Walking is good.

I went to put on a pair of jeans yesterday and I nearly died trying to get them on. Holy hell, I gained weight? For the love of all things that a fair, how did that happen? Oh yeah, leading a sedentary lifestyle, eating chocolate, cookies, egg nog, and many other fattening things and not exercising. Flip, I hate being fat.

I detest New Year's resolutions and never make them. Last year I decided to make some changes to me to better myself. I did pretty good but didn't reach all my goals. I can't dwell on the past - its time to start again, put the past failures behind me and keep moving forward.

 One thing I do to sabotage myself is making the excuse that the only place I can get a good workout is at the gym, which feels like its 100 miles away most mornings. I use the excuse that I can't get to the gym (for what ever lame reason) so I will just exercise tomorrow. I'm calling bull shit on that right now. I live in a nice neighborhood with quiet, safe streets. Why not just take a brisk walk around it if I can't go to the gym? So that's what I did this morning.

I updated the iPod, threw on my matching warm up suit, knit hat and gloves and I hit the road. I walked 1.28 miles in 30 minutes and took 3,410 steps. Not too bad for a fat girl. It felt really good and my right foot isn't hurting me at all. It was a good way to start out the day. I had 30 minutes to myself, got to listen to my favorite songs and the air is actually mostly clean and I could breath! Win-win I think.

When I got home, I decided on having a good breakfast to cap off my workout. Are you a grapefruit fan? I really like it drenched in sugar. I love the gritty texture of the sugar with the soft, squishy texture of the fruit. But adding a ton of sugar isn't a good idea, so how to get the sweet without the sugar? Bananas. They are sweet and pair nicely with the sour citrus. This is one of my favorite salads to make too when ever I have to bring a fruit salad. I usually add in some black berries, blue berries or anything else I've got when I do it in salad form.

You will see from the picture half of a cherry turnover. Yes, I ate it. Yes, it was marvelously good. Yes, I enjoyed every flaky, sweet, sticky bite. No, I don't feel guilty about it. A half a turnover is a huge step for me. I bought two yesterday at Sunflower Market with the full intention of eating them both yesterday. But I didn't. Rest assured I will enjoy them before they go bad, but not today. Today I've had a taste and that's all I'm having.

I added my breakfast to My Net Diary and it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was 314 calories, eight grams of fat (all from the turnover) and 61 carbs (ouch!). The turnover and its 16 evil carbs really put me over the edge of my goal of 30-45 grams of carbs per meal. Live and learn.

Today (so far) I have succeeded. I'm a third of the way to my 10,000 steps, I'm not craving anything or hungry and I feel good. In the battle of girl vs. fat, girl won today. Ooh-rah.

To swim or not to swim...that is the question

I'm having a bitchy day today. No real rhyme or reason, just a bad day. In my effort to improve all aspects of myself, I've been trying very hard not to take my bad mood out on my family. It hasn't been easy since every thing they do tramples my last good nerve. I've heard exercise makes you feel better. While I was skeptical at first, I can honestly say it does! Who knew?

Instead of wallowing in bitchiness I decided to take my family to the pool. I didn't realize the pool didn't open until 11 a.m. (we got there at 10:30) so while James took Bridget into the gym, I went and walked around the pool for 30 minutes.

It felt good.

I've reached a point where I'm so out of shape and fat that life just isn't as much fun as it used to be. I hate having to take a few moments after I walk up a flight of stairs because I'm huffing and puffing so hard. I hate feeling uncomfortable in my jeans because they are tight. I'd like to tell you I'm turning over a new leaf but breaking 35 years of bad habits is hard! But I'm counting today as a victory and already looking forward to tomorrow's work out.

Eating is going to be the challenge for me I think because no matter how hard you work out, you have to be eating well too. Its been a struggle for me with James home during the day but I'm trying to get all three of us on a schedule of good breakfast, lunch and dinners with a few healthy snacks thrown in there.

Thank you to everyone who has followed our blog this year. Stick with us. This story will have a happy ending, it's just going to take some time.

Learning from past mistakes . . .

So it has been over a week since my last post about changing my life, and I have to say I am quite proud of myself. I haven't been to the gym every day, but I have been a lot. My house (with the exception of Paige's mess of a room) has been clean all week and I haven't spent money like a crazy woman. I say that is pretty good for me!!!

One thing that I have really been working on is not being too hard on myself. I missed going to the gym yesterday, and the old me would have spiraled out of control and stopped all together. But the new me said it was ok. I am going to the gym today and everything will be fine.

Thanks so much to all the people who have supported in this crazy weight loss fiasco. It mean so much that there is so many people who love me!

xoxo
Tonya

Creating a new Tonya.

