"Mommy"

Being a mommy is hard work, on many different levels. Right now my kids are at pretty good ages and not too difficult most days. I mean yes I have to stop them from fighting with each other, make sure they get their homework done and make them clean their rooms, but it's pretty "easy" most days. What I am currently struggling with is just being on everyone else's schedule. Nick's job has been VERY busy lately. Plus he is in a Spanish class, and a few times a month he is on worship team (although he is taking a break from that), and then the occasional "other" meeting/practice has him away from home most evenings these days. So everything falls to me. So between homework, baths, dinner, dance lessons, soccer practice, Awana, school activies, and soccer games, I don't have much of a life. My job right now is just to take the kids to each of their activies. And even on nights when we don't have after school stuff (Monday and Thursday), it's still filled with homework, cleaning rooms, cooking dinner, and getting showers done. So there is not free time. It's just going from one thing to the next. And unless I am in the car or at an activity I rarely get out of the house. During the day it's laundry, and cleaning house, feeding Capri, and playing with Capri, grocery shopping, planning groceries/couponing etc.... Now let me stop here and say that I don't want to change what I am doing. I LOVE being a stay at home mom. I wouldn't want to go to work and put Capri in daycare. I love that I am home when the girls get home from school. I love that I get to take them to their activies and don't have to do all that on top of working full time. So I do understand that it could be worse. But it's still just really hard on my emotions sometims. I'm not Lindsay right now. I'm a wife, and a mother, and a cook, and a chauffer, and a maid, and a teacher. But I'm not Lindsay, and that's hard.

Sorry for my ramblings. Just had to get it out. :)

Weight loss commercials

I am finding weight loss commercials to be very funny these days. "Eat this, lost weight, don't eat this lose weight..." Special K cereal says eat 1 bowl for breakfast, and 1 for lunch and then a healthy dinner. Slimfast says drink one shake for breakfast, 1 for lunch, and eat a healthy dinner, and today I saw "eat one grain, 1 fruit, and a yoplait light for breakfast and lunch, and then eat a healthy dinner." The truth is you can eat ANYTHING you want for breakfast and lunch as long as it's around 250 calories, and then eat a dinner of around 500 calories, with 1 100 calorie snack, and you will lose weight. You can eat a donut, for breakfast, a snickers, for lunch, a granola bar for a snack, and a bowl of soup for dinner, and you will lose weight. Because the math behind weight loss is simple, burn off more than you eat. If you eat around 1000 calories everyday no mater what it is, you will probably lose some weight. But the problem I see is that most of American isn't fat because they don't know the right things to eat. So just saying "drink only a shake, and/or only a bowl of cereal" isn't helping. That works for a few days or weeks maybe, but it's not going to help them in the long wrong. Because even eating a snickers everyday would get old after awhile. I think weight loss is more mental than physical, and until we start to address those issues, I am not sure we are really helping anyone by telling them what to eat or what not to eat.

Half Marathon

I did it! I ran in my very first Half Marathon. I ran almost all of the 13.1 miles. I only walked during water breaks, and once on a road that was at an angle because it was hurting my ankles. Other than that I ran the whole thing. It was so much fun! I felt amazing all the way up to around mile 8, and then I hit a wall. But I kept going. It felt so great to see and cross that finish line. And 2 days later I feel perfect. Just a tiny bit sore, but no worse than when I do strength training. I am still in a bit of shock that I did it. It feels so nice to have reached a goal that I set for myself over a year ago. Here are a few pictures.

Nick too this picture around mile 4.

I stopped on the side of the race and asked a Disney worker to take this picture with my cell phone. :)

At the end with my medal.

Buckling down AGAIN!

