Trials of a Long Haired Girl

So sorry that I did not post last week, but with preparations for Thanksgiving and such, I did not get around to trying something new with my smoothies or anything else.  So my original plan was to continue with the smoothies, but today I tried something new and decided I would blog about it instead.  We purchased this macaroni and cheese from Costco.   Side note here, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE macaroni and cheese.  As a small child, I could tell if it wasn't Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  Honestly, I know it frustrated some of my family greatly.  After my son came along, we switched from the "blue box" to Velveeta Shells and Cheese.  I've tried some of the generics and they are not all bad.  But I have really been trying to move towards real food.   What first attracted this to me?  I would have to say the price and amount in the box.  I've bought the organic options before and they are expensive.  After looking at the ingred...

Today's memory of Mom is more recent.  I am so thankful that God blessed me with my sweet husband so that I could have this time with my Mom before she left us.  To honor traditions, we had lunch the Friday before our wedding and my husband did not see me again until I met him at the alter.  I spent the evening at my Mom's house preparing the centerpieces for our wedding reception with my cousin.  I would not trade that time for anything in the world!  One thing I recall Mom saying as we were nearing my wedding day was that if I really loved her, I'd have someone else do my hair.  Just a side note here, I had only had 5 other people besides my Mom do anything with my hair over my entire life.  I could not imagine anyone else taking charge of my hair on that day.  We went through several different ideas together and finally settled that my hair should be down.  Little did I know at that point that she knew I had a veil coming that I was not ...

Happy Monday!  This memory may be a rather mundane one, but it popped in my head this morning and I felt like it was necessary to share.  While my Mom didn't go to church when I was a youngster other than on holidays, she made sure that I made it there if I did not stay the night with my Nanny.  We had a ritual of sorts on those Sunday mornings.  We got up early enough that I could get ready for church and we would go by Jack in the Box and grab a Breakfast Jack and orange juice.  We would sit in the church parking lot and eat breakfast and talk until time for me to go in for church.  It may not seem like much, but those were some great mornings.  Honestly, I cannot seem to eat anything from Jack in the Box these days.  I suspect that as I have been trying to eat more real food, it seems that my tastes have changed so it no longer tastes good to me.   I was reminded again this weekend how much I enjoy spending time in the kitchen and cook...

I have decided to try something new, pun intended, and right now, I'm trying to find a way to decrease the amount of time that I am spending putting together my green smoothie each morning.  I am open for suggestions.   I am starting with a suggestion that I read in a blog about someone that freezes their smoothies.  I prepared 4 smoothies on Saturday.  Two were mixed antioxidant fruit green smoothies and two were cherry green smoothies.  The first thing that I figured out is that it generally takes longer for my frozen smoothies to thaw.  I have found that it has been taking about 2 days for them to thaw completely.  Things I noticed about the one I had this morning are that it was not as flavorful as the fresh ones.  It also had clumps in it.  I decided to run it through the blender again and added a couple of chocolate chips and a little more ginger.  It was still not as flavorful, but it was tolerable.  I will try a dif...

This journey learning to live without my Mom is not easy.  Today's memory isn't one of my own, but is a story that I heard my Mom tell numerous times.   I have always been a morning person.  Mom used to say that I would come to her bedside and pat her to wake her up telling her "I hungy" in the wee hours of the morning.  She would tell me that she and my dad would lower my baby bed to the lowest setting and they could never figure out how I managed to get out of my bed, but I would every night or very many nights anyway.  When I was old enough, Mom taught me to pull the drawers out so that I could climb up and get a bowl.  I would do this in order to make myself a bowl of cereal.  I remember climbing up those drawers to get my bowl.  I was so tiny back then.  In fact, not much bigger than I am in this picture.  I think it used to make Mom crazy because I was always a morning person.  I still am, although now I am not quite as brig...

On October 29, 2016, my life changed forever.  My Mom, Linda Dobbs Williams passed away at 8:24 p.m.  In an instant, I lost my best friend, my confidante and my biggest support/fan.  My Mom was so many things to me and for me and I will miss her dearly.  For some of you that have known my mom/me for awhile know that while my Mom had many pictures displayed, she had many snapshots that were placed into an old hard sided suitcase.  I found that it  helped a little bit to go back through her pictures.  There were many memories that I shared that were captured in those pictures.  There are so many memories in there, but also memories that are not captured in those snapshots.  I thought that I would take Mondays for the next few weeks and share some of those memories.  This serves two purposes for me.  The first is that it gives me a chance to share some wonderful memories of my Mom and allows others to share them as well, but the second...