It is time. Not like all of those times before. This time it is serious. Alex and I talked for 2 hours last night about changing our lives. Not just our bodies, but our entire lives. So here is the plan. Eat better and exercise. Say family prayers and never miss paying tithing. Stop the unnecessary spending and save more. Keep the house clean. Sounds easy right? WRONG!

As we started to look at what we wanted to change about our life I started asking myself what I am doing right in my life? The answer? Not a whole lot. I am not trying to feel sorry for myself or gain the sympathy of others. I know my life needs to change. But here is the harsh reality, I am not doing what I need to do for my family. The most important thing in my life is my family and I am wasting the best years of our lives. I want to be around for Paige and Alex and set a good example for them. All the things that we want to change in our life will make our life infinitely better, so why is it so hard to change?

It is all about sacrifice, and I have finally come to a point in my life where I want to change. Not eating a second helping of Pumpkin Pie is a hell of a lot easier than having to work out an hour on the treadmill. Turning off the tv to read Paige a book isn't too hard either.

I know this post is so much more about weight loss but being fat isn't my only problem, just one of the many. It is time to take some control of my whole life and I hope y'all will enjoy the journey.

xoxo
Tonya

P.S. I am weighing in at 246 this morning. I will never weigh this much again. I did and hour of cardio at the gym and burned 390 calories. Surprisingly you can sweat and breath hard without dying...who knew!?

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned...

It's been.....a long time since my last post. Not much has happened, unfortunately. I shouldn't say nothing, because my amazing husband James has lost 50 pounds! Yay for him! I'm so proud of him. He's made such good choices over the last few months and its really paid off. He's amazing.

I don't know what my problem has been. Laziness? For sure. Why am I not motivated to stay on track? Dunno, but its bugging me. One new development has been intense heal pain in my foot. I have a heal spur on my left food and now I've developed planter factitious on my right foot. Goody. I went to the doctor this morning and he said to ice, stretch and try to let it heal. So good by treadmill for two weeks. Blah.

But to counteract that, I think I'm going to start swimming again. That doesn't hurt my foot and its a great workout.

I'd love to dazzle all of you with grand plans and fabulous sounding goals but I won't. I never hit my 10,000 steps in one day yet, although that's still my goal. I'm taking it one day at a time and just trying my best each day. I don't have a goal for California in a month, other than exercising and trying to eat better. I'd love to be down 10 or 15 pounds and hopefully I can. Stay with me people, I need the help.

I love that I have such supportive friends and family. Thank you Angel, Bruce, Chantelle, Tonya, Sandy, James, and the countless others who are such a big support. You are wonderful and I love you bunches.

I'm back on the wagon now. It's going to be hard but I'm going to do it. This week I'm going to try to plan out my meals better. Losing weight sucks.

Weight Loss Goals . . .

I need to set some reachable goal for my weight loss. I know what my goal weight is, but that could take years to achieve. I am going to set a goal for before we leave for California. We leave in 51 days, that's a little over 7 weeks and I want to lose 20 lbs by then. That is doable I think. That is only a little over 2.5 lbs a week. What do you all think? I am just going to have to try really hard, which yesterday I did.

I exercised my butt off yesterday! I went to the gym in the morning and walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes, then in the evening my friend Whitni and I went back to the gym or the Deep Water Dynamics class. I love doing water aerobics with all the old ladies at the gym. They are damn funny. Plus it doesn't really feel like you are working out . . . until the next day when you can't move your arms!

I am not sure what I am going to do today at the gym, but I am for sure going...

xoxo

Tonya

Starting Fresh

Hi friends and family. This blog has been pretty sad lately and I can tell you why, I have had nothing inspiring to say. I haven't been eating good, or going to the gym, or weighing myself. I only wanted to write about the good things I have been doing, but I realized in order to be successful I need to write about everything I am doing, or not doing in my weight loss battle.

This past weekend I had the best present ever. My wonderful Mom, sister, brother in law and niece came down to visit us in New Mexico. I loved every second I had to spend with them and I cried for 15 minutes when they left. While they were there my bro in law James pulled me aside and was talking to me about this blog and our weight loss in general. He has lost almost 50 lbs since Brenda and I pledged to to lose weight (GO JAMES) and he really want Brenda and I to succeed too. So we all talked about what we could do differently to take some weight off.

One thing that I know will help me is to set some meals for breakfast and lunch. I never have a hard time deciding what too cook for dinner and it is usually pretty healthy. So this week for breakfast Alex and I are going to eat 2 kiwis and 2 slices of sara lee 45 calorie toast with peanut butter. That is only 296 calories and 11 grams of fiber! pretty good and I love that breakfast. I think the key will be to limit each meal to one week. I can eat the same thing for one week and not get sick of it . . . I think. Wish me luck!

We are going to see each other again in November when we visit California and we all want to be skinnier. Please help us by leaving comments and telling your friends about this blog. If we know people are reading this it will make us want to work even harder!

xoxo
Tonya