Yoga!!!

So I pulled out my old Biggest Loser Bob's Weight Loss Yoga DVD last night. I wanted to do something to jumpstart my attempt of pre planned daily exercise. I've been struggling this week with not getting home from work in time to get to the classes I penciled in for the week. So last night at 9:30 it was yoga time. Bobs weight loss yoga is not your typical yoga. It burns and hurts and makes you sore.
Yoga at the gym usually pushes you but not in the make you sweat kind of way.
I've always wanted to try hot yoga for that reason. To sweat. But I'm also afraid of hot yoga. Wonder how my body would react to it.

Anyhow. So of course 5 min in my husband got home and thankfully he was awesome and got the dogs calmed down and stayed out of the room until I was done. It was tougher than it was last time I did it because its been a while. But I was able to do it all and it felt good.

Gracie I think wanted to do yoga too. She laid down on the end of my mat. She popped her head up when I took her picture so it's not as good as if she had stayed laying.

Speaking of my mat.... It's Vera Bradley, its cute, I love it and I've used it for almost three years now. I think it sometimes helps motivate me for yoga. Who doesn't want to carry the cute Vera carry bag and get out the cute Vera may?!

So Bobs yoga DVD is progressive. You build your workout on the DVD using warm up, cool down, and three levels of yoga routines in the middle. My plan is to make it through all three levels as try suggest. I've never gone past level two. You have to stay at each level dr a few weeks. So yay yoga!!!

Cardiologist today! Great news!

So my ejection factor increased to put me
Not only in the normal range but well into the normal range. The cardiologist said that with heart abnormalities they are used to seeing small improvements and small to large problems or changes for the worst. He said I had a large improvement and its nice to see because they don't see that very often. Now that's encouraging.

My pulse was around 65 today. Amazing for me!

The weird thing is that my palpitations have increased in frequency. He discovered that during my stomach viruses in Dec/Jan I depleted my potassium and just haven't gotten it back yet which is increasing my palps. So I will take a supplement for a few weeks and recheck. Stupid stomach virus even messed with my heart.

Interesting fact. My Cortisol checked out normal. That's the stress hormone. Cool I figured as most Americans it would be off. Good to know.

Dr and his PA both love that Im on weight watchers. PA suggested I read up on gluten. Ill be researching that. Reading suggestions welcome. She told me about Wheat Belly.

I think I've decide to run the Nashville half again. My next cardiologist appt is the week of the race. I wonder what I can accomplish before then!

I had a jewelry party tonight. I was so proud that I made all my snacks weight watchers snacks! Woohoo for feeling good about snacking with the girls.

Lots of random thoughts here but I had a very encouraging day and I'm ready to take tomorrow and do something great!


I took a random picture of a heart model while I was bored at the appointment today. Lol

Sooo...

Lol. I didn't have a good title. Just sitting here thinking and decided to blog.
Weight watchers is going ok for me. Just working on my discipline. It's not quite where it needs to be yet. I lost one pound last week and I was so excited. Funny to be excited over one pound. But I thought. Only 64 more times of repeating this week and I'm there. This honestly was encouraging to me. For real.

I'm nervous about this week.

I'm still not exercising as I should. My schedule has been super busy and its only going to get worse. I know one of the best things for a busy schedule is a regular exercise routine. I've got to do this. I got a got bit a week or two ago and I've been wearing it daily my steps at work range from 6,000-8,000 each day. I am a walking kind of teacher no walk around my room non stop. So I'm thinking a 10,000 step goal isn't enough. In thinking 12,000 steps a day is going to be my steps goal.

It tracks my floors of stairs climbed. Guess what? I never climb stairs! Lol. My home and my school are one story. What to do here?

It tracks my sleep quality as well. This I believe is an important thing I can improve. I've only been getting 5-6 hours of sleep each night. Not enough an waking up 5-18 times per night. No fun! I do not have sleep apnea but because of my Fibro I don't always go into a deep sleep. I used to take sleep medication because my doctor said I needed the deep sleep for Fibro management. I'm wondering if this is why I feel tired a lot. Wonder if I should use the sleep medication again for a little while to try to retrain my body to sleep better. Hmm?
What I CAN fix without meds is my hours in bed. I must get to bed earlier! Ill work on that this week.

My fitbit has a flower that grows with activity level through the day. I want that flower to max out. I gotta see how much it takes to make this happen.

So I have tomorrow off work. I thought it might be a good day to hit the gym to get it in my system. I really think one day back will get it back in my system.

I also have a cardiologist appointment tomorrow. I'm supposed to receive good news about my ejection factor! So yay. I gotta ask them about my palpitations though. They are recently more frequent. Who knows...

Here's to a new week with a day off work to help start fresh!

