drink a glass of water with every meal, which I do anyway so no biggie there! For a snack I had a bar – the brand they recommend, and they are bland tasting – good thing I only bought one! For lunch I am planning on having a turkey sandwich (turkey, lettuce, tomato, cheese) and an apple.

I am very excited to do this plan! I think what makes me excited is having a partner – my friend lives right around the corner from me and it’s easy for us to work out together. We also have lunch or dinner together sometimes so the eating plan will be easy to follow too. Really, it’s an easy eating plan and hopefully the workout will be easy too since I have a partner.

How are you doing with weight loss, staying in shape or getting in shape? Maybe it’s time to start a new plan!

I’m not worried about starting now, around the holidays, because you get a cheater day. The excitement of losing weight will help not eating all the holiday cookies and fudge I wanted to make. I suppose now I’ll just bake on the one day a week.

First baby goal: fit size smaller comfortably. I can fit it now, but it’s not so comfortable!