I completely realize that I have been hit and miss for quite some time.  With everything going on with my Mom, which is still ongoing, and family stuff, taking time to blog hasn't been top priority.  I have to admit that I am excited about the changing seasons.  I am looking forward to some soups and, honestly, getting back on plan.  After surgery last year and then all of this happening with my Mom, I have realized that I truly need to figure out how to meal plan and meal prep in a way that works for me and my family.  I am feeling a little better about this now than even just a few weeks ago.  I realized that I am excited (did I just type that?) about meal planning and trying new recipes with my family.  This is truly an opportunity to focus what I am eating.  My crock-pots definitely get a workout during this time of the year as well.  So many tasty recipes on Pinterest to try and ways to help me get organiz...

This has not been my best week; I’m not even going to lie.  I will likely go weigh in tomorrow morning to see just how bad it was.  However, I have decided that I would take this opportunity to re-focus on my weight loss efforts.  I feel like I’m recycling the same pounds over and over again and this cycle needs to stop.  I was listening to Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes.  It brought some things to the forefront of my mind including how important certain things are in my life and how I need to stop being afraid and focusing my mind on all of the “what if” and “could be” options that swirl in my brain.  Bad habits like soda have been creeping back in to my workday.  I have decided, honestly, that I am going to try to focus on what I CAN do this week.  My goals for this week are to: I will pack a lunch/snack each workday. I will change up my breakfast at least 2 days out of the com...

It's been a few weeks, but I feel like I am making progress working on me.  I know that self-help books/audiobooks seem to get a bad reputation, but I do think they can be food for thought.  Most recently, I was listening to an audiobook by Beth Moore called “So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us”.  This book truly spoke volumes to me.  I can honestly say there was much in that book (things I’d rather not admit) that reminded me of the past me, I mean years past me.  I did not realize that I came across as a complete lunatic, but listening to stories so similar to my own that I have no doubt that I did sound like a lunatic.  It was a rude awakening to hear some of those stories, but to be honest, in this struggle to be a better me; it is a truth I needed to hear.  I actually discussed a situation that happened over seven years ago before we even got engaged.  One of the things that I love about my husband is that he was understand...

First off, let me apologize that it has been so long.  Secondly, I just want to see if anyone else has experienced this as well.  For some time, I have been feeling an urging to be a better me.  I have been reminded of hobbies that I used to enjoy and things my Nanny did (sewing, canning and such) and just the way she was when I was younger.  I know she was raised in a different time than I, but even when she and my grandfather weren't in agreement, she still respected him as the head of the household.  To that end, I have been working on ways that I can be a better me. I have recently been reading Darlene Faye Schacht's The Good Wife's Guide: Embracing Your Role as a Help Meet.  If you are interested, she also has a blog called  Time-Warp Wife .  I will be honest, while there are many things that I will not be implementing as I am not a stay at home mom, I have found several things that I am going to try to implement slowly.  One of whic...

I was going through my blogs on Bloglovin' and ran across a blog post from Coffee Cake and Cardio entitled  Focused on the Wrong Thing .  I have to say that I was a little blown away and it felt like she was in my head.  Although I have not been working with a behavioral nutritionist, I can definitely relate to what she is saying for sure.   I have been doing Weight Watchers for a number of years and, honestly, I should have hit goal a number of years ago.  I managed to successfully lose over 40 lbs on Weight Watchers when I first joined, but with the stress of job changes and planning a wedding, I re-gained my weight.  I know that when I was a small child (and I do mean small since I was wearing toddler size clothing when I started school) my focus was not on food for comfort.  Unfortunately, between my second grade and third grade year, everything changed.  I am not overly fond of change but my school district decided to close my school...