Happy beginning of the week everyone!6

Great Recipe and other thoughts....

Weight Watchers is going well.  I continue to here from friends that weight watchers is what worked for them.  I'm getting so much support right now and I truly appreciate it.  It is something to get used to though and any help from my readers is welcomed.  I'm so used to counting calories that this is so different.  It's so easy I almost feel out of control. Haha.  Today I felt like I had done bad, but I actually had 3 points remaining. 

For those that don't know how it works you have a set amount of points to use each day.  You are supposed to not go above but not really below either.  You also have weekly points that you can use but you don't have to use.  I've heard from many that they have lost best when not utilizing the weekly points.  The weekly points are intended to be used for a "cheat meal" or a special dessert, or a meal beyond your control etc.  The point of them is to use them and then continue as normal following your daily points.  If you go over on your points one day they come out of your weekly points. 

Yesterday at work I had Thursday's dinner left overs for lunch and grabbed a sprite from the soda machine.  MISTAKE.  Who knew a can of sprite was 4 points!!!! I do now!!! That is why I think weight watchers will work for me.  It keeps me accountable to those little things that I used to do and I guess knew mattered but pretended that they didn't.

So remember mine and Brandon's challenge to not eat out for Jan.?  Well, we had a "beyond our control" situation arise and we ate out.  Every year during all district band weekend we take Brandon's students to dinner at Shogun.  Of course I could have eaten at home quickly and sat and not eaten at Shogun, but this goal is not about being miserable.  So, I decided to just enjoy it.  I did manange to resist soda at Shogun by using Lemonade flavored Mio in my water.  Hibachi is one of those foods that I need a flavored beverage with.  Can't explain it.  Its just how I am.  Can't do pizza and water either.  After the sprite accident at lunch and my view of the chunk of butter fixing to hit the hibachi grill I figured I'd better make a good beverage choice. 

I get 31 points a day.  When all was said and done, the hibachi, the sprite... I went over my points by 6.  I used 37 points yesterday.  I get 49 weekly points.  So I used 6 weekly points.  So all and all.  Not that bad. 

Back to the no eating out challenge.... This one out of our control situation is isolated.  That is not stopping the challenge.  It resumed this morning and will continue. 

So back to todays points.  I had what I felt were too many sweets but still came in under point budget for today.  So that just tells me that what I can control is making sure that I eat plenty of lean meats, fruits, and veggies (basically eat enough) so there is no point room for sweets.  Another thing that keep my points down was sleeping in today.  I slept late enough that I had a brunch kinda of morning meal and then dinner.  I had a snack of a few pretzels in between.  But 2 meals obviously has less points than 3.  I'm a breakfast eater for sure so I normally don't miss meals.  Hoping that keeps my points up and away from sweets.

Ok, now to the best part of this post.....our dinner tonight.

Its Heidi Powell's Garlic Lime Chicken.  I like to call it Spicy Lime Chicken because the seasonings seemed more spicy than garlicy to me.  I give her all the credit.  It is amazing.  Me from the kitchen into the living room to Brandon as I cooked "I feel like I"m on food network".  I got to do some cool things.  Here is the link to her recipe:
Garlic Lime Chicken

The only thing I did different was instead of putting the seasonings into a baggy and shaking and baking.  I placed the chicken breast in the pan to cook, rubbed seasoning on top of all four pieces then immediately flipped over, rubbed the remaining seasonings on the opposite side.  To me this just ensured that I would have enough seasoning to spread across all pieces.

I also cut the two chicken breasts in half in order to have four 4 ounce servings.

The best part, creating the sauce at the end (the reason I used my stainless steel rather than non stick pan) You use the "stuck" seasoning in the sauce.  Super cool!  I used tongs to constantly move around my chicken as it cooked to keep it from actually sticking. 

I served with green peas and carrots.  Super good.  A four ounce serving of the chicken is 7 points.  One of my veggies was free, one was 1 point.  Can't remember which was which.

Juicing my limes... This awesome juicer that my husband wanted when we
did our wedding registry is awesome. 
I got 8 oz of lime juice from 3 limes.

Love measuring tools and pinch bowls... this isn't the half of it.

Cute huh?

