Enter as strangers, leave as friends:)

Today was the monthly lunch date with my friends that used to be members of my gym. It is so fun to catch up with each other's lives. I can't believe it has been about 6 years since I owned it and 2 years since I worked there. Time has really flown by! Back story...I owned my own Women's only fitness center for 3 1/2 years, I then sold it to a larger gym and worked for them for another close to 3 years. I made a lot of wonderful friendships during those years! I have been off work for almost 2 years:( The large gym had major financial troubles:( 

The sign on the top left of the picture was a gift from my daughter. It said "enter as strangers, leave as friends". That is how I ran the business. I was just feeling nostalgic because I was with the girls today. 

I am still feeling kind of bummed for some reason:( I also feel really chubby:( I know that I am not chubby and I have come so far, but I feel that way:( UGH!!!! ARE WE EVER SATISFIED???

My old gym.
Neighborhood Fitness For Women

Hubby and I were out and about yesterday so I had an Arby's sandwich. I only ever eat the bottom bun. That is a change I can handle for a lifetime. For dinner I made hamburger gravy and mashed potatoes/spinach. Am I the only one here who eats potatoes and gravy??? I know there are carbs, but portion control is doable.
My poor husband has had to put up with my bad attitude for 2 days. I think he is truly a Saint when I get this way. Poor guy, nothing he does or says is right!
I need to get a swift kick in the butt to get over myself!!!
Blessings and happy scales!

139.2??? I have a theory!

Less stress:)

This is how I sit on the computer all day!
Karson loves sitting next to me and watching videos!

I think the scale has finally moved because I am not freaked out about what was going to happen with my husband and his job. We have all heard before that belly fat is caused by stress and I certainly believe that! I am really pleased by my progress, so what did I do yesterday? We went to dinner at a Pizza place and I literally almost ate 1 large pizza crust. Well not completely, but if I had eaten my whole meal I would have. First we had garlic cheese sticks, then my sandwich came on pizza crust cut in 1/2 and used for bread. I ate the middle out because by then I was questioning my sanity! It wasn't even good enough to wreck how far I have come. Ugh!!! No dessert afterwards, I couldn't add 1 more thing. This morning I was up a lb. but I am hoping from being good today it will be gone.
What was interesting about Rosie's post yesterday is that I felt the same way all day. I wore a shirt that had ruffles on the front so I just felt chubby. I swear the mental part of this whole journey would make a sane person crazy! I know I am no longer chubby, I know in my head that I have come so far, but I guess it is just on bad days that I feel so bummed. Maybe it is hormones!
I have really struggled emotionally the last few days??? I must love stress and function better when I am under it. Crazy:(
I have been out of my fish oil for about a week (no excuse in the world for that) so maybe it helps me mentally too. I feel so ungrateful when I can't be happy and my life is pretty darned blessed! I guess it could be the endless coverage that I have been watching of 9/11. My heart truly goes out to everyone that day. So, so, sad!
Blessings and happy scales...hopefully tomorrow I will find some joy in my day!
Yesterday food
Breakfast: 2 sausage patties on toasted sandwich thin
Linner: Massive quantities of pizza crust!
No dessert
Today
Breakfast: 2 sausage patties on toasted sandwich thin
No lunch
snack: 4 grapes
Dinner: jack in the box chicken strips with 10 fries and ranch dipping sauce.
No dessert....my new carton of Clemmy's hasn't even been touched yet.

139.9:) I broke the barrier!!!

Today:) I do have other shirts!

