So I accidentally fibbed last night when I posted...

I've actually lost a total of 17.3 lbs. (since August 12th - my ticker is as of when I started initially and then stopped back in April).

Also, I decided to change my official weigh-in day to Fridays since I seem to weigh the least then.

I've also decided that when I hit the 25 lbs. weight loss mark that I'm buying myself some new pants. I've got a ton of shirts/sweaters I can wear but I'm seriously swimming in my pants but I don't want to buy them prematurely. Plus, I'm using that as a reward for myself so I can keep myself motivated.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I know I will! :)

I got my first weight loss compliment today!

From someone other than my husband...even better!

One of my co-workers stopped me to tell me how good I look and how she can tell that I've lost a lot of weight! Yay!!! It felt so good for someone to finally notice my hard work!

So I got to thinking about it and I've 16.5 lbs. (as of yesterday) and I've only got about 7.5 lbs. to go to meet my first 10% goal. My overall weight loss goal is approx. 100 lbs. and so I've lost about 16.5% of my overall weight that I want to lose.

I've also decided to get real with you all. My Sparkpeople buddies (and some of my BBC) know my true weight but I don't think I've shared it with the rest of you.

I will put the ticker in this post and then in another permanent spot on my blog. It's really embarrassing for me (that I ever let myself get this big in the first place) but I hope that by me 'getting real' with myself that it will help someone else on their weight loss journey.

I am hopeful that I won't be at this weight for much longer. Then I can just be proud of how much weight I've lost! :)

A new low-carb treat...yummy!

Low Carb Crustless Pumpkin Pie

I have been craving pumpkin pie like you would NOT believe. Darn holidays! So, anyway...I decided to try out this recipe. I was a little short on the DaVinci sugar-free syrup so I had to add in some sugar free liquid sweetener and a tsp of vanilla. Also, instead of butter, I greased the pie pan with coconut oil since I was worried that the butter would burn as the pie baked.

One word: scrumdiddlyumptious! It's only about 5 net carbs per serving and I topped it with my homemade low carb whipped cream. HEAVENLY!

Matt said that he thought it had a diety after taste but I didn't notice. If you decide to try it, let me know how you like it.

Is that not one of the most beautiful pies you've ever laid eyes on???

Okay...I'll stop now. :)

Small victory...

So...as you know my little sisters watched the boys this past weekend. I gave them $10 to buy some snacks for while they were there and they forgot a couple of them.

Confession time - One of the things they left was a Hershey's Cookies & Cream bar and that poor thing didn't stand a chance against me. I'm ashamed to admit that after Matt went to get in the shower Sunday night and I had the whole thing consumed in like two minutes! Fast forward to last night...the leftover Lays Potato chips and french onion dip are still at my house. I was SO hungry and desperately wanted something to snack on and so I kept going back and forth to the kitchen contemplating eating them or something else. I even thought about eating Collin's potty-training rewards (Gummy lifesavers) but I'm happy to report that I won the battle last night.

Now if I can just remember to throw away the rest of the chips/dip and to restrain myself from eating Collin's goodies...

How sad am I???

On the bright side, at least I'm one day closer to my overall goal. :)

Down 2 more pounds...

As of this morning. That brings my total weight loss since August 12th to 13.6 lbs. Not as much as I'd wanted to lose by now but it's a loss nonetheless so I'll take it! :)

I'm trying to get back on Atkins' Induction phase this week since we're finally un-busy for awhile and so I'm hoping to jump start a bigger weight loss soon. Wish me luck on that!

Halloween party pics!

So we had our night of debauchery last night at Tracy's house. Tracy is my BFF from childhood; we've been best friends since we were 5 years old. I seriously love this woman! She is a friggin blast and I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. Anywho...on to picture sharing...

Me - Sober - at the beginning of the night

The highlight of the night - the only pic of this I can share since he had an extra appendage hidden under his skirt. LMAO

D-R-U-N-K (I can't believe I'm posting this on here!)

Tracy - my BFF of almost 25 years - I love this woman! :)

Ready for bed - Oh my?!

I had a really classic photo of Matt that I wanted to share but he nixed that...boo to him!

I should put a disclaimer out there that the boys were safe at home with my little sisters (their Aunts) and that they had a great time sans parents. And...we stayed the night since we don't drink and drive (heck we don't even drink much at all normally). It was a GREAT time and I can't wait for the next annual Halloween party!

Check it out!

I'm SO proud of Dane (yet again)! He is now the #1 football player in our league for tackles this high school football season with 134 tackles, 7 more than the next guy.

This kid is going to go on to do great things...I can just feel it! :)

Eww!

