Goal Setting

I’m a happy camper!….with new office supplies! I adore using my day timer and I find that I’m most successful in life when I am using it.  I’ve tried for a couple of years to switch to an electronic format…and don’t get me wrong, I LOVE me some technology, but there is just something to be said about a day timer that has paper and tabs and you write in it by hand.  Call me “old fashioned” if you want.  Didja? Don’t care.  So yesterday, I made my way to Staples to pick up some refills as I only had until July 2013 in my planner.  Why do companies do that?  I don’t know.  So now I’m all set for the rest of 2013.  Yeah, I still use my phone for reminders and appointments, but I add those to my planner since it’s too big to carry with me everywhere.  (Well, it’s not too big, I just choose not to carry it everywhere.)

You may wonder where I’m going with this, because I just did.  Here’s my point.  I love having my planner because in it, I write my goals down. It also fosters my addiction to office supplies, but it’s not the main reason I love it.  Anyway, the only real point to this blog is to list out my goals for March…or the rest of March, I should say.  The goals you see here are a part of a larger plan and are simply short term goals for the month.

• Cut out all processed sugar
• Lose 6 pounds
• Strength Train 3 times a week
• Try four new-to-me recipes
• Make a craft-project “to do” list from the projects I already have at home

I only shared with you a few of my monthly goals as I also have goals that are finance/career related, social, and mental/spiritual.  Very well rounded, I tell ya! I left out some details and some other ones you might find boring.  I hope you’ll help hold me accountable?  At least writing and sharing them here has put a bug in my ear to get crack-a-lackin!

Did you set any goals for March?  Do you have a planner…that is paper?  And you’re a nerd like me?

March….and some goals revisited.

It’s a new month and since we’re still in the first quarter, I can pretend that the year is still new and that it’s no big deal that I haven’t been making great progress on my New Year’s resolutions, right?  To be honest, I don’t even remember what those resolutions were. (Oh well lookie here! Someone blogged about them.) It’s good to revisit your goals though, right?  To make sure you are on track and all that jazz.

So do you make monthly goals?  Weekly goals?  Are they smart goals?

Since my dentist appointment last week, I’ve made it a goal to floss everyday.  I believe I’ve only missed one day?  That’s some progress!

“In a nutshell, my resolutions/goals for 2013 are:

• Floss daily
• Take my vitamins daily
• Lose 30 pounds
• Run my 4th marathon
• Turn 40 and be in awesome shape (Which that relates to lose 30 pounds.)”

Looks like I made them super easy and I think it’s funny that flossing daily is the first thing I keep coming back to.  I’m not on the verge of gingivitis people, but it is serious stuff, so floss you people!  When is the last time you did?

I am taking my vitamins daily as I’m using my supplements from Advocare.  So that’s good.  No more stressing out when I read an article about “Make sure you are taking your xyz’s or you will probably die.”

Haven’t lost 30 pounds either….yet.  Though, I could be a LOT closer to that if I had remained in gear.

The marathon isn’t until October…still got time.  And I don’t turn 40 until November….so still time.  But not so much if I keep resting on my laurels.

Do you know what laurels are?  And why people “rest” on them?  I didn’t.  You are welcome!

The expression "resting on one's laurels" refers to someone relying entirely on long-past successes for continued fame or recognition, where to "look to one's laurels" means to be careful of losing rank to competition.^[2]

Lastly…I liked this.  I tried to find the original, and then I ran out of time.  Muriel.blanc?

That was rude and uncalled for

I did my very best to stay healthy when three out of five of our household peeps got sick.  I think it’s a good rule of thumb that when you would rather be at work than be home sick, you know you are sick for realsies.  And yeah, you can quote me on that. Wednesday I was in bed all day with a fever and sinus pressure. Not fun, not cool, and very rude of my body.

I hadn’t planned on being sick or at home on a random Wednesday, so all of my easy to prepare, healthy foods were at work.  Oh and besides, who wants to turn to healthy foods when they are sick?  There’s a reason they are called comfort foods.  So guess what I ate?  Sugar.  In the form of:

• Trix cereal (Why does my husband buy the stuff?)
• Orange Juice (I asked him to buy it because I pretended in my head it would be good for me.)
• Gingerale (I asked him to get this too because I’m old school.  When you’re sick, you drink 7-Up or Gingerale.)
• White bread (I have Ezekiel bread in the fridge but of course, I turned to the sugar loaded bread.)
• Jam (Pure delicious, Marion berry jam flavored sugar.)