This is when I got the beginning of the Food network feeling...
my stainless is just so shiney

seasoned and cooking

This is the cool part... Food Network feeling complete when I used
the wisk to pull the "stuck" seasoning up into the sauce when
I added the lime juice and broth... My sauce appears darker than Heidi's...
wondering if I cooked the chicken at too high of a heat....
the stuck seasoning was dark and the sauce reduced very quickly.
It tasted great though.... was not burnt at all.

complete dinner... this is a small plate by the way. makes the plate seem more full.
of course I used measure cups and measured my veggie portions exactly

2013 Good Year Ahead. I am telling ya

Well, its a new year.  I've been blogging now for 2 years.  Thank you to those of you who view my blog regularly and those who have stopped by a time or two.  You've kept me going.  I may have thought that by the end of two years I would be blogging about having found the skinny and maintaining the skinny, but that just isn't how it is.  God has had a different plan.  I've had lots of ups and downs along my journey so far.  I've fallen on ice (remember that?), I been awesome at cooking, counting calories, attempting to calculate ratios, and other exercises that my trainers have pushed me to do.  I've been dedicated 80% of the time.  The other 20% of the time I struggled.  That 20% came Sept-Dec. of 2012.  I'm coming off of that 20% right now. I've learned that about every single level in my body is just right and not causing me problems.  I've been told that I'm genetically pre disposed to being over weight.  I've most recently been told by two of my doctors they believe that I have PCOS.  My biggest accomplishments in the last two years were running my first 5K in 2011 and my first 13.1 (half marathon) in 2012.  So through the struggles I've never stopped blogging or accomplishing.  I'm proud of that.  I've had 4 trainers..... I ate peaches for the first time.... I can do burpees (and use my knowledge of those to keep my football player students behaving in class.... they don't like when I mention "burpees" and "tell your coach" in the same sentence).  I have been in the newspaper, I've set an example for my students.  I've run in the rain, the sun, the snow, and ice.  I found a new favorite class, R.I.P.P.E.D. I have found a physical strength that I didn't know I had.  I have also found a mental strength that I'm still learning to control.

So what does 2013 have to offer?

Well it began with a mean stomach virus.  I've been down for 6 days.  I had this same virus back in Dec. along with a sinus infection.  My goodness.  I hadn't been sick in forever then all of it hit at once.  I'm finally feeling better and headed back to work tomorrow.  You know what I determined about me being sick.  I think its my fault.  I think that for the last few months my activity and exercise levels have been much lower than normal in my opinion making my immune system less capable of fighting off the germs.  Just my opinion. 

So now that that is over I can get on to my goals that I have set for 2013.

My husband and I spent our drive home from my parents house setting 2013 goals.  Not resolutions really... not things that you have to do every day or you fail at because who can really be perfect every day.  Our goals were things we wanted to accomplish in 2013.  So Christmas 2013 we want to look at that goal list and mark them off.  Examples:  Paint specific rooms in our house, pay off debt (we are Dave Ramsey fans and have finally decided to get gazelle intense), get more rest, eat breakfast at home not in our cars, follow a more organized schedule for cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, etc.

So I have kinda been struggling with how to set my personal health goals.  I saw a friend add of his miles run over 2012.  He aimed for a 5K everyday of 2012 and just came sooo close.  I think he missed few enough days you could count them on your right hand.  he ran like 1100+ miles and lost 40 lbs.  Super Super cool.  He goes to church with my parents.  We enjoyed several running updates from each other through the year.  I definitely want to keep running so I thought about a total mile goal for 2013.  My brother is going for 1000.  I just think 1000 might be too much for me for now.  I truly dont' have a desire to run a 5K everyday or anything like that and I think its for fear of exhausting myself which I have to be careful of with fibro.  So I added up my miles from last year and it was like 100+ for Jan-April when I suddenly stopped running because I ran my half (face palm).  So I think I'm just going to look at it this way.  52 weeks.  6 miles a week would be 300+ miles in the year.  So thats pretty close to 365. So I'm aiming for 365 miles run in 2013.  An average of 1 mile a day.  If I go beyond I go beyond and yay, if not I still have an attainable goal.  Right now due to mega stomach virus I'm at zero.  I'll get right on that! Hopefully tomorrow I will feel up to it.

Moving on..... losing pounds..... I know I was encouraged by my OBGYN to just keep on keeping on and get back into any habits I had slacked on and be patient that even if the pounds didn't drop I would be healthier.... Also encouraged by the Physicians Asst. at my MDs office to back away from the scales and focus on how my clothes fit and to see my OBGYN for further info on the PCOS.  At one time the thought crossed my mind to just own it and make a size 14/16 look cute, but I hate feeling like I'm in a fat suit.  So I'm focusing on one thing the OBGYN said.... "if you keep going, the weight will eventually start to come off and when it does you will get momentum and have more success"  The more I read the more I realize this is a PCOS thing.  PCOS is all hormonal and affects weight and is affected BY weight.  So when you manage to lose a few pounds the hormones shift closer to normal and then you can lose a few more and they shift more etc.  I've heard one opinion (not my doctors, but someone else's doctor's) that with PCOS every 5% of your weight that you lose is easier than the previous 5%.  Now that sounds like a deal....