I worked my ass off tonight. So hard that:

1) My stomach hurt like it only hurt when I ran in high school; you know...when you feel like you're about ready to barf your guts out? Yep...that feeling.
2) I now smell like my 17-year old brother after a really good high school football game. That is the only time I've ever smelled that smell before now. Gross!

This is all good, right? I'm so proud of myself this week. That's 3 hours of working out in the past week! Sparkpeople.com says that I've burned between 400 and 500 calories with each work out...yay!

Off to take a shower and to wash this stench off of me...I cannot and will not subject Matt to this tonight.

Blech!

More deep thoughts

So I read the following 'Healthy Reflections' in one of my daily SparkPeople e-mails:

The Wisdom of Listening

One common trait to nearly every good leader is the art of listening. Many times, the best leaders can be among the quietest in the room. They know their time is well spent in hearing new perspectives, ideas, and thoughts. It's how they grow personally and build visions. The wisest leaders know that hearing themselves talk is no way to build trust and goodwill. You can do the same thing. When a friend needs to talk, resist the urge to give advice right away and just listen. Ask questions, and really try to understand the answer. When a customer calls, don't say a word about your product until you fully know their needs. When your spouse is hurting, it's not the time to prove that you were right. Over time, you can develop that leader-like sense of when to open your mouth and when to keep it clamped firmly shut.

I really need to work on the bolded part. I have a really great husband; I mean REALLY GREAT husband and I am so bad about telling him this and how much I love him. He busts his butt every day to make everyone in this house happy and rarely takes time out for himself to do anything. We have some extended family issues going on right now that I'm super frustrated with and he's been the brunt of my anger/frustration. I really need to think before I speak because I don't and I have a tendency to hurt those that I love the most; especially poor Matt.

I'm adding that to the list of things I need to work on...wish me luck!

Three minute low carb flourless chocolate cake

Say that 3 times fast!


So my low-carb hero, Becky, introduced me to this site. I've been eyeballing many recipes that I'm going to try out over the coming weeks. I decided to try this recipe out (from the same site):


3-MINUTE FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons cocoa
Tiny pinch salt, optional
1 egg
2 tablespoons Da Vinci sugar free syrup, vanilla flavor
4 teaspoons granular Splenda or equivalent liquid Splenda

In a small microwaveable bowl microwave the butter for about 15-20 seconds on HIGH until completely melted. Whisk in the cocoa and salt until smooth. Whisk in the egg until well blended then whisk in the remaining ingredients until you have a smooth batter. Microwave on HIGH 1 minute. Cool completely or serve slightly warm.

Makes 1 serving
Can be frozen

With granular Splenda: Per Serving: 210 Calories; 18g Fat; 8g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda: Per Serving: 202 Calories; 18g Fat; 8g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 3g Net Carbs


Here are the fruits of my labor:

Now bear in mind that I'm not a chocolate cake fan at all, but I was extremely surprised that this was very cake-like. It was not too shabby. It had a strong chocolate taste and didn't taste too diety. That's whipped cream on the top, by the way. It's my very own recipe as follows:

Low Carb Whipped Cream

1/2 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
3 packets of Splenda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Dump ingredients in a bowl together and mix together until fluffy (about two minutes).

Under Atkins this would be 3 carbs (although I don't count the Splenda, but that's just me).

7 minutes of pure HELL!

So I was feeling guilty tonight about not working out for the past 10 days so I decided that it would be a good idea to change it up, dust off the elliptical, and hop on for a few minutes.

Within the first 30 seconds my legs were burning. After a minute I felt like my legs were going to break off. Then I decided to go backwards to see if it would help lessen then pain. Wrong! I got a split seconds reprieve while the elliptical was catching up but then I just started burning in different places.

All the while I'm doing this, Matt is coming in and checking on me to see how I'm doing; asking me if it's getting better as I'm getting used to it...making comments that it gets easier for him as he goes. I gave him a dirty look and told him that it wasn't getting easier for me because I'm so damn out of shape.

Finally, I decided that I'd had enough after seven minutes. My legs have never felt more jell-o-like in my life.

How in the world am I going to build up to 30 minutes at this rate???

It has begun

So, I was working on homework last night and Age decides to update me on his life.

"It's happening, Mom."

"What's happening, Adrian?"

"The girls. They all want to be my girlfriend."

"Well...that's a good thing right?"

"I dunno. They make me mad 'cuz they keep threatening me. Like if I don't go out with 'em they say they're gonna tell the teacher that I kicked 'em. One of 'em actually did that and ended up with a (snickers) detention after school."

It has begun.

Oh, and before I forget, he got his first flag in flag football this past weekend. Of course I wasn't there to witness it since I was at home with a sick Collin but I'm so proud of him. :)

Matt has offered him $20 bucks if he gets a touchdown this weekend.