I recently saw this article pop up on FaceBook about The Biggest Loser on the  NYTimes  webpage entitled After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight .  Honestly, Danny Cahill was one of my favorite contestants ever.  I hate that he has gained back his weight, but it honestly explains a lot about several of the previous contestants and their weight gain.  I then read the  Snack Girl  blog about the study.  I have to say I agree with Lisa's statement: " Society also has a long way to go to accept people of different sizes."   As a whole, society tends to frown or look down at those who have weight issues.  From time to time, even I have found myself passing a judgment against people who are bigger than myself.  It is something that I struggle with and I get frustrated with myself for judging anyone even in my head.   For me, this is a big reminder to myself not to beat myself up over regaining my weight. ...

So much has happened since I have posted last that I hardly know where to begin, but I celebrated my 45th birthday on Tuesday, the 29th and on Wednesday, the 30th, my mom was taken by ambulance to the emergency room for breathing difficulty and swelling in her legs.  She was diagnosed that Wednesday with congestive heart failure, which add to her previous diagnoses of C.O.P.D. and Diabetes.  To an extent, I walked this road before with my grandmother. We moved forward with her admission to the hospital.  On Thursday, we were told that she couldn't eat because she was having a procedure.  Hours later, we became aware that her procedure was being pushed to later in the day, so she was able to have liquids.  A few more hours passed and we were told that it was being moved to the following day, so she was finally able to eat late in the day.  On Friday, she was pulled down for her procedure.  When it was over, there were no stents placed but it was deter...

I have had a lot of stress going on of late and my food and workouts have been suffering, to say the least.  I had lost 2.2 lbs last week, but gained 3.4 lbs this week.  There is much going on, but I have to figure out how to handle this and move forward.  I do not want to go into 46 (45 is approaching too quickly for me to finish losing the weight before it arrives) being overweight and not happy in my own skin.   This is about me finding what works for me with my life now.  I figured out what worked for me 7+ years ago, but it is not the same now.  I was a single mother with family support and had workout buddies, etc.  Now, I have a husband and children and my mother to take care of and it isn’t always easy to make the schedule work.  I need to figure out how to juggle the schedule.  I am blessed to have a supportive and helpful husband and children, so I am not handling everything completely by myself.   I have made some big change...

I will apologize in advance for this lengthy post. Dear Weight: We’ve had our ups and down, literally.  I did not realize how bad things were for the longest time.  Or maybe I did and I just didn’t want to admit it.  You were my protection, my comfort and the bane of my existence.  However, I am ready to break up with you.  We've been together a long time, but I don't want to be "besties" anymore.  For my health and for my family, I need to move forward with removing you from my body.  You are doing bad things to me.  You increase my risk of heart disease, just to name one.  I want to be healthy and live to enjoy many, many years with my wonderful husband and my amazing family.  Here’s my backstory:  I started out as a chubby baby, but turned into a very thin child.  Until third grade when my school was closing and I had to change schools.  Then I gained weight, a lot of weight in a very short period bec...

Here’s my Friday update: I am down 0.8 lbs. this week.  While it may not be as much of a loss as some, it is still a loss AND the even more important thing for me this week is that I tracked every meal every day!  I am proud of that fact.  I am, however, pondering changing my strength training goals for the moment.  I was reminded this week that I need to have a little bit of wiggle room in the event of an emergency.  My DS15 ran into a car while riding his bike and that was a scary situation, but we wound up spending a fair bit of time in the ER and I had such a headache when it was over.  I do not want to set myself up for feeling like a failure.  At the present, I think I may adjust it for 2 times per week and continuing to hit my step goal, which is still changing from week to week.   I know I need to focus a little more on my food intake in the coming week.   At present, I am 7.6 pounds down from my highest weight.  ...

Hi friends!  I hope all is well!  I am excited to share that I successfully managed to track all weekend!  I was not always easy as DH and I had a date night and I had trouble trying to find a way to accurately track what I had, but I picked things that looked to be approximately the same amount of Smart Points.  My primary goal was to track and I did that.   So a question for all of you, how do you feel about meal planning/meal prep?  I believe I have changed my attitude regarding meal planning/meal prepping and it has definitely made a difference for me.  I may not have everything planned out for each day and I don't think I would ever be that girl, but I have snacks prepared and have an idea of what I am having each day and ideas about dinner.  This allows me to track what I am having and I can be prepared. Something else I feel good about so far in February, I have hit my step goal each day since Jan. 31st and got in some strength traini...

