Moving! {and not moving much on the scale}

In case a lot of you didn't know {which you probably don't because we haven't told many people} we are MOVING! {again...wah.. wah...}.  Which I am not really looking forward to but I am definitely going to try to see it as a positive and not a negative and more of a fresh "do over" if you will and a new start to the new changes I've already made in my life!  It is out in the country between where we live now and where we work so it will cut gas expenses in half and the rent is reasonable and no utilities except electric.  It was a hard decision but it was one we knew we had to make.  Dane is very excited to move out in the country which makes me happy because I think that maybe one day I could talk him into buying a house in the country! We will hopefully be staying in this duplex for a while until we save up a good down payment on a house.   The puppies can have a place to run and we will save money in gas and rent in the meantime.  So here's to a fresh start!

In other news, the 20 lb weight loss has only increased to a 21 lb weight loss in 1 week and a half's time! Just so you know, I was totally expecting this and I am not worried at all.  It's about time for me to switch up my exercise routine or modify  my eating habits so jump start the weight loss again and I am ready for the challenge! I am starting to follow some of the tips from this website.

Here's what happens when Dane horses around on the recliner.  I told him we would tip! Then the dogs got him :)

Skinny Mushroom Pasta

Today I tried a modification of a recipe from my favorite site right now, Skinnytaste.com! 

Let me tell you, pasta is one of my favorite foods.  I think it is my favorite food.  It's part of the reason I got so fat! When I was having a bad day, {or heck even a good day!} all I wanted was to curl up with a big bowl of buttery, cheesy, tomato-saucy pasta.  I would add hot pepper flakes and cilantro on top.  Now this might not seem that good to you but sadly it was heaven to me.  I know that,  to make matters worse, I ate well over the serving size.  I ate white pasta, not whole wheat, because I thought it tasted better. I added my favorite little meal to myfitnesspal.com this afternoon.  The results are staggering: 1,474 calories.  That's 274 calories more than my daily allowed amount.  I cried a little when I saw the total because I guarantee you I did not exaggerate the ingredients I put it.  I ate this huge bowl once to twice a week.

I am being real with you because I have to be real with myself.  People tell me that I was not that unhealthy and I appreciate their sentiment but I must tell you all that it is not true and I am not going to believe that complacent lie.  I was being unhealthy, all the while laughing and saying "I enjoy pasta! It's my favorite food, so what's the problem with a little indulgence?"  If we're not careful, our indulgence can make us obese by eating it just two or three times a week!

So in comes my little pasta experiment today.  Now, I have been reading how you can eat pasta on a healthy diet as long as it is whole wheat and in moderation but I have to be honest:  I have only eaten it twice and it scares me.  I don't trust myself with it.  But I have been working very hard lately and I was a bit under my calories today so I decided, pasta sounds good.  I am going to do this the smart way. 

I found Pasta with Asparagus on SkinnyTaste.com and decided I could modify it to Mushroom Pasta based on what I had.  My darling husband Dane loves asparagus so I would have made it with that and mushrooms if I had asparagus, but alas I did not.  This recipe was easy and oh so satisfying!  I made it with a cup of healthy, antioxidant packed green tea, and it was perfect for my 2:30pm meal.  With a calorie count of 240 per serving, this totally hit the mark for me.  Enjoy!

It's finally here! 20 pounds gone!

So, this kind of calls for a post! I finally hit my 20 pound milestone! This is such a big deal for me for two reasons- 1) It is really hard to get past that first initial 5 to 8 pound weight loss and it kind of slows down from there.  You're body actually fights you to get that 20 pounds off.  2) I am in the 140's! Which is a big deal to me because that's where I was on our wedding day! Of course I have a long way to go until my UGW.  The good news is that 125 is only 24 more pounds away and I am as motivated as ever!