Oregon Coast September 2010

I found some pictures from our Oregon Coast trip last year:( I honestly think my whole body has changed. I don't know if I can attribute it totally to the BFC, but I am happily surprised. My husband thinks it is the Zumba! Whatever it is, I will take it!
I was happily shocked this morning with the scale. I have been pretty darn good lately (for me) so I was excited. We went shopping today and I had fish and chips for lunch! They were wonderful, so I just had a turkey sandwich for dinner. I am constantly amazed that I eat spinach now. I eat 1 single veggie, over and over and over!!!
So here is my senior moment, although I have many "moments". So I was asking Dawn to post the S/C value of the PB cookies with coconut flour using Jif. She was confused? Well they don't have flour in them! I was totally convinced, and have posted on other's blogs, that my PB coconut cookies were sure helping me be "regular". I just tickle myself! I had 2 cookies with some yummy Clemmy's and I was joyful. I also had Clemmy's the other night and I mixed some cocoa powder with a packet of stevia and added it to my vanilla Clemmy's. It tasted like Nestle Quik. I used to eat vanilla ice cream with nestle Quik on it all the time. Try it, you'll like it!
My husband got several new Wrigley/Mars products today so we always taste test them. The gum is sugar free so no big deal *wrong kind of sugar* But the Skittles and Starbursts are loaded! The new flavor of Star Bursts is "flavor changes". The cherry turns to lime, the orange turns to strawberry. OMG....I just posted how much I love lime....they were to die for!!! I have, at my disposal, hundreds of packs of Starburst and I will not eat them. I actually told him not to bring me more until we were on the plane to Hawaii. The Skittles were kind of changing flavors too, but not that great. I just know when I crunch the shell of those that it is all sugar! There is 30 sugars in a pack of Starburst! That's 2 days worth for 12 little candies!
I am kind of rambling so I will stop here. I think I will start adding my food again so you can see the random and sometimes bad things that I eat. I think I am pretty darn close to always being good on sugar, not so much carbs!
Yesterday
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 sausage in low carb tortilla with salsa
Lunch: Turkey, mayo on sandwich thin. A couple of chips and chili cheese fritos
Dinner: Hamburger on sandwich thin with mayo and spinach. A couple of chips and ccf.
No dessert
Today
Breakfast: 2 sausage patties on a toasted  sandwich thin
Lunch: Ivar's fish and chips with tarter. Diet soda:(
Dinner: Turkey, mayo sandwich thin. A couple of chips, and a couple of ccf.
I was going to have Clemmy's but it is after 8:00 and I really don't need to. I think I am lucky that I don't snack, or really want to snack. It saves me calories and s/c values.
Blessings and Happy Scales:)

6 month anniversary!!! Down 25.1 lbs:)

I got on this scale this morning, then ran downstairs in my nightgown and got my phone to take a picture! I was so excited. This was earned after my challenges last night. I had my first Bunko of the year and we have a LOT of food at Bunko. The only thing that I could eat (that I liked) was a sweet and sour chicken dish and some scoops chips and a red potato salad. I took a lemon bar on my plate at first, but I put it back because I knew there was sugar in the chicken dish. I won second place:)  Well I took 2 lemon bars home because if the scale said what I hoped it would, I would celebrate today. I ate one and gave one to my husband. It tasted like Heaven. It's funny because what has really tasted yummy to me that has sugar has either been lime or lemon based. I love my Bunko friends. We have played together for over 22 years. Our lives have changed over the years, but our friendships continue. I am blessed to have such a great group of women:)
Zumba this morning was with the instructor that I don't like as much. She plays these hard rock songs that I didn't listen to when I was young, and choose not to listen to at this age:( It's kind of a bummer to me. I guess when she is the only game in town on Wednesday mornings, I am stuck!
My hubby and I also got the BEST news ever this morning. Wrigley has put him back out on short term disability. This means full pay and we keep his company car for now. I am praying they give him the time to really heal and strengthen his back. We have only heard from the nurse, no other contact from the HR dept. He has gained 5 years of life back! Joyful is the word I would use for him.
Dinner was my pork cutlet with mashed potato/spinach and gravy. So yummy.
We went to the Base with my daughter yesterday and got a lot of good grocery bargains. @Rosie, I found the sausage crumbles that you talk about. Since I divorced bacon, I needed another breakfast meat! I'm excited to make a breakfast burrito.
Thanks everyone for being on this journey with me. I can't believe I have stuck with something for 6 months. That is something I am proud of too. The lemon bar today, that I ate every single crumb of, was really the first time that I ate something completely. No 3 bites on that one:)
Blessings and happy scales.

141 today:)

I don't think I had a picture of my Matthew (that's what I call him) on my blog. He's the handsome chap on the right. Shawn is his best friend that recently got married. I swear if they were gay, they would have married each other. They provided me with tons of laughs over the years! Matthew is still here working with his older brother. I am glad he is here in town, but I still don't see him very much. Unless I offer dinner, they won't drive the 1/2 hour to get here!
I made a WONDERFUL (to me) dinner tonight. I made a box of stove top (I have said I am not a cook) added about 3 cups of spinach, put it in a baking dish with turkey and gravy over the top and baked it for 1/2 hour. It was just like Thanksgiving and yummy. Our local store has "store roasted" turkey on sale and it is really as close to Thanksgiving turkey as I have ever tasted. I know there were carbs in the stuffing, but when you add spinach it goes a lot further. I am really getting into this spinach thing. I am a grown up now!
I finished the book "The Help" today. I had started reading it a long time ago, but it didn't represent what I remembered about visiting my grandparents in the 60's. They had 2 maids, Sadie and Lois, and we were taught to respect them like any other person we met. They were awesome cooks and actually taught my older sister a lot of good things. Of course I wasn't interested. I just never looked at them any different? We used to always be in Florida when all the little kids would go back to school. The bus stop was in front of my grandparents store. They would be all dressed up in their best clothes. I will never forget the fun times. My grandparents had a store outside of Ocala Florida smack dab in peanut farming country. We drove across Country ever year to visit them. That is why I am still not into long car rides. Can you get any further away than WA state to Florida???
I ate 2 more PB cookies tonight for the fiber they give me and another couple of teaspoons of my Clemmy's vanilla. I have 1 serving left. I would really like to see a good weigh in tomorrow.
I need to clarify better on my start date. I started March 7th, so September 7th will be my 6 month anniversary. 6 months:) What a difference it has made in my life, self confidence and overall health. Woot! Thank you all that blog for being on this journey with me.
Blessings and happy scales:)

