Fatty Friday

I made it to the gym three times this week. That alone feels really good. Bret has been doing an amazing job with his portion control and food choices and that has really motivated me as well. It is not a good feeling when I look at his portion at dinner and then look at mine and realize I am eating more. This has motivated me to put some back before I even start to eat and that is always a good thing. Bret says that it takes a week or so but then it gets much easier because your stomach is smaller. He also told me that even if I need a small snack later that is better than over eating at dinner.

I decided to start all of us taking vitamins more consistently. Lots of colds, flu, strep throat, have been floating around and I figure it can't hurt. Water has been the biggest challenge. There is nothing worse than a terrible headache in the evenings from dehydration and I get them a lot. I want my kids to have healthy habits and have found that by having water in a sippy cup for the boys and a water bottle for Emily readily available naturally encourages them to drink more water during the day. Neither of my parents ever drank water. EVER. My mom is from a country where water is never a drink you choose to drink. My dad just never drank water. We have been working harder to encourage them to drink water with their meals more often.

When it comes to cooking I have decided I need new motivation. I love our family recipes and our tried and true favorites. However, a big portion of them are not low calorie. So my goal this weekend is to get some new recipe books. I plan to start at the library and then maybe head to a book store. We still have a couple of gift cards from Christmas to a bookstore that I may decide to get. My frustration in not getting enough veggies into my children continues. Emily and Palmer do OK at dinner. Logan not so much. Lately he has been more and more stubborn when it comes to eating his veggies. At this age there is no threats to make. He will pick around things he doesn't want to eat and if you try to feed it to him he spits it back out. We keep trying and trying. I have heard a lot of good things about the Deceptively Delicious cookbook that has you puree veggies and sneak them into meals kids love. At this point I am willing to try anything so we may see if that one is available at the library also.

I have to keep telling myself that this process is a journey. I am not trying to diet. I am trying to make permanent lifestyle changes for myself and my family. Sometimes this seems like so much work. I keep waiting for something to get easier or to become an automatic habit.

In the end this week I am down a total of 8 pounds. I am happy that I continue to lose the weight albeit slowly. It has helped a lot that people seem to be noticing and commenting a lot. Bret thinks I have added a lot more muscle from the workouts and that the inches are coming off faster than the pounds for me. I hope he is right. Either way I am only two pounds away from my next reward and that is a great motivation this week.

Fatty Friday Week 2

So the honeymoon is over people. I am not going to lie this week was tough. It started out great with me getting to the gym three times. Eating has not been good. We ate Chinese for dinner and let's just say there wasn't anything steamed in our boxes.

But hey, each day is a new day and I refuse to beat myself up for making poor food choices now and then. Even though I knew that I would probably gain some of the food poisoning weight back I was still hoping to avoid it. So without further ado my weight loss is still at five pounds total. I have scheduled my one hour massage and I am going to enjoy it because I deserve it. The cake, cupcakes, and cookies are gone. The fridge is full of great fruits and veggies, fat free yogurt, and the pantry and freezer has lots of healthy options to go to. I am committed. Bret is also sticking with it. He has yet to make it to the gym.

The stubborn ass. He is so stubborn that last Sunday I told him that he has a choice to make either he goes to the gym with me that day or he was doing all of the laundry. Bret has not done laundry since we moved to PA 3 and half years ago. Believe me when I tell you he did FIVE loads of laundry. I helped him fold a load but he did everything else. Now that is some serious stubbornness. He did get a great workout taking the kids sledding twice this week. Pulling two kids around the yard and up and down a hill a million times is not easy work. I did it a few times and was completely out of breath.

The bottom line is that we are sticking with it. We are striving towards our goals and not giving up. Hope you had a great week also.

Cake!

So who's brilliant idea was it to have a milk and cookies 1st birthday party theme? Yeah that would be me.

What the hell was I thinking? Of course there was going to be cookies left over (good cookies I might add). I love me some cookies.

You know what I love as much as cookies? Cake.

Logan loved his cake too.

It was a simple white cake with butter cream frosting dyed brown to look like a cookie. The "chips" were chocolate wafers. Logan ate about 1/4 of the cake and all of the wafers he could find. One of the mom's made the comment "wow I can't believe how much cake he is actually eating". Without missing a beat Emily replied "my mom makes good cake". LOVE IT!

So back to the temptation of cookies and cake. I had Bret take the rest of the cookies to hospital. Nurses love sweets. Bret said he took a bunch to the clinic, labor floor, and resident lounge. Then much to my horror he went and grabbed the last few before they disappeared to bring some home. WTH? WHY would he do that? Apparently I am not the only one with a weakness for cookies.

So far they have been sealed in a ziplock and no one but the kids have touched them. So far. Maybe we will freeze them...would hate to see them go to waste.

To add insult to injury one of the party guests brought some gourmet cupcakes from a new bakery to the party. OK so who brings gourmet cupcakes to a birthday party? A young single intern resident with no kids that's who. I love her and it was such an awesome gestured but she is really trying to kill me. Seriously. I tried to insist she take some with me to which she replied..."I'm trying to watch what I eat". I kid you not.

So we decided that we would eat one cupcake per day and all share it. The kids decided to eat one each which is fine. Not like they couldn't seriously use the extra calories anyways. Emily had a strawberry shortcake one. I had a tiny bite and it was to die for. Palmer had a chocolate death one. I tried a tiny taste of the frosting and almost passed out from sugar and chocolate overload. Bret and I shared a carrot cake one with cream cheese frosting. Bret told me I needed to work on my frosting recipes. Apparently buttercream is not good enough. I had to agree though. The cupcakes were good but the frostings were to die for. Literally. Then I did something I never thought possible. I let Palmer eat part of a chocolate peanut butter cupcake and tossed the rest. Into the trash. Like without a bite taken out of two cupcakes. I almost cried and couldn't believe I did this. But I had to. For three days all I thought about was the three cupcakes sitting in my kitchen getting stale by the minute waiting to be tasted. To be devoured. People believe me when I tell you that I was dreaming about cupcakes. No one said it was going to be easy but gourmet cupcakes were more than I could handle.

So please join me in a moment of silence for our fallen friends.

On an up note I have made it to the gym three times this week.