As far as the BMI scale goes, I have 9 more pounds to lose to be within a healthy weight range which is the most important thing to me!  My risk for obesity related diseases will greatly diminish and most likely disappear.  This is something that a lot of young women today do not think about.  You might think that curvy is in (which it is) but when you go so far as to jeopardize your health, you will not be able to reason away the diseases that come with it.  That is what I am really convicted about.  I went so long thinking that someday the weight would magically melt off (like it did in high school) and telling myself that I was a healthy young woman.  I could have gotten hypertension, or type 2 diabetes, or heart disease, or PCOS which would mean I would not be able to provide my husband or I with children and my parents with grandchildren.  It's real people.  It's not a joke and you can't reason the diseases away.  I want girls my age to know that we are responsible for our bodies and we are in our mid twenties.  The pounds are not going to evaporate from here on out.  Respect your bodies for the long run!

Speaking of run, I ran 3 miles last night without stopping! It was amazingly easy and felt so good when I was done.  I am not so much focusing right now on a particular source of exercise or any program right now, mostly diet.  I do find that I have more energy, all types of exercise are more enjoyable to me, and I can do them as I please.  That's been the dream for me! I don't dread exercise because I pick what I do and I constantly surprise myself by what I can do!  I also found that last night helped to run with my friends, Emily and Micheal, who helped set my pace so that I didn't get tempted to burn myself out early.  I think Michael and I both agreed we could have gone four miles if the sun hadn't started going down!  And Emily is truly an inspiration from her hard work and commitment to becoming healthy! It really is great to have a good support system while losing weight.

To finish my happy post and day, here is a picture of my babe, Nahla! Happy Monday everyone! <3

Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!

Today I made Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos and they were a hit with the hubby! Another successful recipe from Skinnytaste.com.  That Gina is a genius! I was a little nervous because fish and taco never seemed to go together to me.  I gave them a try and they turned out excellent! Super duper healthy too.  Tilapia and the avocado I included add those important MUFA's (monounsaturated fatty acids). 

I started reading The Flat Belly Diet today and I must say I am very interested.  I am learning about visceral fat and the negative effects that kind of fat around your mid-section can have on your health! It's kind of scary! If you are a lady and you have larger than a 35" waistline you are at risk for a plethora of medical conditions which include diabetes and heart attacks! 

In more uplifting news, today is 150 lb day and I'm very excited about the fact that in a few short days (or hours!) I will be in the 140's!! And I will have hit 20 pounds gone! Oh yeah! Woot woot! :)  After that, not to far to go until my ultimate goal weight of 125! I am feeling very motivated:)

Trusting... and turning... {and tithing}

What a morning it has been and what lessons I am learning. Whew...

I have said this previously in my blog; this is mostly for me to write, to vent, to chronicle, to log, to reflect and to express.  It's also to share to those who like to read it.  Sometimes, the content of my blog is not something everyone might be interested in and that's perfectly fine! Additionally, this might offend some people who are uncomfortable with this topic and I apologize that is the case.  That being said, I am going to share about finances in regards to tithing.  If anyone is uncomfortable with that, I understand and you do not have to read this post if that's the case. 

This is my honest post about my daily struggles with money and trusting GOD, the maker of everything and the owner of all money (if you believe GOD is sovereign over all things as the Bible says, he also owns your money).

Last night, I made my grocery list and meant this blog today for that topic of grocery/recipe planning and shopping..

But that is not what I need to write about today.  This morning, I woke up to find out that my paycheck was dramatically less than expected and budgeted, my landlord cashed my check before the date written on the check, which was her fault and the bank tellers fault {and my fault as I found out this morning for post-dating a check}, and my checking account had over drafted and hit me with three separate fees for no funds.  I immediately broke down...  This is hard for me because I have major control issues with my money and stress has been building ever since Dane lost his job in December... Here is why I feel the way I do about money.