I think I ate a half of a loaf of bread of that day. Sad face.  When I was the only adult in the house, my children ate a lot healthier.  My hubs is completely on board for me eating as healthy as I want to, but he’s not sold.  Do not tell him this, but things are going to change.  I haven’t figured it all out yet, but prayer might be my only option to get him to help me kick sugar out of the house.  That will sure be a miracle when that happens!

So, where am I at?  I only worked out on Monday…strength training.  I haven’t run since Saturday.  I’m sleeping as much as is allowable.  I feel very weak and lethargic.  But, I’m back at work…plugging along, and I’m kicking sugar to the curb again.  I’m also trying to forgive myself for eating all of the sugar in the world, for getting off track with my training and working out.  It was what it was….isn’t that how the saying goes?

Friday…..so far so good!  I’m feeling better than I have all week.  No sign of the dizziness and fever either.  Go me!  After work, I get to jet off to parts unknown, with my girlies, for a volleyball tournament that starts early on Saturday morning.  Packing…commence!

The day I sold my soul to sugar–and then broke up with it…

Back in my darkest days, I could binge, and I could binge real good.  My drug of choice was an Oreo cookie.  I always joked that they were like crack cocaine.  I realized that eating a whole section of Oreos at one time wasn’t good, but honestly and truly, it’s like I had no control over myself.  I know there are reports out there that sugar is addicting yet in my stubbornness, I think that there must be some sort of willpower out there that is attainable for me to develop that I can have my healthy body and still keep my Oreos.  After selling my soul to these brownies THAT INCLUDE OREOS, I realize this isn’t so.  There is no way that Oreos can live under the same roof with me without them being annihilated.  Oh and when someone tells me that they just don’t have a sweet tooth, why don’t you just pretend the very worst fate for them so I don’t have to type it all out.

This is how it came to be that I needed an Oreo intervention…

Friday night, I made the brownies you see above. I ate one.

Saturday, I think I had three brownies?  Yup, three.  I had one before my workout because, well sugar…it will give me energy.  And then yeah, two more throughout the day.  I probably would have had more but I didn’t want to have my kids ask where they all went and be embarrassed.  Now I just get to be embarrassed here with my confessions.

Sunday rolls around and my cold symptoms are the most severe they have been all weekend long, I have no energy, we skipped church, and all I could think about was cookies and anything with sugar.  Fortunately, we had nothing sweet left in the house as the kiddos polished off the Oreos on Saturday night.  (Now don’t lecture me about how I feed my family, or what is allowed in the house.  I’m working on that. Obviously.)

Sunday evening, after not moving my butt off the couch through multiple Netflixed episodes of "Touch”, it dawned on me how crappy I felt and I knew instantly it was because of the sugar.  It’s been nagging at me a lot lately.  I did extremely well on the Advocare cleanse challenge, and then I let sugar back in, thinking, “I gots this!”  It’s been downhill since.

Big announcement here….I’m quitting sugar.  What that looks like for me at this very moment is no desserts. I’m keeping my 1-2 pieces of fruit a day. I’m focusing on the white stuff at the moment.  You have been warned and feel free to steer clear of my while I go through withdrawals.  It probably won’t be pretty.

Doesn’t this sound like a fun challenge?  Who would like to join me?!?!

Baby Kale vs. Adult Kale

I’m having issues blogging again because I’m embarrassed that I flubbed up.  And by flubbed up, I mean, it’s not too bad but I have found myself self-soothing with food a lot more lately.  I really need to put into practice some different techniques for when the “going gets rough.”  Do you have some ideas or tricks?

I’m still using my Advocare products and in combination with eating healthy and on schedule (hypoglycemic here!), my cravings have severely diminished.  Speaking of low blood sugar though, you would think by now, I would have the hang of things and eating on a schedule.  Really easy to do at work!  On the weekends, oh my goodness!  I have found that setting alarms for when to eat next is what helps me best stay on track.