So I needed a plan.... a plan that wouldn't allow me to lie to myself..... a plan that would be there on good days and bad days, in restaurants, at home, everywhere I go.  I needed someone else to think for me a little bit because I was tired of thinking.  There was one thing that I NEVER accomplished... a balanced ratio between carbs, fats, proteins.  I was given appropriate ratios by trainers and my doctor agreed with them, but that stupid pie chart on myfitnesspal never was right no matter how much I tried or planned ahead. 

My mom and a friend of hers were going to start South Beach diet in Jan together, so I started thinking about SB diet.  (I decided not to do it, so keep reading) That is the ONLY diet that has ever worked for me.  Summer of 2003 after high school graduation I lost the 25 lbs that I had gained that year.  I thought well low glycemic levels would be good for PCOS, but I kept thinking that it seemed like a lot of restrictions and I knew if my hubby was going to do something with me restrictions wouldn't be best.  I didn't want restrictions quite that much either.... then something happened...

I showed my hubby another success picture of a friend who had lost 60 lbs (I think.. if I remember the number right) this past year and has similar obstacles.  He said " How'd she do it?" I said "weight watcher" and moved right on down my facebook newsfeed.  I had NEVER wanted to do weight watchers.  Then my husband said something "Do you want to do weight watchers?  I'll do it with you?" I said "No, why do you think I want to do it?" He said, "Well, every single success story of a friend you show me you tell me they did weight watchers, so I thought that was your way of telling me you wanted to do it"  Bless his heart he was trying to figure me out and I wasn't even trying to subtly say anything this time.  I hadn't noticed the trend.... but it WAS there.  I got on facebook and messaged all my friends who had had success with weight watchers and they all had great things to say and were very supportive and highly suggested it.  I got online and read. Talked to my friend that I mentioned above.  I thought I wanted to do it.  Yesterday hanging out sick at home I texted one of my very best friends who I've always had great weight loss conversations with who also has similar obstacles.  I said out of nowhere to her "I'm thinking about doing weight watcher...."
her text back "No way!, I seriously just signed up for ww online like 2 min ago."
That was it.  It was my sign.  I truly believe God was saying through all of these friends but particularly her.  DO IT!

I went to the dr. yesterday and had to have blood panels done etc. for this silly virus.  So I asked the PA about it.  She thought it was a fantastic idea.  She said "out of all the diets out their WW is by far the best one".  So with her blessing, God's blessing, and lots of friends to encourage me I signed up last night.  I'm doing it online.  I'm pretty excited.  I have a friend with PCOS that has lost on weight watchers.  I have a friend that lost weight on ww to get to her goal before having a baby, then after the baby back to her goal minus another 5 lbs.   You know those ratios I was talking about?  Well, weight watchers does that for you.  I'm so excited to have a good ratio without having to bang my head against a wall (I never really did that, but wanted to).

I counted my points and was way under yesterday because I was trying food (beyond saltine crackers) for the first time.  So I expected to be under but wanted to practice tracking.  Today I was under by 3 points, still not eating quite like normal.  Hoping for a normal day tomorrow and exercise added back in.  So here's to a brand new, never tried it before, plan for 2013.  Bring it on!!!

I'm also so happy to have my hubby on weight watchers with me.  Watch out!

So my goals for 2013:

• get more sleep, lots of weight loss statistics there
• eat breakfast at home in the mornings
• do weight watchers
• run 365 miles this year
• schedule workouts ahead of time in order to accomplish more
• run a 10k
• run another 13.1 (lexington got cancelled, picking a new one)
• bike more (i have an awesome Trek, why is it collecting dust)
• cook more

Oh and a current goal for my husband and I that is helping us weight wise and wallet wise....

In Jan. we are striving to not eat out AT ALL.... notta, none, zero.  So far we've done it.  It's not been easy, especially being sick it would have been way easier to let Brandon pick up his own dinners, but I have cooked the last few days anyhow.  I think after the initial detox of restaurants and whatever on earth makes us so addicted to them we won't even want them any more.  Join us on that challenge.


*** Lose it before they do challenge.***
Anyone still in?  The before the new season part is over and I lost like 2 lbs.  Let me know if you are still in.  Now comes the second half.  Sunday is the premier! Yay! Gotta get my NBC channel fixed, stopped coming in for some reason today.  I was sad.  As a teacher I NEVER get to see the Today's show, so I was going to watch it while home sick.  Nope.. didn't get to.

So here's what I need from my readers.... keep reading, share my blog with others please, and comment to me.  Today for this blog please let me know if you are also not eating out, or doing Weight Watchers.  I love hearing from y'all.

Best Wishes and God's Blessings to you all!