Ever since I was small, my parents taught me the importance of tithing and how the Lord would always bless you through obedience to him, no matter if it seems like 10% is a lot.  Honestly to me it never really hurt me that bad to tithe.  My parents told me that when I was little and they were very young and poor, it didn't matter whether or not they had enough money for groceries or utilities, they tithed faithfully, and somehow they would always have enough groceries and the bills would always be paid.  I believed the lessons that my parents were teaching me! No matter what, God will provide for you when you obey.  He never will let you down.  I am not trying to sound better than anyone who has struggled with not tithing, but every single time I have made a paycheck, I have tithed 10% on it.  It is engrained in my spirit that much.  There is no thinking about it.

When I went off to college, money became an issue.  I took out loans to attend, some of which were 17 and 18k.  Multiply that by four years and I was already in the hole.  I used my credit card and debit card as though they had unlimited funds and although I worked all four years, I never saved a cent.  I charged up my credit card and over drafted my checking account.  I could never understand how other people did it when there were so many things we needed {wanted} to live!  All through that I tithed to my church back home or to my church in I attended at college, but I never walked in obedience through the rest of my finances whatsoever.

When I got married, I brought debt into our marriage and bad spending habits to boot.  Dane & I attended the Dave Ramsey classes and never looked back. These are Bible based financial classes that we took through our church. I highly recommend it for anyone and everyone but especially new couples wanting to get married.  It was invaluable to us   Please look into it.  Here is the website: http://www.daveramsey.com/home/

We saved our baby step 1, $1000 emergency fund in the bank, as fast as we could and budgeted every cent.  Once we hit the $1000 we would start paying down our lowest debt {our wedding rings. How sad that those were our lowest debts?!} As soon as we would start the debt snowball and emergency would happen and the $1000 would be gone.  We hit a few fast snowball streaks when Dane was making good money in Wooster but mostly we budgeted and scrutinized every cent!  Dane agreed with me on tithing, which he did not do before being a Christian, so that was a huge thing for us to be on the same page with our money.  We were united and my spending habit I funneled into a budgeting habit! Ask Dane, I am addicted to budgeting.  All the rush I would get out of spending of every cent, I now got from saving every cent!  I always have my excel spreadsheet up on the computer planned out months and months in advance.  I never miss a thing on our banking statement which I check daily.  These past few months however, have been bleak.  Dane's income being gone and mine being insufficient, I had no idea how we were going to stay afloat at all.  BUT GOD...

We never stopped tithing although my almighty spreadsheet told me it wouldn't be enough.  The spreadsheet didn't account for God's provision.  In January and February alone, we were given $500 out of the blue through random gifts of love and kindness from members of the church and family.  That was the encouragement I needed that everything was going to be okay because God was looking out for us.  After that when things started looking bleak again, we received a call out of the blue from a small home church saying they were going to pay our rent for the months of March and April.  We were grateful beyond measure and I know that was God! I knew then that no matter what we would survive.

This month, we didn't know how we were going to pay rent.  Our parents have already helped us out more than considerably and we didn't know where to turn.  Just when I was about to despair {haven't I learned my lesson?}, I remembered that I got paid three times in May! I always pay bills on the 1st and the 15th with the checks I get every 2 weeks.  This gave me a whole other paycheck to work with.  After that, we found out Dane got a job and he was going to get a paycheck in May!  Everything was going to be more than peachy soon!

Then I woke up to the mess I mentioned earlier this morning.  I said, "God, what do you want me to do?".  He said, "Do not despair, it will be fine.  You will be provided for".  I had no idea how this was to happen, because with the charges, we would not have enough for groceries, water bill, gas bill, or gas for our cars together, let alone one of those expenses separately!  If we did not tithe, we would have enough to just scrape by barely.  I cannot believe I even let that thought it my mind, but I deleted the tithe amount out of my excel spreadsheet.  For an hour I fretted and freaked out.  I calmly {I thought} called my landlord, who felt terrible, and then called Chase, explained the situation and they explained that really there was no such thing as a post dated check anymore, they weren't responsible, and Key bank that cashed it was not responsible.  I begged for the fees to be reversed.  After much talking, begging, reasoning, and pleading, they were reversed.  I sat there and felt so guilty for taking GOD out of the equation.  I wrote my tithe check instantly.  I said a silent prayer and gave it all to GOD.  I went to the grocery store.

