Okay, everyone who knows me knows that the weekends may as well be my exam for all the studying I did all week. I'll either pass or fail. It doesn't matter how great I do all week, or how happy I am with how great my healthy lifestyle is going, sometimes I just fail on the weekends.
This weekend should be different. I'm planning to hit the gym HARDCORE and not stray from my healthy eating. Shane and the kids will be at his mom's this weekend, so there will be no distractions, and the only thing for me to concentrate on will be me. Which...to be honest is what I need. Granted, for the last 5 out of 5 days I HAVE hit the gym and I'm starting to feel good about myself again, BUT, the weekends scare me. I feel like if I can get through this, I've GOT it. Not to mention that Shane's awards thingie is on Tuesday, so I want to look my best for that. It's my second "formal" dinner thing where all the military people have to wear their service dress and all others is suit-and-tie/dressy. I LOVE stuff like that. I haven't been all dressed up for a long time, and the last one I went to with Shane (4 years ago...) It wasn't super dressy, and I was about 155 lbs, so I wore what looked decent on me. This time I want to wear a dress. I have a nice red one I bought for Valentines Day but didn't end up wearing. (this state is TOOOO cold), so I've been holding on to it hoping for another occasion, and here it is!
Anyway, I'll probably whine and ramble on and on over the weekend while being all alone, so I'll let you go for now. I need to get my booty to bed! Love you all!
ash

weight: 143.6

lbs left to hit goal: 1.6

time left to hit goal: 3 and 1/2 days

FINALLY back to the low 140s. Last time I was here was the beginning of the month, but only becase I'm sick. It's awesome to know I'm here again by my own good-doing to my body. :)

Today was a good day. Got in another workout (feeling my running endurance coming back, so that's wonderful!) I have been on this new "food quest" lately, and I figured I'd share it with whomever reads. I've decided to try new foods AND go back and try things that I've assumed I don't like just from growing up. This all started when I went to Pracs and was forced to eat what they gave us and almost everyday had green peppers. I thought I hated green peppers. I don't know where that thought came from, but I'd had it for a long time. It wasn't just a "pepper bias" because I love banana peppers, so what the heck? Either way, I ate them at Pracs and thought, "what a fun, crunchy, little snack that's good for you!" So guess what? I have a green pepper in my fridge right now to munch on tomorrow. lol. Another thing I tried (yesterday) was spaghetti squash. It was really NEAT how it looks so much like spaghetti, but if you are hoping you can drench it in marinara and it'll be the same, you're wrong. I just used salt, pepper, and garlic seasonings like a recipe suggested, but it has a strange crunch to the strands that you should never get from pasta unless you don't know how to cook it. It was...different. Not bad. Not good. Just kind of there. Because of the longer prep time (i like using the oven over the microwave) I probably won't get it again unless I try to have it sweetened instead of savory. Speaking of, had butternut sqaush soup (campbells select sells it), and I thought it was DELISH! Kind of like potato soup meets sweet potato soup. I dug it. Then I've also had butternut squash sweetened. (YUM!) If you like yams, try that! Just tonight I tried making my own recipe and I thought it turned out pretty tasty. I cut up the butternut squash, 1 pear, 2 apples and put them all in a baking pan with just a sprinkling of brown sugar on the top. 350 degrees and 65 minutes later (til the squash mushes) I was addicted! Shane didn't like it, but i did, and the kids did, and our opinion counts more, lol. Hmmm, what else? I have a mango in my fridge for my afternoon snack tomorrow. I had one a LONG time ago, and since I've forgotten how it is, it's on my list of fun things to try. One thing, I'm SHOCKED to death to find out I like is SEAFOOD. I was an avid seafood hater. I don't know where it started (I rememeber liking it as a kid growing up next to the beach where I actually SAW my parents boil up crabs and such) I only remember being like 8 or 9 and being at a restuarant saying the "only seafood I like is popcorn shrimp". Who knows?? I've since then tried shrimp (like grilled big fat ones) only to find out I'm actually allergic to it. My mouth/lip gets swollen with bumps and it BURNS. I've never been allergic to any kind of food, so that was an interesting thing to find out when I was 16. That put me off fish for quite awhile, and the smell of tuna KEPT me off fish because I got a whiff of that one day and thought anything that smells like that, I couldn't possibly eat. Then just this past Easter weekend my in-laws had some Smoked Salmon. I got HOOKED! This stuff was fresh and SOOOO tasty that when they sent some home with me I could've cried! It's low in calories, super filling, the only downside is it's high in sodium, but it was so tasty. Just like ham, lol. Just today at the store I bought some from the "store". Shane made fun of me saying that it wouldn't taste anything like that other stuff because what we had was the BEST. That could be possible, but I still want to see what my salmon options at the store ARE! I will have that for lunch tomorrow. THEN I got smoked oysters and a tuna fillet. Haven't had those yet, I've got to get a little more bravery. When people hear I'm going to try oysters I get an "ick" response, so it's been sitting in my pantry for a week now. lol. Anyway, those are my fun food stories. Well, fun for me, probably boring for you. OH! Lastly, here's a fun idea (I LOVED IT anyway), tonight I really craved some chocolate. I NEVER do, but being "girlie time" probably made that part of me come out. I popped up a mini-bag (100 cal) of kettlecorn popcorn. As soon as I opened it, I poured in a TBSP of semi-sweet chocolate chips and closed it and shook it to all hell. All I will say is YUM it satisfied my sweet tooth completely, AND I made a fun new snack! Okay, I'll let you get on with your life, I'll type more crazy stuff tomorrow. :)
Love ya'll,
ash