So much has been going on this week.  I have been reflecting over what I have done or need to do better.  I know I really need to get more consistent at tracking.  I started out well, but have gotten complacent.  I know what I need to do.  I really appreciate the fact that I am finally realizing that this is truly about my choices.  I think that I need to be more consistent with my meal prep as well.   I have probably done a little too much this week because my ankle has been consistently swelling at night.  I am still tracking my steps and giving myself a star sticker if I have successfully managed to hit my step goal.  I have been pretty consistent about that this week. As I stated the other day, I went way overboard with my food over the weekend.  I almost used my "no weigh in" pass last night but decided that I needed to face the scale at my Weight Watchers meeting.  I was shocked, but excited that I didn't gain.  I ...

I took yesterday to reflect over my weekend.  I was determined to do better with my tracking over the weekend.  While I didn’t track over the weekend, I went back in on Monday and tracked everything I could remember that I ate (note to self: the paper tracker doesn’t do you any good if you don’t use it).  I went blew through my Weekly Smart Points and every FitPoint that I had earned.  Finding that out yesterday, I had to change the way I was thinking about it.  I am really focusing on the fact that it is truly my choice.  I made each and every choice for each thing that I ate over the weekend.  I am proud of the fact that I tracked it.  I am also proud of the fact that I have had a Dr Pepper sitting on my desk for 2 weeks now and I haven’t been tempted to crack it open.  You are probably wondering why it’s on my desk and not in the fridge or put out of my sight…it seems to disappear when I put it in the fridge and it has been a test for m...

Happy Friday all!  I hope everyone has had a great week!  I am a little late getting this written and posted, but I wanted to check in and let you know how weigh in went.  I lost the 0.8 that I had gained so I am, again, at 199.  I am glad about that.  However, I know that I know that there is more that I can do and need to do.  I am feeling positive about what I have done to this point.  Today, however, I decided to focus on what I can do.  I did a search on YouTube for 10 minute shadow boxing workouts.  I picked one and did it, modifying where necessary since I can’t really do much jumping around right now.  I also did a couple of 10 minute walks that I found on YouTube as well.  I am hoping to add that or some upper body workout in at least twice a week.  I also picked up some paper trackers because while I generally track online, I don’t get online much on the weekend and wind up not tracking.  This needs to chang...

While I can say the weekend didn’t go quite as I had planned, I can say it was a good weekend.  My DS25 paid us a surprise visit on Friday evening.  Saturday, while we were waiting on Salvation Army to pick up our donations, I made some Mom-lets (they are muffin omelets that I make for my Mom) and washed and cut up some bell pepper (about 9) and made some bread.  It was a busy day, but I feel like I got something accomplished even if it wasn’t as much as I had hoped to accomplish.  My back muscle spasms started up again so I think it’s about time for a visit to my chiropractor.  I did hit my step goal on Thursday and Friday and am trying to hit it today as well.  I have also made some decisions that I think will help me greatly.  I have been trying to use my Day-Timer more consistently these days.  I have been posting stars on each day I hit my step goal.  I tend to be visual when it comes to things like that so I know it will help....

This course to find myself is definitely not a direct route, but it continues to move much like my weight loss journey.  I had a slight gain last night (0.8) making my current weight 199.8, but I know I did not do well with my water and all last weekend.   I’m not going to let it shake my resolve.   I know this journey is a process.   To that end, I was watching one of the videos on YouTube from Mind Over Munch talking about “Having a Healthy Relationship with Food”.     This spoke volumes to me and I realized that even when I am not at my goal weight that my habits have truly changed.   I won’t say that I never reward myself with food, but I am trying to do better about that.   I try to portion foods out or have smaller portions rather than tell myself I can’t have something.   I don’t know about you, but if I tell myself that I can’t have something, that seems to be all I want.   I don’t want to live in a world where certain foods a...

Wow!  I have read a few blogs lately that have really hit home with me.  This article in particular:  http://www.popsugar.com/fitness/Why-OK-Indulge-While-Dieting-39800209?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=d&utm_source=fitsugar This is very similar to negative self-talk vs. positive self-talk, but I never thought about it that way.  Going forward, I believe this is something that will help me.  I have been learning through this journey that this journey is about ME.  I know ultimately that my loss will benefit my family as well, but they can't do this for me.  I have to do this myself.   I know that I will not wake up and the weight be miraculously gone.  It is all about choices.  I can choose to have a slice of pizza and share a tiramisu with my husband and still lose, but each day is a choice.  Each meal I make the decision to follow plan or if I want to have something higher in Smart Points.  I know that if I open a...