With swimsuit season quickly approach in the sunshine state I am realizing more and more that I have a little extra weight or more importantly jiggling than I would like. So I am once again buckling down. I really think it's important to do from time to time. Sure it would be better if I just ate healthy and got regular exercise all the time, but as most of you know, that just doesn't happen. So I am buckling down again. I'm saying good bye to sugar and "white" foods and embrassing, lean proteins, veggies, and fruit. I will add back in healthy carbs after some time, but really it's best for me to just purge them completely for a bit so that I can detox from them and not crave them so much. This will not be the case on my long run days, I will eat higher level of healthy carbs on those days for the energy but for the most part it's lean meats, and veggies, with fruit as a "treat" each day. I know it's what best for me, and I see results every single time I do it, but it's still not "fun".

On the running side of things. I do my half marathon in 9 days. I am excited and a little nervous. I have come to learn that I don't really like distance running because of the time it takes so after my race I will go back down to running for an hour or less at a time. I also want to increase my strength training and add in biking just for variety. So give me a couple months, then bring on bathing suit season. :)

Running

On Saturday I set out to do my weekly long run. I have learned in the last few months that I HATE long runs. It's not so much the running, it's that I just get so bored. And to make matters even worse my Ipod wasn't charged. So I ran for 2 hours and 30 minutes with nothing but my own thoughts. But I did complete 12 miles, which thrills me. Actually I ran 11 miles, and ended up walking the last mile, but I'm still okay with that. I've got 3 more weeks before my half marathon. And I am just happy that I am going through with this experiance. I don't care anymore if I have to walk a small amount of the run (although my goal is to not stop), and I don't care how long it takes me (although my goal is to do it in under 3 hrs). I'm not a fast runner, I am still a little bit overweight and I just don't care that much anymore. I just want to do it to say that I CAN do it. I'm not breaking any records, and I am pretty sure this is the only one I will ever do, but it's still something that I can say I trained for and completed. After this I will go back to shorter runs, and I may add biking one a week just for some fun. But no matter what I do I'm just going to keep moving.

My battle with weight

I started this blog a long time ago to share pictures and stories of my girls with my friends and family, but then facebook got going and now I don't have a need to do that anymore. So I have this blog open, but haven't really decided what I wanted to do with it, if anything. I am not very good with words, I'm not all that interesting, and I don't really have anything profound to say. However I am dealing with my weight and so many people today are. Being healthy is important for me not only as a person, but as a mom to 3 little girls who I want to teach proper nutrition too. We are bombarded everyday with the "right" way to eat. Only eat organic, only buy locally grown food, become a vegan, eat low fat, stay away from carbs etc.... But what happens if you are a picky eater? Does that mean you can't still be healthy? What happens if your husband has a very high matabalism and needs to eat high levels of protein at each meal (my case?) What happens if you are packing lunch for 2 kids, and a husband, and following a "diet plan" and you are doing all of that on a budget? Do you use coupons.com to save, or follow e-mealz.com or just wing it? There are a million different plans programs, and books out there to tell us how to eat healthy in the right way.

So I've got all that bouncing around in my head as I try to decide what is best for my family. And it really comes down to the age old, eat less than you burn off. It's a mathmatecial thing, which for those of you who know me know I am horrible at math. ;) But I've learned in my getting healthy journey that it even goes beyond just eating less than I burn off. I can eat a cinnamon roll for breakfast (200 cal), and a candy bar for lunch (200 cal), and a small fast food burger for dinner (500 cal), and have rice cakes for a snack (130) and drink no calorie drinks throught out the day, and I've only reached 1030 calories for the day. I can burn that off by getting 30 minutes of exercise in and just moving throughout my day from point A to point B. But the problem with that is that I would be hungry or think I was hungry all day long. I would crave more sweets, and I would feel sluggish, and grouchy. Because even though I ate less than I burned off, I didn't eat well. And there is the key for me. It is simply a math thing, but it's also about feeding my body what it needs. The problem for me is that I AM a picky eater. I am not one of those people who has a wide variety of fruits and veggies that I just love. I try to like them, but I just don't. So somehow I have to figure out how to make what healthy food that I DO like to eat, work well for my body.