weight: 145.4

time left to mini-goal: 1 WEEK!~~~~

lbs left to lose by mini-goal: 3.4 (i can do it!!!)

Today has been a pretty awesome day. Last night before going to bed, I sat down and pondered why there were some times I was more complacent about going to the gym and some times I was really hardcore. I thought about it and realized that when I was on a schedule, a routine, I was doing it much more often because I don't like to break routines. So, then last night at midnight (urg) I decided to start my routine today. I'd get up when Shane did (645am) have some breakfast, get dressed for the gym. Then get up the kids and let them eat, get them dressed and go out to the gym and run whatever errands I had. Today was a success so far. I LOVE the feeling of going to the gym right away in the day because it's out of the way and the rest of the day you feel great. I hadn't been in two weeks, and I was scared my fitness level would be pretty 'blah', but I still got some running in and made sure to feel a good cardio burn! I'm about to go do some strength training right now actually...so far it's going to be the end of a perfect day. But thinking WAY back in the day when I used to watch Coby, I'd make sure hitting the gym was the first thing I'd do for the day. There wasn't a question about it, it was just what I did. So...that's the goal now. To get into that mindset again. Once I go the next couple days, I should get into a good rhythm and then should get back to being a junkie. Here's hoping anyway! :)
Ash

weight: 145.6 (girlie time...so it's a little inaccurate)

time left to mini-goal: 8 days (it's on the 15th! I thought it was the 17th!! so, i'm changing my mini-goal to 142 instead. oh well...)

lbs left to mini goal: 3.6

HELLO, HELLO, HELLO.
How has everyone been. It has been quite a little while since I've been on here. I wish I could say I didn't forget about ya'll, but I did... Thing was I did a few Pracs studies in the last few months and time has been just jumping by me. BUT, I'm back and ready to kick this up again. I always seem to get dedicated more in Spring, summer, and fall, than in horrible winter. So, here we go...