Overall, it was a good weekend.  I had yesterday off.  I did not take as much control over my weekend as I would have liked, but I did get some food prep done.  I feel much better when I am able to prepare for the week and have a plan in place.  I have boiled eggs, carrots, hummus and some fruit that I can easily access for snacks.  Also, I decided I would have a rice bowl.  I saw a recipe for them while trying to plan for the week and I decided to do my own spin on them with what I had handy.  I have 1 cup of brown rice, 1 cup of canned pinto beans (rinsed and drained), 1 cup of canned corn, lettuce and tomatoes with about an 1/8 cup of shredded cheese.  It sounded good to me, so I'm hoping it will be as good as it sounded in my head.  I am also wanted to have some veggie pitas or wraps this week.  I am really trying to take things one step at a time and focusing not so much on the weeks in the future, but one day or one week at a t...

This week I lost the weight that I gained is gone and took another 2 pounds with it.  I lost a total of 3.8 pounds this week and a total since the new plan’s introduction of 6.8 pounds.  Overall, I really like this plan and am making it work for me.  This is not always easy and it isn’t going to be, but I am going to figure out how to make it work for me.  This week I am going to work on trying to focus on doing meatless meals.  I have found something that I really enjoy at the Greek restaurant that is meatless.  It is a veggie pita (bell pepper, onion, tomatoes) with hummus.  It’s super tasty and I’m thinking I can figure out how to make this for myself along with some other tasty no meat options.  I’ve looked at some pinwheels that I can whip up for the kids/hubby and me and some veggie wraps.  I'm hoping to make it a good week again and hoping to continue these "meatless" habits into other meals each week.   My step goal will ...

Goals are subject to change without notice, right?  I am trying to only have fruits and veggies this week.  As such, I didn’t prepare any eggs and such.  I came to work prepared though!  I have 2 juices (DS15 prepared juices for both of us last night) for snacks and I brought Borscht that my sweet DH prepared last night.  I also brought an apple, banana, 2 halos, broccoli and baby carrots and carrot chips.  I thought I would steam the broccoli and carrot chips.  Tonight, I will likely put together a veggie soup and some roasted veggies.  If anyone has other suggestions, I would love to hear them!  We got up (as a family) and tried to go to the Rec Center.  By the time we arrived, however, all the machines (aside from the stair steppers) were taken.  We are trying to come up with a schedule that works for everyone, and we really thought getting a workout in first thing in the morning would be the best option.  However, unle...

So, I had my first gain since starting the new program.  I gained 1.8 as of my weigh in last night.  My weight is currently 202.8 lbs.  While I am not thrilled with the scale going in the wrong direction, I know I can’t focus on that.  I can only move forward.  For me, moving forward means meal prepping/meal planning.  I am honestly pondering moving back to Simply Filling so that I can write down my food in my 12 week journal without worrying about how many Smart Points it is other than the occasional treat.  I feel like that may work for me right now, but I haven’t decided completely yet.  That may need to be my focus during the day and have whatever is planned for dinner with my family.  I know I just need to tweak this program to work for me. Goals for this week: MEAL PREP tomorrow.   This will include carrots, eggs, and veggies. Trying to hit my step goal 5 days out of 7. Focus on my water intake.   What are y...

Wow!  Did I really just type that??  Seriously, time has just flown by for me in 2015 and already this year.  I won't lie and say that I wish 2015 was longer or anything like that.  I had two friends lose parents and a FB friend that passed just between Christmas day and New Year's Day, not to mention the friends that were diagnosed with cancer and things like that.  I wish it were easy to make things better, but as we know, there are no easy fixes.  This goes for weight loss and exercise, as well as getting organized or meal planning.    To that end, I've really been trying to make sure I meal prep.  I wasn't feeling 100% on Saturday (the day I have been trying to meal prep) so I decided to wait until Sunday to meal prep, which didn't turn out quite the way I planned.  My DS25 had a blowout and needed my car.  I had enough time to go to the store and start eggs in the oven when he called to ask.  I don't feel totally prepared,...