So my current goal right now is to lose about 15 more pounds, and maybe even more than that depending on how I am feeling. While running 20+ plus miles a week. I have a half marathon in about 3.5 weeks. After that I will drop my running down to at LEAST 10 miles a week, and add in some other kinds of exercise to keep it interesting, and to get me through the hot summer.

So this is what I am going to blog about. The ups and downs of my weight loss and eating healthy journey. Some days I may come on here and write about what I have learned and some days I may get on here and complain and feel sorry for myself. Because that's all part of the journey. There are good days, there are bad days, and everything in between. Read it if you want to, or don't if you don't want to. :) This is about me, and what I need to do to help me. If I can help someone along the way, great, if not than at least I have helped myself.

The ups and the downs

Since I am sharing some of my weight loss journey with you I thought I should share the not so great news right along with the great news. With Halloween, my daughters 8th birthday, soon Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. I need a new plan. In the past few weeks I have put on about 5lbs. That's not earth shattering or anything but for someone who has always struggled with my weight it is a red flag. It's just a reminder to me that I can't let my guard down. But at the same time I can't start into this Christmas season knowing that I will not eat any of those special once a year treats. So I thought I would share my plan to make it through the holidays.

For me the low carb thing seems to work the best. I have been unsucessful at other plans before. But the true of the matter is that I am addicted to carbs. They are my biggest weakness. So I found on things like Weight Watchers I would just eat all my points in "junk" because that's what I really wanted. But with low carb I really had to just say no to everything white/yellow and that did the trick for me. Now that I am done (for now) with the losing part I can add those back in on a small scale, but still avoid them when I can (ie don't keep them in the house). So my plan is that when I am home and cooking for myself and my family I will stick with a high protein, low carb (meaning only fruits and veggies, no breads, beans, or pasta....no matter what color it is) foods. Then at a holiday function or dinner I will allow myself protein as far as the food goes, and I will induldge in a treat. Notice I said a treat and not "all treats". With my running (I am aiming for at least 10 miles a week, with 1 long run a month). I should be able to keep things under control. That's going to be hard. That means when I bake something for the girls, I will remove it from my house ASAP. I won't make my treats days before I take is somewhere or I will want to eat it. I won't keep plates of it around the house. I will cook right before each holiday. If I am giving it as a gift I will make it the day before (or day of), giving it to that person.

So that's the plan. I don't want to come through this time of year with an extra 10lbs. I already want to lose another 10-15lbs once the holidays are over, if I add to that it will just be that much worse. So here is to a happy healthy Christmas season!

Celebrating Christmas

Every year at this time I get just a tiny bit frustrated, and I know it's a silly thing to get frustrated about, but it still bothers me.

As a family Nick and I decided not to teach our kids that Santa is real.....he's not. I know some people don't think it's a "lie", but I don't tell my kids that Barney is real, or that The Beast (as in Beauty and the Beast)is real, so why would I tell them Santa is real? Why would I tell them that a big fat man sneaks into our house in the middle of the night? Why would I tell them that Santa brings them toys? I really don't get it. We have wonderful memory filled Christmas' with our kids. We give gifts to each other, we buy gifts for others, we buy gifts for those who don't get any other gifts. We put up a Christmas tree, we read Christmas books (including those about mythical Santa), we watch Christmas movies (inlucing those about Santa). We look at Christmas lights at night, we bake Christmas goodies etc.... The ONLY difference is that we just don't make Santa a part of it (other than the books and movies). In fact I go one step farther and we research how other countries around the world celebrate Christmas (they don't belive in Santa either). This year each week leading up to Christmas we are going to learn all about one country, bake their Christmas dishes, and desserts, make their tradisional Christmas crafts etc.....

During Christmas we put 100% of our focus on Jesus' birth. Yes I know that this wasn't really the date of his birth, but it is the time that the church has set aside to celebrate. We read the advent, we sing Christmas songs, we read from the bible, we talk about the birth of Jesus and the meaning that has for us. It's a very special time for our family. We give gifts to each other and others because the wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus. We read the story of St. Nicholas and the impact that he had on others.