Oh and then take this evening…I get home from work.  I could eat, I’m hungry-ish, but the girls and I had a couple of errands to run.  So we get home at about 6:30pm and I’m famished!  I mean, shaking hungry….annnnnnnddddd, I dipped into the soup the kids were eating while my dinner was cooking.  I also dipped into the belated Valentine cookies I made for my hubs.  Shhh, don’t tell him!  I started to beat myself up, but I did eat really well at work today and even turned down a treat from the Dairy Queen run that my coworkers made. 

Note to self, don’t run errands after work unless you’ve eaten dinner.

Don’t let me stay away from blogging again so long.  Pester me on facebook, k?  Oh and share your tips for not self-soothing with food.  Pretty please.

Pretty sure it would be ok to eat Baby Kale when you’re stressed.  Jeune chou frise anyone?  My first time trying it today.  DeLICIOUS!  Though I don’t understand why it looks nothing like Adult Kale.

The coffee date that changed my life.

I met him for coffee so he would quit bugging me.  It was my oldest daughter’s birthday, but he was in town and I thought if I just met him in person on my lunch break, he would realize that we didn’t really click.  He was a goofball, always cracking jokes…I was more reserved and didn’t always get his jokes.  We met on Match.com and from the few dates I had been on, while free dinners were nice, and I was meeting nice men, there was just no spark with anyone.   I vividly remember the first time I saw him in person.  He was walking across the parking lot to come into the Starbucks where we were meeting.  He pushed the sleeves up on his light blue, Calvin Klein sweater and my heart skipped a beat.  Tall, dark, and handsome….and a man that knew how to dress?! (To this day, he spends more money on his clothes than I spend on mine.)

 

Six years ago, today, I met the love of my life.  God has been so good to us in so many ways and I continue to thank Him for bringing this handsome, lovable goofball into my life.  You truly do know that God has a sense of humor when He made us a couple.  We are such opposites and such a perfect match.  There are not enough mushy words in the dictionary for me to express my love for my husband.  There’s a flip side of course and boy do we get frustrated with each other!  I will just keep pursuing the opportunities to be the wife that he deserves.

And now….some photos…

Our recent trip to Bend, Oregon took us past these lovely “sisters.”

He indulged me in a portrait…which I thought was nice of him.  He supports the silly things I do, like stopping to take a picture of the fish bus.

My treat looks like a fly/alien

I’ve been rather quite on here the last couple of days.  I’m just plugging along with the week and looking forward to getting out of town this weekend with my valentine for our annual get-away to Bend, OR.  It’s close….it’s away from home, and best of all, they have a Trader Joes!!!!!

Strength Training

Workouts are going well but man are they tough!  This new phase of Jillian Michael’s Body Revolution…holy otter pops!  Lot’s of plyometrics and single leg squats with weights everywhere.  I have muscles hurting that have never hurt before.

Running

I’m running anywhere from 3-4 times a week right now.  My mileage is pretty low as I’m working through the Couch to 5k program.  I’ve mentioned that a couple of times right?  Especially if you follow me on Daily Mile or My Fitness Pal.  Yeah, so I’m in Week 5 and this is the week that the workouts vary each day.  This morning, after I tried killing myself with Jill’s workout, I did my longest intervals that I’ve done on the treadmill in a long time…8 minutes x 2!  My fit radio channel I listen to while I run is just not cutting it on intervals longer that 5 minutes.  SO, I watched The Mindy Project on my phone.  I’m not brave enough to use my ipad on my treadmill.  As many times as I yank my phone off the ledge and in drops on the running treadmill…???? 

Does anyone use one of those suction cup holder thingies for their ipad/phone while on the treadmill?

Eating

I decided it was time to buckle down on the eating plan and by buckle down, I mean, get precise.  After my recent loss of 7 pounds, I want to see the scale keep going down.  I knew I was eating healthy, but after the super bowl on Sunday, I starting doing more guessing than being accurate.  I don’t want to get into the habit of guessing and so using My Fitness Pal, I’m back at it making sure that I’m eating enough and not eating too much.  Right now, I’m shooting for my BMR of 1575. That should put me in the safe range to lose weight while still eating enough to support my workouts.  Right?  Input?

I leave you with….a healthy energy ball that, the more you stare at it, the more it will creep you out. At first it was just the eyes, then the little mouth….remind me to chops the dark chocolate chips up next time!

Recipe?  Not mine…go here: No-bake Energy Bites by gimme some oven