I swear they are both bound and determined to break our bank.

My latest experiment

So, Collin needed a haircut..I mean the kid had a serious mullet as evidenced in this picture:

So I did what any other frugal, mullet-hating mom would do...I found a great instructional video on YouTube and I cut the mullet off myself. Here is the video.

Here are the after pics (I apologize in advance for the quality; our new camera isn't very user friendly so I opted to use the old camera phone):

Front
Side
Back

I'm not crazy about his bangs but I think I did a pretty spiffy job for my first time. I used to cut Adrian's hair a LONG time ago with clippers but you just can't do that with Collin's hair.

I hope this was able to help someone else out; especially since we're all trying to cut back money wherever we can with this darn economy.

Little does Adrian know, but he's my next victim. Bwa, ha, ha!

Waiting sucks

My employer had better make a decision on this stupid promotion before I go postal on someone! It has been over two weeks since I interviewed for the position and they don't seem any closer to making a decision. I feel bad because everyone keeps asking me if I got it but I don't have an answer. Rest assured that y'all will be some of the first ones to know about it if I do get it.

We could sure use the extra $$$ right about now. (Thanks for the $65 worth of text messages on our cell phone bill, Matt!) Urgh!

I lied

So, I know I posted yesterday and said that I didn't feel bad (emotionally) about eating bad this weekend.

Well...I lied.

I got on the scale and it showed a net gain of about 2 lbs.

The good news is I learned the following lessons:

1) Do NOT accept 'goodies' from friends no matter how good their intentions are. Plus, my children don't need junk like cupcakes anyway.
2) Do NOT let myself become ravishingly hungry before eating since that is a trigger to bad eating of mine.
3) I really need to learn how to cook better and to keep easy low-carb meals on hand. I can't depend on Matt to be my personal chef at all times.

Back to the grind today. I'm going to lose this weight if it kills me.

Confession

It's confession time today.

I've been bad...really bad this weekend. But you know the crazy thing about it? I don't feel bad about it.

As some of you heard, my BFF gave me the leftover cupcakes from the baby shower I threw her on Friday for the boys. I ate two of them on Friday and then attempted to get back on track yesterday but let myself get so hungry and it got so late that I made a run to Taco Bell for dinner. I ended up getting one of those Chalupa meals, ate half of Collin's Cinnamon Twists, and had two margaritas to top it off. Oh, and I ate another stupid cupcake before I went to bed. I've been really good today (skipped birthday cupcakes at a birthday party) but Matt is off track since he's been working on putting up our $1200 building all weekend long and so now I'm off track AGAIN since I agreed to him picking up pizza for dinner. Ahhhhhh! This is when my non-existent cooking abilities present a problem...

I did, however, work out tonight. Even though I had homework I should have been working on, I still did it. I have also done some housework this weekend so that counts for something, in my opinion.

It was nice to eat something different this weekend but I swear I'm back on track tomorrow!

I am REALLY enjoying Collin right now...

The kid is not only a genius but he's hilarious as hell!

So, we're sitting here a few minutes ago (watching the Buckeyes) and Matt is making conversation with Collin during the commercial breaks.

He asked Collin, "Who is Santa Claus?"

Collin responds, "He brings me toys."

Priceless.

I should also remind you that the kid is barely two years old.

LMAO!

I have a cheerleader

So I was working out last night on the Wii Fit doing the Super Hula Hoops and I hear a little voice behind me say:

"Good job, momma! Good job!"

I <3 Collin.

Yee-haw!

So I finally got around to measuring my inches lost from the past month and here are the results:

Neck -0.5 inches
Waist -1 inch
Hips -3.5 inches
Total: 5 inches in one month!

Suck on that Matt (my husband who I was complaining about to some of you yesterday).

Yeah!

Matt sucks!

Can you believe that he has lost about 7 lbs. in the past two weeks?! He annoys the hell out of me. Not only has been indulging in light beer, but he's not been watching everything he eats, nor has he exercised as much as me but yet he still has blown me out of the water with his weight loss. Boo!

On a positive note, my clothes are super loose and I've lost *nearly* 4 sizes total since I started back to low-carb and consistent exercising so I guess I should just shut up and be happy, huh? Which reminds me...I need to take my inches and record them tomorrow on Sparkpeople.

I am proud of him though. He's really taking his weight loss serious this time around. He is now doing very well with his eating and is working out daily.

Must be nice to have that kind of extra time.

New 'do (well...color at least)

So I got rid of the highlights and went red brown violet; that's right folks. There is such a color. Check it out:

Before (front view):

Before (side view):

After (front view - sorry about the no makeup - eek!):

After (side view):

What do you think??? I *love* it! It was time for a change...