We make it about Jesus and giving, and love, and family, not about a big fat man who sneaks into our house at night. I know it sholdn't bother me what other people choose to do with their family, just like I hope they don't have options on what I do with my family. I just get sad when I here Christian families get so stressed because their kids are starting to not belive in Santa when we have a truly wonderful reason to celebrate apart from all of that. And I just find the statement "If you don't belive you won't receive" so very very sad. Belive in Jesus and receive his love, and his mercy, and his blessings, don't encourage your kids to belive in something false.

Off my soap box........

Pictures from Lindsay

Click here to view these pictures larger

WOW Before/After

Today after looking back at some old journals I realized that from my highest weight to my current weight (lowest in over 8 yrs), I have lost 70lbs. 45lbs of that has been since Easter of this year. I don't know if this picture was taken at my highest or not, but the beach picture was taken about 5lbs above my current, so it's pretty close I'd say. I am AMAZED at the difference in how I look(ed). I never want to be that girl again. I feel so much better now that I ever did then. It's almost embarassing to post, but at the same time I hope maybe it offers some encouragment to anyone who is currently struggling. This change didn't take place overnight. It was something I struggled with for over 8 yrs, and even now at my lowest weight in a very long time it's still a daily, sometimes minute by minute struggle. I know I will be dealing with my weight for the rest of my life. So all I can do is lift of a prayer for anyone dealing with weight issues, and pray that God gives them the motivation to find success in their weight loss journey. God gets all the glory from me, because without him I wouldn't be where I am today.

Running

On Friday night I ran 8 miles without stopping, except to drink some water. I kind of had a "break through" as far as what I think about while I'm running and it was a huge help to me. Normally when I go run it's either getting dark, (because I run in the evening when it's a little bit cooler), or I have to get back because Nick needs to leave, or it's getting ready to storm ect... you ge the idea. There just seems to always be a reason that I can only go 4-5 miles before I need to stop. But Friday afternoon it was cooler, and Nick was home from work that day because his dad and brother were here. So I wasn't in a hurry to get back for anything, I could just run.

About 3 miles into my run I was trying to decide if I wanted to do 4 miles or 5 miles. 5 miles had been my longest up to that point, so that was still a big thing for me. So I took a personal check of myself. I was breathing okay, my legs were tired, but not too bad, I wasn't hot, I had water ...... So I decided to go for 5 miles, but while I was running that 5th mile I did that body check again, and thought I'd go ahead and go for 6 and beat my record. And I did that every mile after that. At mile 8 I briefly thought about doing 10, but I really was tired, and by that time the hamburgers that Nick and been grilling for us were done. So ended up stopping at 8 miles. But still I am AMAZED I was able to do it.

I am training for a half marathon in late Feburary. And I really never dreamed I would run the whole thing, but now I am thinking that I can. If I run 9 miles in October, 10 in November, 11 in December, and 12 in January, then I'll be ready for 13 in Feburary. So I will keep doing 5-6 miles 3-4 times a week, and once a month I will go for a "long run" with that mileage.

Who knew I would actually enjoy running? :)

Weight loss

I haven't posted on here in a very long time. Life gets crazy. :) But I did want to come on here and announce that after 5.5 months of hard work I have reached my goal weight, with a total loss of 47lbs. I now have a BMI of 23.8 I started at 33.4. I have also lost 5 pants sizes. From my highest point I have lost 60lbs. I feel amazing!

Many people have asked "how" I lost my weight. Here is my short answer. I cut out processed carbs. I am now eating mostly lean proteins (with the occasional high fat protein), and fruits and veggies, with the occasional "healthy" carb. I dont eat potatoes, white rice, white bread, pasta...anymore I do on occasion treat myself to a small dessert, but it's rare. I have also started running and I am up to 4 miles without stopping 3 times a week. Now that it's starting to get cooler I will increase my mileage. My ultimate goal is to run a half marathon in the Spring.