I just want to tell you that there is no way that this is not a GOD thing.  I walked into the grocery store praying over my grocery list.  I calculated every single item to the penny.  I prayed and prayed and prayed and what normally costs me over $100, cost me $55.00!!! Fifty five dollars people!  I have enough to put gas in our cars, maybe even pay a utility bill, but guess what:  

I'm not worried anymore.

Fresh Tilapia, mmmm.

Dane & I are in love with this new site called skinnytaste.com ! The author, Gina, takes comfort foods and foods found in most restaurants and makes them skinny.  Foods like cheesy fries and chicken parmesean .... mmmm. We made our first recipe from the site called Baked Garlic Lemon Tilapia.  It was only 172 calories a serving! We only used 4 tilapia filets since I only eat one and Dane can eat up to 3 servings.  It was AMAZING! I am amazed by the simplicity and the great flavor.  It was a great addition to a warm sunny day off together. 

In other news, Dane is doing great at his new job. He says it feels great to begin working again and he feels as though he is able to do everything he needs to do.  It really is such a blessing that the last three days have gone so well.  That is what I have been praying for and I know a lot of you have as well.  Just know that the prayers definitely work! Continue to pray for strength, physically and emotionally, and blessings on his day.  Love you all!

Hello skinny jeans

Finally!!

Okay, so Saturday was a very exciting day for me and I have to share.  (Dane says I shouldn't flaunt my hot new self online but hey I don't feel that hot I just have to share the excitement!) I fit into a pair of what I like to call my pre-wedding jeans that I used to love and wear all the time! They are seriously my favorite pair.  I'm not sure if tears of joy didn't come out.  It is such a good feeling to be "normal" again.  I don't think I realized just how happy it would make me to slip on my old friends.  It feels pretty darn good.  Oh and that jean jacket, haven't worn that since my wedding rehearsal!

Life is beautiful, dress accordingly.

Let every step you take...

Today I reminded that what I do matters.

How I treat people matters.  What I put in my mouth matters.  How I go about my day, how I treat my husband, how I do at my job, how I treat my belongings and my little puppies, it all matters! The big and the little things, God is in control of, because they are all important to Him and they should be important to me! Today I am feeling extra blessed that my husband is going back to work after 4 months and 3 days of hard times.  I am so stressed and worried about his health and stress level but I know that I can give it all to God! because it MATTERS to him! He cares! And He cares about Dane so much and about how I deal with my stress! So I'm going to be praying like a mad-woman today!   If you get a chance, you can too!

I hope that every step I take gets me closer to not only my goals my to my Creator.

Here's a little picture for you that Dane took last night after a run/heart talk with my sister-in-law.  I am 151 lbs and 18 pounds down at this point.  Definitely not where I want to be but I have made progress and I feel better than I have in a long time!  I don't necessarily like posting pictures of myself for everyone to see but in a way it's strange because people see me everyday! Somehow when I see pictures of myself I go "that can't be how I really look!" but it is! And it's so important that now finally I am giving myself that reality check!  So here you go! Down 18 pounds.

My journey so far:.: weight loss and beyond

Hello blogging world! My first post is written out of the simple need to write again! I love following all this blogs but I also need a place to share my ideas, thoughts, and dreams. I think everyone should have their own blog. I used to be somewhat of a writing junkie in college; starting all my papers before I had to just because I wanted to write.  Nerdy, I know. Now I do not do it anymore because I have no reason to except that I want to and that is reason enough!