I am random:)

My daughter had a friend stay here for about 5 days, when she left she told my daughter that I was random. Yep, thoughts run through my head and out my mouth:) Good, bad, whatever, you never really wonder what I am thinking!
About Zumba. I will definitely say having the DVD set helped me in the beginning. I at least knew what muscles I was supposed to be working. It is a lot of controlled  rotations and I am glad I have my background in how the body works. The instructors don't ever tell you what part of your body you should be working, or really how to do it. It is a catch on when you can kind of thing. The good news is that there are tons of videos on you tube of how to do certain moves. Whenever your body is just flapping around there isn't a lot of benefit. Controlled movement, that's what it's about. For some folk, it is truly just about moving for an hour.

OK, so yesterday morning I weighed 140.8. Not my lowest, but good! Well, we went to Mexican food and my weight today was 141.8. So today we went for hot wings and my ultimate pepperoni pizza from Boston's. I can't wait to see what the scale says tomorrow. It is like I get so close to the 139 and I sabotage myself....over and over again! I think I have weighed about the same for a very long time. On an earlier post I said I was OK with that, this might be a good weight for me, but I know I could try a little harder and make some better choices. After dinner yesterday we went to FroYo again. They had a limeade strawberry sorbet that was just dripping in sugar. I had a about a tablespoon mixed in with my sugar free raspberry. When I say I just get a little I really do. For my husband having yogurt w/hot fudge and mine it was only 3.16. It's weighed, so that tells you my portion is pretty darn small. Our tradition when leaving Boston's was always to go to Krispy Kreme and get a Maple bar. Today was the first time that I have thought about doing that in almost 6 months. Weird:( It was probably that dang sorbet!
We haven't eaten lunch the last 2 days, just breakfast and then Linner. I hope that helps on the scale in the morning.
So I just want to share my thoughts about the BFC, of course repeating myself! I really think that our bodies have to really believe that we are going to eat 5/2 per meal for this to work. We can't just do it for a couple of days and expect our bodies to respond. We have to try and do it many days in a row, and then our body will efficiently get rid of any extra's. It is said that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I think our bodies need to believe we are really changing to change. Does that make sense? I think as we progress months into this, we can cheat here and there, eat a little more of something that we shouldn't, but in the beginning....it has to be an all in. I see frustration on some posts on facebook, but I wonder if they ever really did the first 2 weeks? Just thinking out loud and probably being judgemental. I don't mean to sound that way. I just know for me, it works in a big way. I can eat a lot of bad things and I have been able to rid myself of a whole lot of belly fat. It will actually be my 6 month anniversary on the 7th. I would really like to be at a full 25 lbs by then. Even at 24, it will still be a lb a week. That's OK, I guess! NOT OK, but OK, but I wish it were more, but OK...this is what I do all day....yes/no/yes/no/yes/no!!!

Zumba, Zumba:)

Zumba is for EVERYONE:) 

I wanted to post a picture I took at Zumba today. The gal that I love as an instructor, is going back to school full time, so she won't be teaching 2 of the mornings that I go. I will really, really miss her:( She will be teaching Friday afternoons, so I guess I will try and go then. Wednesday and today she had 67 minute play lists and I survived both days. It really helps that it has been cooler in the gym. As you can see there is every shape, size etc. and everyone does the best they can do.
I weighed 142 this AM. I haven't really recovered from my shopping trip and the lack of meds. I do feel way better:) Slow and steady is the way to go. I don't really know if I will ever get the last few lbs off. We just scheduled another shopping trip to Missoula for the 18th. My hubby needs some things and we have the time. The hotels are all a lot less expensive after Labor Day too. Who am I to turn down a fun shopping trip? Maybe I will be ready for my jeans! I did buy some Old Navy trouser jeans on the last shopping trip. One of my dressing room "ah ha" moments!
I had a wonderful day with my friend at her neighborhood pool again today. The weather is just amazing. Perfect temp for laying in the sun and tanning at the pool. My husband is going to a car show with his Mustang all day tomorrow. He called it an International show because cars from the U.S. and Canada will be there. I offered to go with, but thank goodness he wants to go alone! Yay!!! I am good with looking at about the first 20 cars and then I am done.
Good luck to everyone over the 3 day weekend. I am pretty proud of myself for what I have eaten lately:) I am still getting too many carbs, but my sugar is good. I have loved my Clemmy's and PB cookies.
Blessings and happy scales:)