Now that I am at my goal I really still want to lose another 5lbs or so, but I am not working super hard at it right now. I need a break, so I am just trying to maintain for awhile and be happy with where I am up. I still struggle with my body image. I still look in the mirror and see fat on my body and get discouraged and so I am working on my self image. I've had 3 kids, including a c-section, and I'm not on my 20's anymore. My body is not going to be perfect. I need to be happy with what God has given me.

So that's about it. It's been a long journey. I know I'm not done. I hear all the time "I lost weight and gained it back and then some", which gets discouraging sometimes. I am determined to not let that happen to me. I have changed my way of eating and I am not going back to the Carbs like I use to. This is my new lifestyle.

Some pictures

Our new house

The kitchen

The livingroom

The Family Room

Easter 2010

Capri sleeping in her "big girl" bed

Capri's birthday

Sage's dance class

Daddy and Capri

The girl's at the Easter Egg Hunt at church

Swimming in Grandma and Papa's pool

Capri at a t-ball practice

Sage playing T-ball

Preview of the girl's dance recital

Wow time flies.

Lets see since my last post.

1. We have been in our new house for almost 3 months, and LOVE it! We have been having people over like crazy which is so much fun. I love sharing the blessings that God has given us with others.

2. I started a new "diet" and have lost almost 20lbs, and I am so much healthier. I feel great, and am looking forward to losing another 20lbs.

3. I started running again. I am on week 6 of the C25K program and am running 3 times a week.

4. Sage is almost done with VPK. She has her graduation on Thursday night. She can't wait to be a kindergartener.

5. Avery is almost done with 1st grade. She has 13 more days of school.

6. Capri is now 2, and talking a whole lot more. She is every bit of "2" ....which has prooved to be a little bit challanging in all of our end of the year activies. Although I can say that being the 3rd baby she is much easier to deal with even when she's in a "mood". But even though she has her moments of being "2" she is still my sweet baby girl most of the time....just don't take her shopping.

7. Sage has started playing t-ball at the YMCA

8. Both older girls have 2 more weeks until their dance recital so we've been busy with that.

9. We're planning summer activies like crazy.

10. Nick and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. We're busy busy busy. I feel like we are rarely home these days, and when we are we are getting ready for some kind of party or gathering. But I wouldn't change anything about our life. It's great and I am loving every minute of it.

I gave up soda

I am on day 6 of giving up soda. Last Thursday Feb. 18th 2010 I decided that I needed to overcome my addiction to soda. If I can get over that I can do ANYTHING. There have been LOTS of days that I drank a glass of milk for breakfast and then drank nothing but soda the rest of the day. I would make special stops to get soda. I spent LOTS of money on soda. I thought about soda all the time. Not like dreamed about it, but I was always trying to remember if I had some at home, or if I needed to stop and get some. I would ask Nick to bring some home on his way from work. You get the idea. An addiction. So I gave it up.

It hasn't been easy. I get tired of drinking water, and I don't really want to add in artificially sweetened drink mixes because that's not good for me either. A friend gave me some ideas to add fruit (not a fan of lemons), to see if that would be better. So I am going to give that a try. I do like unsweetened ice tea, and when I get settled in the new house I will make more of that. But until then I will carry my reusable bottle of water with me everywhere I go and hopefully my cravings for soda will lesson with time, and I'll learn to like plain water better.

10 days to go......

We close on our house in 10 days. 1 week from today (Tuesday) we have our first walk through at the house. However the days seem to be crawling. For our room we have a new bed, new bedding, new bath towels and mats. For Capri's room we got all new bedding, for her queen size bed that she will move into after she moves out of the crib. The girls have new bedding for their bunk beds. They also have new stuff for their bathroom. We got new lighting, and ceiling fans, for every room of the house, and a new rug for the livingroom. I have all my paint color picked out for the walls. In other words.....we are ready!!!! I have had a blast shopping for all this new stuff, but now I am ready to decorate with it all. We are ready to move out of our small rental house and be able to put things away instead of just "somewhere". We are just ready to spread out. It's been a very long time coming.

