Weekend with the Hubby

I got home from work the other morning and Clay was sleeping, there was a note on the door to go in his computer room and watch what he had pulled up on his computer. I was expecting a new movie trailer or a new song he wanted me to hear. I was so pleasantly surprised and my heart was warmed when I saw he had made me a sweet video using pictures he had gotten from my blog. What a thoughtful gift, and so nice to know he was thinking of me while I was off at work.



I actually had the ENTIRE weekend off, and nothing that I had to do. It was awesome! Friday night we were lazy, watched some television and went to bed pretty early. Saturday was rainy but we made it to Macon to go swimsuit and dress clothes shopping. No luck on the swimsuit, Wow! they are skimpy. However I did find some nice dress clothes and I found out that I am a size 8 now in NY and Company clothes. Unbelievable! I have never been smaller than a size 12, and at my heaviest I had gotten to an 18 pushing closer to a size 20.
Clay was a great shopping partner, he has turned out to be much better at picking stuff out for me than I am for myself. I am still very much stuck in the heavy girl mindset and he pushes me to try new items. He ended up finding me an awesome skirt suit set, perfect for upcoming interviews. He was wowed when I tried on the dress below he sent the pic he took to all kinds of folks via text message with the title "hubba." Embarrassing? yes, a little, Flattering? yes, a whole lot. I think I will bring him along shopping for clothes from now on, not sure how keen he will be but he sure is helpful! No luck on bathing suit, but I will try try again.

(Before and now Dec 2007- March 2012)

I have just tomorrow left on the raw vegan diet. That will conclude my 2 weeks on it. So far I have lost a little over 5 pounds. I have not stayed hungry, I have eaten TONS of fruits and veggies. I think that this is something that I will rotate in my diet maybe once a month for a week. It is much easier than any other "diet" I have done because you can eat so much food that you stay full, and fortunately I like most fruits and veggies anyway. I have my monthly assessment with Joey on Tuesday so I am super excited to see the body fat % and measurements this month!

My face is on HTP!!!

Just wanted to say hello to everyone landing over in my neck of the woods thanks to Caitlin's January Joiners piece. I found her blog back in March of 2011. I had started going to the gym in January and had hit a plateau and needed some new ideas and somehow landed on her blog. I had never been a runner before but as I read her posts I thought I might give it a try. Little by little I started pushing myself but I learned the right ways to increase speed and distance without hurting myself. I completed my first half marathon in November. My goal was to finish in less than 3 hours, I was AMAZED when I crossed the finish line in 2 hours 33 minutes!!!

A little more about me: I started losing weight after a major 70lb gain during nursing school. After I got out of school and started working the weight just started coming off. I was on my feet 5 days a week for at least 12 hours. Then I hit a plateau and my poor eating habits caught up with me. I am a major stress eater, so I was eating all the time and all the wrong foods. Through blogs like Caitlin's and others that I have listed on my page that I read almost daily I learned that other REAL, and NORMAL people got their lives in shape, ran races, and ate healthy.
It is something that has to be done day by day, and sometimes you fall off the wagon, you just cannot make that the excuse to stay off the wagon forever, just hop back on.
I am down approximately 75 pounds in 4 years, 35 of which I lost this year, not to mention becoming much stronger and much more cardiovascularly fit. This is a change anyone can make and if you are thinking of being a January joiner, be proud that you want to change your life. Keep yourself honest and take it one day at a time, things will not change overnight.

I made the granola bars last night and I really like them. I don't think that the husband cared for them too much. My only complaint is that they were REALLY messy. If I make them again I will probably decrease the amount of cocoa powder and add a dash of orange extract instead, but I am not a big chocolate person.

• 2 large overripe bananas
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup crunchy cereal I used cheap honey nut cheerios
  
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup(or any other sweetener you use) I used 1 tbsp brown rice syrup and 1 tbsp splenda
  
• 2 tbsp peanut butter or other nut or seed butter I used sunflower butter
  
• 2 tbsp semi-sweet chocolate chips I used carob chips
  
• 2 tbsp dried cranberries or other fruit I used raisins
  
• 2 – 4 tsp cocoa powder I used 2 tbsp and I still thought it was too chocolatey

More Home Pics

Even with all the clutter I love our mirror wave with the jumping fish. It is on the wall across from the bed so I look at it while lying in bed. We got the mirror from Ikea and the fish is a plate from Pier One. We stuck both items to the wall with those Command strips. No holes in the wall!!

I wish I had a before picture of this dresser, it was an ugly fake wood exterior with brassy pulls. I primered and painted the piece and took the hardware off and spray painted them with a hammered metal spray. I love the way it turned out!

The bedroom just required some tidying, dusting, bedmaking, and TONS of laundry. Chico thinks I did all the cleaning just for him.

We have a very open floor plan so this is our living, kitchen, and dining, oh and breakfast nook room. All in one.

Fall Cleaning

Please excuse the awful photos, I was cleaning in a hurry and the quality of the pics was not very important. Made some majorly awesome progress today.

Before the clean sweep.

After!


There are only "clean"pics of the guest bath. I cleaned it a couple of days ago and there wasn't much to see anyway except a few rogue bird feathers thanks to Alvin.



Computer nook before. This is kinda my dumping ground when I come in from work. I will make a serious effort to stop it.


Living room pre-clean.

Added some candles for ambiance, banished the exercise ball. Did not get rid of the Pete the cats on the mantle, they just got framed and hung.

Who is this Girl??

After my suitcase epiphany that I had a week or 2 ago I went back and was looking at old photos. These photos are not proudly placed around my house and there is a reason why. I was not happy with these photos, I was not happy with myself. These photos represent a time that I often avoided doing things because I was so uncomfortable with myself. I had let myself go, I gave up on the inner adventurer and fun lover and I was so embarrassed that I could let me down like that.

Mortified there was a photo like this, but now glad to have it to remind me how far I have come and that I never want to go back!

Still room for improvement, don't ever believe that you have achieved it all because then the only place to go is down. 1st race ever, climbing over a pile of old cars, covered in mud, and HAPPY!

I look so foreign to myself in this photo, this is when I just finished nursing school and started my job. I would not recognize this girl if I passed her on the street, and she is me.

Please let me be outdoors and moving!

This was about at my heaviest, not sure because I avoided the scale like it was the plague.

Amazing how losing about 25% of your body weight will lighten your load, both in your physique and most of all, in spirit. I love taking goofy photos now and I don't feel like everyone is staring at me.

A great hairdo and a dress can only go so far to make you feel pretty.

I look so tired and worn out at my heaviest, and now I look like I have tons of energy (sometimes that is true, sometimes it is not.)

Promise to self...Never again!!

Tribute to the many more races in the future (next is November), not having to hide photos anymore, and to feeling great and experiencing everything I can that this life has to offer. Bring it on!