A Smidjin at a time

Whole 30 Round 2 starts today! Well, technically it started today. Survived breakfast no problem, cooking lunch and food prepping for the week ahead as we speak. I am excited to tackle a second round because I know what I was able to accomplish the first time and I feel like with that knowledge I can go even stronger the 2nd time around. I know that I really am not a huge fan of sweet potatoes so I'm not gonna use them as the star of something. I'm also not scared of dump ranch anymore. I am also past the "scared of making a mistake so I better stick to the basics" phase and am excited to try out some new recipes. Also, starting tomorrow I start training for my 2nd Half- Marathon! I mean, why not start round 2 of 2 things at the same time. Similarly to Whole 30, I feel much better heading into this 2nd round of training than I did about the first, despite knowing how much it hurt and how much I did not like it at the end. Probably because I do know how much it h...

When I rejoined Weight Watchers in October 2014 it was to put a stop to regaining all the weight I had lost. While I knew it would take a while to lose it all again, I was confident I could do it. However, the last 2 years of weight journey have not gone the way I envisioned them. In those two years, I actually continued to gain weight, however at a much slower gain than it had been, and I did have some losses along the way. I actually gained to the point of being 15 pounds heavier than when I started. Not exactly a Weight Watchers success story. That is until this summer. In June I did that round of Whole 30 and lost 15 pounds, putting me back at my "starting weight". Since then I have lost more and am under my starting weight. I actually earned my very first 5 lb star! It really is just a sticker to put in my weight loss book, but it's my first one.  Next week I have middle school retreat, so while I am not planning on actively losing while on the trip it will b...

I successfully went 30 days without any bread, pasta or pastries. 30 days without any beans or peanut butter. 30 days without any cheese, yogurt or creamer. 30 days without any sweetener in my coffee. 30 days were I ate super clean whole foods, planned every meal out a week at a time, and cooked everything I ate. 30 days where I said no to co-workers offering me pizza. 30 days of bringing my own food to a BBQ and making a salad out of the sandwich toppings. 30 days of getting up early to cook breakfast at home instead of grabbing something at the cafeteria. Not gonna lie, I did miss pizza and mac&cheese, and Pad Thai and burritos. I hope when I finish re intro I find that these are my body actually likes and I can still have them on special occasions. Also, major victory today: my car wouldn't start this morning, long story I got it jumped after church was over and grabbed my wallet and ran to a shop to get it looked it. Grabbed my favorite LaraBar and water as well and tha...

What better time to write and talk about my feelings heading into my first round of Whole 30 than on day 29 when I am almost done. I knew I was ready for change. What I was doing from a nutrition standpoint to improve my wellness was just not working. I had a friend start a week before me and I had read about Whole 30 before so I figured why not. I maybe should have planned a little more than the 3 days warning I gave myself, but I figured I would probably talk myself out of it if I had too much time. I kept it pretty basic, took a couple weeks before i tried "recipes". But I did learn how to make my own ketchup and ranch. Like without Dairy and Sugar, so there's that. Man, you don't realize how "bad" you feel until you start to feel better. I mean I knew I was tired a lot. And I knew something must be off balance because even when I was working out and eating well the scale and the fit of my clothes was not reflecting my work. And I knew that I certainl...

High-Low Sword draws+Box Jumps+Push-ups+Tire Flips+ Burpees Take 3 rounds of moves, 30 secs, 45 secs, and 60 seconds per move. Add 3 friends working out with you. What do you get? You get four Bad-A ladies working together to strengthen their bodies and their minds. Man I have missed bootcamp, so glad the weather is nice again.

Friends, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for this year and for the changes I have made in just the last couple of weeks. I mentioned in my last blog entry that Weight Watchers was changing everything up and that I was nervously excited to see how all it would play out. Well, lets just say, the scale is finally moving in the direction I want to go. Yes, there have been some slip ups, but I finally feel in control again, which has carried over to pretty much every other aspect of life.  2016 brings some serious goals with it: *Walk 1000 miles. And I am not talking just from total steps, actual legit go for walks miles. Averages out to just under 3 a day. I know there are days where I will have even more than that, and days that will have less, but I am super stoked for the goal.  *Simplify. I know this sounds really vague, which it is. But I know what it means. I means cleaning out all of the bottles of body washes and lotions and cleaning supplies that are ta...

Well, they did it again. Do you know how awesome Weight Watchers is? Besides being flexible and never ever saying a food is completely off limits, they are constantly researching and following other research out to stay on top of what science continues to discover about nutrients and how your body needs and uses them. Which is why this week they unveiled the newest update to the program. Beyond the Scale with new SmartPoints. It takes the focus back to whole foods and lean proteins. And it raised the exchange value of of things that have saturated fat and lots of sugar. So things like grilled chicken, fish and eggs went DOWN in points, meaning they are a smarter choice. Things like cheese, yogurt, donuts, went up in value. Meaning I can still eat them, however I need to plan for them and know they they will take up a lot of points. There has been a lot of people stressed out about it and feeling that it is super restrictive. They feel like they are being punished for choosing tho...