I am sure I am boring all my friends with the day to day talk about the new house, but I am just so very excited!!!!! So until then I am doing a lot of reading, and we are keeping netflixs busy. :)

Getting excited!

Now that we know that we don't have much longer until our house is done Nick and I are getting super excited (and the girls). We know there are a lot of things that we want to change or add once we move in. Paint, lighting, shelving, new bedding....... So we are having so much fun looking for all of those things. I finally bought some bedding last night after spending lots of time online browsing different websites. Tonight while the girls are at Awana we are going to go to Home Depot and Lowes to look at lighting. We need ceiling fans, overhead lights, bathroom lights, kitchen lights, lamps.... It's really a lot of fun. Unfortanatly with all of that fun shopping comes a large price tag. We are thankful to be getting a decent tax refund this year as well as the government tax credit for buying a new house. I know that overtime we will make this house be perfect for us! After 8 yrs of living in a "fixer upper", and 5 months of living in a small rental house I am VERY ready to move into our new, bigger, house.

It's been a long time.

Since everyone I know is on facebook now I haven't blogged nearly as much. But I really should because it's kind of fun. Although I am not a very talented writer.

A quick update on the house. Our house is about 45 days from being finished. We have had so much fun watching it be built. We got by every single day after school to see what they have done that day. We are also watching all the other houses in the neighborhood go up. Right now there are 8 houses being built. It's amazing how quickly they are being built. They really change from day to day. Up until about a week ago we went inside every day, but now it's all locked up and we can only go inside when someone is there. Otherwise we just have to look in the windows.

The outside is painted and the stone was being put on today. The driveway is ready to be poured but it rained most of the day today so they haven't done it yet. On the inside the walls are painted, the bathroom cabinets are in, as well as the kitchen cabinets and counter tops. They were working on something inside today but I didn't see what that was.

Here are a few current pictures.

We don't "do" Santa

We don't "do" Santa", and what that means is that we don't teach our children that Santa is real. He doesn't come to our house on Christms Eve and deliver presents. To some that is a surprise, they think we are "radical" and some even say we are mean. So let me explain why we choose this and see what you think.

We choose not to belive in Santa at our house, and instead we choose to totally make Christmas about Jesus. We celebrate Christmas because it's the day that Christians have set aside to remember Jesus birth. We bring gifts to each other because the wise men brought gifts to Jesus. We make a cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve, his birthday cake. And we even sing happy birthday to Jesus on Christmas day.

I guess my thinking is that it's his special day, it's birthday, why not give him all the glory at this time of year. I personally don't really remember beliving in Santa so it's not that big of a deal to me. I don't understand why we take our kids to see movies and tell them it's pretend so that they won't be scared, but yet will tell them that a big fat man comes into their house at night....that's just me. :)

We also talk a lot about giving to others at this time of year. God gave us his son, and we can set aside money, toys, and food to give to those who don't have any. God thought of us when he sent his one and only son, and it's important to focus on how we can help others instead of just focusing on what we "want".

We still teach about St. Nicholas, and as the girls get older we will talk about how other countries celebrate during this time of year. But everything will be centered around Jesus' birth. That's the most important thing that I want my kids to remember at this time of year. Plus I get credit for all out gifts. :)

We still do stockings (like St. Nicholas), we still watch Christmas movies about Santa, and read books about Santa, we decorate our house with "Father Christmas" figures, and sing Santa songs. It's just all pretend and fun. But each night before bed we hang an ornament on our advent calendar, and read a story out of an advent book reminding us about God's love and the wonderful gift he gave to us. And that is the trume meaning of Christmas at our house.

Decorating for Christmas

Here are some pictures of us decorating our Christmas tree. I didn't put out a lot of Christmas decorations this year since we are in the rental, but we still made it look festive. The girls had fun hanging the ornaments.