Not too much is new with me, just been spending too much money. I've been doing studies (great $$) pretty consistently and my original goal was to get a tummy tuck when I got to my goal weight and use all my Pracs money to get it. Well, this is how things would work:
I'd sign up for a screening and I'd know that I couldn't workout a couple days ahead of time cuz that'll mess up your labs. So, then I'd screen, get back and it's usually a weekend now and our gym is EVIL and closes at 6pm on the weekend. So, I'd tell myself I'd hit the gym on that following Monday, but instead because of the "previous" study I'd done and extra money burning holes in my pocket I'd go out shopping/eating/movies/whatever...then when I'd get motivated to hit the gym again I'd have to leave a couple days later to actually check INTO pracs. So, then I'd tell myself I'd deal with it later, and that was a crazy cycle. Up until THIS week. I had exit lab work to get done on Tuesday and a screening set up for Friday (tomorrow) and so that's a whole week of no gym (can't mess up them labs) unless i only went on Tuesday night (i'm too all or nothing for that to have worked though. lol) So...i sat Shane down and had a talk...
I explained that I want to hit my goals BEFORE going off and making more money. (i was already in ANOTHER study starting in 10 days that lasts a week, and paid REALLY good) but then what?? I won't be paying attention to me and my health while waiting to "check-in" and then IN THERE I'll be eating "their" food and unable to work-out. That's the OPPOSITE of what I want!!! I want to HIT my goals AND THEN get my money to get my surgery. Otherwise I just keep shooting myself in the foot week after week! So, I'm not going to my screening tomorrow, but I am going to the gym. I'm going to get back into a great routine, and THIS summer will be MY summer. I'll have everything I've worked for and I'll be proud I finally got it done. I want to be done with the "if i could just lose 20 more lbs..." mentality. I want to be done with losing weight. I just want to get there and have to maintain. So, that's the plan. This week I was down to 143.6 BUT I was super sick so I'm sure I was just dehydrated from throwing up and not keeping food down. This morning I weighed in at 145.4 and that seemed about right. So, at least I'm not getting BIGGER like I did at this time LAST year. lol. Hopefully though I'll finally get SMALLER than I've been able to get! (smallest so far was 136.4) and when I think that it's LESS than 10 lbs away makes me feel SO capable.
So, to anyone else out there struggling, or not, lets do this together, yet again. My short little mini-goal is for the 17th of this month. Shane has an awards banquet, so that's a great day to look at as a stepping stone of my first goal here. Here I go!!
Ash

weight: 145.4

mini-goal: 140 ( I think i can lose a few lbs cuz I haven't been to the gym in AWHILE, so that should help things out.)

lbs left: 5.4

time left to mini-goal: 2 weeks

OH, and since I should throw a recent pic to show changes (every 5 lbs, right john??) lol, here's my sis and I last weekend.

Well, I just got out of my 1st period of Pracs. I gained exactly 4 lbs. The FUNNY (not really, it's more sad) thing is that I'll use this whole next week losing that 4 lbs to go back and RE-GAIN it. The only way I can look at it is that I'm eating all this food for money. It's like the EASIEST version of Fear Factor one could imagine. (Although I can't stand tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms...) It's like an adventure of eating these things I DONT like....for money. haha. Anyway, there is a really good upside to being forced to eat 'everything' on your plate, you get REALLY annoyed with that full feeling. It was one thing when I would order pizza and eat til I was stuffed, but now eating til I'm stuffed makes me think of the pain I endured as my tummy streched in this study. lol. I think they were thinking about the boys in the study when they made the menu because I can eat ALOT and there were 2 meals in particular that were SOOO filling, that I literally thought that I wasn't going to be able to finish and they were going to have to drop me from the study. It took me about 30 minutes to eat JUST the sherbet (sp?) and my 16 oz of water that I had with my meal. My stomach was just too full, I didn't think I was going to be able to do it. I was SO uncomfortable for the next few hours and that wasn't a good feeling. Best part? I associate that horrible feeling with ice cream now. LOL.
Anyway, I'm going to enjoy my week off of Pracs by eating nicely and hitting the gym...hope everyone has a good weekend. :)
Ashley

weight: 148.0 (I'll set a goal when I'm through with Pracs, makes more sense)