That being said, a little about myself:  I got married in 2010 to the love of my life.  I had graduated in 2009 from Malone University with a bachelor's in psychology and I wanted to wait a few years before starting college again to get my master's.  In that time, Dane, my devastatingly handsome best friend in the whole world, convinced me to marry him and I happily put all other plans on hold while we got married, worked our various jobs and moved from the little town of Mount Gilead to Wooster and back again.   It's been a very wild ride with a lot of highs and a few lows. In that time, Dane has been very sick and hospitalized with no explained cause.  He will faint a few times a week.  With all the stress and the caring for my husband, I forgot about myself.  I realized very starkly on March 8th 2012 that I was headed down a bad path for myself.  I had let myself become less than a priority in my own life.  I was a normally vibrant, intelligent, and healthy young redheaded girl who loved learning playing piano, writing, running, and spending time with friends and being active in my church.  None of those activities or adjectives any longer defined me.  I had a moment of deep realization that I was the only one who could fix it and take of me!  My wonderful husband and I had a heart talk and I expressed that I indeed was going to take care of myself for the first time in a long time.  I told him that this was going to be for me and I might seem like I'm being selfish at first but to know that I will be a better wife and future mother because of it and he agreed with me!

When we first got married, I was 144 pounds.  At 5' 3" that was technically overweight as far as the BMI scale goes.  I was happy with myself for the most part, while always inside wishing I weighed about 125 or so, which was my high school weight and where I was most comfortable.  However I never did much to change it drastically at that time.  I felt beautiful on my wedding day and it truly was one of the happiest days of both of our lives! We got engaged in November and married in March and never looked back! After the wedding we went straight to Disney World and ate at the best restaurants and lived it up for two weeks straight. We had a blast and the lifestyle never stopped when we got back from the honeymoon.  We ate out constantly and ate whatever and whenever we wanted.  My husband is tall, 6' 1", and I still felt the need to eat exactly as he did! On my small frame, that did not start looking too good.  I never weighed myself.  I refused to.  I knew that I wouldn't like what I saw and pretended I was fine. I was not fine.  We moved to Wooster where there were many local amazing fine dining restaurants and became somewhat of food and wine snobs.  We had so much fun going out to eat and tasting wine.  Sometimes we would spend over $200 at a restaurant! We thought it was our reward.  Dane had a stressful job but was making good money.  To make matters worse, we were trying all kinds of new foods and recipes which is great, but none of them were healthy.  We never ate breakfast and gorged late at night.  At work I went to fast food drive thrus or snacked on chips and energy drinks.  I put on 30 lbs in two years.  I found myself depressed, unhappy, no direction and with 169 pounds (maybe more, I avoided the scale like the plague) packed on my small frame and for whatever reason couldn't figure out how I got here.  Needless to say something had to give!  

I started this journey to be a better me and I never looked back.  I feel driven and motivated for the first time in my life! I researched weight loss as if it were a foreign language and pretended like I knew nothing about it. I started eating meals every three hours like clock work.  I drank a full glass of water in the morning and before meals. I read weight loss blogs and studied the women who wrote them.  I pinned every motivational fitness pin on Pinterest I could find. I drank only black coffee (a big step for me!).  I ate fruits and veggies like they were going out of style.  I bought my groceries strictly in four categories: produce, whole grains, lean meats, and low fat dairy.  I ate nothing but those things! I got a new love for fish, especially salmon which I never thought I liked! I started walking the dog for 30 minutes almost every day.  I took a my prenatal vitamin every day.  I instantly lost 5 lbs the first week! I felt so happy and so good! I never wanted to stop.  I made a goal to lose about 2 pounds a week and created large hard goals and mini weekly goals for my weight loss. I journaled every day.  I made a point to eat extremely healthy no cheating for 60 days because it takes 60 days to break a bad unhealthy habit.  I have finally reached my 60 days this Thursday!  And I can honestly say I never want to go back. 

March 12th, 2012

This is me when I started at 169.  I get a horrible feeling when I look at that picture still.  I had no idea I looked that way! It doesn't even look like me!  I still have a ways to go until my ultimate goal. My first goal is 140.  My ultimate goal is 115.  I have gone from 169 to 152 as of today and I want to keep going gung ho until I am at my healthy BMI! After that I am starting my insanity adventure! I'm so excited and that is my starting off point for this blog! It is meant more for inspiration and outlet for me, but if you're along for the ride, welcome!